So what's the Aztec meta now?

[Lukas_L99]

Yeah you sum it up pretty nicely

[pérez]

dont play the civ, atm is fking trash, i tried ff semi ff and age 2 plays and nothing works or everyone just outmasses u in the semi ff builds with better units, now age 2 is so bad since they nerfed all age 2 military shipments

[Adribird]

All they had to do was raise the coyote's hp and nothing else, neither deduct seconds of aging nor touch anything else.

[Garja]

That would not solve the problems.
Age up time buff was nonsense but at least helped.

[klonko]

dont play the civ, atm is fking trash, i tried ff semi ff and age 2 plays and nothing works or everyone just outmasses u in the semi ff builds with better units, now age 2 is so bad since they nerfed all age 2 military shipments

The only thing that seems to work now is going full aggro skipping 700w and sending military back to back to back. You CANNOT play passive. If you do some damage you are in the game, if you fail, you are out. Its not fun to have no chance to fight on equal terms...

The most passive build that I've seen working is shipping 5 coyotes, doing 2-3 *incomplete* (unless going tc idle) batches of coyotes and raiding the opponent to oblivion (hitting preferably before he has a military building up with 8-10 coyotes). After that you can follow up with 700w/5v and going from there with probably more military shipment to contest. It can be done with rapid age up for faster timing (if the herding/map is bad for the opponent, this is deadly) or farm age up for the farm eco upgrade and + 40 xp (lol) as well as the potential fattening herdable you found. Age up with 2 SK is fine but does not synergize well with this start unlike going for full yolo mode rush (aka ship 6 pumas, producing coyote/mace and shipping other military according of what you see the enemy produce). Barrack age up is not as good because the barracks is up later loosing alot of precious seconds.

Possible easily improvement I noted:
- 3 priest shipment available age1 + maybe WP dance: Allow to ship them directly during age up transition. Allow for faster WP boom. If WP dance moved to age 1 as well, you can WP boom during age up. You save alot of seconds on this boom so you come online faster.
- Warhut giving extra pop (5): Like russian, aztec struggle alot with the pop early age 2. It might be too good for aggro tough...
- A card like spanish gold that help you keep up in eco to enable passive play.
- Straight up better politician.
- Swap puma gold cost to coyote so you get a viable, not macro nightmare, semi-ff.

[Garja]

There is a number of decent "passive" builds, it's just that they don't cut it at the top level or they're simply harder to pull off than builds with other civs.

[klonko]

There is a number of decent "passive" builds, it's just that they don't cut it at the top level or they're simply harder to pull off than builds with other civs.

If they don't cut it at top level they wont cut it at low level either most likely because of skill level or you are severely holding yourself back playing them. With the release of DE, most civ received an eco buff and also having potentially +20% food/gold gathering with market ups over native is just so huge if the aztec play passively. You will need to crank out 20% more villagers to fill the gap just from that or 20% more cost effective units which aztec does not have. Other way is having average eco with strong shipment/units like germany in fortress age. Aztec used to have strong military shipments age 2, bad shipments age 3. Now its bad/average shipments for both and still subpar eco haha...

The last passive possibility is FI which is great, but all you need to do to stop it in its track is to have walls and canons.

[fei123456]

There is a number of decent "passive" builds, it's just that they don't cut it at the top level or they're simply harder to pull off than builds with other civs.

If an Aztec build don't work at top level, it won't work at low level either.

Aztec: Split vils to open different crates, click a vill a.s.a you have 100f, build fire pit a.s.a you have 100w. Queue the hero and scout in different queues, scout the map in parallel route, use the hero to tank guardians, make sure you don't damage the guardians first with your scout, or to let your hero do the last hit. When the fire pit is ready, shift to micro the vil to hunt asap, switch the pit to XP dance, Wp on the pit. Keep herding. Don't forget for a house, and gather for market and hunting dog if you get some wood/gold treasures. Age up with 15p and switch all vills to wood .....

Port: go age II, go age III, build a fort and go age IV, win.