Hydrovert5's Aztec Hammer (The HAH)

[Hydrovert5]

Okay now for a few weeks now I've been using the Aztecs a lot, both in 1v1 and team games. And a strat I've been having a luck of luck with lately is the Coyote/Mace rush. This strat is based around that idea. The hammer part is the idea of wearing down your opponent before moving in for the kill.

Required Cards
1. 10 Maces.
2. 9 Maces.
3. 5 Coyote Runners.
4. 3 Warrior Priests.
5. 600 gold

1. As soon as the game starts, have 2 of your 5 vills go to hunting straight away, herd towards your tc. Have your Warchief scout and gather treasures (food and wood more notably). Build a Firepit and a house with your starting wood and put your Warrior Priest on it, set it to the XP dance.

First card will be 3 villagers. Age with 14 vills with the warhut polititcian. During transition to colonial, switch 6-7 of your vills to wood so you can build 2 or 3 houses while aging. Set your rally point to where your fb will be so your travois pops out of your TC in that direction.

By the time you reach colonial you will have AT LEAST one shipment available, usually you will have two, ship 10 and 9 maces immediatly, continue producing vills.

When your warhut is built, queue 5 coyote runners, when they have trained, take your army and attack, keeping your rally point on your destination. Your army is not designed for taking down their TC, it is designed for taking out their army and their fb.

Coyotes do okay vs cav - use this to your advantage, if they have cav send your coyotes in to face them, using your maces to focus fire on the cav also. If he has RI, your coyotes will decimate them, if he has HI, your rapid fire, 16 dmg/sec skirmishers can obliverate them.

Once you have taken their fb, go back to your warhut, all the while making vills only going to food and wood.

When this is all said and done, ship 3 warrior priests and set your fire pit to the warpriest dance, when you have 10, switch it to XP again so you can ship 600 gold.

Build a market and sell excess resources so you can age, all the while producing coyotes and maces.

By this time your eco will have boomed considerably. Once you age upgrade all three warhut soldiers. Make around 20 puma spearmen and attack. Your enemy should have no counter to this, if you are losing numbers fast (which you shouldn't be) switch your Firepit again to fertility dance and spam those men like never before, if you need a little extra 'oomph' to your men switch it to war dance. At the most it should be GG by about 15-20 mins.

The reason I age with the warhut polititcian is so that I dont have to waste villager seconds in going to the fb spot, and actually building the damn thing, they can be chopping wood, hunting, etc.

Note: This strat will most probably not work against any civ that can FF very quickly -ie. ottos, spanish, ports.

The key to this strategy is intelligent use of your firepit. Which dance to use and when. I have no idea yet about age times but watch this space, I'll attach a rec shortly.

-Hydro

[dragonshinobi_old]

Aztec = OP

[Nighthawk22]

nice job man maybe i could use Aztecs now

[GeneralMichael]

Hmmm i'll have to try this. Especially with the aging to get a war hut i usually aged and got 2 skull knights but i always had trouble wih having either enough houses or getting a war hut up

[BenS64]

wow nice strat and i had the same problem as u michael.

[I__CHAOS__I]

I think the WH age up is one of the best, 2 SK looks nice but usually ends up being picked off and causes huge pop-cap issues early on, plus building a WH with vils takes forever.

play 6 spearmen instead of 5 coyote runners card

good strat Hydro, if you can, add some time check points (at what time u should start aging, have your WH up etc...) It really helps staying on track when following BO's

[Macabee]

Actually, this is almost exactly like my anti Japan BO (a delayed rush):

Do the usual 14 villager age up with the warhut. Split vills 7/7.

Build a couple houses while aging.

Set the warhut travois in a defensive position. Send 19 mace. FB button (you'll need this because you're not getting 3 wp's for a while).

Make Coyotes and ship 5 more. NOT PUMA! Those archers will pick them apart!

Send Coyote Combat. Attack if you're not fighting yet.

Send 700 food. Spam Coyotes. When food runs low cue some mace instead.

Early, Coyotes can almost go toe to toe with Ashi, but you've got a bunch of Mace. They tip the balance. Coyotes also have cover mode.

Keep villagers scared in the TC. Widthdraw and come back frequently. Drive him nuts.

Seige something and fight off any military he makes, chase villies.

Now you can send and make puma. Maybe adjust econ for puma production. You just want to seige.

Send 600 gold.

He hasn't resigned yet? Send 3 wp's and get up to 10. Send villager cards. Grind him down.

Mac

[Kaiser_von_Nuben]

Arrgh... another Aztec rush I need to prepare for. Please let's practice this when you see me online. As Germans, the Aztecs are the bane of my existence after the Japanese.

Just to tweak things a little bit, what if you see your opponent has no FB? Does that change the strat? Normally I just assume the Aztecs will rush and plan accordingly with a cav-heavy defense at my base.