The Mayans

One of two meso-american civilizations introduced in the expansion pack for Age of Kings, the Mayans bring with them a new look and a new style of play. They are similar to the Aztecs in that they have no access to cavalry units, giving them a substantially different flavor to other civilizations from Age of Kings, and indeed others introduced in the expansion pack. In contrast to the powerful Aztec infantry though, the Mayans excel in archery. But how do they compare with other civilizations?

Civilization Bonuses:

The bonuses that the Mayans receive are as follows :

1. Starts with one additional villager and Eagle Warrior (not Scout Cavalry) but less 50 food
   
2. Resources last 20% longer
   
3. Archery Range units cost -10% Feudal Age, -20% Castle Age, -30% Imperial Age
   

Team Bonus : Walls cost -50%

Additional Villager
The first bonus causes the Mayans to begin at their population limit since the town center only supports five units (4 villagers + eagle warrior). In other words, they cannot instantly create another villager and are best off researching the loom right away. This brings their villager count into alignment with those of competing civilizations until the point where the other civilization researches loom. From this point on, the Mayan will have an extra villager which, as was proven by the Chinese in Age of Kings, equates to a significant economic advantage over time. An extra villager allows the Mayans the opportunity to rush enemies early, or match them in advancing through the ages but with a stronger economy.

Resources last 20% longer
The longevity of resources affects the Mayans throughout the game. Extension of natural food sources (which gather faster and do not require an investment like farming does) allows the Mayans more flexibility when it comes time to running a fast early build for a rush. It means they require less natural food for early attacks as that food lasts longer making their reliance on specific conditions less stringent (where other civilizations have needed a certain number of sheep by a certain time to rush well, the Mayans can be more relaxed about this since their resources last longer). When dealing with gold and stone mines, the bonus gives the Mayan player a significant boost in the late game as their gold and stone mines last far longer than others. This not only gives them extra resources, but it also means they are not forced to trade other resources for gold as early or worry about extensive trade routes. Finally, there is also a slight efficency in the gathering of wood, gold and stone at earlier stages as villagers do not work through resources as fast and are therefore not made to walk as far when dropping off.

Walls -50% cost
The team bonus of the Mayans is only a convenience, and will likely be dismissed by many players. Half price walls is a nice thing to have, but is hardly beneficial compared to the Mongol scouting bonus and the Viking cheap dock bonus.

Unique Unit - THE PLUMED ARCHER

As mentioned above, the Mayan unique unit is the Plumed Archer. Available only from the castle, it has more hitpoints and is better armored than other archers, but does not do as much damage as the elite British Longbowman for instance.

The attributes of the Plumed Archer (and its elite counterpart) are as follows :

The elite upgrade for the Plumed Archer costs 500 food, 1000 wood. The key thing to note here is that it costs no gold. This makes it accessible fairly early in Imperial Age and comparatively "free" compared with other elite upgrades with an associated gold cost.

The elite Plumed Archer itself is a very robust unit. Despite not dealing out as much raw damage per shot as the elite longbowman, it is in fact a stronger unit. Its additional hitpoints make it more resilient to attacks from melee units and archer fire alike. Its base piercing armor of 2 makes it much more resistant to other archer fire also (as well as skirmishers for that matter). Finally, the Plumed Archer fires 25% faster than other archer units and as a result it capable of dealing out damage faster than other archer units.

When tested against what until now has been the best archer unit in the game, the Post Imperial Elite Briton Longbowman, the Mayan Plumed Archer demonstrated its strength. In several tests of 20 Elite Longbowmen vs 20 Elite Plumed Archers (a valid situation given their comparable cost), the Plumed Archers arose victorious with roughly half their number remaining, completely decimating the Longbowmen ranks. A new king of archers has arisen.


Unique Technology - EL DORADO

The Mayan unique technology is named "El Dorado". It only effects their semi-unique unit, the Eagle Warrior, giving it an additional 40 hitpoints. This has an enormouse effect on the strength of the unit, making it much more efficient in its roles as the paramount difference between calvary and Eagles is the smaller amount of HP given to the Eagle. The additional hitpoints along with the base piercing armor of 2 allow the Eagle to survive a signicant amount of time under piercing fire (both archer and scorpion), which in turns makes it much more capable in archer and siege killing roles (those usually carried out by cavalry when using other civilizations). Last but not least, it makes the Eagle able to stand up to building fire, allowing the Mayan's the ability to knock out protected trebuchets.

Relatively expensive compared with other unique technologies, El Dorado costs 750 food, 450G. However, this can be considered an essential upgrade by Mayan players, as the Eagle Warrior is the unit required to fill all cavalry roles, and is vastly more successful doing this once the unique technology as been researched.

As a test of this, 20 Eagle Warriors were set against 25 Elite Briton Longbowman several times, and each time the Eagle Warriors won with roughly half their number remaining. The Eagle Warriors were also tested against 16 Celtic heavy scorpions (benefiting from Furor Celtica), and again the Eagle Warriors won comfortably.

Military Analysis

The Mayans have their own style of play, subtlely different from other civilizations. This results from the units that are and are not available to them.

The Barracks
The Mayans have a complete barracks throught the ages until they reach Imperial Age. They are able to research the halberdier (essential for defense against heavy cavalry) but do not get the Champion upgrade. This means that if they pursue plain infantry, they are only capable of getting the Two Handed Swordsman upgrade. While this unit is useful, it is largely inferior to the Champion. As a result, Mayan players will avoid throwing infantry up against other infantry in Imperial because they will more than likely lose. The Mayan substitute here will be Elite Eagle Warriors, also researched and built at the Barracks, likely backed with either cheap archers, Plumed Archers or heavy scorpions when facing enemy infantry.

The Archery
Mayans receive the full compliment of foot archers all the way up to the Arbalest in Imperial Age. Since they have no horse units they do not get Cavalry Archers (nor the Parthian Tactics upgrade). Because Mayans do not get gunpowder units, they also cannot build hand cannoneers. This limits their archery options, and as such the Mayan has no replacement for the raiding capabilities of cavalry archers. This may not be a huge loss however since cavalry archers still remain expensive and not hugely improved.

The Stable
The Mayans do not receive cavalry units, and similarly cannot construct a stable. This is a significant point when playing Mayans - their lack of cavalry units means they must find a replacement for the roles cavalry usually occupy. In general this is done by the Eagle Warrior. While this is reasonably well done once the unique technology is researched, the Castle Age Eagle Warrior is rather weak compared to the knight of other civilizations (although substantially cheaper) which makes it less appropriate for a role similar to the knight in Castle Age attacks. It is more suitable as support in such an attack. Due to its base piercing armor of 2, the Eagle Warrior can survive some town center fire, but its lack of hitpoints make it unsuitable for a pure Eagle Warrior attack.

The Siege Workshop
The Mayan siege workshop is fairly well stocked, missing only the siege onager upgrade and bombard cannon upgrade. Mayans rely reasonably heavily on siege in Castle Age, both on attack and defense, since they lack the power of the knight in these roles. Their lack of Champions means that elite Eagle Warriors will be prevalent, which are vulnerable to enemy champions. This can be offset with the use of heavy scorpions, one of the Mayan siege weapons available.

The Monastery
The Mayans have a reasonably substantial Monastery, with most of the technologies available to them - they miss only Redemption (conversion of enemy buildings/siege) and Illumination (regeneration). Their monks look different from those of other civilizations (aside from Aztecs) but function the same. Missing Redemption can be something of a loss in a monk heavy Castle Age attack, but is generally not as useful as Sanctity or Fervor (and is more expensive). The loss of Illumination is not hugely concerning.

The Dock
The Mayans have a range of warships identical to the Briton navy - they can build every ship except for cannon galleons. This puts them at a disadvantage on water-based maps as they have no way to remove coastal castles without landing first. This means that galleon fleets will be largely employed by the Mayan to make space for landings in Imperial if the Mayan cannot land earlier. The Mayans receive no naval bonuses at all, making their navy not particularly strong.

Technology Analysis

The range of technologies available to a civilization is as important as the military units it can build. The Mayans, despite their lack of stable units and technologies, have a substantial number of other technologies available.

Economic Technologies
The Mayans do fairly well in this department, gaining every economic upgrade except for gold shaft mining. The lack of this is slightly offset by the fact that Mayan resources last 20% longer and so mining is more efficient for longer.

Military Technologies
While the Mayans do not receive any of the stable unit technologies, they receive every other upgrade at the blacksmith. This means their main units are fully upgradable. They also receive every technology at the university aside from bombard towers and siege engineers. The loss of siege engineers is significant, making them far weaker in trebuchets wars, which is quite a telling point in Imperial Age, and especially so in deathmatches where large numbers of trebuchets are employed.

Dominance by Age

Each civilization, due to its economic and military characteristics, has varying degrees of strength throughout the ages. This ebb and flow of dominance provides good direction on how the civilization is best played, and the Mayans are no different.

Dark Age
Due to the extra villager bonus and their longer lasting resources, the Mayans are very strong in the Dark Age, able to collect the necessary resources to advance quickly. The longer lasting resources mean that their food requirements are less stringent, making advancement easier. Also, the inclusion of the Eagle Warrior instead of the Scout Cavalry makes them stronger due to its superior line of sight, and fighting ability.

Feudal Age
The strong Mayan Dark Age economy transfers directly into a strong Feudal Age, where another bonus comes into play. Firstly, their extra villager ensures that if they reached Feudal Age at a similar time to a non-Chinese opponent, they will have one extra villager working and therefore be economically stronger. Their longer lasting resources make their villagers more efficient in Feudal Age due to less travelling to offload resources and switching between food sources. Their cheap archers also make the Mayans a strong choice for a Feudal Age attack, requiring less resources to assemble an archer based force than other civilizations. For these reasons, the Mayans are one of the strongest Feudal Age civilizations.

Castle Age
At this stage, the power of the Mayans takes a substantial dip with the introduction of the knight. The Mayans have no equivalent in early Castle Age in terms of mobile power. The Eagle Warrior receives a +3 increase to its attack rating, but has half the hitpoints of the knight and hits far less powerfully (although the Eagle Warrior is far cheaper). The Mayans rely heavily on either siege or researching the infantry line (which is a dead-end with no Champions) to take down enemy buildings. However, supporting these units is difficult without as Eagle Warriors are the only units with the raw speed needed to reach mangonels quickly but they do not have the hitpoints to survive long under piercing attacks (such as town center fire) and they are reasonably expensive to throw under TCs in such a way. It is in the best interest of the Mayan player to not remain in Castle Age for an extended period of time as most other civilizations are stronger.

Imperial Age
The power of the Mayans at the start of Imperial as they can research their unique technology, making their Eagle Warriors far more effective. However, other civilizations will be starting to produce champions, which Eagle Warriors (even fully upgraded) struggle against. The Mayan player will have to research Arbalests early so they can product hordes of cheap archers while they start to amass Plumed Archers and Elite Eagle Warriors.

Post-Imperial Age
Once the Mayan has a fully upgraded force of halberdiers, Elite Plumed Archers, Elite Eagle Warriors and trebuchets, they are very difficult to stop. Much like the Britons in Imperial Age, their archer based force is very difficult to stop when supported well (and halberdiers and Eagle Warriors do this well). The Mayans are very strong in Post-Imperial once they get established.

The only entirely European civilization added to the expansion pack for Age of Kings, the Spanish inherit the same architectural styles as the other western european civilizations from Age of Kings. Bearing extensive military lines, the Spanish army is fearsome, but without an early bonus as potent as the Mayan extra villager, they are slightly vulnerable to early attacks. Do they have what it takes to weather the initial storm and bounce back?

Civilization Bonuses:

The bonuses that the Spanish receive are as follows :

1. Builders work 30% faster (except on wonders)
2. Blacksmith upgrades cost no gold
   
3. Cannon galleons benefit from ballistics (fire faster and more accurately)
   
   

The bonus also makes forward building slightly easier as the faster construction of forward means less chance of being discovered. This is also relevant when feudal rushing, because the build time of the tower is significantly shorter, so as a result the Spanish player can place a choking net of towers around an enemy faster than any other civilization (and this applies when defending a Feudal Age attack also, the Spanish can construct defensive towers faster than anyone).

The building bonus becomes particularly useful in the Castle Age when new town centers are constructed. While the build time has been greatly increased in AoK:TC, the Spanish barely notice this, as their town center build time is only slightly longer than the old build time for town centers. This means that the Spanish are significantly faster in placing their early Castle Age town centers, and thus can begin booming faster than any other civilization. This bonus also ensures Spanish are able to construct castles, both defensive and offensive, much faster than others.

The following table summarizes some of the faster build times for the Spanish.

Worth noting is the build time required for a tower with multiple villagers. When a Spanish player uses two villagers to build a tower, it takes 47 seconds to construct compared with 60 seconds for other civilizations. In fact, if any other civilization uses 3 villagers to build a tower, it takes 49 seconds for the tower to be built. This means that if a Spanish player builds a tower beside an enemy goldmine with 3 or less miners, the Spanish tower will be constructed before the enemy can build one for defense.

Blacksmith upgrades cost no gold
While not effective until the Feudal Age, it does save Spanish players a substantial amount of gold in upgrades, and in turn this allows better distribution of villagers or the creation of more military as less gold is consumed by upgrades. This is particularly useful for the Spanish who have extensive military lines and potentially could research all upgrades.

Cannon galleons benefit from ballistics
The cannon galleon bonus is obviously only useful on water based maps, particularly where coastal assaults are prevalent. This will allow Spanish navies to literally level coastal establishments quickly, destroying both buildings and mobile units alike. The bonus can be effectively used to combat shore based trebuchets better, the higher rate of fire making cannon galleons less prone to being sunk while bombarding the trebuchets since they can destroy them at a faster rate.

Trade Cart, Trade Cog return +33% gold
The Spanish team bonus proves to be virtually useless in single player games, but in team games it is particularly useful. It allows far better returns from trade routes, encouraging Spanish players and their allies to establish trade routes earlier.

Unique Unit - THE CONQUISTADOR

The Spanish are one of three civilizations (the others being the Vikings and Koreans) to have two unique units. Only built at the castle, the Conquistador is a mounted musketeer. Combining both speed and power, it is a short-ranged unit that packs a lot of punch. While not quite as powerful as the Janissary, it still provides the Spanish with a strong gunpowder unit in Castle Age, upgrading to an equally useful unit in Imperial Age.

The attributes of the Conquistador (and its elite counterpart) are as follows :

The elite upgrade for the Conquistador is quite expensive, costing 1200 food, 600 gold. The value of this can perhaps be questioned because the Elite Conquistador only gains 15hp and +2 attack from the upgrade (compared with the Elite Janissary upgrade which bestows +5hp, +5 attack for a substantially lower cost). Considering this amount of resources could almost buy the Paladin upgrade, Spanish players should probably put this upgrade on hold if they choose to get it at all. If the Spanish player is not using Conquistadors particularly frequently, then the upgrade is most likely not worth the price.

The Conquistador is a particularly mobile and strong unit in terms of raw attack, but it is not particularly resilient due to low hitpoints. Also, its mobility comes at a price as it is vulnerable to pikes due to it being a mounted unit. However, groups of Conquistadors are capable of dispatching equal numbers of pikes reasonably quickly and have the speed to escape larger groups if necessary. The Conquistador is also vulnerable to skirmishers, but its high attack overcomes the skirmisher piercing armor more readily than an archer making it less of a concern, and Conquistadors are usually supported by the Spanish cavalry line anyway.

Unique Unit - THE MISSIONARY

The second Spanish unique unit is the Missionary, a mounted monk. Created at the monastery, it has all the attributes of a normal monk, except it trades off someone conversion/healing range for greatly increased speed. This speed allows missionaries to gallop along in the wake of Spanish heavy cavalry/conquistador armies and keep pace with them rather than being left behind like normal monks. This allows the Spanish to keep their fully upgraded paladins fully healed and ready for battle. The Missionary compliments the Spanish Imperial army exceptionally well.

The attributes of the Missionary (in its initial and fully upgraded states) are as follows :

The Missionary benefits from the same upgrades as normal monks, researched at the Monastery. The Spanish have access to all monk upgrades if they desire. There are several important upgrades that a Spanish player should consider researching for their Missionaries.

Firstly, the Spanish should probably research fervor. This cheap 30% increase in speed allows the Missionaries to basically match paladins and conquistadors for pace rather than slowing them down, making the force a lot more mobile.

Sanctity is also another important (and cheap) upgrade. The extra 20hp makes a huge difference (especially since they only have 30hp initially), and makes them much stronger when on the battlefield. With sanctity, they stand up better to piercing fire (which in theory will be the main attack they face since their role is to support heavy cavalry and the like).

Most of the other technologies can be considered optional, as they are not worth the gold unless Missionaries are used heavily. Redemption (conversion of enemy buildings/siege) and Atonement (conversion of enemy monks) are useful for Castle Age attacks but not essential. Extra conversion range in Imperial is also useful, and Theocracy would be useful if converting a lot of units, but arguably cloning is better anyway (and free!).

Military Analysis

The Barracks
The Spanish receive all of the barracks units (aside from the Eagle Warrior), including the new Halberdier. This gives the Spanish the potential to use cheap infantry as opposed to heavy cavalry.

The Archery
One of their two military weaknesses of the otherwise strong forces, the Spanish get no foot archer units beyond the basic Feudal Age archer. This means they either have to rely on the more expensive (and generally less economically viable) cavalry archer line, or wait for hand cannoneers in Imperial Age. The main gap here is in the Castle Age where the Spanish have no access to crossbows. This is not a large burden since knights are capable of carrying out most tasks that crossbows perform (although for a greater price), or cavalry archers (or to a lesser extent, elite skirmishers) could act as a replacement.

The Stable
The Spanish have the full line of cavalry available to them, both heavy and light. They do lack camels, but this is not overly problematic since they do get halberdiers which are equally effective in killing cavalry for no gold cost, only lacking the mobility that camels have. With the full heavy cavalry line, Spanish can match any opposing cavalry except Frank and come out on equal terms or ahead economically.

The Siege Workshop
The second noticeable weakness in the Spanish army, they lack both the heavy scorpion and the siege onager. While the siege onager is not a huge loss (the upgrade is especially expensive since the Spanish have so many other troops to upgrade and the mangonel and onager do a comparable job), the lack of heavy scorpion is a bigger problem. The heavy scorpion provides a good counter to champions and pikes since they inflict a lot of damage compared with archers (which the Spanish do not upgrade beyond Feudal). They still have hand cannoneers to carry out the same role, but they are vulnerable to skirmishers whereas scorpions are not.

The Monastery
The Spanish monastery is the strongest in the game. Not only do they receive every monastery technology, but they also have the Missionary in addition to normal monks. This large range of available technologies make their monks (particularly their Missionaries) very useful.

The Dock
The Spanish have an extremely strong navy, with every ship and technology available to them (aside from the Viking Longboat and Korean Turtle Ship of course). The bonus to their cannon galleons makes their naval force extremely potent in Imperial, comparable with the Vikings and Saracens for example.

Technology Analysis
The Spanish technology tree is just as vital as its wide array of military units available. While fairly solid, there are a few small gaps of note.

Economic Technologies
The Spanish miss two useful economic upgrades in the form of Gold Shaft Mining and Crop Rotation. The former is significant because Spanish forces rely a lot on gold, and so it is possible that trading might be more viable due to this lacking technology. The lack of Crop rotation means that Spanish are forced to spend more wood on farming, but it is not a huge loss.

Military Technologies
The Spanish are very strong in this department, able to upgrade all of their troop lines fully. The large cost of such is greatly subsidised by their gold free upgrades bonus. As a result, there is no reason why a Spanish player should not have fully upgraded units in general. The Spanish receive most university technologies (including the bombard tower) but miss out on several.

Firstly they miss out on Siege Engineers, which makes their already depleted siege workshop seem even less effective, as well as making their trebuchets less effective.

Secondly they miss out on Treadmill Crane. This is insignificant however since their builders construct 30% faster than others throughout the game (which is a larger increase than Treadmill Crane provides anyway).

Lastly the Spanish miss Heated Shot, but since coastal towering is not a prevalent strategy, this is unlikely to be missed much.

Dominance by Age

The dominance of each civilization by age indicates how they are best used. By examining the combination of the aspects described above, we can gauge this dominance in terms of the Spanish.

Dark Age
The Spanish do not receive a remarkable early game bonus as the Mayans or Huns do, nor an economic bonus that makes resource gathering faster in Dark Age. Their building bonus does save the Spanish some critical early time which can be applied elsewhere (for instance, the Spanish only require one villager to build each new house leaving the third to do something else). The end result is that the Spanish are not particularly strong beginners, lacking the raw speed of the rushing civilizations.

Feudal Age
The slow Spanish start progresses into the Feudal Age also. The Spanish save some time in building, but in general are as slow as the Byzantines economically. They do not lack any Feudal Age troops, but any archers created would be a dead end since the Spanish cannot upgrade their archers to crossbows in Castle Age. Their building bonus allows them to construct towers quickly which is a useful trait in Feudal Age attacks (and the defending of them), but aside from this, the Spanish hold little serious power in the early ages.

Castle Age
Castle Age is where the Spanish really begin to wind up. Their building bonus allows them to construct TCs a lot faster than any other civilization, which gives them the strongest boom in the game. The Spanish Castle Age army is reasonably strong with the introduction of Conquistadors and Missionaries to support their knights and rams.

Imperial Age
The Spanish continue to flourish in Imperial, able to field fully upgraded champions from the outset if they so choose. The research of chemistry at the university gives them hand cannoneers also, which can also be cheaply upgraded. The Spanish early Imperial army is reasonably tough.

Post Imperial Age
Once fully established, the Spanish have access to fully upgraded troops from almost every military line. With fully upgraded paladins, Elite Conquistadors and Missionaries, they have an extremely powerful and mobile force to terrorize their enemies. However, to maintain such a force requires a lot of gold, so the Spanish player relies heavily on the trade bonus or is forced to capture a large quantity of gold from intermediate gold mines to supply these units. However, if gold is plentiful, the Spanish army is extremely powerful.