Mayans

According to Mayan prophecy, the world will end in 2012. This is not true, unless Elite Eagles swarm your town.

Quick Card

  • Start with +1 villager but with -50 food
  • Resources last 20% longer
  • Archers cost -10% Feudal, -20% Castle, -30 Imperial
  • Unique Unit: Plumed Archer
  • Unique Unit: Eagle Warrior
  • Unique Technology: El Dorado
  • Team Bonus: Walls cost -50%

Analysis of bonuses

Start with +1 villager but with -50 food

In standard RM, this extra villager doesn’t always mean a lot. You’re forced to loom right away because you’re housed at start (4 villagers + 1 eagle). But once your opponent researches loom too, you are 1 villager ahead. Sure Mayans save you from the tricky decision of looming early or not, but saving also means limiting.

On maps with some more extravaganza, such as (land) nomad style maps, this extra villager can mean a lot. If you use 3 villagers to build a TC, it takes exactly 1:30, while 4 villagers do it in 1:15. So once both TC can start producing villagers, the Mayan is already one and a half villager ahead.

Resources last 20% longer

For new players, this bonus is probably the hardest to understand. And even a lot of experienced players don’t really understand all the strengths this bonus gives you. Let’s take a look at a normal tree: a normal villager can cut 100 wood from a tree, while Mayans can cut 120 from this very same tree. This also means that trees last longer, so it will take longer before you must rebuild your lumbercamps in order to decrease the distance villagers must run. So that’s an additional wood saving practice. A minimal one, but it sure is present.

This also gives Mayans a good economical bonus early. Especially on “fast food” such as hunt and sheep. On a standard set of 8 sheep and 2 boar, Mayans actually have nearly a half boar extra and almost 2 sheep extra!

Last but not least this bonus also affects mines. With 960 per Mayan gold mine you can see how this bonus even carries its strength till the imperial age.

Archers cost -10% Feudal, -20% Castle, -30 Imperial

This bonus has different implications in each age:

  • Feudal Age: Archers cost 22 wood, 40 gold. The saving is minimal, but you’ll need less villagers to sustain a continuous archer output compared to other civs. This may decrease your time to hit the castle age.
  • Castle Age: Archers cost 20 wood, 36 gold. You almost save 10 gold per archer now, so here the pricing difference becomes really clear. With the wood and gold you save out, you can either boom or make siege. With archers and mangonels, you have one of the best castle age combos at your side. A micro heavy one, but a strong one.
  • Imperial Age: Archers cost 17 wood, 31 gold. Arbalests are not the most popular choice for Mayans in the imperial age. With good reasons, because even though they’re great units, Mayans have two other behemoths to create. But because they’re so cheap, they’re good “to save your ass”. Assume you’re heavy on eagle warriors and your enemy has champs coming in. Cheap archers will make the change more bearable.

Time for a stroll down the archives now, with the Archery Adagio game, a gem of a game from the early days of AoC featuring archers and… more archers.

Team Bonus: Walls cost -50%

Stone walls only cost 3 stone and palisades are thrown up for only 1 wood. Very handy on maps that require heavy walling (LN) or for team mates with slower civs. Really nice if you can save on a rare resource such as stone.

Plumed Archer

  • Cost: 37 wood, 37 gold
  • Attack: 5 (Elite: 5)
  • Armor: 0/1 (Elite: 0/2)
  • HP: 50 (Elite: 65)
  • Range: 4 (Elite: 5)
  • Elite Upgrade: 500 food, 1000 wood

It’s a simple truth, but Plumed Archers are the kings of all archers. They beat all other foot archers 1v1 and in large groups, they totally decimate their adversaries. Now what are their strengths?

  • Speed: They’re very fast, you can call them mini cavalry archers in a way. Besides that they’re one of the fastest non-horse unit in the game. Only two unmounted units are faster and one of them happens to be the Elite Eagle Warrior (the other is the notorious Woad Raider).
  • Cost: With a castle age cost of 37 wood and 37 gold (which is even more reduced to 32 in imp) you can classify plumed archers as “cheap”.
  • Armor: A very unusual feature for plumed archers is that they have pierce armor. Which makes them very resistant to other archers and most notably: skirmishers. While skirmishers tear apart most archers, plumed archers still “keep up” with them.
  • HP: Plumed archers have the same HP as unupgraded cavalry archers!
  • Elite Upgrade: Without doubt the biggest difference with other UU, the upgrade to elite plumed archers does not cost gold. Making it a “free” upgrade in a way.

The only “downside” of plumed archers is their attack, which is quite low, but with an attack bonus against infantery (most notably against eagles) and given all their advantages listed above, it’s clear who is the king of archers.

Eagle Warrior

  • Cost: 20 food, 50 gold
  • Attack: 4+3 (Elite: 9)
  • Armor: 0/2 (Elite: 0/4)
  • HP: 50 (Elite: 60)
  • Elite Upgrade: 800 food, 500 gold

So much can be told about these little birdies, so let’s look at them age per age.

  • Dark Age: You can’t exactly make eagle warriors but at least you start off with one. A great scout but also slower than their horse back riding counterpart. 1v1 they win against scout cavalry in the dark age, so that makes up for their slower speed.
  • Feudal Age: If you’d like to save your eagle for better times, you can better hide him in the feudal age. He loses badly to scout cavalry with their free +2 attack upgrade and above that the scout runs faster too to hunt him down.
  • Castle Age: Not exactly time to shine but at least they get a +3 attack upgrade. They are supposed to be the mesoamerican answer to cavalry but they’re definitely no real match nor a counter. But they got their uses, they just must be handled with care. First of they’re very cheap and are very good against trash units, already in the castle age they make a good stance against skirms, pikes and scout cavalry. Another virtue is their low cost, which makes a faster castle possible. These two characteristics are also the basic of the KLEW! And most important: they counter the siege that may crumble your beautiful army of archers.
  • Imperial Age: Time to shine, period. With all defensive upgrades they’re as arrow resistant as an elite huskarl, which actually makes Mayans the top archer civ but also a top anti-archer civ. And if you can spare a bit of food and gold, you can even upgrade your eagles with El Dorado.

El Dorado

In my very humble opinion, the single best unique technology in the game, with 750 food, 450 gold a rather expensive one too, but worth every single penny. It gives eagles +40 HP, which makes them speedy, 100 HP, arrow resistant monsters. Consider it one of the top raiding units if you wish. And of course, since the unit is so good, its strength can and must be abused. What to do when you’re facing Legion Clan in a clan battle? Think out of the box and give them a good beating! TsC, under the command of TsC_B1ade_ was most likely going to get beaten by Legion, under the command of L_Clan_Chris. This didn’t happen thanks to some very good macro skills of TsC_B1ade_ and just some overall nice teamwork. Or to quote Matt: “TsC_B1ade_: and SLINGGG”.

Recorded Game

Download

Dominance through the Ages

An oversight about dominance through the ages can be found in this article.

Dark Age

The most common false start goes to the Mayans. Most people will create villagers at the start of the game and then stare at the “housed” message. Mayans must start with loom and that already highlights their first bonus: an extra villager. Other bonuses: a super scout and their resource saving bonus. As said earlier, on a standard set, they have half a boar and 2 sheep extra. Imagine this on a hunt heavy map!

Feudal Age

And the next bonus enters the stage, a round of applause for cheap archers! If something would still go wrong, the resource bonus still lasts on your last fast food resources and you can always wall up with some insanely cheap walls.

Castle Age

Castle age comes as a twist for the Mayans, they can be total heroes with their even cheaper archers. They have a great booming bonus with longer lasting farms and if they can manage to build a castle, they’re most likely settled. But, the biggest turn is if their archer force is defeated. Even though knights are beaten by big numbers of archers, it’s possible that their force gets beaten. A miss in micro or simply bad luck when stone rains upon you from an onager. Even though eagles are available right now, they’re usually a support unit, a force of only eagles is beaten by an equal force of knights or archers. So even if you got a great civ in the castle age, handle them with care, an archer army is slammed in seconds.

Early Imperial Age

Mayans have always been into the second tier so far, but now it’s time to take the big step to first tier. Mayans simply rule early imperial, they even have multiple options. Either they upgrade their cheap arbalests and blend in some siege to quickly steam roll the enemy. Or they could go for a raw force of elite eagle warriors and raid their enemy to oblivion.

Imperial Age

If, for whatever reason, you didn’t manage to kill your enemy in these few crucial minutes of the imperial age, then hope isn’t lost yet. Mayans can now set up a lethal mix of 100HP eagles, elite plumed archers and halberdiers. Some civs don’t even have a decent counter to that, for example Huns, who will perish under the lethal mix.

Post Imperial Age (no trade)

Once more Mayans are a bit double sided. They lack hussars, so their trash capabilities are limited to fully upgraded skirmishers and halberdiers. But, if they managed to collect some relics or trade some excess wood/food for gold, they can fire off some eagles into enemy lines. And these feathered warriors are highly resistant to trash.

You may scent a recorded game coming! And right you are, a nice Mayans war between a gold starved L_Clan_Chris and a smart relic gathering Tsu_ShiNe_.

Recorded Game

Download

Post Imperial age (with trade)

Mayans are once more great when their gold supplies are constantly refreshed. However, their power isn’t as raw anymore. Population effectiveness becomes more important than cost effectiveness, so light and cheap units no longer make the cut. Then again, Mayans are still good, and can compensate their light army with more units since they don’t need a sizy economy to keep all barracks pumping.

Economy

Mayans have the only everlasting bonus of the game, it starts right when the first villager starts to work and only ends if literally everything on the map is plundered. But since everything they got, lasts 20% longer, they won’t run out of resources as fast as others.

The only key upgrade they miss is gold shaft mining. A big miss for Mayans who favour gold units but it would only make them stronger. And they’re already more than powerful enough.

Military

Infantry

Fully upgraded eagles and halberdiers, combined with access to two handed swordsmen. Even though the latter is rarely used, they’re still decent units. Might be good for a surprise combination even though Mayans have so much more and better things to offer.

Archery

They successfully took over the “king of archers” title from the British and are simply unmatched. Cheap archery with all upgrades, they miss cavalry archers and hand cannoneers though.

Cavalry

No cavalry for Mayans, easy chapter for me to write!

Siege

Don’t mess with the Mayans! Even though technically you can mess with their siege. They have an okay siege line, without siege engineers but, more than okay to mess around with.

Monks

Only 2 upgrades are missing, but sadly, redemption is one of them. Which happens to be the key upgrade to a successful monkrush. Great for back up and probably the only Mayan answer to early huskarls.

Navy

Mayans are actually quite good on water maps. Mainly because they have a good early economy and the full naval techtree (except gunpowder related units ofcourse). Above that a landing with eagle warriors is simply awesome. And ofcourse their 20% bonus on resources, so their island doesn’t run out of wood too soon.

Structures

Tikal stood the test of time, so that’s some historical evidence for what also holds true in the game: Mayans have outstanding structures. They miss the gunpowder variant once more, but have excellent castles, walls and towers. Keep their super cheap walls in mind!

Conclusion

Mayans are simply one of the strongest overall civs in the game. They perform well in almost every game mode on every map and in every age. They don’t have a lot of units so it’s important to upgrade the ones they can make.

It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.
-Aesop

Written by Cysion

  • TheMyrco

    I am curious: doesn’t their economical bonus give them the strongest/best economy?

    I mean the bonus makes trees, gold mines, stone mines, etc last longer, thus making the working more efficient, due to not needing to rebuild drop-of-points as much as other civilisations and due to not needing to walk futur as fast (cutting down a tree takes longer, so they will walk shorter distances over time).

    • Arman Ali

      Mayans have a hidden farm nerf i believe.

  • MeNseM

    Very Nice civ…They got good economy awsome and cheap archers – theyre the best civ for me.

  • Age2player

    Great article. The Mayans are without a doubt my favorite civilization of ancient america.

    Which also makes them my favorite meso civ in the game he he:)

  • LukeMam

    Here’s something interesting: Mayans can do quite possibly THE fastest X-bow rush in the game.

    Yes there’s the 1 extra starting villager.

    Yes they have 20% cheaper X-bows.

    But there’s a very powerful, indirect bonus to the 20% longer resource bonus – they only need sheep, boars, and berries in order to reach castle age with a good economy. No need for farms, or deer. Most fast castle civs need to hunt deer and build 3 farms in order to get to castle. Nuh uh, not the Mayans.

    What does this mean? In addition to how much food they can obtain from fast sources like boar or sheep, they save 280 wood when getting to castle. And they save precious villager time because there’s no need to walk out of your town to hunt deer.

    Such a bonus allows them to reach castle age with 25 civs without needing to hunt deer or build farms. And they’ll still have enough food to research the first wood upgrade, and both of the farm upgrades. By the time they get to castle age, their cheaper archers make up for their poor economy because of having so few villagers, and an initial deficiency in food because of using up all unrenewable resources isn’t such an issue because archers do not need food. Once you get to castle, research both farm upgrades, recruit archers, build farms, and once you get enough food, research the crossbow upgrade, fletching, and bodkin arrow, and then thumb ring and ballistics later on.

    • __As_GIO_Arg

      I try it against machine, you need 6 on berry, and THEN ALSO you need 3 farms, in other way it cant be reached soon, 25 pop.

      So your idea its wrong :) you never try it. or Im making a mistake, btw reach castle at 14′:37”. normal speed. its a good timing, and I had enought wood ( after ate all my food , boars and sheep, i send them to wood) for everything. so its a good castle, but not without farms, itsnt strong.

      • barbarossa89

        Britons, Celts, and Mongols are all faster. Faster resources > longer lasting resources when talking about fast attacks. And Britons can pump out crossbowmen faster, even if they pay more for them than Mayans do.

        Consider: Where other civilizations might use six or seven villagers on sheep to start, Britons can get by with five or six. This means an extra villager on wood early, easily paying for the three farms or mill near deer. The Britons and Mongols will actually overtake the Mayans in getting to feudal or castle age fast.

        The Mongols don’t have a staying economic bonus, as hunting is a one-time thing. The Britons have an inferior military in late imperial age. Mayans have a superior military later and a pretty good economy overall, as well as being somewhat faster than most civilizations. But they are not the fastest at ANYTHING in and of itself.

  • FrozzenFlame

    yea he was stubborn for making husk only

  • CarlosFerdinand

    Chris lost that game since he went pure elite husks vs a mayan going mainly full upped eew. FU eew of maya wins vs elite husks with a small margin if your gold dont run out. Going elite husk + champ would have owned kyo even with his additional 2 gold mines and lot of relics which you wont get everygame.
    Mayans are pretty much answerless against mass elite husk+ champ!

    • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vtulFRilrY yampi

      God.

      Could you please teach chris how to play please ?
      He really need it, that’s not like if he was 2500 rated.

      Oh wait … ?

      Edit (Well Kinda) : how to spam your shit when mayans totally owned your econ and took map control, leaving you a few ress to eat ?

      • AKFrost

        just because he’s a 2500 doesn’t mean he’s infallible to strategical blunders. Attack the theory, not the person.

    • CarlosFerdinand

      Lol yampi, chris himself admitted that going ehusks vs eew lost him the game. Chris did this because he thought husk gets the same bonus vs eew that champs do, which he later realised was wrong.

      I have played dozens of games with goths vs mayans reaching late imp, and very often i cameback from almost hopeless positions vs mayans just because i am goths. It is a pretty much universal accepted fact that champ+ husk owns eew+ plum.

      Goths only need to patrol some champ/ehusk in their eco to stop mayan eew plum raiding easily and the later the game gets the worse and worse mayan gets as he runs into an unrecoverable situation where he loses to pure elite husks. Im talking out of vast amount of experience in such situation, and not teaching chris how to play.

      That game put an end to the myth that maya has no answer to pure elite husk, but the fact still remains that they are at a loss as to countering goth masses of husk with champ support!

  • FrozzenFlame

    Goths can also lose if maya has more gold. http://www.cysion.be/aocbox/?p=376

  • Barbarossa89

    Great article, as usual. I really enjoy coming here.

    I couldn’t help noticing a couple of errors in the article, however, and thought I should bring them up.

    First, normal plumed archers have 4 range, not 5. And elite plumed archers have 5, not 6 range.

    Second, the resource bonus was a little understated. Yes, technically resources seem to last 20% longer, but they actually last 25% longer. How? Here’s the explanation:

    A villager comes to a tree with 100 wood. He chops and carries away 10 wood. But because resources last 20% longer, the tree has 92 wood left instead of 90.

    In like manner, he keeps going until he has collected 100 wood. Now the tree is left with 20 wood.

    He takes two more trips of ten wood each, leaving 12 the first time and 4 the second time. He has now taken 120 wood, and there is still 4 wood left.

    He takes that last 4 wood. The bonus kicks in and he is carrying 5 wood back to the lumber camp. Total: 125 wood.

    Gold mines therefore produce 1,000 instead of 960. Stone mines produce not 420, but 437. Farms are affected too, meaning a Mayan farm is better than a Chinese farm; only Teutonic farms are better.

    • http://www.cysion.be Cysion

      Thanks Barbarossa, the range was an error indeed, can’t believe I missed that. Fixed now.

      About the resource saving process: I just did a test, Mayan resources last 20% longer, even though your explanation makes sense, I think it has something to do with the rounding of numbers. If someone got some time on their hands they might look into it in detail but I did 5 tests, all with different techs researched and Mayans always dug 959 gold from a goldmine.

      • BlanketPI

        For the reason that you only get 20% and not 25% more, the Mayan Villager actually takes a 8 and 1/3 wood from the tree, not 8. So the next time you go to take wood from that tree, it will show 9 taken away from it, not 8. Then it will be 8 for two more trips, followed by a 9 again, followed by another 8 and it will repeat for 3 more rounds, for a total of 100 wood. (8+9+8=25, 25*4=100) However, the Mayan Villager took 3*4=12 trips, each of 10 wood, for 120 wood, total.

        Now, I am afraid that I have found an error. Just like in the technology tree in the Castle Age, (where it says Plumed Archers cost 36 wood and 36 gold) in the Imperial Age, it says Plumed Archers cost 1 wood and 1 gold fewer than it actually does. So in the Imperial Age, it costs 33 wood and 33 gold, even though the technology tree says 32 of each.

        Actually, there is another error. In the Imperial Age, regular archers cost 18 wood and 32 gold, though I am not sure where that error came from. Maybe it was typographical or incorrect memorization? I know that it was just a silly thing, but I thought I ought to point it out.

        If I bug you with this, please let me know and I will not do any more of this. (If I bug you in general, let me know, too, so I only comment as a response to others.)

  • Landsknetch

    Good guide and good civ, but from my experience, cavalry are mostly the ones who decide the battlefield, mid castle/early imp are the times where the game is decided, a normal player at that time should have enough resource to field basically everything they need then attack and still able to field 4-5 squads of reinforcements at least

    with that said, the mayan archers are EXTREMELY hard countered should the enemy decide to make knights/Paladins and even worse if they field in few onagers/skirms

    comparing, using pikes/halbs to counter enemy cavalry, most of the time i always get population locked just by keep pumping halbs out of my barracks while making archers/eagles at the sametime (and also vills). literally paladins IMO is way overpowered with 160 hp while halbs only have 60, eventually should the enemy be smart they WILL make onagers, counter to both archers and halbs, even if the enemy is finally out of gold, they might still be able to pump out hussars, which almost kill archers as good as paladins (and expendable/massable)

    • http://www.cysion.be Cysion

      Technically cavalry doesn’t decide early imp. If you mass cavalry in the castle age (very heavy on your food and gold supplies) you’ll never be able to get to the imperial age early. However, castle age is the best time to beat Aztecs and Mayans. They both have a very good early imp: some pikes and killer eagles and even knights have a hard time.

      I’m indeed comparing castle age knights to imperial eagles because meso civs should imp up so much earlier.

      Well, long story short, every unit has its uses, I wouldn’t say cavalry dominates. It obviously narrows the tactical window of Mayans and Aztecs, but both civs are powerhouses by themselves nevertheless.

    • Helloz

      I wont say middle-castle and early imp is where the game is decided..every part is essential, whether TG or 1v1..if its 1v1 ofc, feudal and dark are important.

      If its TG, even then

      1. If a flank dies in flush, then it’ll be really hard.
      2. If you are only considering Mid-castle/early imp which is maybe from 25min+ mark then there is always the fast imp strategy.

      Also plumed archers pumping from 2 castles at like 18minutes is comparable to 2 stables, except the fact that you will most probably have a better eco in 2 castle thing. Sure 20 knights kill 20 archers but its not that, knights are expensive and food heavy, archers are cheap and dont take food, which is the slowest res in game. As a result, mayan will always go imp before the knight civ, be ableto mix in halbs or just use +1 chem and +1 bracer to gain advantage..

      You talk about countering enemy pals/kts with halbs..
      1. YOu should be the aggressor with a faster civ like mayan, not the defender..
      2. You dont need so many vills..about 80-90 are enough for a mayan. you dont need to go 130-140…
      3. Patrol your halbs in, dont just let them fight like that, you’ll do well enough
      4. While making some halbs, also use your archers or eagles to raid enemy eco, knights aren’t cheap.
      5. Hussars get raped by halbs
      6. Onagers get killed by eagles and some archer micro ofc.
      7. Seriously though, considering mayan early advantage, the game will rarely go into post imp THAT much. But even if it does, the mayan would’ve caused enough damage early on. And considering they hardly need much vills for their cheap units (look at prices of EEW, EPA and Halb), they are comparable with other civs in mid-caslte/imp..

      • MaximuS

        who said only carlos makes long posts? 11

      • Landsknetch

        Well I’d have to make clear that only MOST games are decided in castle/imp, Drushing or Flushing is extremely uncommon these days, especially on rated or 1v1, as the consequences are very big should u fail that single strike, the fact u might be saying that dark/feudal etc are very important is because u watch too much replays on pros, and i have no say on that

        I usually have no more than 100 vills if u ask me (averagely my total vill count is about 70-80 from the post game report), and i mostly delete them for more pop space early imp, and i still get pop locked

        Halbs are the only thing thats good enough for mayans to counter enemy cavs, eagles cost 50 gold and that isnt much diff from knight/pala’s 80 gold and even with el dorado, eagles still cant solo a cava/pala. and on the other hand, it takes at least 10 arrows for EPA to kill a KNIGHT, and worse (i estimate 20-30 arrows) for paladins, to the ratio, EPA vs knights 370 gold is needed to kill a 80 gold knight, and no one will have 1 knight, get why i always got pop locked now?

        As for onagers you say, they only need about 2-3 shots to deal enough damage to kill a whole squad of halb/archers, then the cavs can wrap up the eagles, you can even fire on your own palas while they are fighting cause they have enough hp to sustain the shots and its a guarentee hit on those pesky halbs/eagles

        For the hussar/mid castle part, hussars are only meant to kill archers for their speed, and they dont cost gold while archer does, and during castle age, archers without chemistry can hardly take down a seige weaponary, i rekon 2 onagers(or mangonoel in castle w/e) can kill like 30 PAs, while no one will just send 2 onagers without support

        • dukla

          Drush and Flush are used nearly every game on an open map 11! And I’m only a 1550; not only pros do it.

  • Miaofeng

    Hi, i’m a mayan player, got some good games and tips for your article, a good maya vs azt ara game, with eews, s.o, mass plum and good use of mayan bonus
    http://www.voobly.com/match/view/4172577

    check profile for other great mayan games, mostly ara
    http://www.voobly.com/profile/view/8900

    • http://www.cysion.be Cysion

      That is indeed a nice game of you, Miaofeng.

      People who are interested in Mayan games can check out the profile of our Brazilian friend here :) (Who also beat _RiuT_)

  • _MariaN_

    I really like the screen shot :) . More flower would be better, but still :D.

    Next Hun, Celts or Viking please XD.

    • http://www.cysion.be Cysion

      One of them is next indeed!

  • Andy01

    The mayans siege line is actually quite good :siege rams and heavy scorpions Never noticed until i saw this article :) so thanks for writing this good article.

  • Civiae

    best review so far imo, make more :D

  • [SW]_††.::ClasH::.††_

    Good job :-)

  • http://www.sl-aoc.com _ZionisT_

    “Cavalry
    No cavalry for Mayans, easy chapter for me to write!” :p

    Nice my fav civ <3 <3

  • Lyndon

    Very nice…love these reviews!

    Plumed are faster then woads?!

    • http://www.cysion.be Cysion

      I can’t believe I missed that, Woad Raiders are the fastest infantry units in the game, after that come the elite eagles and then the plumed archers. (Horse units obviously go faster)