Sunset Invasion: Maya, Inca or Aztec?

[Marcus Scipio]

To be honest, I barely play outside of Europe, though I united Japan and conquered China to become Qin.

Now, with Winds of Change my interest for the America's is kindled. Hence my questions: which of these three large nations would be most fun to go for the Sunset Invasion?

 

[Cpt.Cross]

Aztec.

It's the easiest to play. Easiest to reform the religion. Starts with multiple gold mines. It's a no brainer.

You should have most of Mexico under your control by the time the Europeans show up. Just surrender the first time the declare and let them get some land( enough for a colony). Its much faster than waiting for a colony and gives you a truce long enough to reach tech parity.

After taking your land back you'll be on high American tech and van enjoy a nice game of painting the map emerald green.

 

[MisterTwister92]

As mentioned already, the Aztecs. I’ve just completed a run with them, and they have the strongest military by far, like +25 Ica (with the estate privilege), 20% morale of armies, +7.5% discipline, manpower modifier and manpower recovery speed, - war exhaustion + the ability to change its unit type to High American, probably the strongest unit type in the game.
And they also have ‘frintier colonies’, which if used efficiently- can give you a LOT of frontier colonies for 70 reform progress growth

 

[Syrus]

If you want to go crazy:
- start as a Mayan nation, I recommend Xiu, Cocomes or Yokotan
- form Maya (requires passing 2 reforms)
- fully conquer the Aztecs
- flip Aztec culture
- reduce yourself to <=100% warscore
- declare war on a Nahuatl nation and have them force you Nahuatl (100% war score before they uncon)
- take the decision to Adopt Aztec Traditions
- declare war on a Mayan nation and have them force you back to Mayan
After that you do the normal American native run, reforming your religion etc. You will need to do all 5 reforms again after the religion change! And don't finish the "Reforming our Society" mission on the first two reforms!

The result of this is that you get both the Aztec and Mayan mission tree with double the Sunset Invasion missions:


...but if you want to go for a calmer and more "normal" run, after having played both, Inca first, and following that finished my first World Conquest + One Faith last week using the above strategy as Aztec-culture Mayan Maya, Aztecs or Inca make for the better choice over Maya, both coming with their own advantages.

Inca gets a good government (Andean Empire; allows you to improve your ruler stats by +1!), Inti has good religious boni, the position usually gives you more time before the colonizers swarm you and you can expand quite well. The only worthwhile starting nation is Cusco, imo, and it allows for a very fast conquest of the region. Reforming is much less painful than the other two, just requiring sitting around, which you will be doing anyway while waiting for the disease bringers.
As Inca I was easily able to finish the Sunset Invasion part of the mission tree, despite a very powerful Korea and a very powerful France.

Reforming as Mayan is a lot more painful, requiring quite some preplanning with truces and luck with alliance chains if you want to go fast, as the game gives away provinces depending on culture, religion and distance to capital - and usually to already existing nations. They are also limited to passing a reform every 5 years by a modifier that also gives war exhaustion and prevents you from buying it down during the time. Colonies are pointless before all reforms are passed as you will lose them just like any other province over 15+reform_stage.
Nahuatl is somewhat similar, truces are the main problem, but at least you won't lose your land randomly. Not sure if they have any limit to how quickly reforms can be passed, if not, with some preplanning and luck, reforming should be a breeze. Doom should not be too hard to handle unless you expand crazily before reforming. (...I wonder if killing natives in uncolonized provinces by walking over them lowers doom?)

Aztecs also get a good government (Aztec Empire; only requires Aztec culture!), which uses Tonalli (gained similarly to how Doom is surpressed, through war and battles) to give you different modifiers depending on which "deity" you chose, with the great 15% coring cost reduction probably being the best option unless you want to focus on converting, at which point the missionary strength deity is preferable. Switching is not too costly, Tonalli can be gained quickly once great projects are upgraded or through wars.
I don't think Maya gets any special government interactions.

Another advantage for Maya and Aztecs is that you can usually consolidate Mesoamerica before the Europeans get their grubby little hands all over it, and then quickly colonize towards and conquer the Inti nations after reforming, while, as the Incas, from my experience, Mesoamerica is already part of the yellow blobmonster by the time you get there. Then again, maybe I was just a bit slow. Mesoamerica has about twice the dev compared to the Incan land, though half of it is of a wrong religion and there are several culture groups present.

One potentially massive advantage the Aztec mission tree gives you (requiring playing them or Adopting their Traditions) is that they can use "American Frontiers", creating "Siberian Frontier"-like colonies (free, but you will get events for them that may cost some ducats) on all available spaces adjacent to non-colony land - for just 75 reform progress. With some well planned conquering of natives in North America as well as good placement of colonies, especially in South America, it is easily possible to (almost) fully colonize the Americas by 1550 and earlier. (Fighting North American tribes is truely the worst experience in EU4 though, it is just utterly atrociously unfun and painful with migrating OPMs and everyone constantly running all over the whole continent and reappearing to siege your land when you start to siege all their uncrackable level 1 forts...)
Inca on the other hand only gets some free colonies around their land in South America (requires killing natives in the provines), while Maya gets nothing in that regard.

Either way you start, I recommend conquering and colonizing South America quickly, preferably setting up colonies and conquering colonial nations in a way that blocks off the interior from the colonizers. Prevent the Europeans from getting strong colonial nations in the New World, because they will be a pain to deal with if their overlord ever declares upon you - and they will, if you aren't powerful yourself, because getting worthwhile allies is quite difficult with everyone wanting your shinies!
If playing with the American Frontiers decision, set up your land for maximum number of adjacent colonies and watch your empire grow with the click of a button!

A main problem is government capacity when expanding quickly, so, make sure you grab the White House and build it up. Of course, put Courthouses everywhere.
There is also a fantastic policy you get for completing Exploration + Infrastructure, giving you +1 dev (in all three categories) in every colonized province, highly recommend getting that, especially since Infrastructure is helpful with the gov cap issue and Exploration is pretty much essential. Imo you don't need Expansion if playing with American Frontiers, but if playing Inca, it'd probably be helpful to have.

Religious ideas is helpful as well in many ways - casus bellus against everyone you border, easily done by just popping down a colony, no unjustified demands when declaring holy wars, and a very valuable missionary, which are very limited for these religions, missionary strenght and tolerance of the true faith.


Aztecs are likely the faster, but Inca is definitely a good contender. Maya is alright, but feels a bit left out compared to the other two.

 

[Marcus Scipio]

Thanks guys. So Aztec is easiest, Inca is strong. But which is te most fun?

 

[Syrus]

I don't think that can be answered to be honest. It depends on what you consider fun and then it depends on how the run goes maybe. For me, conquering the world for pretty much the first time was very fun when playing Maya, but invading Europe as Inca was also fun. At the same time, dealing with the tribes in North America made me want to set the continent on fire.
To me, the idea of Aztecs invading Europe instead of the other way around sounds like a lot of fun in an alternative history way.

Gameplay-wise, they all turn out the same once you conquered (most of) the Americas, except for having slightly different missions, which mostly matter before you get to Europe, and religious boni, which matter depending on your goal.
Do you intend to go for maximum expansion or do you just want to build the strongest armies, for example.

You could also just decide that you prefer Green (Aztecs) over Blue (Maya) over Purple'ish (Inca) for painting the map. Or White+Red (Aztecs) over Green+Yellow (Maya) over Yellow+Blue (Inca) as a flag? Everyone has different goals, everyone has fun from different aspects of the game.
And we won't know what you like - nor what you are capable of. To me, the strategy I posted was a ton of fun, and the slow, calculated conquest, both as the Inca first, and then Maya in the second run, was stressful but in the end it felt great to succeed.

Whatever you pick, the main thing to hope for is that you get powerful enough to prevent chain wars - and by that point, there's little that can really harm you and you control the game. For some people, a run becomes boring and unfun at that point!

 

[Hiscabibbel]

If you want to go crazy:
- start as a Mayan nation, I recommend Xiu, Cocomes or Yokotan
- form Maya (requires passing 2 reforms)
- fully conquer the Aztecs
- flip Aztec culture
- reduce yourself to <=100% warscore
- declare war on a Nahuatl nation and have them force you Nahuatl (100% war score before they uncon)
- take the decision to Adopt Aztec Traditions
- declare war on a Mayan nation and have them force you back to Mayan
After that you do the normal American native run, reforming your religion etc. You will need to do all 5 reforms again after the religion change! And don't finish the "Reforming our Society" mission on the first two reforms!

The result of this is that you get both the Aztec and Mayan mission tree with double the Sunset Invasion missions:
View attachment 1242172

...but if you want to go for a calmer and more "normal" run, after having played both, Inca first, and following that finished my first World Conquest + One Faith last week using the above strategy as Aztec-culture Mayan Maya, Aztecs or Inca make for the better choice over Maya, both coming with their own advantages.

Inca gets a good government (Andean Empire; allows you to improve your ruler stats by +1!), Inti has good religious boni, the position usually gives you more time before the colonizers swarm you and you can expand quite well. The only worthwhile starting nation is Cusco, imo, and it allows for a very fast conquest of the region. Reforming is much less painful than the other two, just requiring sitting around, which you will be doing anyway while waiting for the disease bringers.
As Inca I was easily able to finish the Sunset Invasion part of the mission tree, despite a very powerful Korea and a very powerful France.

Reforming as Mayan is a lot more painful, requiring quite some preplanning with truces and luck with alliance chains if you want to go fast, as the game gives away provinces depending on culture, religion and distance to capital - and usually to already existing nations. They are also limited to passing a reform every 5 years by a modifier that also gives war exhaustion and prevents you from buying it down during the time. Colonies are pointless before all reforms are passed as you will lose them just like any other province over 15+reform_stage.
Nahuatl is somewhat similar, truces are the main problem, but at least you won't lose your land randomly. Not sure if they have any limit to how quickly reforms can be passed, if not, with some preplanning and luck, reforming should be a breeze. Doom should not be too hard to handle unless you expand crazily before reforming. (...I wonder if killing natives in uncolonized provinces by walking over them lowers doom?)

Aztecs also get a good government (Aztec Empire; only requires Aztec culture!), which uses Tonalli (gained similarly to how Doom is surpressed, through war and battles) to give you different modifiers depending on which "deity" you chose, with the great 15% coring cost reduction probably being the best option unless you want to focus on converting, at which point the missionary strength deity is preferable. Switching is not too costly, Tonalli can be gained quickly once great projects are upgraded or through wars.
I don't think Maya gets any special government interactions.

Another advantage for Maya and Aztecs is that you can usually consolidate Mesoamerica before the Europeans get their grubby little hands all over it, and then quickly colonize towards and conquer the Inti nations after reforming, while, as the Incas, from my experience, Mesoamerica is already part of the yellow blobmonster by the time you get there. Then again, maybe I was just a bit slow. Mesoamerica has about twice the dev compared to the Incan land, though half of it is of a wrong religion and there are several culture groups present.

One potentially massive advantage the Aztec mission tree gives you (requiring playing them or Adopting their Traditions) is that they can use "American Frontiers", creating "Siberian Frontier"-like colonies (free, but you will get events for them that may cost some ducats) on all available spaces adjacent to non-colony land - for just 75 reform progress. With some well planned conquering of natives in North America as well as good placement of colonies, especially in South America, it is easily possible to (almost) fully colonize the Americas by 1550 and earlier. (Fighting North American tribes is truely the worst experience in EU4 though, it is just utterly atrociously unfun and painful with migrating OPMs and everyone constantly running all over the whole continent and reappearing to siege your land when you start to siege all their uncrackable level 1 forts...)
Inca on the other hand only gets some free colonies around their land in South America (requires killing natives in the provines), while Maya gets nothing in that regard.

Either way you start, I recommend conquering and colonizing South America quickly, preferably setting up colonies and conquering colonial nations in a way that blocks off the interior from the colonizers. Prevent the Europeans from getting strong colonial nations in the New World, because they will be a pain to deal with if their overlord ever declares upon you - and they will, if you aren't powerful yourself, because getting worthwhile allies is quite difficult with everyone wanting your shinies!
If playing with the American Frontiers decision, set up your land for maximum number of adjacent colonies and watch your empire grow with the click of a button!

A main problem is government capacity when expanding quickly, so, make sure you grab the White House and build it up. Of course, put Courthouses everywhere.
There is also a fantastic policy you get for completing Exploration + Infrastructure, giving you +1 dev (in all three categories) in every colonized province, highly recommend getting that, especially since Infrastructure is helpful with the gov cap issue and Exploration is pretty much essential. Imo you don't need Expansion if playing with American Frontiers, but if playing Inca, it'd probably be helpful to have.

Religious ideas is helpful as well in many ways - casus bellus against everyone you border, easily done by just popping down a colony, no unjustified demands when declaring holy wars, and a very valuable missionary, which are very limited for these religions, missionary strenght and tolerance of the true faith.


Aztecs are likely the faster, but Inca is definitely a good contender. Maya is alright, but feels a bit left out compared to the other two.

I know what I'm doing the next time I get invited to play eu4 multiplayer. Gotta practice these wonderful shenanigans

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Aztec.

It's the easiest to play. Easiest to reform the religion. Starts with multiple gold mines. It's a no brainer.

You should have most of Mexico under your control by the time the Europeans show up. Just surrender the first time the declare and let them get some land( enough for a colony). Its much faster than waiting for a colony and gives you a truce long enough to reach tech parity.

After taking your land back you'll be on high American tech and van enjoy a nice game of painting the map emerald green.

If you're going fast enough, there's no need to surrender. You instead go find them first, drop a colony next to them, maybe seize snipe theirs or w/e you need to reform.

War should be winnable.

 

[Syrus]

I know what I'm doing the next time I get invited to play eu4 multiplayer. Gotta practice these wonderful shenanigans

There are probably ways to take this even further, this part was easy enough for me to do and not too stressful, but I wonder if there are also ways to include Incan missions into the mess - or religious boni or such.

Sadly, Mayan does not have a Temple event like Nahuatl (Cholula) or Oracle event like Inti (Lima). Can even flip Inti by forming Inca, which is easily doable via culture switching. Mayan can only be embraced by being forced to switch religion in a peace deal at <=100% war score, otherwise one could easily go Animist -> Nahuatl via Temple event and then Mayan "via event" (well, requiring some luck on the events happening).
Also, forming Inca overwrites the Mayan missions, same for Incan missions when forming Maya.

In the end, this strategy was enough for me to do what I wanted and prolonging the reform even longer would've certainly gotten me into the dreaded Colonizer chain-wars. As it was, the reforms were done just in time as the colonizers arrived in my run