Land Nine: The Finish Line

Ok, so you've finally reached the Aztec capital, and are keen on making them pay for their crimes against your civilization. It's not going to be easy to do so, though, as you're going to come under ferocious assault almost immediately. Winning this land as a Good god will be difficult; we recommend that you go for the easier path and win through warfare.

Objectives

General Strategies

Alright, this is one of those awkward computer game moments where you have to play through the level, get creamed, then reload at the beginning of the level with the knowledge of the scripted events in your head and win that way. There's little chance that you're going to be able to win on your first try, if only because things happen in a very specific order and are hard to deal with without forewarning.

Some things to consider: there are three cities on this map, one large, two small. The two small cities are the ones that are going to be sending most of the troops your way, while the larger one is going to be charging up its Volcano power for its eventual attack, and it'll be coming along quicker than you probably think. Things start to move very quickly as soon as you begin this level, but fortunately you already have infrastructure in place to deal with it, including a large set of troops.

A setup like this will be ideal for expanding your influence.

The first thing you'll probably want to do here is to get started on two, count 'em TWO, Wonders. If you've only unlocked one, then don't worry about it; you can build two of the same variety, or you can buy a new one in the Tribute menu to use. What we normally did was to use the demolish tool to blow away the field in the corner of our base near Tlapacoya, which is where the first wave of attacks will be coming from, and build a Siren there, but anything will work. The other Wonder should be build in the small alcove of your base near the creature pen, on the other side of your little fortress; this should be an offensive power like Earthquake, or Volcano if you can afford it. You have enough resources in your storehouse to build both of these, so lay foundations for them, drop the resources by one of the structures and command your creature to build it, then start Godbuilding the other one yourself. Don't worry about the resource inefficiency. Time is of the essence, people!

Another thing you'll want to do is pick up all of the people worshipping at your Altar and make them into Disciple worshippers. You're going to be casting a lot of Fire spells here, so you'll want to make sure that you have plenty of mana flowing. If you leave these guys as just voluntary worshipers, they'll eventually wander off, which can leave you in a rough spot when you need a Fire spell but don't have the mana for it.

When you're done with all this, if you still have time, you should take out your destruction tool and destroy all of the Hovels in your base. If you're Evil, these are no big deal, but if you're Good, you can get your Happiness rating up from zero to almost 50% just by destroying the hovels. Build more villas if you like, but don't waste too much time; your people aren't going to be sleeping much during this land. If you can, build more fields in the large open areas in the center of your base. You're going to be needing a lot of food later on. Note that your people here are going to be miserable for most of this map, meaning that you'll have a gradual shift towards the Evil side of the equation, but attending to all of their needs is very difficult without exposing yourself to attack.

The First Waves

This Volcano can go off well inside your own Influence ring.

After this burst of activity subsides, you'll notice that there are small armies coming at you from the two smaller cities on this map. If you've built your Wonders in the right spots, your area of influence should be big enough for you to cast Fire on any incoming platoons, and drop big rocks on the catapults or the creature. The gorilla here is a monster, and very tough for your own creature to defeat. There isn't an objective for winning creature fights, so it's easier to just drop a rock on its head over and over again until it dies, in our opinion, but if you want your own creature to duke it out, feel free.

Shortly after the first couple of attacks, which you should repel, you'll get a squawk from the enemy commander and learn that the Volcano power is coming your way, and indeed it is. Now, this is super cheap and annoying, but the Volcano of the Aztecs can be cast inside your area of influence, even though it definitely shouldn't be able to. It'll usually be cast along the long wall where your gate is, destroying the entire wall and probably some of your fields and the Wonder you've built there. This sucks, and is frustrating, but it all gets better after this.