APOCALYPTO - The Revenge of the Mayas!

[zytrexx]

Chapter 1 - The Beginning

The Maya civilization has been one of the most interesting and mysterious civilization in history. This is the story of how the Mayas became one of the most powerful empires in the New World.

The Maya jaguar warriors in action against their Zapotec adversaries

The early years of 1490's, the Maya kingdom have taken a great colonization campaign in search for new lands, captives for sacrifice, slaves, and wealth. Because strong opposition from the Zapotecs and Aztecs, the Maya decided to go south and colonized all the land from there.

The Mayas just annexed the hated Zapotecs, much to the Aztecs' surprise!

The extensive colonization campaign undertaken by the Mayas enabled to them to establish contact with another mysterious and advance civilization of the Incas. The Incas had just annexed the Chimus in Ecuador. The Maya marvelled the grandeur of the Incas but the Incas never took advantage the weakness of the Mayas.

A view of the Maya capital

The Mayas were cut off from their main supply lines but still the colonization continued. Some of the explorers even reached Bahia in modern-day Brazil and encountered the first white men -- the Spanish and Portuguese.

Fortunately, they were too scared to venture further inland. For now, the white men did not made any single outpost in the region.

Only time will tell when these scums will strike at us.

May the gods protect us!

[Zywack]

Well, it's certainly a nicely written and pretty AAR so far!

There's one warning I want to offer you though, although I hope you won't run in the same issue as I did!

I had started a Huron AAR, where I had decided to conquer the north-american natives (The 4 north of the Aztec) and then simply try to survive the comming onslaught from the European nations. The thing is, even though I wasn't terribly big or powerful (My income is about on par with the Aztec, nothing more), and that I had Castille, England, France and others for neighboors... I never got attacked even a single time and I stopped my AAR there instead of writing about another 200 empty years. I tried poking a war with one of them, and their reaction was pretty insignificant, sending roughly 3000 soldiers in total.

The AI simply decided that the united North American were too strong for some reasons and completely ignored me for eternity, just colonizing a few surrounding provinces before stopping. There was no heroic or desperate defense, there was just a pointless wait. After 1500 where I had conquered my "final" territory (Minus some colonization), I could have left the game running by itself and survive until the end date without doing anything. Seeing you have grown about the same size I had but that you have richer provinces, I'm unfortunately thinking that there's very good chance that you won't ever get attacked by the Europeans either... But let's hope that the AI in your game will be a little more aggressive and you won't have the same deception I had

[binTravkin]

But but there's so much more to do - you can attempt to westernize (what were the conditions again?), convert to vicky and try and make a civ out of unciv..

[canonized]

Nice quality on those screen captures ! And Bah to the Mayans ! I hope the Spanish will come and convert them ! . So far this looks interesting i'll keep in touch !

[Zerch de la Opo]

May the gods protect us, indeed..

[Hajji Giray I]

I'm torn between yelling

OH NO!

and

OH YES!

but this does sound like fun. Good luck, sir ... you may need it

[Duke of Wellington]

This looks good. I think I might just hang around and see where it goes.

[Storey]

Get an alliance with the Aztecs and get military access,. Then if they get attacked you can join them and maybe grab something in North America.

Joe

[zytrexx]

Chapter II: Some Crazy Ball Game

The annexation of the Zapotecs, made it a day of rejoicing in all corners of the Empire. The Zapotec scums have been subjugated. For the Aztecs, these situation proved to be their last chance to avoid a collision course against the Mayans.

And so they proposed to have a series of exhibition games between the best ball players of both empires. The seven-game series have to be played at Monte Alban and Chitchen Itza. The losing team will be sacrificed to the gods.

Before that, I'll give you a mythological perspective of the game as taken from Wikipedia.

The Popol Vuh establishes the importance of the Maya ball game as more than just a sport. It provides important analogues for interpreting the ball game from a mythological perspective. The first adventures related to the ball game establish the relationship between people and gods. The story begins with the Hero Twins' father, Hun Hunahpu, and uncle, Vucub Hunahpu, born to the old gods Xpiacoc and Xmucane. The lords of the underworld, Xibalba got annoyed with the noise from the Hun Hunahpu and Vucub Hunahpu’s ball playing. The brothers’ ball court is located on the eastern edge of the Earth near the great abyss. The primary lords of Xibalba, One Death and Seven Death, send owls to lure the twins to play ball in the ball court of Xibalba, situated on the western edge of the underworld. It is a dangerous trip though, and the brothers fall asleep. They are sacrificed by the lords of Xibalba and buried in the ball court. The story relates the playing of the ball game with sacrifice. Hun Hunahpu’s head is cut off and placed in a fruit tree, which bears calabash gourds for the first time. This is also connected with the prominence of decorative cut heads of animals and birds worn as headdresses.

The story continues after the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, are born. They find the ball game equipment in their father’s house and start playing the ball game, to the annoyance of the gods of Xibalba again. Unlike their father and uncle, the twins survive various tough tests, with the help of a mosquito (who bites each of the gods of Xibalba, forcing them to identify themselves to the boys). They go on to play the ball game with the lords of Xibalba. Along the way, the twins deceive the lords of Xibalba into thinking the twins are dead when they jump into a soup. Miraculously the twins are reborn as catfish, change back to human form, and perform mock sacrifices in which the victim is allegedly resurrected. When a couple of the lords of Xibalba, One Death and Seven Death, offer themselves for a mock sacrifice, the twins trick the gods and carry out a real sacrifice. The twins spare the lives of the remaining gods of Xibalba, but tell them that henceforth they will only be allowed to be offered sacrifices of animal blood and croton sap and that they can only bother people on Earth who are weak or have guilt. The twins are unsuccessful at their attempts at reviving their father so they leave him buried in the ball court of Xibalba. That’s why the words ball court and graveyard are synonymous. Ball courts became ritually linked with death in perpetuity.The ball court became a place of transition, a liminal stage between life and death. The ball court makers along the centerline of the playing field depicted mythical scenes of the ball game, usually bordered by a quatrefoil that marked an opening of a portal into another world. One lesson from the Popol Vuh is that playing the ball game can be life-threatening and also that trickery may be the only way to deceive your opponents.

And so the ball game began!

Loud cheers of the spectators roared throughout the 10,000-people packed arena.

The high priests signalled the game to start.

The ball court

The competition has been tight, just like a typical game in the NBA Finals. Unfortunately, there was never been a Dwayne Wade or Dirk Nowitzki at that time. The game was physical and deadly.

Some players got bashed by the obsidian clubs while some were knocked unconscious. So that players would not 'chicken out' from the game, they took some hallucinogenic herbs to keep them in good playing condition.

Unfortunately, the Mayas were humiliated in the final game wherein the Aztecs allegedly cheated in the game despite objections from the crowd.

It was said that the high priests were bribed.

The Aztecs demanded that the Maya players would be killed in front of their home crowd but the King did not want humiliation in front of his own people and so he called his soldiers to deport the Aztecs back from their homeland.

And so, the ball game became a diplomatic nightmare.

The following day, the Aztecs returned not to play again but to destroy the Mayas.

The war was completely one-sided as the Mayans routed the Aztecs on their way to the destruction of this once-proud civilization.



Mel Gibson would have been proud and happy!

[binTravkin]

Wow, nice now that you're done with them, you can colonise some to north

[zytrexx]

cheating aztecs!! hehe!

just got their ass wiped out!

[Duke of Wellington]

When you cheat at sport you deserve whatever you get.

[zytrexx]

I have to transport my troops to the south because it seems the Incas have been gathering 75,000 troops within my border and my border defenses are only made up of 25,000 men....

[binTravkin]

Nice numbers 25.000, 75.0000
You better get them up in quality (DP slider, drill, other morale boosts), so when Cortez arrives, he doesn't outmatch you 1:1000 in troop strenght but like 1:10

[zytrexx]

MAYANS

VERSUS

INCANS

The titanic showdown begins!!

Who will emerge victorious?

[canonized]

ALLLLEZ CUISINE !!!!!!! XD Can't wait to see it !

[Duke of Wellington]

I think I have a fair idea who'll win.

[Hajji Giray I]

Originally Posted by Duke of Wellington

I think I have a fair idea who'll win.

"Hello Huanya Capac ... what's your favorite sport?"

[binTravkin]

The quechua-jaguar dance

[binTravkin]

By the way - do American countries have any chance to become more western?
I heard they can convert to catholics (and the options following it), but what about tech group and what are the conditions?

Are you going to attempt conversion to catholicism (and then probably to counter-reformation for better morale ) too?