Mayans

The Maya or Mayans are a Mesoamerican civilization featured in the Age of Empires II: The Conquerors expansion. They specialize in foot archers and have a robust economy. Situated in Central America, they were best known for their mysterious disappearance around 900 and their ability to build a great civilization in a tropical rainforest climate. Mayans took advantage of the area’s many natural resources, including limestone for construction, the volcanic rock obsidian for tools and weapons, jade and quetzal feathers used in the elaborate costumes of Maya nobility as well as marine shells, which were used as trumpets. To reflect this achievement, their resources last longer while their unique technologies El Dorado and Obsidian Arrows boost their Eagle Warriors and archer-line. The main force of the Mayan army was archers, as they used archers extensively. As a result, their unique unit is the Plumed Archer, an fast archer with a small anti-infantry bonus and more armor and hit points. They have a slight advantage in the early game due to the fact that they start with one extra villager for a slight deficit in food. They also have an advantage in the later game because their walls cost half as much as normal and archers cost less depending on age.

Overview
Like the Aztecs, Mayans have no access whatsoever to any form of Cavalry units or gunpowder. Unlike the Aztecs, however, the Mayans have mediocre Monks and Infantry. Despite this, they make up for this by having very cheap archers and durable Eagle Warriors. Their Eagle Warriors can withstand more ranged and melee attacks due to the Mayan's unique technology, El Dorado, which give all Eagle Warriors +40 hitpoints. This makes them more useful in scouting highly defended areas. Their unique unit, the Plumed Archer, are tough to kill for their cost-allowing them to soak up damage while friendly archers take care of other threats. The Goths would probably be the biggest threat to the Mayans due to the Huskarl anti-archer nature that would give Plumed Archers a hard time, and the lack of Champion upgrade to deal with the Gothic Huskarls. Conversely, the Mayans are a formidable foe to the Teutons thanks to a wide variety of anti-infantry options to deal with the tanky Teutonic Knights, and the Mayans have a wide variety of anti-cavalry options to deal with their Paladins (tanky Elite Eagle Warriors and fully upgraded Halberdiers) .


 * Unique Unit: Plumed Archer (fast foot archer with decent pierce armor)
 * Unique Techs: El Dorado (increased HP for Eagle Warriors), Obsidian Arrows  (Archer-line has +3 attack vs. buildings)

Civilization Bonus

 * Start with +1 Villager, but with -50 Food
 * Resources last 20% longer
 * Foot archers are 10% cheaper in Feudal Age, 20% in Castle Age, 30% in Imperial Age
 * Team Bonus: Walls are 50% cheaper (Stone Walls -3S a segment, Palisade Walls -1W)

Changes in The Forgotten

 * Base cost for Plumed Archers increased to 50 gold and 50 wood
 * Elite Plumed Archer upgrade costs 700 food and 1000 wood (instead of 500 food and 1000 wood).

Changes in African Kingdoms

 * Obsidian Arrows now do +6 damage instead of +4
 * Resources lasting longer reduced from 20% to 15%

In-game dialogue language
Mayan language has evolved into many separate branches of the original proto-Mayan.
 * Chare/chade
 * Tabish
 * Ashique/hacheekei
 * Atutz
 * Queri
 * Outzca
 * Chastimban
 * Cha
 * Ecé (axe) sounds like ashé
 * Molonel (harvester)
 * Cangnel (hunter)
 * Carunel (fisherman)
 * Casamash (farmer and miner)
 * Asheyak (builder)
 * Coshonel (repairer)
 * Cayashé (Attack)
 * Cocaya (Attack)