200-900 CE
The Nahuas were the Mesoamerican peoples of central Mexico whose city-states rose in the valleys and lakeshores of the highland plateau, building pyramid-temples, practicing ritual sacrifice, and trading obsidian, cacao, and featherwork across a world that had no contact with the civilizations of the Old World.
The Nahuas were Nahuatl-speaking peoples of the central Mexican highlands whose civilizations spanned the classic and early postclassic periods of Mesoamerican history. They did not form a single state but a constellation of city-states, each centered on a ceremonial complex of pyramid-temples, plazas, and markets. Teotihuacan, the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas, dominated the Valley of Mexico for centuries before its collapse around 550 CE, and its influence reached from the northern deserts to the Maya lowlands.
These were peoples who developed writing, mathematics, astronomy, and monumental architecture without draft animals, iron, or the wheel. What they built, they built with stone tools, human muscle, and an organizational capacity that compensated for every technological absence.
The central Mexican highlands sit at roughly 2,000 meters above sea level: volcanic peaks, fertile lake-shore valleys, and pine-forested slopes. The Valley of Mexico, ringed by mountains and centered on shallow lakes, supported the densest populations in the Americas. Maize, beans, and squash formed the dietary foundation. Chinampas, raised garden beds constructed in the lake shallows, produced vegetables with an intensity that later amazed European observers.
A farmer working a chinampa plot, piling lake mud onto a woven frame to build new planting surface, created agricultural land from water. Cacao, traded from the tropical lowlands, served as luxury drink and currency. Obsidian, volcanic glass fractured into blades sharper than steel, was quarried from highland deposits and traded across Mesoamerica. A craftsman knapping an obsidian blade in a Teotihuacan workshop struck flakes with a precision that produced a cutting edge no metalworker could match.
Nahua warfare was ritualized but lethal. Armies fought with obsidian-edged clubs, atlatl-launched darts, and wooden shields. The absence of cavalry and metal armor meant battles were infantry affairs decided by numbers and ferocity. Captive-taking was as important as killing: prisoners fed the sacrificial system that sustained the cosmic order. A warrior who captured an enemy alive earned more prestige than one who merely killed.
Political power rested with priest-kings and warrior aristocracies. The city-state was the natural political unit, and larger hegemonies extracted tribute without administrative integration. When Teotihuacan collapsed, a city of 100,000 was largely abandoned within a generation, and no successor replicated its scale for centuries.
Mesoamerican religion demanded blood. The gods had sacrificed themselves to create the world, and human beings owed a debt repayable only in kind. Captive warriors were taken to pyramid summits and killed, their hearts offered to the sun. The practice was central, not peripheral. A priest ascending the temple steps at dawn, obsidian knife in hand, performed an act his society considered not cruel but cosmically necessary.
Daily life revolved around the market, the household, and the agricultural calendar. Women ground maize on stone metates. Featherworkers created mosaics of tropical plumage for aristocratic regalia. Ball courts hosted a ritual game with a rubber ball that carried cosmological significance. A boy watching a match in a stone court, the ball slamming against the walls like a drum, witnessed something that was sport, ritual, and theater at once.
Nahua trade networks stretched across Mesoamerica. Long-distance merchants carried obsidian, cacao, cotton, and jade between highland and lowland, coast and interior. These traders doubled as spies and diplomats, connecting cultures that otherwise had little direct contact. The influence of Teotihuacan appeared in Maya cities hundreds of kilometers to the south, carried by commerce and possibly military intervention.
The Nahua legacy is the foundation of Mexican civilization. The Aztec empire that the Spanish encountered in 1519 was a Nahuatl-speaking state tracing its cultural ancestry to these classic-period city-states. The languages, agricultural techniques, and market systems persisted through every political collapse. Maize, the crop Mesoamerican farmers domesticated from a wild grass, feeds the world today. The chinampa gardens outside Mexico City are still in use.
of your color to transfer 1 of your used action cube to your player zone
, you may spend 1 
and 1 
to pay -1 
receive equal votes, you decide which is considered to have more votes
without a 
,
place a random on any hex of that
In the game, the Nahuas practice sacrifice as resource management. Destroying two units to recover a spent action cube echoes the Mesoamerican logic of offering life to sustain the cosmic order. Build at least three cities early so you can cheaply replace sacrificed population, and target peasants stuck on city hexes where they cannot gather. Every explored province gains a relic, tying expansion to sacred geography. Your vote-breaking power when events tie gives you free political leverage. Like all New World nations, you cannot recruit spearmen or cavalry, leaving you vulnerable to mounted opponents; use your relic network and numerical superiority to compensate.
Not usually. Relics come from the same pool. However, if all normal relics have been placed and an unexplored province remains without one, your ability could add one beyond the usual count.
Two benefits: you can use that action cube again this round, and removing it from a player mat area means your next action there costs fewer cubes. Target peasants stuck in city hexes where they cannot gather.
Yes. "Recruit" and "gain" are different game terms. Your restriction prevents recruiting as an action, but effects that say "gain" bypass this restriction.
No. The ability specifies "2 units of your color." Only your own units can be sacrificed.
2 food, 2 wood, 2 stone, and 4 coins. Each Swordsman normally costs 1 food and 1 weapon. Substituting 1 stone and 1 wood for each weapon means each unit costs 1 food, 1 wood, 1 stone, and 2 coins.