Hi - after having quite a few years off Civ iam back and cant put it down again.

I have managed to play the lower levels of Civ easily beating the computer but when I come across monarch start getting unstuck.

I have always played Inca but my game style tends to be aggressive so would play any civ really that fits the bill.

I've seen one or two threads which have basically walked a game through but is their any around relating to aggressive / or inca's at all just cant seem to find any??

Hi,

From War Academy (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/) you can find Deity Level Quechua Rush on Huge Map by VirusMonster (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/inca_deity.php).

VirusMonster's quechua rush guide is quite specific to deity where the AIs start out with a couple of settlers and workers from the start so there will be plenty of cities to conquer and workers to take right from the start. I don't feel that it's a strategy that works well on monarch, where you have early-game breathing room, and where such an early rush will hamper your economy massively without much direct payoff. I find that I have much more success on monarch with a slightly delayed quechua rush that relies on early workers and a barracks before the endless quechua pump, a delay that gives you more powerful quechuas and a much stronger economy to keep the pressure going longer, while your enemies start building nice cities for you to take. Your worker(s) improve production, chop forests and build roads towards your enemies. I wrote a big thing about my thoughts on monarch-level quechua rushing in this post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4883824&postcount=125

It does kind of depend on whether you've got vanilla or Warlords. On vanilla, that sort of quechua rush is a no-brainer with the cheap barracks from aggressive and the larger number of hammers from tree chopping. In Warlords, you can really go either way depending on circumstances. The quechua rush is a little harder but still massively feasible, but you can also use industrious and starting mysticism to try for an early religion and go along the religion tech path for an early wonder, while aggressively settling and using your quechuas mainly as improved barbarian defense. Either way, claiming masses of land with the terrace is key to your early strategy - settle over or conquer massive areas of land, use your terrace culture to claim territory, and backfill later. Financial lets you do this without bankrupting yourself too badly. You're soon going to want to fill every millimetre of coastline with as many cities as possible (and watch your commerce really skyrocket), but for now it's more important to claim territory.

The good thing about a quechua rush with barracks is that the promoted quechuas are useful for quite a while, and you can use them to bolster and segue nicely into a powerful axeman rush and take even more land.
After that, I like to sit back, beeline for alphabet to catch up on lagging tech and watch my huge empire, legions of captured workers and my financial trait catapult my economy into the stratosphere. In Warlords, good early Wonders to go after (and get use out of Industrious) are the Great Library, Great Lighthouse and the Colossus.
Important techs to go after are Metal Casting (for Colossus and your cheap forges), Literature (for Great Library in your capital, and Heroic Epic for your best production city), and Construction (for the catapults to make use of your Heroic Epic). A new offensive with swords/cats (and the dregs of your army from your last offensive) is definitely on the cards if you want it at this point, but you're also likely to be well set up for a massive builder's game now.

From this point it's fairly standard - cottages and coast and trade routes with economic buildings to make best use of Financial, some inland production cities churning out units for when you next want a fight, and an eye to teching up and grabbing wonders that best suit your strategy.

Incas are probably just about my favourite civ (especially in Warlords with the ultra-sweet terrace), and they're definitely a good choice for getting started on monarch level.

Yep, of course strategy needs to be adjusted according to level and situation but thats obvious. I will read your post about quechuas with more care when my head starts to work again..

Still having a nightmare trying to play at this level maybe if I try and explain what I'am doing some kind people maybe able to put me on the right track ?? ;)

Ok I play (try and play) Inca. As talked about above on monarch lvl. Its a old copy of Civ4 version 1.0, i think. Getting the new warlords for Christmas.

In the start I dont really try and quechua rush as I like to play (I forget map type one large continent ) and Ive found civs quite far away so by the time i get their I start to have problems.

I only ever build two/three citys and try and capture civs citys rather than build my own. I try and attack when I have bronze working or iron working. Gte my self a nice stack of swordsman and attack.

Meanwhile turn settlers off auto and build food around my main citys and try and grow them up a little.

I may only take one or two citys then I find myself miles behind in tech race and bottom of the points. I then find ever ciz wanting to attack me as I seem to be the "weakest link"

Ok I knw their is no hard and fast way to play civ and each two games aren't the same but is their anyone else that could shine some light this way please

Cheers

Okay, I don't really play large maps but here's my thoughts:

With a barracks, quechuas are useful for FAR longer than you might think. Give them the cover promo and really, they're almost as good as an axeman against archers in cities. And they're SO CHEAP (less than half the price). So you can build a bunch even when you've got axemen and use them as quite effective disposable softening troops before your axes come in for the kill.

Secondly, prioritise building roads straight towards your enemies almost as soon as you find their cities so you can get your troops there in a reasonable time and keep your campaign rolling.

Third, it might be worth looking at some "use of workers" thread, because it can make a huge difference. Personally, I think an early production focus serves you best with early violence. You do want food to grow your cities a bit, but mostly so you can get more production (either by mines/forests or just whipping production in slavery). Heavy deforestation at your earliest opportunity will net you a huge production bonus, as will slavery judiciously applied. Cottages are still well worth building, but they're a secondary priority at this point.

And yeah, you're going to be a bit behind on tech after your early era war. These things are expensive. Luckily you're financial so you're in an excellent position to make up lost ground quickly. I like to beeline Alphabet (after the initial necessities) so you can start trading techs around a bit and start filling in the gaps in your research (don't trade alphabet itself though, tempting though it may be). You also want to be heavily spamming out cottages everywhere and building coastal cities to start getting some serious income.