ALC Game #9: Incas/Huayna Capac

Pre-Game Thread

Round 1: 4000 BC
Round 2: to 2840 BC
Round 3: to 2040 BC
Round 4: to 525 BC
Round 5: to 350 AD
Round 6: to 1000 AD
Round 7: to 1300 AD
Round 8: to 1550 AD
Round 9: to 1795 AD
Round 10: to 1836 AD
Round 11: to 1880 AD
Post-Mortem

The idea of the All Leaders Challenge is that I'm going to play a game with each of the Civ IV leaders--mostly the less popular ones--that I haven't tried before. With the help of all the posters who participate, I will attempt to make the most of the leader's traits, starting techs, and UU. Aside from the leader, the other game settings are kept constant, at their defaults, for the sake of comparison. I will post the saved game files, screenshots, and status reports here as the game progresses. Everyone then has a chance to chime in with their strategy ideas, or voice their frustration (or glee) when I make a mistake.

Everyone is invited to offer opinions and advice, and make your own attempt at playing the same game. But if you do play a "shadow game", I kindly request that you refrain from posting spoilers--i.e. any facts or even hints about the map, opponents, and so on--before I'm there myself. I'm trying to play the game as authentically as possible.

In this ALC game, I'm playing as Huayna Capac, leader of the Incas. This is the first of the ALC games on Monarch level; all the previous ones were on Prince level. That is the only dramatic change. I'm still playing vanilla Civ IV (haven't bought Warlords yet), and the map and game settings remain at their defaults. Here's a look at them if you're curious about the details:



And here is the starting position:



Look at all them flood plains! Very nice for Financial--however, Huayna is not Expansive, so health could easily become an issue. Right off the bat, my instinct was to move the Settler so as to reduce the number of floodplains in the capital's fat cross; I count at least 7 for a -2.8 health if we settle in place (does the game round that up to 3?). We would then split the floodplains with another city founded nearby. Then again, we have corn available right away (very nice, since we start with Agriculture) and fresh water from that lake, so that's a +3 health bonus to balance out the flood plains.

I don't see a commerce resource like gold yet, so that means we're not "guaranteed" an early religion. Remember we can't work the lake yet because we don't start with fishing. We do have several forests, though, and that could help with an early wonder or two. And the high food production would help support the good ol' . Overall, it looks like the capital would be a top notch commerce city, possibly the science city.

So the first decision is where to move our Quechua. However, I don't really see any place where his one move would affect our decision-making regarding the Settler. Frankly, the Settler would have to move (probably 1 tile SW) to get any useful information in that regard. And if the Settler moves, we give up a turn, and right away, the opportunity to found an early religion is at risk.

No wonder the first few moves are so important!

I'm inclined at this point to settle in place and go for the early religion so the capital becomes the holy city, because it can then also be an excellent commerce city with those flood plains and the shrine. If other civs hook up to that river, it becomes a trade route and could spread our religion. On top of that, we could try building Stonehenge and the Oracle there--together with the Shrine, that would give us lots of Great Person points towards a Great Prophet. Another city founded to use the remaining flood plains would then probably become the science city. Whaddya think?

For the last few ALCs what I've done is taken the collective advice, moved my exploring unit, and then posted what he revealed before making any final decions regarding settling. I'll probably do that again this time.

Well you can play the Environmentalist and not chop trees, counteracting the unhealth. Add to that, since you're settling on freshwater it helps quite a bit.

But yeah, if you wish to move, try to see if it will be a good city site at the tile 1S2W or 2S2W or 2W of that position.

Quechua SW. Maybe after that some exploring with the settler since you have only 1 hill so far. Don't be so paranoid about health. At this location (looks ok to settle rightaway in case you encounter anything better) you already have fresh water, corn and plenty of forest. Throw in a granary and maybe 1 or 2 early health resources (from other city's) and you will be ok for a long time. The lake can grant you a religion, but slows down quechua's production. EDIT: never mind, forgot you don't start with fishing.

Oh and if health becomes a problem, whip them, just like unhapiness..

I like settle in place.

I think you have 8 7 flood plains there (both hidden tiles south of the city look to be floods, the two in the west are a grassland forrest and a flat grassland, and the tile to the east is flat grassland. The city tile kicks in 2 food, the corn 4 with biology, and you've got what - one? hill to work as a deficit? So with only the one farm, you are looking at 6 specialists long term.

That's one heck of a science city. Or one heck of a production monster (you can run all your engineers and workshop everything - 70+ hammers per turn, base - wheeee!).

In the short term, especially if you are considering a religious run, it's a settler/worker pump. I wouldn't touch those trees for many thousands of years. I'd start with a worker, first farming the corn, then farming a couple plains until pottery is on line.

Keep exploring east - you'll probably want to divide the remaining floods among two cities.

The only move I would consider here is 1W+1SW into the forrest (to take the lake out of the fat cross). But that move comes after moving the Chacha NE to clear the fog on the eastern tile - I wouldn't want to be running away from a goodie.

Too bad you are financial - this looks like great terrain for an MCP.

Edit: miscounted on the diagonal

Potentially two city sites connected by a river. Move quecha east to check out potential of city#2, move settler 1 tile sw then review options.
You missed out 'we're south of the equator judging by the resource pointers probably between the desert belt and the equator'.

The position seems good..

so much floodplains : 7 in the fat cross = -2.8 health =-2
but you have at least 6 forests : +3 health
2 you may need to cut for defense use them wisely as you will then only have +2 from forest, just negating the floodplains.

But :
_you are not connected to the river : at least 1 road to build before being connected to any other civ / ressource. so you will need wheel sooner than later.

_already 7 FP, 1 lake, 1 hut, 6 forests, 1 corn : 16 tiles already used
4 unused but 3 of them are touching the corn.
IMO you have only 1 tile 2E1N that have decent chances of containing a ressource (strategic or not + maybe 1 on the hidden forest WSW)(other tiles around corn may have strategic ressources but AFAIK it happens rarely to have many different ressources in close-by tiles). (and it seems to me that presence of floodplains often reduces/compensate the number of ressources in the capital fat cross in most of my games)

So you have a good capital site, but
-beware the chop-addiction
-link you to the river
-quickly build/conquer some cities to have some ressources in your empire.

or you can move to another site, but here I'm not experimented enough to give good advices

I am thinking of building Angkor Wat en have Priest for production and gold. Combined with founding a religion and building a shrine, you will have great GP production. Settle some priest in the city, bureacracy = Commerce Heaven City

I don't think Oracle is much needed if you found a religion first. Otherwise, could a Oracle/Angkor Wat combo be pulled of at Monarch??

voek said:

Otherwise, could a Oracle/Angkor Wat combo be pulled of at Monarch??

Click to expand...

If you're really lucky and can whip and chop to your hearts content then you might. Judging by the starting position, you don't have THAT many trees, but the floodplains would hopefully help get your population up quick enough to be able to whip once or twice.

Well the Oracle is nice, but might not be needed. If you go religion first the Oracle religion becomes less desirable. The free tech is good of course but not necessary. The flood plains combined with cottages while the excess food goes to hiring priest which will produce 2 hammers and 5(?at normal?) gold and GP points is nice combo for this city I think. This city could afford great expansion which is in line with domination/spaceship.

BTW: The location and this thread from kniteowl brought this to my mind.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=187881

In my opinion:
Not going to give advice on where to settle, many people more knowledgeable than me there.

But, the ALC "theme" is to get the feel for and discuss strengths of the different civs, right? In that case, I'd NOT build a worker first at all. Starting build should obviously be your UNIQUE unit, the quechua, aight?

You will get a worker from some friendly neighbouring civ that way to build your farms, and possibly another city. 3 Qs might well take a 2-archer city. 4 Qs will unless it's on hills

About research, the Qs mean you don't need military techs, so you might go for religion (polytheism) before mining and BW (for the whip mainly)

Also, be sure to have one or two farms on floodplains for quick pop-growth after a whip. Don't go all cottage quite yet.

Oh yeah I would not build barracks yet. It costs the same as 4 Qs.
(Does a quick mathematical gesture)
Say you give all your units cover promotion. That way you would need to build 16 Qs with barracks to get the same striking power as if you didnt build Bs. (16 operating at +25% ~ 20 operating at base). Okay Ill admit it's not this simple, but numbers surely beat quality in the beginning, and your Qs have a short life span (or attention-span)

You can gun for taking out a civ's capital, by concentrating Qs, or you can cripple several civs by keeping a fortified Q on a forest (hill) near capital so they never can improve lands. If you start with a few worker-steals you are on your way

I don't have the numbers in my head, but did you take into account the half priced barracks for agressive?

I am in favour of Quechua's first. You prob. don't need to build a worker anyway.

Oops, I did not take into account half-priced barracks.
So thats 8 post-barrack Qs to equal 10 non-barrack'd
But of course for the rest of the game you get the benefit of the barracks.
But I don't see this as a grand production city for the rest of the game, so I'd still not build it.

Hi all,

I've been lurking around in previous ALC and enjoyed it!

From my experience, their's often gold near such a flood plains area ... I would definitevely spend a few turns exploring the area ... rushing polytheism (no way for meditation) then may be harder but even if you don't catch it, it's on the path to litterature?? and monotheism ...

From my point of view, this kind of start location really requires exploration in order to optimize the 2 or 3 first cities ...
Leading in tech with a financial leader in monarch is not that hard with 2 or 3 good location ... and if you find gold in the area this would be easy ...

EDIT : sorry if somme translation are not that good ...

Well you should take more into account then just attacking force. Esp. at the higher levels unit upkeep also is very important. With quechua's you will have a lot more units then you normally would at this point in the game, costing you money. Esp. after taking a enemy capital (lets assume this happens) the maintenance cost also kick in. One of the biggest problems with quechua's rush is watch out to destroy your economy too early, since it's so early CoL and currency are still far away.

So higher quality quechua's are cheaper then more quechua's. Most often I build a few unpromoted and when I have captured 1 or 2 workers I will chop barracks with those. In this case, you might whip it.

I would settle in place. For a capital this site is major with financial. Flood plains galore, enough forests to counter the unhealthiness, some grassland hills on the left and a very big chance to get at least 1 strategic resource in your BFC since you hardly start with only 1 resource in the BFC. Quecha 1 SW seems logical. Should it reveal some more hills/resources then the movement of 1S or 1SE with the settler could be a possibility so you also get the connection to the river.

Poly or meditation is a go with this setup. You should be able to grab one. And about the quecha's stealing workers, now that would be interesting also. I hardly ever steal workers. Looks like you are set to go.

Ok Sisi, 'fess up. How many children did you sacrifice to the RNG gods? (I've actually seen better Monarch starts; [Fish,Clams,5-Flood,3-Gold])

Settle on site. You are guaranteed fresh water without having to destroy a floodplain! And you get freshwater corn to boot! (6 instead of 5 in the dry). Not only that, but you start with agriculture, so you don't even have to worry about any tech diversions for your farm.

Go ahead and found a religion. You'll be making +1 from working the floodplains, so you're guaranteed whichever one you want. After that, go for bronzeworking for the whips, and I might actually recommend pottery right after that.

Religion to keep you happy, rivers to spread the religion, ample food to feed the whips, granaries to speed your growth and yet more whips! Depending on how the scouting turns out, you might be able to pull-off a whip-happy Quechua-rush. Or you might even be lucky enough to find some metal nearby, and then all bets are off. I think that you can probably figure out how best to exploit the situation in presented before you.

i don't see any advantage of "settler exploration" here : you have all you need!
2 options for settling :
1) right where you are :
pros:
- 7 FP!
- fresh water and loads of forest for health!
- corn = food and 2 health with granary!
- you pop the hut with the first expansion
cons :
- not many production-friendly tiles (forest is a bit weak)
- not on the river = need for road = need for a worker+ teching to wheel (not a big deal IMHO, pottery requires wheel!)

2) on the FP SW of initial position
pros :
- still a lot of FP (hard to guess, but 5+)
- corn
- on the river = fresh water + trade route+possible 3 gorges dam (daydreaming :crazyeyes
- gives room for another high commerce city on the river
- high odds to have a few more hills
- a little more exploration done
cons:
- out of the initial fat cross, there is jungle and desert (inside there is forest and grassland) = high odds to have a largely less valuable fat cross
- you lose FP to gain a plain =

IMHO, you can chose one of the 2 following ways :
1) settle where you are, go for the wheel while building a worker, then go for pottery and for a real CS slingshot, without religion, but going for CoL with cottages = not much risk.
2) move SW, go for polytheism (meditation looks bad to me, if isabella is around with a lake, since she can work it , while building a quechua, then priesthood while building a settler, then oracle while teching to ?, slingshot will probably be harder, unless there is a goody down there (gold!)

I favor option 1. You need the worker soon, you need the wheel soon. Who cares for buddhism?

Move the quecha 1SW to see what you can, but I would probably favor settling in place over anything the quecha would find. There should be room for another good city on this river even if there is a little overlap so the only detriment to not moving is a lack of hills.

I vote for researching wheel -> pottery first while building quechas to steal your first worker and maybe choking an AI with those early units.

Love these threads, keep them up!

welcome to the forums Olgruk!

I don't think you can ever have too many flood plains in a commerce city, as long as you can work them all. Even at negative health they're still 2.5 food, and they're always river tiles.