Playing as Inca

Hey; I've browsed parts of the forum here and keep seeing recommendations for Inca as a top-tier civ (Bibor, for example, seems to keep mentioning them). Any suggestions on how to play? Will automated workers build hill terraces? Cultural border expansions also tend to grab non-hill tiles, as I understand it, meaning that you have to be aggressive with purchasing hill tiles.

Any general suggestions on playing them? Preferred wonders/policies?

Automating workers is never a good idea. There are already several threads about how bad they are. As such I never automate mine.

Cultural expansions do grab hills unless there is a better tile to grab, such as grassland/plains/resource. Mountains are the hardest to get via cultural. I haven't bought very many tiles when I play the Incas.

I'd suggest getting archery fairly early, if not one of the first techs. This will allow you to build a lot of the UUs. Don't get machinery until you've got rifling. It's also a good idea to check "allow promotion saving" in the advanced options. This will let you save the promotions from this ranged UU for when it becomes a rifleman. That way you can give it melee promotions that will benefit it after the upgrade.

While not as powerful as other UUs that upgrade to riflemen, that chance to flee is nice, especially if you have a wounded unit with an enemy in range. When they flee, no combat takes place. You don't have to have movement points left at the end of your turn for this flee chance promotion to work. You do, however, need to have an adjacent tile open they can flee to. I think the open tile need to be on one of the 3 opposite the side the enemy attacks from.

Building your cities next to a mountain is especially good with the Incas. For each mountain tile that's next to a hill tile, the terrace gives 1 food. So 3 mountains touching it = +3 food.

As for wonders and Policies, well that depends on which victory condition your going for. Machu Picchu is a really good one to try to get. I always try to build it in Machu (3rd city) if I can.

When my workers have nothing better to do, I have them build roads/railroads on every hill tile, just for the slight increase in movement speed. After all you don't pay tile maintenance for any road/railroad on a hill. The half cost of roads/railroads on non-hill tiles is really nice too.

skreeblios said:

Hey; I've browsed parts of the forum here and keep seeing recommendations for Inca as a top-tier civ (Bibor, for example, seems to keep mentioning them). Any suggestions on how to play? Will automated workers build hill terraces? Cultural border expansions also tend to grab non-hill tiles, as I understand it, meaning that you have to be aggressive with purchasing hill tiles.

Any general suggestions on playing them? Preferred wonders/policies?

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Unique Ability
try to build your roads on hills, even if it means a slightly longer route. Railroads and roads on hills cost 0 upkeep. Also, you are free to road all extra hills that might come handy - river crossings, borders, embarkment-friendly tiles etc. Also, you can make more distant cities without hampering connection costs. Cities 6 or more hexes away, especially with hill tiles in-between become a possibility. If you have unhabitable areas near your capital this will be a blessing.
No penalty movement on hills means your units will have a very strong strategic advantage over the enemy. It affects civilian units as well, so your settlers and workers can reach desired tiles sooner.

Unique unit
Your archery (and upgraded crossbows, rifles etc.) will retreat from a melee attack without taking damage. Fast-moving units like horsemen have a higher chance to negate this ability. But I disagree with Monthar - feel free to promote them, but after picking the first one, go with City Raider I. This promotion will work on rifles as well and unlock other promotions that transfer to melee units. This way you "waste" only one promotion (and it still works for offense).

Unique Improvement
Although it can be build on any hill, I suggest building them only on hills adjacent to mountains. A terrace adjacent to a single mountain will grant 22 (equaling a sheep pasture), while subsequent adjacent mountains will increase the food by 1 (thus a terrace adjacent to 3 mountains will generate 42). Hilly areas of the map are usually food-poor, so use this ability to found thriving cities in otherwise unhabitable areas.

I'm playing my first game as the Inca now and I am loving it. I think they may be my new favorite Civ to play. Terrace farms are great!

Hill start means good production. Mountains are friend not foe With them. Observatory is possible. Oh and Terrace Farms are amazing.. I've had several 7 food 2 production tiles. Their biggest problem are the stupid sheep! Every other Civ sheep are okay but Inca they are a curse. And of course them seem to always spawn on that tile that could be 5-7 food Terrace Farm.

z284pwr said:

Hill start means good production. Mountains are friend not foe With them. Observatory is possible. Oh and Terrace Farms are amazing.. I've had several 7 food 2 production tiles. Their biggest problem are the stupid sheep! Every other Civ sheep are okay but Inca they are a curse. And of course them seem to always spawn on that tile that could be 5-7 food Terrace Farm.

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Hill sheep could be a nuisance but once you make stables their production could really add up once you pasture other sheep and other pasturable animals.

One thing I'd like to ask, do you guys build mines on normal hill tiles even with no adjacent mountain with the Inca or do you just terrace farm everything?

Terrace farms on hills without mountains give 1 Food, 2 Prod. With a mine, it's 3 Prod and 0 Food. Later techs give you +1 Food or Prod. So it depends... Usually 2 Food is great, because it's self sufficient. But if the city has already a good food surplus, i'll rather build mines.

Erneiz Hyde said:

One thing I'd like to ask, do you guys build mines on normal hill tiles even with no adjacent mountain with the Inca or do you just terrace farm everything?

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Terrace farm hills next to mountains because you don't get any extra food from terrace farms that aren't next to mountains. Terrace farming any hills would be like making any farms unless there's an exception of any kind.

The exception is that you can even build a terrace farm in the first place. Ordinarily you can only farm a hill that has fresh water access. You can put a terrace farm on any hill.

Thanks for some of these tips, I'm sure they'll help me play the incans properly in future

#1 don't automate workers, ever.

If you have hills touching mountains then definitely terrace farm those. Stand alone hills are a decision. If you are lacking production then mine them up. If you are lacking food then farm them up. If you are getting ready to build an important wonder or go to war then ramp up production. If you are trying to grow and get a science lead then farm them.

Inca are pretty crazy and fun to play.