The Deity Challenge Lineup - Game # 5 - The Inca

t150 and my capitol is 26 (but the terrain unfortunately means that your growth will probably stall around 30 because no grassland and fertilizer will not help that much... Freedom is kinda required to grow it further)... Oracle, Sistine, Pisa, Hagia and Borobudur on 3 cities... won't spoil but there are some serious runaways far away and you'd do well to try to keep the barrier of CSs alive.
One of them is on the opposite side of the map and has their cap (ToA, HG, Petra and a bunch of flood plains... just nasty) at size 34 and in industrial atm...

Your cities will grow huge with the UI so best not overexpand.

I did give it a try and i must say i am impressed that kb27787 did manage to build any wonders because in my game Oracle was gone T65, Hagia and Borobodur T67 and Sistine T80....

I will update my game later but i think it will be a mess because the war with Russia and Ashurbanipal is ongoing for a while now and hindering the growth / science

Hill, river & mountain start with Pacha so this screams Tradition & sci therefore I'll start with with Liberty, avoid Rationalism and won't settle for SV.
Double scout & actively scouting warrior and I still managed to avoid any culture ruins. First ones were T2 Pottery, T4 pop then maps and some gold.

Stole a worker from Assyria T11, DoWed Mombasa for future enterprises and got seriously harrassed by barbs which is so much a novelty that I had to check whether I missed raging barbs again like in the last ICL but no, just extremely unfortunate camp spawns so it took a while to get my new stolen worker to homelands. It also meant that it took until ~T55 until I met everyone though others where doing even worse in that respect. Again one of those stupid maps where starting location makes too much of a difference and the mountain range in the middle doesn't help.

T39 Earth Mother pantheon as nothing much else remotely useful was available. 2nd city just before T50 and 3rd few turns after that. Genghis took Mombasa before I could get a single worker or xp from them so I paid him to DoW Cathy T60, settled 4th city T62 & made peace with Assyria and then DoWed Genghis T63.
Captured Mombasa T81 and kept it as I was planning the 5th city South of it to launch a proper invasion to Karakorum. Didn't happen as I didn't wanna hang around with CBs against Keshiks.
T83 Oracle & finished Liberty and T85 founded a religion which didn't make any sense. NC T95. Hiawatha was swarming my borders so I couldn't build roads, Sejong was turning into disliking me, Augustus never liked me but friends with Pedro, Cathy & Hammu.

T99 denounced Hiawatha as I expected DoW and started moving troops there. The Spy News Daily had articles of Hiawatha approaching two of my cities but those were unreliable. Anyway, made peace with Genghis for a lux as I saw massive Russian army nearby T110, encouraged Hiawatha to attack Pedro instead and DoWed him T121.




The war with Hiawatha is a logistical nightmare. He's allied with Ragusa & Kathmandu so I have go through Brazil in the South but even getting there takes a while. The worse news is that I don't have a single Xbow with range or logistics due shortage of Mongolian troops. Another problem is the lack of roads so moving in the jungles is sloooow.

T132 finally Renaissance by Astronomy and T138 Pedro makes peace with Hiawatha and gives Salvador away with I took right away with heavy assistance by Wellington though I lost a unit, too and next turn a few more as apparently Pedro gave OB as well besides Hiawatha uses Brasilian forrests like they were his own. A quick GG bomb make a bit of a room but I wasted few turns for not thinking at all and made a road through Hiawatha's land instead of the neutral territory.
Killing few units here & there while Ragusan swimming team is surrounding Machu and while I founded WC Pedro snaps LoTP.
Oddly enough Augustus was 1st to Industrial T142 and Hiawatha followed two turns later so my single Xbow with range is hopefully up to the task of bringing Akwesasme down with the help of few more GG bombs. I need Odondaga fast, preferrably yesterday to avoid riflemen at this point.

Settled at the mountain, found Pottery as everyone but then nothing else but maps, maps, maps and MAPS!.
Did go double scout, monument, granary, caravan, settler.

Stole a worker from Russia T7 and made white peace soon. Did decide not to steal one from Mombasa because i had just finished a quest for them. i just produced 2 worker in 3 turns each in that beasty production capital.

Got NC ~ T70 with 2 cities and settled a third city directly afterwards. (got a bit blocked by the assyrian so Machu was not placed very good but no other space available)

As i said before no wonders were possible because they were all gone. First wonder i was able to build was PT.

Got Education T105



As u can see, Assyria and me have very close borders and he is not happy about it, so i need to spend a good chunk of gold to keep him away and attack sth else (Genghis or Brazil)

T150 i was able to close the gap to the AI techwise and the top 7 civs were in range of 2%tech


I barely lost the Worlds Fair to Hiawatha by 5 freaking hammers but i did not want to reload so i had to live with my ridicolous low Culture output (because there was only a single cultural CS left, after Genghis killed two)



Finished PT T170 and reached public schools short afterwards.
I was unfortunately not the first one to choose an ideology (Brazil got Order as first one) so i chose Freedom.
In the beginning the pressure was ok, but in the end about -35 happiness which was not easy to revert and stay happy all day long (but i achieved it with a 3 Turn interruption)

I was able to sign 6-7 RAs in the midgame which helped a good bit and reached Plastics T210 and Satellites T246.


By that time everyone but Hiawatha denounced and hated me (for whatever reasons) and it got ugly from there.

Got DoW'ed by Assyria and Russia T250 and Brazil + ROme T254

Assyria was no danger with a good placed citadel, Brazil did nothing and Rome just destroyed 2 Trade routes. The only problem was Russia who suicided a lot of units but blocked some tiles and my sea ressources.
I also decided to get Manhattan project and some safety bombs which were really needed in the end.


I was able to buy 2 parts with freedom but ran out of gold for one part which i had to build and in the last 15 turns Russia really heated things up.

I did need to use 2 Atomic bombs to clear 2 screens of units and still i got nearly overwhelmed while build the last part...

Still T282 SV


Fun Fact of the Game:
Number of successful Coups from Mongolia in Hanoi : 14
Number of lost Spies from Mongolia in Hanoi: 0

Picture of my empire:



I decided to move one tile to the right and settle there. I actually considered settling in place, in order to save a turn of movement, keep both Wheat in the first ring, and preserve a spot for a Terrace Farm. However, as the Inca there’s a good chance you’ll have access to Observatories in multiple cities, so Astronomy is likely something to prioritize. If you’re detouring to Astronomy anyway, you might as well settle by a mountain and get an Observatory in the capitol too.

Ruins: Culture on turn 3, Slinger upgrade on turn 10, Barb camps on turn 24

Not a ton of ruins, but the early Culture ruin is by far the most important one you can get, so I’m happy with this.

Tech Order: Pottery – Mining – Animal Husbandry – Writing – Calendar – Philosophy

I’m beelining National College pretty hard here. I normally prefer to durdle around a bit while settling more cities, but it looked like all the spots I wanted would go relatively uncontested, so I decided to science-focus.

Policy Order: Tradition opener, Legalism, Landed Elite, Monarchy

Nothing fancy here. Nice to be able to open Tradition on turn 6, of course.

Build Orders:

Capitol: Scout, Scout, Granary, Scout, Shrine, Caravan, Settler, Settler, Library, Settler in progress

City 2: (Buy Granary), Library

City 3: Library

The fourth Settler will just hang out and wait until I get National College. That guy will go on the tile NE of the Marble… First two Settlers were built at five pop… A third Scout is something I always prioritize highly whenever I hit an Archer ruin – the Archer has more valuable stuff to do than scout, but you still need to be uncovering the map. In addition, my Warrior was occupied with stealing from Russia, so I really needed another exploring unit.

I have four workers right now, all of them freebies. I got two from Russia, one of which would not have been possible without the Inca UA. I took another one from a random Militaristic city-state later on, just because it was there. A bit later still, my Scout ran into an unescorted Iroquois Settler heading toward Uluru. I figured I might as well take it. A couple turns later, Hiawatha was kind enough to gift me another Worker, although this one was tragically lost to a freshly-spawned barb camp on the way home. Assyria then settled a city blocking my access to said camp, so I’ll have to make do with “only” four workers for now.

I got third pantheon despite delaying my Shrine a bit. Choosing a pantheon was tough – it looked like I could definitely found a religion if I took Earth Mother, but Russia had Piety and first religion, so I thought I might be better off just accepting her religion. If I decided I didn’t care about founding, culture from pastures looked like a very nice pantheon option. Ultimately, I decided to go for Earth Mother and try to get a religion – I want to get a culture victory and use Patronage, so I think there’s a high chance I’ll want to force through World Religion for a big tourism bonus.

Only other interesting thing worth noting is that I bought Gems from Ashburnipal to fulfill a quest from Monaco. Gotta get those Cultural allies, y’know?

Still two civs left to meet, so it’s possible that my plans could change a bit. At the moment, though, the wonders have been slow to go, and I think I’ll have a good chance of doing some serious wonder-spamming in the midgame.

This kind of map makes my brain hurt for picking optimal settling spots. SO many choices. I indeed moved the warrior south and instead saw a 1-move hill/river/mtn spot that was where i settled the cap. I settled Tiwanaku on the marble to the west, the one most south of the two. decided against a mtn spot for all those terrace locations. i was pissed when one became Iron, haha. Im at t113, 2 turns from Education (sidetracked to discover Iron locations for Earth Mother pantheon). I have 3 cities, Machu was definitely a gamble and a mistake. I settled about 12 tiles from cap south towards Genghis who was still 10+ tiles from that. I was hoping Genghis (who I had a DoF with) wouldnt settle right near it taking a couple prime terrace spots but he did and he took Monaco (and Hanoi before I met him) and bought tiles into me from the other side. If i need to replay this I will certainly not do the Machu location.

I went full tradition and have about 12 turns til the next policy. I missed Oracle by 5 turns at t84 to Korea. The big surprise was when Hiawatha offer me Cotton, 1gpt, and an embassy for Open Borders. Never got that before from anyone. He never sent anyone into my territory. Lots of wonders fell. Alhambra to Genghis on t102. GL went t33 so jko1 snagging it is seriously awesome. Im definitely going for SV/Diplo as I havent played a tall Inca game in a long time and this terrain will be neat to maybe get 2 cities over 30 pop. Machu might get to 20 but I doubt it. More details later. Off to work.

Screnshot:



I’ve already been on the receiving end of three DOWs – one each from Assyria, Mongolia, and Russia. None were able to penetrate my mountain stronghold. Assyria could’ve been a nuisance, but he focused all of his attention on Monaco, even managing to capture it. I got myself into position to take it back, and after liberating it a second time I was able to get peace – he even gave me 180 gold for my troubles. Meanwhile, Russia decided to have a fresh Great Prophet wandering in my lands when she DOW’ed. I graciously accepted the gift and now have a Holy Site on the Wheat NW of Ollantaytambo.

My religion is going to be fairly strong – beliefs are Tithe, Religious Community, Feed the World, and Itinerant Preachers. I’m about to pop some Missionaries and bring the good word to Assyria. None of Assyria/Brazil/Mongolia have a religion, so I should be able to get some pretty good spread. That will also help a lot when I eventually go for World Religion.

Two wonders so far (Oracle and Hagia Sophia). Education will unlock on T101, then I’ll beeline Astronomy. With so many hammers, I’m just going to go ahead and hard-build Universities everywhere. Gold is reserved for city-state gifts.

In global politics: Korea went Honor and is last in points, so no runaway Sejong this game. Brazil is in Exploration – guess I won’t be bothering with the Louvre. I have DOFs with Brazil and Korea. Mongolia attacked Assyria, so I don’t have to worry about either of them. I could easily fight them off, anyway.

I went with just one city. Hiawatha won a cultural victory in 284 turns. CS were embargoed and so was I. Then Cathy and Hiawatha DoW'd me. I held them off but it slowed me down too much. I got abused pretty bad at the end.

Lovely start. Took the mountain hill to the east.

Scout->Scout->Monument->Warr->Settler

Decided to go full Tradition (nice capital with a mountain).

Stole an early worker from Cathy and from Mombasa. Unfortunately a barb camp spawned exactly where I wanted to settle first:



Built Oracle (for Patronage Opener). Also 3-city NC (t80), followed by two more cities. I like these Incan fellows t100: