King of the World #6: Huayna Capac

Round 0: South of the Border
Round 1: Don't Cry For Me, Argentina (4000 B.C. - 1400 B.C.)
Round 2: Slow Expansion (1400 B.C. - 40 A.D.)
Round 3: Almost Full (40 A.D. - 700 A.D.)
Round 4: The Wider World (700 A.D. - 1330 A.D.)
Round 5: The Wealth of Nations (1330 A.D. - 1555 A.D.)
Round 6: The Round With No Name (1555 A.D. - 1754 A.D.)
Round 7: Inca Ascendant (1754 A.D. - 1828 A.D.)
Round 8: World War is Hell (1828 A.D. - 1910 A.D.)

The King of the World series seeks to explore the unique challenges and opportunities presented by the Earth maps in Civ IV: Beyond the Sword 3.17.

In this game, we will attempt to thrive in the isolated highlands of the Andes and the steaming jungles of the Amazon as Huayna Capac:



Huayna Capac is a powerhouse leader saddled with a rough starting location. He is Financial and Industrious, two extremely strong traits for an isolated builder. His Unique Building attaches a Culture bonus to a building (the Granary) that every city wants and that's attached to a key tech for a Financial Leader (Pottery), in effect giving him a watered-down version of the Creative trait, as well. His Unique Unit, the Quecha, is a beefed-up Warrior that can make him a military powerhouse in the early game. The Inca even start with Mysticism, allowing for the pursuit of an early religion. Effectively, Huayna Capac has it all.

Well, except for a decent start:



Isolated starts are one thing, but this is ridiculous. Deserts, mountains, and no way out until Sailing.

Of course, once we get some Galleys up and running, we have access to some great land:



So we have options. Should we shoot for a religion? Should our second city be in Chile or in Panama? Heck, where should we found the capital? That South America map came out rather well, so I'd love to see some dotmaps.

Quecha rush, quecha rush! Settle 2W and quecha rush Monty(you need sailing obviously, probably mining before that so you can mine those two hills)! 4 tiles to work before you hook up the silver and 5 to work afterwards means you need to move your capital sooner or later(maybe to the 20 watermills site in the middle of everything?). With monty out of the game you can rex out south america then take out roosy somewhere in the middle of the game(probably with rifles). Early tech path something like mining -> fishing -> sailing -> something(bw?). After controling south america you should be able to win the game fairly easy, maybe you'll even find some backwards civs to trade with along the way...

Does all the resources show in youre picture. If I remember correctly there are Iron in central Brazil two north of the corn, and one more at the coast, one north of the gems. My memory might be bad though

Regenerate the map - thats my advice.

Settle your 2nd city in ecuador, the copper is in a crappy location, but do you really need it? Quecha rush if you want to, great wall would be awsome for settling the amazon and brazil later.
i could have sworn he started out with stone nearby....well that what worldbuilder is for maybe i got the map confused with the one from rhye's and fall, dam start is even crappier then, at least u have gold, and corn, and silver....once you can actually get over the andes to mine it, 2w is good for capitol

2 S is not bad either.

Settle 1 E. Settlers have to move less, instant access to coast and Galleys.

Build Order: Worker, Quechua, Settler, Galley
Settle the Dye/Corn area up north, then the weak copper site to the South.

Tech Order: Agriculture, Mining, Fishing, Sailing

2S takes up a useless desert plot and gives you access to copper after your capital expands twice

How about the desert plot 3W 1N? That also ropes in the Whales.

And 2S would allow chain irrigation from the freshwater lake to the coastal plains tiles via the city site when he gets Civil Service. Also it would give +2 health for fresh water.

Played the world with Huanya once, I settled 2S then smacked my second city down 2E of the corn in the south, with slavery that city pumps out settlers and workers at a great rate, the overview here doesn't highlight some food resources there: that city will have 4 of them. The corn 2W, the fish 1E1SE, game 2E and another corn 2N, it's difficult to see in this picture. There's no reason to rush Monty as I see it: it takes a long time, it's far away, there's not way to connect N- and S-America without hopping on boats every time, and the amazon delta is the best piece of realestate on the map after ironworking. You can just cottage the lot: there's enough hills for early production and with levees and universal suffrage all those cottages will be producing 2 hammers. There's no chance for a victory earlier that steam power anyway, you'll be fighting to regain ground lost on the eurasian AIs.

could have sworn he started out with stone nearby....

Click to expand...

Only in the RFC mod, there are 2 stones, one 2 s of start and one between the 2 coppers. But you arent industrious in that mod, the unique power of Incas is the possibility to work peak tiles (2 food 1 hammer).. so the cities within this mountains can grow realy big.

Maybe you should take a look at this mod, the world map there is a lot better then from earth 18civs.

How the heck is whales better than a corn and a hill? O_o

Whales wont be useful until Optics. So the city 3W + 1N should wait until later.

Settle 1 E. Settlers have to move less, instant access to coast and Galleys.

Click to expand...

Good idea! Settling on the mountain means that units can get into the Amazon without ships! (Or did you mean 1W, on the gold? Probably not such a hot choice, either)

GreatNinja said:

2S takes up a useless desert plot and gives you access to copper after your capital expands twice

Click to expand...

2S is where I settle if I'm playing Inca.

It's coastal, gets rid of a useless tile, gives +2 for fresh water and as has been pointed out, it allows you to chain irrigation to the corn post-CS. What's not to like about that?

The main problem you'll have initially is a low pre-HR happy cap and a lack of hammers. Cuzco won't be a great whipping factory either. I'd focus on expanding to the crab/deer site (which has decent early production potential) and then settling S America from the Rio area northwards. Experience suggests you'll need a lot of units to clear the waves of barbs away from your workers though. Getting some axes up to woody3 is invaluable for this.

Settle 2 west and quickly settle South America (don't even bother settling a second city to the west of the Andes. 2 west of the starting location gets you a second corn. 2 south is really poor in my opinion.

I would say get a couple of production cities to spit out fogbusters, settlers, workers, and later on HR police. Monarchy is a priority. Whip a Terrace in each commerce city, and let them slow build the other multipliers until you stagnate at the health cap. Cottage spam while heading to Emancipation. I wouldn't even bother with Monty: let him beat up on Roosevelt all game while staying backward--no problem crippling him later on if he becomes a nuisance.

When I had played this I had settle (quite quickly) 4 cities in this side of the moutain rang:

- Capital 2S for coast+lake (3f with lght)+bring irrigation to corn and further (you have enough food and production for the early setller and Wonders)
- Another city 3W1N (on desert) will also bring irragation to the 2nd corn (+silver in BFC when amazonia is ours) this will be worker-settlers production.
- Copper city 1S of the desert copper (need it for facing the barbarians) - early military producer
- on the dye north (for corn) - ths one could be delayed.

Then settle a panama - canal city and/or a city south 1N of Deer. Be carefull to bring enough military (archer+axe) as barbarians are in force [was playing on emperor], but you have very good defensive positions (forrest/jungle hills blockading point).

I was letting Monte and GW have a go at each other and was playing happily on my own in South America up to being first to Optics (then stop as it was turning to be to slow).

Sailing of course should prioritized (and GLH/colossus will help you lots every seaside city will bring money with 2/0/4 seaside tiles - I even colonise the the small pacific island facing to be Maoi (and help all trade routes) and whipping is your friend with all this corn.

How's this look for a dotmap?