The Community Deity Game #13 - THE Inca

In this game you will be playing as Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, the 9th Sapa Inca of the Kingdom of Cusco. As well as being a very good looking and sharply dressed lad, you also have the ability to build the Great Andean Road (these are even more fun when you research the technology "All Terrain Vehicles"), construct the aesthetically pleasing and quite powerful Terrace Farm, and command the greatest warriors the world will ever know; The Mighty Incan Slinger!!!!!

Standard Size, Standard Speed, Standard # of Civs and CS, raging barbarians. Map type is Fractal, which means it can be somewhat random. Map was not altered (mostly because I have no clue how to do so).

If you survive long enough, you'll meet 5 other native American tribes as well as a couple of historical European conquerors....errrr.....colonists.

Medium: Inca are a strong Civ but get no real bonuses towards CV. Several of the opponents have the ability to make CV challenging.

A. Build/buy at least 10 Slingers and keep them alive all game. They may be upgraded. (3 points)
B. 1 point for each Wonder built or captured that has a theming bonus AND is fully themed (8 points possible).
C. Build your capital as large as possible (30+ = 1 point, 35+ = 2 points, 40+ = 3 points, 45+ = 4 points).
D. Build a ton of Terrace Farms (for purpose of achievement points, only Terrace Farms adjacent to mountains count). (10+ = 1 point, 15+ = 2 points, 20+ = 3 points, 25+ = 4 points).
E. Build Machu Pichu. (1 point, + 1 bonus point if it is built IN Machu).

Fun Bonus Points - Steal land from using and/or convert the two European nations' capitals to YOUR religion (1 point for the land steal, 1 point for having the capitals of both of the European invaders' capitals worship your religion at game end).

I have no idea how to make this work. I'll try to edit it in later if someone can give me instruction.

I settled one spot over on the sheep next to the mountain. With CV as the goal, science needs to be priority and I'm not going to give up an Observatory for a smelly flock. With all of that desert, I'm immediately thinking Petra (which might have something to do with why I chose this map).

Warrior went North, got a Pottery ruin on t2, so science is off to a great start. He met the religious CS a few turns later, so religion is off to a good start. He then went East, got a culture ruin and met Antwerp who has KSM and has a good Terrace Farm location. I'm already considering Antwerp to be one of my expos with that type of terrain and being so close to my capital and planned expos, so I stole his worker and did not give peace. Antwerp, you will be mine!!!

B.O. was Scout, Monument, Shrine, Granary, ToA (t43), Library, Pyramids (t70), Petra (t80), Oracle (t89), NC (t96). I bought 3 Slingers. Yeah, that's a lot of early Wonders, but considering that this is a CV game, I want some GE's for later Wonders, and 3 of those Wonders give GE points. The first GE popped around t90, and I built an early Garden and will get National Epic up ASAP. Cusco is a very nice city already.

Scout went West, met a couple of CS and Portugal and Brazil. Brazil had decided not to do any Eastern exploration, so the Scout picked up 4 more ruins, 3 right in his backyard, including 60 faith, a pop ruin, and he became a Sclinger (Incan version of a Scarcher). He then came home to work on barb camps, CS quests, and then XP up against Antwerp.

Culture path was: Tradition opener, Left side of Liberty, Aristocracy (to help with Wonder-mongering), and I'm a few turns from finishing Tradition. Not sure where I'll go after that, but I may beeline to either LToP or SC since I have a GE sitting around waiting. No thoughts of planting the GE as I've got loads of production in Cusco already.

I did get first pantheon and took DF, so it was no surprise that I was able to found the Holy Order of Shark Diving first. Tithe and Pagodas. It seems that both Portugal and Maya have pretty strong religions, as both have sent Missionaries towards me already and my NE expo is practicing Portugal's Catholicism already. I got one Pagoda in Cusco, but had to buy a Missionary to convert expos 2 & 3 to start some religious pressure. I did buy a Cathedral in Tiwanaku, courtesy of Maria, but I'll probably have to work to get my religion in there. Perhaps.....I am building temples very early so Grand Temple will be up soon.

My first expo went NW by the lake/mountain to grab the Cotton, block Portugal, and grab some good TF sites. 2nd expo went for a long walk to the coast to grab Rock of Gibraltar (and some other good tiles). This did not make Hiawatha very happy and he felt compelled to make his displeasure at my settling habits known. I, of course, apologized profusely and pinky-swore not to do so in the future. Of course, I then proceeded to pump out a 3rd expo to grab the NE mountain area just South of Antwerp and now Hiawatha decided to send about a dozen Mohawk Warriors towards me to see what was so attractive about my lands. He's also the tech leader so I'm thinking I may be in for just a bit of trouble, especially considering my capital already had 4 Wonders.

I let him get his troops all the way to Cusco's borders, then mined a purchased Copper tile and used it to bribe Pocatello to DoW Hiawatha. The Iriquois troops are going to have a very long trek back to defend his lands and I'm not giving him open borders to help him. Perhaps Pocatello can set him back some.

Spain asked me to DoW Portugal around t50 and I gladly accepted as Maria had some desert around her. I don't think they fought too hard as they made peace somewhat quickly and I did the same shortly thereafter. I'm too busy focusing on my arch-enemy Antwerp (and I'm not kidding).

Never in the history of this game has a CS spammed so many advanced units out. Antwerp even got my nearby city down to 0 hp (but no melee units) at one point. Between worrying about Hiawatha and losing my fight with Antwerp (no units lost) I had to research Construction earlier than I had planned, so I only got 5 Slingers built so that Achievement is toast.

Right now, Cusco is pumping out units/buildings every 3 turns and I should be able to surround Antwerp and take the city without casualties, even with its very tough defensive terrain, IF, and that's a big IF, I can ever whittle his units down so I can get close. In the meantime, I'm getting some serious XP and the Sclinger already has Logistics.

CS quests have been very good to me and I've had friends/allies constantly keeping me (barely) happy without spending a dime. Sadly, Ur is my ally and they have Whales, but since the city spawned off the coast, they aren't working the Whales. I'm wondering if I can send a work boat up there for them?

Big decision here is which Cultural Wonder to beeline after my rather late Unis.

Also, I've met everyone besides Monte. If he's on an island all alone it could spell trouble for CV. I guess that's why we have Music. Because pop growth is good in all expos, I'm going to split up the Guilds and Tiwanaku is finishing up Writer's guild already. Perhaps I'll head straight to Acoustics to get GMs going early as well.

One last note: Pyramids with Inca is really powerful. You get your free roads and TF up quickly and the pillage repair in hills is awesome.

First settler was from Liberty. 2nd and 3rd were back-to-back and right before Pyramids, so somewhere in the t50's. Both were built in Cusco. I had to hurry to get my spots once I met Hiawatha the spammer and realized how close to me he was. I'm quite sure he'll let me know about it sometime soon.

(* = cheatfest!) I just don't enjoy the early game in Diety, so I gave myself a Scout and Worker, so I'm disqualified. Oracle went t47 (sheesh).

SIP, regretting not settling the mtn sheep. 3 expos will all have Observatories and Gardens. 1st expo on lake 1 E of Cotton, 2nd 5 E on W side of lake, 4th 4 SE of that lake W of sheep in the pass.

Bought a ton of tiles for Petra (t79) and lux, got Machu (Cusco t126). Didn't even try for ToA, and saw all 3 Tradition civs building HG so didn't try for that either. Only had 6 Slingers before CB (wanted TF ASAP, and built Walls in expos early).

Stole Compass and Astronomy from Pacal, I pretty much never steal tech - just not cricket, IMO. He has all religious wonders, and it's been nothing but blocking rel units half the game (very tedious and dull). I keep considering DOWing, and he finally has a GP coming, so might. My religion has Mosques and Cathedrals, but hitting Renn earlier than planned is going to make them expensive. Pacal also has 2, and has SS, happy Temples, and culture Pastures. I may just steal his GP and wait for all MY buildings, then convert myself to his religion! 3 buildings with SS? 9 Pastures? Is there a downside to this?

Iroq is doing something I don't recall seeing before - Tradition and only 2 city start, got the GW and HG and had basically no units for a long time (?).

The early game is all I ever get to play, because I bug out and restart after about 100 turns of making poor choices. I don't see the point of your cheatfest though, did that really help your game out that much? Just 1 scout and 1 worker? Might as well give yourself a GDR and a few GBR's if you're gonna have a cheatfest!

Also, there is 0 downside to converting to someone else's religion, I am a big fan of it and enjoy filling my cities with every single religious building thanks to their spamming shenanigans. I'm going to focus on getting a religion next try, I took the 8 faith from wittenburg and gave up after that to try and focus on pumping out my cities and slingers.

Well, I really appreciate attempts at balancing the game. It doesn't matter the difficulty level, at some point the player just snowballs. This series does a decent job of gimping that, but typically it just pushes it back later.

On Diety you are just so far behind, then suddenly 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through the game you are at par and often soon unstoppable. So it is a smoother game if you play a higher level, but gimp yourself later, if at all, and give yourself bonuses early. On Immortal I almost always stop at Secularism, or don't even open Rat at all, or put a lot of policies into Piety (which gets good at the end, actually), or just do a little of everything (very sub-optimal) because it smoothes out the difficulty.

Acken's mod does quite a lot in that regard, but since he has hard-coded a much higher level of AI aggression, I have mostly lost interest in it. I prefer war to be an option, not a must-have. I don't enjoy being on the edge of my seat constantly. Civ has a wonderful mix of tension and anticipation for new techs/units/wonders as is, IMO.

I understand a lot of really good players get bored with the game, but that has never happened to me, in part because I find the experience so rich and varied (I still see new things almost every game). Having to do almost all the same things every game just to win takes the fun out of it for me. I usually could care less about fast finishes unless I am going for certain DomV or CV approaches. I don't think I've ever lost a normal Diety game - but if all I had as a goal was to finish faster every time I would get bored soon as well.

I have really enjoyed the April Fool's games because the early game is so much better. You can actually try to do just about anything, it is a more playful experience. I realize a lot of people find them ridiculous, but to each their own, eh?

Anyway, a starting Worker is a HUGE boost, and I was able to build a Monument very early, which snowballs.