War With The Inca
After learning Combusion in 1460AD I focused on reducing the strength of the Inca as quickly as possible. I had to stop them quickly to avoid them winning a cultural victory. I'd previously started an invasion but with only a small force since my 4-Cavalry armies could not travel in Galleons. I still had an army blocking the Inca from claiming rubber and they remained unable to build Infantry.
I quickly transported my 4-Cavalry armies to the Inca continent and began attacking cities. My forces went in two groups, one invading at the south and one mid-continent where I'd previously tried and failed to settle a town to claim dyes.
I made some quick initial progress, razing a few Inca towns in the first few turns of my invasion. After that progress slowed. Part of the problem was healing - without a town with Barracks my units were slow to heal. When I first settled a town to claim the dyes, before my main invasion, the Inca immediately over-ran it. I decided to try again to get a local town. It seemed pointless to try capturing and holding an enemy city. Incan culture was so much greater than mine that culture flipping was far too great a risk. So I'd have to settle a town of my own.
In 1490AD I tried settling a town which did not claim a luxury nor a resource to see whether the Inca would leave that alone. I defended the town with a 4-Cavalry army. Nope, the Inca immediately attacked and destroyed it.
I tried again in 1505AD, using a newly created 4-Infantry army to defend a town. Once again the Inca immediately attacked and destroyed it. They seemed determined to stop me from having a settlement in their lands at any cost. And they could afford just about any cost
By 1520AD I felt that my invasion had largely stalled. After 10 turns of my invasion the world looked like this:
Each Inca city was as strongly defended as the one before, requiring many healed Cavalry armies to take it. I'd even lost some Cavalry armies in over-aggressive attacks on fortified Riflemen with slightly wounded armies. I wanted a new approach. And at this date (1520AD) I finally realized what that might be. I knew that the AI would not attack a Cavalry army in the open, and DUH, that's all I needed to know to solve the problem, should have realized it sooner. I shuffled my units and in 1525AD I settled a town to claim dyes in the Incan coastal area I'd cleared:
I could just have surrounded the town with Cavalry armies, that was the logical next step. It seems likely that would be all it would take to stop the Inca from attacking and thus to have a barracks and claim the luxury. But I wasn't sure - perhaps the AI is clever enough to, in that situation, attack the blocking armies and blitz through to the town. And it didn't matter anyway because I couldn't resist going further. You can see in the above that I've created a funnel to the town - the Inca can only come at it via the coastal route to the south. I've pillaged the roads on the first two tiles of that path so that Inca Cavalry can at most move to the tile next to my town in one turn, they can't immediately attack. I figured if they didn't attack that would be fine, and if they did attack via the funnel I'd just destroy their units in the open as they approached my town. And their units would be weakened by going past my Cavalry armies with their zone of control.
Hah! I still hadn't fully realized the Inca's strength. The Inca troops poured in. In 1530AD the funnel looked like this:
Looks innocent eh? The Inca Cavalry beside my town is the top of a stack of 238 Cavalry. The Knight behind (south of) it is a non-issue, there are just 3 Knights there. The third stack represented by a Rifleman, which will take two turns before it arrives at my town, is uncountable! It has 10 Archers, 10 Cavalry, about 120 Guerillas, 24 Longbowmen, 73 Medieval Infantry, and an unknown quantity of Musketmen and Riflemen. At least 19 Musketmen, that's the end of the right-click list. Looks like the game will only display the first 255 or so units in a stack. It seems a safe bet there are a lot of Riflemen not being shown.
I threw everything I had (a bit over 100 artillery and cannons, and all healed Cavalry armies I had in the region) at the incoming Cavalry. Destroyed 63, leaving 175. Then I evaluated my defenses. I had three 4-Infantry armies and two 3-Infantry armies, left over from when I'd built some of these thinking they'd hold towns. A quick calculation showed that wouldn't be enough. The Inca Cavalry could easily overrun my defenders.
So I abandoned my beachhead town. I destroyed 13 more Cavalry with units I'd held in reserve and opened a gate north of the remaining Inca Cavalry, hoping they'd return to their home towns. A good number of them had lost 1hp and would want to heal. I'd be losing three workers which I couldn't move out of the way in the exit path I'd chosen:
Although I'd lost my invasion town again, this was a turning point. I now knew roughly how strong the Inca were and I saw a way to defeat them.
In 1535AD the Inca Cavalry all went home and most of their other stack took one step toward home. And I constructed my first deliberate Funnel Of Doom. This time I prepared better. I switched all production at home to Infantry and rushed a number of them. I brought all my invasion armies together to help with the funnel. I made the funnel longer so that my armies lining it would take more potshots at incoming units passing their zone of control. In the next turn few Inca units entered the funnel. Many of their Cavalry were healing I think. In 1545AD the Inca again came at me in full force. By this time I had seven 4-Infantry armies in the town and I was about to rush an Aqueduct - next turn I'd be able to join some workers to make it a city with a defense bonus. This screenshot is after I hit the attackers:
I'd destroyed 117 attacking Inca Cavalry and left the remaining 53 at my doorstep wounded. Those 53 wouldn't have a chance of taking my city. And they didn't even try - all of them were wounded and they retreated next turn.
In subsequent turns the Inca troops kept swarming down the funnel, which I shortened after the first turn, and each turn I killed enough to remain safe. I soon started attacking units further down the funnel on my turn, allowing the Inca units which had reached my city to attack. This increased my kill rate nicely - the Inca who'd made it through the funnel threw themselves uselessly against my defenses each turn. The first and largest incoming group which survived to attack my city and died there was 59 units in 1555AD.
In the six turns from 1555 to 1580 the FOD (Funnel Of Doom
) was operating at full capacity. During this stage 189 Incan units attacked my city and died in the attempt, and I destroyed another 482 Incans further down the funnel. Average 112 Incans/turn. I lost 12 Cavalry during this time, average 2/turn. A good kill ratio. I was very happy with the funnel!
In 1585AD the FOD was nearly empty. I didn't need it anymore. The total number of visible Inca units wouldn't be able to take my city if they all attacked on the same turn. So I disbanded the funnel and sent my Cavalry armies out once again to destroy Inca cities. This time I expected they'd be relatively unimpeded, and they were. Most Inca cities had just 4 or 5 defenders. There were some larger clumps of Inca units (I don't know why) but they weren't huge and weren't a problem.
In 1595 I took the Inca capital with Smith's and Pyramids. I intend to keep this city. Smith's is very valuable, worth about 500gpt to me at this time. I won't be able to hold it of course - Incan culture is vastly greater than mine. I left it undefended and retook it once before I drove the Inca off their continent. I will be staying at war with Inca just so that I can retake this city any time it culture flips to them.
In 1605 I razed the last Incan city on her home continent:
My forces at this date:
24 Knights in 6 armies
48 Infantry in 12 armies
184 Cavalry in 46 armies
7 additional Cavalry (lower than at most times, I'm hurrying more)
86 Artillery, plus a fair number of captured ones, perhaps 50
The Inca are well under control. I'll finish them off later, they aren't a priority now. The Inca must have mobilized early in our war - I saw their culture growth slow to 1/2 rate. At this point they have about 141K culture. They won't get close to the 160K culture win, it turns out I was over-worried about that.
Next I plan to invade Aztecs. China would be easier but I think I'm better off to make a new deal with them for furs and to invade Aztecs first to take their silks.
The Aztecs probably have nearly as large a military as the Inca had. But I don't expect they'll be a problem. I'll go straight to the Funnel Of Doom approach now that I know how to use it.
I've traded to learn Espionage and used my most recent leader to rush Intelligence Agency at this date. Soon I'll be able to plant a spy in the Aztecs and see exactly what they've got.
Milking
After learning Combustion in 1460AD I changed all scientists to civil engineers where useful, taxmen elsewhere. My income jumped to 1741gpt at that date as a result and has ranged between 1500 and 2500gpt ever since.
I haven't used that income for milking. The war effort has been more important and most of my income has been used to rush an Army almost every turn. But the Civil Engineers are even better than gold. Most of my corrupt cities have all required improvements at 1605AD and are producing settlers and workers for future use.
Throughout the war I've been filling in cities where I have excess food in my homeland (i.e. have more food than required to support the existing size 12 cities in a region.)
In 1545AD I got the message "too many cities". I'd filled in so many cities that the map was at the maximum the game can handle. This was convenient - when I started razing Inca cities a bit after that, I didn't have to worry about anyone filling in the cleared land. I was at the domination limit but by filling in additional cities in my homeland I've kept the world at the maximum number of cities and prevented the AIs from settling. I have begun settling some of the prime land in the ex-Inca territory and disbanding land at home to compensate. I'll continue this process of replacing poor holdings by better ones while I wage war on the Aztecs.
Luxuries have continued to be a major problem. I have six now. That isn't enough for milking. When my most recent deals with Aztecs and China lapsed in 1565AD I boosted my luxury rate to 50% and even that didn't get me to maximum happiness. I'm losing score due to lack of luxuries. I plan to make another deal with China next, even though the cost has become very high. And soon I should be able to take silks from the Aztecs which I hope will mark the end of my luxury shortage.
Current score is 23239, at 1605AD.
... see! Great Game, SirPleb 
