Embracing Inca ?

[pat a cutie]

Hello Forums,

Played my first game as Patchacutie today, and I would really like to give him all my love but I have some pros and cons that make me hesitate to do so. Here's what I mean ...

1.) Dat passive

Wow, so great, the single best thing about him. With his starting bias, he is really hard to assault early on and you can make great use of it from the get-go.
It also is amazing when scouting with just warriors, one can always get a free move here and there even in forest terrains if a bit lucky.
Cost reduction is awesome !

2.) Terraces

Even tho slightly more situational than 1.), amazing production and food.
But !
In early stages, I just get too much growth from these bad-boys ... also they look HORRIBLE ! Did you see that bug when it's like cut in half and actually facing the mountains, when built adjacent to several of the mountains ? Deal breaker !

3.) Slinger

I found them to be depressingly weak. I mean, it's a low-tech unit that has a fancy move, but this move is just irritating.
If there is one thing that infuriates me is having not full control of a unit and it can potentially chain-combo into some "WTH REAL" moments that just drive me insane.

Just the thought of having a few of these bouncing around when trying to maintain a formation makes my toenails curl upwards ...

If it is hit in combat, it is so god damn squishy, useless.
Even tho its Combat Strengh is just the same as an archer (correct me if wrong), it feels like its damage is even more flimsy.
This unit looked tempting to me but left me disappointed.

Should I still keep playing Patchacutie for his passive, just use the unit for city defense, and try to avoid Terraces at all cost for sheer ugliness ?

Can you bring us closer together so it may be love at second sight (one that will stand the test of time) ?

 

[FeiLing]

Terraces never luck ugly, they look and are always awesome. Don't say anything else if you wanna keep your head.

Slingers are weird... however when you upgrade them, they just turn into a standard strength crossbown-man which you still want to avoid being attackable in the first place, however it is not so weak that in the case the retreat fails you won't automatically lose it. You then can calculate a bit: Like you want to shoot, but then won't be able to retreat, but it will be okay because the enemy either dies or will be left with only 2-5 hp, so he won't be able to kill your unit, if the auto-retreat fails.

What I actually don't like about the Inca's is that a forest on a hill doesn't count as a hill

 

[ezbutton]

The start bias is ridiculous because its like a natural great wall everything just slows down to a crawl making easy positioning for melee and siege units, simply amazing synergy with his UA.

I think slingers don't have the city attack penalty so that does makes them fairly useful for a archer rush but to me it pales in comparison to bowman rush which is oh so nasty.

And how could you not like terrances? They look amazing, making maoi's look like poop that just stands upright. IMO, the only problem I have with them is that their cultural borders are a little expensive to expand esp. when you want to place a prime terrance improvement your going to have to depend on gold to buy it outright rather than wait for the culture (sometimes costing 300 gold on standard speed to pick up two tiles).

My personal high score was with Pachacuti and I haven't even come close to it w/ any other civ (granted I did cook the map by playing highlands, dense mountains setting).

 

[ense7en]

They're one of my favorite civs.

My first emperor win was with them, cultural.
Then i played them again and won via science.

Really love the lack of/low road maintenance costs as it allows you to spread out your cities to wherever the best spot is.
Also keeps costs down early on, allowing for roads to be built immediately with basically no gold penalty and with the benefit of trades routes sooner.

And as mentioned, the start bias puts you around lots of mountains + hills, which obviously works fantastically.

Terraces are amazing. They look cool to me, and even if they didn't, why would i care?!

Slinger isn't really a make or break UU IMHO, but it's certainly not a bad thing, and can be handy if you aren't careful with how close you get to enemies in battle.

And in war, you have an insane advantage as Incan due to their movement on hills.

I consider Inca one of the strongest civs overall due to their UA and terraces.

 

[snarzberry]

The cool thing about them is those city locations that no other civ could even consider founding that the Inca thrive in. Anywhere with mountains and hills and you're golden.

I don't consider them one of the strongest civs, but definitely one of the funnest.

 

[joncnunn]

I like Inca.

Best reason: Free roads on hills (and half priced elsewhere). This gives you a fraction of the road network charges; although you often need to reroute roads that the AI built when you conquer their cities.

As to the Terrace: It doesn't prohibit a farm, so if the (non resource) hill is on a river or lake but has no mountains you can and should farm that tile.

And on those hills with no fresh water, those terraces are awesome.

Note that the slinger retreat promotion remains with the unit after you upgrade so once you upgrade them to crossbow your back up to normal melee strength when your unit doesn't withdraw anyway. (This promotion also remains when you promote them to Rifleman.)

 

[Optional]

I don't see the start biases having such a huge effect in Civ 5. I can play Egypt and I often get lots of forest, I can play Iroquois and I see no forest, and I can play Inca and I'm regularly getting a flat landscape.
Inca are fairly weak in my opinion if they don't get their mix of hills and mountains.

What I find strange is that I often read that players here find civs like England and Ottomans weak because they're dependent on water, but there's rarely a mark down for the Inca while they're sharing the handicap of being dependent on map conditions.

 

[ense7en]

I don't see the start biases having such a huge effect in Civ 5. I can play Egypt and I often get lots of forest, I can play Iroquois and I see no forest, and I can play Inca and I'm regularly getting a flat landscape.
Inca are fairly weak in my opinion if they don't get their mix of hills and mountains.

What I find strange is that I often read that players here find civs like England and Ottomans weak because they're dependent on water, but there's rarely a mark down for the Inca while they're sharing the handicap of being dependent on map conditions.

For Inca set world age to be youngest for more hills.
For Iroquois set rainfall/climate to wet for more forest/jungle.

Good for cooking the settings

 

[Optional]

Ah yeah, you're definitely right there, but I was basically defending Ottomans and England a bit with what I said.
Why are people players willing to rig the settings for Inca, but apparantly not for seafaring civs?
And I've always played Pangaea, also when I'm playing Ottomans, but even then their trait can be good. A coastal start is essential, though.
For Inca more rigging is needed to make their ability shine; it might just be one button in setup, but choosing young terrain is a big adjustment to the map conditions.

 

[joncnunn]

Actually, I rig my settings more overtly when playing seafaring civs; choosing map types known to be island maps.
(England: Archepello with high water level)
(Ottomans: "Small Contenants" [I got the isolated start on an island in my first roll in my current game])
(Spain; [only sort of sea faring]: Tiny Islands)

All I did for Inca was choose the Ring map and plains.

Ah yeah, you're definitely right there, but I was basically defending Ottomans and England a bit with what I said.
Why are people players willing to rig the settings for Inca, but apparantly not for seafaring civs?
And I've always played Pangaea, also when I'm playing Ottomans, but even then their trait can be good. A coastal start is essential, though.
For Inca more rigging is needed to make their ability shine; it might just be one button in setup, but choosing young terrain is a big adjustment to the map conditions.

 

[The_Quasar]

Just finished a game on Immortal with the Incas... I was playing random civ and random map, and rolled the Incas and Archipelago (certainly not what I'd choose to go with the Incas). The start position was quite reasonable (in such a game I never re-roll), with hills and forest, but no mountains. Initially I built up my capital, until I had National College up and running, then I built another city on the same island. I expanded slowly, eventually only having 5 cities, and concentrating on staying a little ahead in science and choosing the usual wonders, missing only a couple of the ones I particularly like.

My main threats were Augustus and Isabelle who were both building huge armies for most of the game... as the game progressed past Artillery, I had to increase my small army quite quickly, concentrating mainly on Artillery and Destroyers, then later Bombers with a couple of Subs.

I beelined the techs for the spaceship parts, using Great Scientists to bulb a couple... meanwhile Rome and Spain were at each others throats. In the end I won comfortably.

In conclusion, I'd say the Incas are an ok civ, a little different, which makes them interesting. Certainly it's no great disadvantage to play them. The Terraced Farms seem particularly strong.

Imho, in such a game, the first 50 turns will normally say whether you are going in the right direction, or not. I like to get my capital up and going with National College before expanding further... I think a strong capital makes a lot of difference, and taking a few extra turns at the beginning getting it that way is well worth it.

 

[CYZ]

The movement does work on forested hills, which is actually amazing as warriors/slingers can often be your scouts.

I think Inca is one of the most powerfull civs and possibly my favourite. The movement advantage is really nice and the road discount allows you to have a half-cost road network in the worst case (free roads are awesome, just build 'em on every hill!)

But mostly, there are many locations on a map that would be weak or average to any other civ, but is actually good or extremely good for Inca, all due to the UB.

The slinger is not the best unit, but it very unique. Don't use it like an archer though, it is not an archer+!
It requires it's own tactics and formations, but once upgraded to crossbows they're great.