Encouraging Spanish - Aztec/Incan wars

[dc82]

It wasn't just the diseases as well, although that did turn the tide significantly. At the same time, the Spanish were able to receive support from neighboring "civs" that were willing to support the Spanish. Tlaxcala, for example, supported and helped provide refuge for the Spanish against the Aztecs.

 

[captain beaver]

I have played with the Inca a couple of times and I can say it is fairly easy to become friend with Isabella. In fact, she is one of the few civs that never declared war on me. Other civs, mainly the non christian one and most of the time Asian civs, were more aggresive with me, but they only sent caravels and sometimes empty galleons against me to plunder my fishing boats.
I believe one the main reason why the Incas are so well protected against land invasion is that there is no direct way to their cities. The northern breach, which allows Incas units to leave their lands through one single land tyle, is covered with jungle and since jungle under the cultural influence of a civ cannot be crossed by its ennemies, no ennemy units can cross there. To the south lies only mountains which are uncrossable. Essentialy, you can only arrrive by boats. And on the wrong side for the Europeans.
Consequently, I don't believe that spawning conquistadors in Spanish colonies will help as they will only be able to conquer incan cities outside of their original lands. The 6 or 7 seven cities in that second category are out of reach even for the biggest military force roaming South America. A solution might be to remove either the jungle tyles to the north, enough to allow a landing party coming from the Carrabean to attack the Inca homeland, or a mountain tyle to the south, making it more likely that conquistadors (if this becomes their new UP) will go toward that breach.
Of course, if there are any ways to make the AI more effective at naval invasion, this is the way to go. Otherwise, I'll continue to keep 2-3 archers (not even longbowmen) in my homeland cities as I know they are safe from arm.

On a side note, I have never waged a real war in the modern world with the Inca, so I do not know if the AI is better with his naval landings with the new technologies.

 

[Tboy]

That's a good point captain beaver: in my current game, where I'm playing as the aztecs, when I tried to invade the inca it was almost impossible and took ages. I only managed to invade once I got biology, so I could use my workers to chop a path through. Having to wait until biology seems too long to me, and I too think some of the jungle should be removed, but only in the south. It might not be geographically correct, but for once I think we should allow that.

 

[Elhoim]

Remember that Conquistadors can cross jungle

 

[rishubhav]

this might be improved in warlords tho with the better war AI

 

[captain beaver]

Remember that Conquistadors can cross jungle

They actually can !?! Well since I have never seen any conquistadors in South America, it may explain my ignorance. Spain usually only brings 2 longbowmen per colony initially, and tend to keep its offensive units in Europe.
A gap in the southern mountain range might still be usefull though, as all spanish colonies are in Argentina in every game. It would take time for an army based over there to cover the entire non roaded trip from Buenos Aires to Columbia and then into Incaland.

 

[Elhoim]

There was one, but Rhye closed it becomes sometimes they had colonies in Argentina. But they end up having them anyway without the pass...

 

[Uber Warrior]

Ive got to agree with the idea of the aztecs getting spanked along with the Inca, but then the problem is the American Historical victory becomes even more difficult. Its a good idea to have them dropped by plague, but they really should be allowed a chance to come back. The idea of Rhyes and Fall is to be as 'real' as possible so that means that the colonial empires should be very hard to sustain for the Europeans, because they are trying to control such radiclly different people.

Also is there any chance of making it so the Inca are smaller? Smarter barbarian tribes to represent the wide variety of people in the area?

 

[McA123]

Making them barbs or MC's wouldn't change anything.

 

[SilverKnight]

I'm just wondering if the AI ever uses the conquistador's ability to ride onboard a caravel, I don't think I've ever seen the AI use that...

They can ride on caravels? I usually only build them for early sea exploration. Seems like it's time for a Spain game!

SilverKnight

 

[Surtur]

Yes they can. But I think this should be changed if it's not possible to force AI to do this. It is just another feature which gives human player an advantage over AI.
A bit off topic but I would also like to change Caravels in a way that they only can cross Ocean after you discovered Astronomy. At the moment you can circumnavigate by 1100 AD or even earlier.

 

[Blasphemous]

It seems to me this discussion brought up a missing collapse condition without anyone noticing: civs should collapse when they rapidly lose population. This makes starvation a potentially devastating weapon, and mass conscription a dangerously double-edged sword. It also means once major plagues are added, they will actually cause civs to collapse.

 

[McA123]

That would be a change, but still wouldn't really solve the problem. Sure, they'd die, but then instead of unconquered civs it would just be unconquered barbs.

 

[NitroJay]

Yeah, I agree... I still think the solution to the Aztec/Inca not being killed problem is the inability of the AI to mount sea invasions... Maybe this will be fixed when this mod goes Warlords and the better war AI is in play... We;ll have to wait and see.

The best solution I've seen so far, I think it was Blas's idea maybe, was to have Conquistadors spawn in newly created Spanish cities. Even if Spain only builds a few cities in South America, the few conquistadors created should be able to capture or kill a few Aztec/Inca cities... In the long term though, I'd rather Rhye throw his efforts into Warlords than deal with this pesky little issue... It may just solve itself that way...

 

[Surtur]

Making them barbs or MC's wouldn't change anything.

Are you sure? I don't think so. In my last game noone declared war on Inca or Aztec. Making them minor civs would at least solve this problem. In combination with spawning Conquistadors or better AI this might work.

The reasons why Spain doesn't train Conquistadors are:

- no iron (as someone mentioned before)
- Guilds not researched before ~1400 AD

Another problem I see is that these native Americans have a kinda strong but outdated army. When you compare them in power with European nations the difference is often very small. Another reason for Spain not to declare war on them.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

I find often many Old World nations declaring wars to Aztecs/Incas, but only few times they managed to capture any cities. The most succesful invasions I have seen was Japan's when they took 2-3 cities from Incas.

 

[Elhoim]

Are you sure? I don't think so. In my last game noone declared war on Inca or Aztec. Making them minor civs would at least solve this problem. In combination with spawning Conquistadors or better AI this might work.

The reasons why Spain doesn't train Conquistadors are:

- no iron (as someone mentioned before)
- Guilds not researched before ~1400 AD

Another problem I see is that these native Americans have a kinda strong but outdated army. When you compare them in power with European nations the difference is often very small. Another reason for Spain not to declare war on them.

That´s right, but also Rhye tried making them barbarians and MC and it didn´t work either...

 

[McA123]

Yeah. The problem isn't to get the AI to declare war (although that doesn't happen too much either), it's that they won't invade over sea.

 

[qdm]

Summarizing this thread, here is the direction to go, I think :

At the first contact of Aztec and Inca civilization with a non-american Civ, they should experience a severe shock. Civil unrest outside the capital (next turn) and afterwards a plague should start at the contact point with the non-american Civ. It should eventually propagates to the whole empire. The effects should be modeled in a way that if the outsider is ready to exploit the situation, Aztecs/Incas have a good chance to crumble in 2/3 turns. Military units should have their potential decreased by 90%, population should shrink...

If Aztecs and Incas survive the initial shock (which is very unlikely except if this was just a scouting for example by a Chinese ship), they can fight back and the shock will not be repeated when they encounter a second civilization.

For the secession of states like Mexico or Peru, it should be a general rule. Territories on a large continent far away from mother country are more and more likely to secede beginning with discovery of Nationalism by any civ.

 

[Phallus]

I'm not a fan of this idea. The only accurate part is where smallpox drastically reduces the population. From what I can see, invasion is where the problems lie, so it might help if the AI were given the means and an incentive to greet these new civs with an army.