Feasibility of Playing Huayna Capac on Earth18Civ map in vanilla?

[oldsaxon]

The south America of Earth 18 civs is a late-game powerhouse, not only because of grassland, but mainly because of most of that grassland is riverside one.... add US and a levee and you have 2 raw per tile along with the town money.... Adding to the fact that most of south america is below 30º ( Space Elevator ), who controls South america is in a prime position for a launch.....

All that is true, but it's not necessarily of any use to Huyana. It's pretty easy for one of the North American civs to settle the land first, and sometimes when I've played I've seen South America end the game as an unco-ordinated mix of barbarian cities and European colonies.

Basically, we can win with Huyana, but it's still almost certainly the hardest start on the map.

 

[GeorgeF]

Just out of curiosity George F, I know you said you cottaged after the jungle was cleared, but did you build any watermills, workshops, or windmills?

I'm assuming you didn't need farms since the grasslands are already 2 food once you clear the jungle, which is enough to support a population point.

I made a couple of farms just to speed growth, don't know if I ever bothered to cottage them over, I was so ridiculously far ahead that micromanagement fell by the wayside.

I made the southern and coastal jungle cities production cities with as many water mills and mines as I could, and the interior ones with just grasslands and rivers cottage cities. With Universal Suffrage and Levees though, even the cottage cities were production monsters. I even goofed with my Ironworks city putting it not directly on a river so I couldn't Levee it, but I was still producing Modern Armor 1/turn.

Basically the land is so good its really hard to do wrong...

 

[GeorgeF]

All that is true, but it's not necessarily of any use to Huyana. It's pretty easy for one of the North American civs to settle the land first, and sometimes when I've played I've seen South America end the game as an unco-ordinated mix of barbarian cities and European colonies.

Basically, we can win with Huyana, but it's still almost certainly the hardest start on the map.

Japan? Mali? I'll have to try some of the others for sure, but I do better isolated or nearly-isolated like Huayna. Like I said, I had lots of Triremes pretty early so I could fend off Roosevelt and Monty if I needed to, but Monty was more occupied trying to take North America I think. When he declared war on me, I don't think I had any jungle cities yet, but just naval power kept him away. And I beat the rest of the world to optics, anyway. Got the round the world bonus sailing around the Antarctic.

 

[GeorgeF]

OK, here are the screenshots. I'm in Police State for now because of the wars, but due to Future Tech Happiness mods, probably should be back in Universal Suffrage. Easy to do since Louis built the Redentor for me.

Spoiler :

 

[illram]

Nice game. Mali is by far the worst start on the map- Toku is actually surprisingly good if you play your cards right. Taking out Qin early is a must.

 

[DMOC]

Mali and the Incas have the worst start. I still think you can do well with Mali, I will need to try it. Maybe it'll be harder than Huayna's or not... who knows?

Thanks for the screenshots George F, was that on emperor difficulty?