Incan Emperor
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2007
- Messages
- 226
Well I think I have gotten to the point where I have mastered the Noble difficulty with Huayna Capac. And I decided I would share this with everyone else, this applies for BtS only, although I also have a lot of expirience on Warlords and if anyone needs help, I can also have a writeup on Warlords.
First off Ill explain why I think Huayna is the best leader on noble and why he isnt as OPd on easier/harder difficulties.
Huaynas strengths rely on out-teching the AI because of the commerce boost and on out-wondering it because of the 50% wonder production speed and the half cost forges.
This strengths are not that important on easier difficulties cause either way you will still out tech the AI and out produce it, so you are probably better off using a leader with warlike traits since combat is one of the few things you get no bonuses for.
And by outgrowing the AI through either peaceful expansion or taking cities and the bonuses you get based on difficulty will just exponentially raise by having a larger empire.
In the otherside of the coinflip on more difficult settings where the bonuses wont mean as much because either way the AI will still out produce you and out tech you. Therefore you are better off with combat traits again to take the AIs cities in order to out produce them and out tech them.
This is true on MP games though where everyone is on leveled ground, although the tech trading might not work as well with human opponnents, since these will understand that the value of some of the techs relies more on being the first to research them rather than just the beakers that each of them cost, so it might not be as easy to research all the religious and culture techs and trade them to the human players in exchange for the warlike techs, so unless theres only one other human, and atleast a handful AIs, dont follow this guide.
Also this guide will also explain diplomacy against the AI but again other human players are unpredictable and may backstab you anytime, so watch out.
Also I want to make a remark on the fact that since there are no bonuses for either side, noble might just be the level more suitable to not fight the AIs, since expansion beyond 5-10 cities is not a must in order to win, and you may want to wait to fight an AI until you have a healthy tech advantage.
Since you get no bonuses in combat due to Huaynas traits, and you are not likely to amass a huge army until after building forges in order to have a production advantage on units.
So overall if you are a warmonger, neither Huayna nor the Noble difficulty will be for you, and you rather abstain from following any of this advice.
The easier victory conditions to achieve IMO are the cultural and space race victories, obviously conquest and domination are a bit more trouble and will only take place late in the game, when a cultural/space race victory could be achieved much easier.
While Diplo victory may seem plausible for some one who never gets in trouble, its the other way around, no one likes you enough since you remained neutral most of the time, and the civs that outright dont like you, simply will not vote for you.
So well enough preface, lets move on to the actual tips for the game, from the very first turn until the last one.
You will start with a settler and a Quechua, you want your Quechua exploring, dont settle him down on the first city, depending on the map type and size, it will be at least a few turns until you meet any neighbors so keep your Quechua moving.
Where should we settle?
Well the 2 only reasons worth moving from your starting location are as it follows.
Marble, marble is the one most important resource as the Incans, since you want to keep up with you wonder spam and marble is the most useful resource at doing this.
Second comes the coast, being financial coast tiles allow 3 commerce without any improvements and four once we get the Colossus (which we ARE getting), plus automatic trade with out the need to road, undermining the fact we dont start with the wheel, and even once we have traded for it it wont be necessary to build roads in order to share resources between cities.
Trade routes are always better on coastal cities, and there are multiple health and commerce buldings that can only be built on the coast, including multiple very useful Wonders.
Enough settling lets continue with our first tech.
Well it easily has to be Polytheism. You can found Hinduism, opens the path to Priesthood, Organized Religion and the Oracle which is a must have wonder, etc. etc. Also if you notice in the upper right tile there is a goodie hut, we got a tech from it, goodie huts are good, you can get either money, techs, maps or even units, in this case they gave us mining.
On to more Exploring
Since we start exploring with a Quechua we care about defensive bonuses on the terrain and hills to have better view and uncover as much fog of war as posible.
Zig-zag around the terrain, to uncover as much fog of war, and dont follow a straight direction, try to circle around your first city as in an openning spiral to clear the fog on all directions, until you hit an edge, whether that is water or ice.
If you see tundra up north or down south, focus on the opposite side, since the tundra points to the fact that you are near that pole, and makes it unlikely you will find much more on that direction.
Enough exploration, your second Quechua must be finished by now, fortify this Quechua, I would of liked to build a settler but since we didnt have much food on our starting location, we didnt grow to size 2, which in my book is a must before working on a settler/worker, instead we will start working on Stonehenge, which is a Wonder I dont usually build but that none the less might be good option on a case like this. Once our city reaches 2 pop we stop building Stonehenge and get back at building our settler, we will resume Stonehenge once our settler is finished.
Then we meet our first neighbor, thats Washington, we are lucky that while he isnt the most peaceful dude out there, we atleast didnt get Moctezuma or some other madman instead.
On the images underneath we can see examples of the figure head for Huayna Capac, a perfect starting location and the first tech we will research.
First off Ill explain why I think Huayna is the best leader on noble and why he isnt as OPd on easier/harder difficulties.
Huaynas strengths rely on out-teching the AI because of the commerce boost and on out-wondering it because of the 50% wonder production speed and the half cost forges.
This strengths are not that important on easier difficulties cause either way you will still out tech the AI and out produce it, so you are probably better off using a leader with warlike traits since combat is one of the few things you get no bonuses for.
And by outgrowing the AI through either peaceful expansion or taking cities and the bonuses you get based on difficulty will just exponentially raise by having a larger empire.
In the otherside of the coinflip on more difficult settings where the bonuses wont mean as much because either way the AI will still out produce you and out tech you. Therefore you are better off with combat traits again to take the AIs cities in order to out produce them and out tech them.
This is true on MP games though where everyone is on leveled ground, although the tech trading might not work as well with human opponnents, since these will understand that the value of some of the techs relies more on being the first to research them rather than just the beakers that each of them cost, so it might not be as easy to research all the religious and culture techs and trade them to the human players in exchange for the warlike techs, so unless theres only one other human, and atleast a handful AIs, dont follow this guide.
Also this guide will also explain diplomacy against the AI but again other human players are unpredictable and may backstab you anytime, so watch out.
Also I want to make a remark on the fact that since there are no bonuses for either side, noble might just be the level more suitable to not fight the AIs, since expansion beyond 5-10 cities is not a must in order to win, and you may want to wait to fight an AI until you have a healthy tech advantage.
Since you get no bonuses in combat due to Huaynas traits, and you are not likely to amass a huge army until after building forges in order to have a production advantage on units.
So overall if you are a warmonger, neither Huayna nor the Noble difficulty will be for you, and you rather abstain from following any of this advice.
The easier victory conditions to achieve IMO are the cultural and space race victories, obviously conquest and domination are a bit more trouble and will only take place late in the game, when a cultural/space race victory could be achieved much easier.
While Diplo victory may seem plausible for some one who never gets in trouble, its the other way around, no one likes you enough since you remained neutral most of the time, and the civs that outright dont like you, simply will not vote for you.
So well enough preface, lets move on to the actual tips for the game, from the very first turn until the last one.
You will start with a settler and a Quechua, you want your Quechua exploring, dont settle him down on the first city, depending on the map type and size, it will be at least a few turns until you meet any neighbors so keep your Quechua moving.
Where should we settle?
Well the 2 only reasons worth moving from your starting location are as it follows.
Marble, marble is the one most important resource as the Incans, since you want to keep up with you wonder spam and marble is the most useful resource at doing this.
Second comes the coast, being financial coast tiles allow 3 commerce without any improvements and four once we get the Colossus (which we ARE getting), plus automatic trade with out the need to road, undermining the fact we dont start with the wheel, and even once we have traded for it it wont be necessary to build roads in order to share resources between cities.
Trade routes are always better on coastal cities, and there are multiple health and commerce buldings that can only be built on the coast, including multiple very useful Wonders.
Enough settling lets continue with our first tech.
Well it easily has to be Polytheism. You can found Hinduism, opens the path to Priesthood, Organized Religion and the Oracle which is a must have wonder, etc. etc. Also if you notice in the upper right tile there is a goodie hut, we got a tech from it, goodie huts are good, you can get either money, techs, maps or even units, in this case they gave us mining.
On to more Exploring
Since we start exploring with a Quechua we care about defensive bonuses on the terrain and hills to have better view and uncover as much fog of war as posible.
Zig-zag around the terrain, to uncover as much fog of war, and dont follow a straight direction, try to circle around your first city as in an openning spiral to clear the fog on all directions, until you hit an edge, whether that is water or ice.
If you see tundra up north or down south, focus on the opposite side, since the tundra points to the fact that you are near that pole, and makes it unlikely you will find much more on that direction.
Enough exploration, your second Quechua must be finished by now, fortify this Quechua, I would of liked to build a settler but since we didnt have much food on our starting location, we didnt grow to size 2, which in my book is a must before working on a settler/worker, instead we will start working on Stonehenge, which is a Wonder I dont usually build but that none the less might be good option on a case like this. Once our city reaches 2 pop we stop building Stonehenge and get back at building our settler, we will resume Stonehenge once our settler is finished.
Then we meet our first neighbor, thats Washington, we are lucky that while he isnt the most peaceful dude out there, we atleast didnt get Moctezuma or some other madman instead.
On the images underneath we can see examples of the figure head for Huayna Capac, a perfect starting location and the first tech we will research.
