Inca are Early-game, Game-breaking Psychopaths

[basta]

This is my fourth Immortal start (random, std, continents, version .141) in which the Inca have DoW'ed me before turn 40 when they spawn on the same continent. This last instance was a DoW before turn 35 (!) while playing France, but I have also encountered this bug as Greece, Persia, and Babylon.

This DLC civ is a raging psychopath. An AI DoW in an immortal game so early on is simply madness. It is a total game breaker--no player can come back from such an early attack at this level of play and the game is ruined before it even starts.

I post a screenshot of the capital city, Paris, about to fall at turn 44.

I managed to build scout warrior worker settler and another settler barely escaping to found Lyon by the time the Incans arrived. This is all normal. I set my first city near Russia in the upper left of the map. I received a friendly notice from Inca that they were also friendly with Russia, etc, only 2-3 turns before the DoW. I bought off Spain same turn as the DoW with all my barb/goodyhut gold to DoW on Inca but Inca ignored them, even though they were much closer.

Inca's two cities are off-screen at the very southern border of the continent--ten moves away from Paris! There are 6 units attacking--3 warriors and 3 slingers. Inca also had, by turn 35, two scouts, another warrior I encountered elsewhere, and the settler of the second city. That's ten units built in less than 35 turns, not counting workers (plus 9 turns to get them across the map and three to besiege the city).

I am quite aware that this sort of overwhelming early AI advantage is standard for Immortal; Immortal after all is all I play. But these Incan DoWs before turn 40 are simply impossible and unacceptable, and an out-and-out bug.

If I knew how, I would simply remove this civ, because it is clearly unbalanced and unsuitable for high-level play. It's outrageous to pay extra for such a "pleasure."

 

[EndoConvert]

That this difficulty is too hard for you is not a bug.

Sometimes you will get rushed, and not just by the Inca. Learn to deal with it, or go back to playing Emperor.

 

[basta]

That this difficulty is too hard for you is not a bug.

Sometimes you will get rushed, and not just by the Inca. Learn to deal with it, or go back to playing Emperor.

Oh aren't we grand?

I can pm you the savegame and you can pm me your victory screen whenever you want.


The point is, beyond the academic question of whether you're a good enough player to survive the onslaught--and yes I could play on from the rump city that would be left, but I don't see the point in even trying to play out such a crippled game--that the AI is acting totally erratically and irrationally. It declares friendship and DoWs 2-3 turns later. That is simply broken, especially early game, and it doesn't change that it's broken no matter what level you play at. No shift at all to guarded or hostile in no time at all. Expansion of my 2nd city away from their capital on the other side of continent, which happened before their friendship declaration. No matter the opponent in games with them, same bizarre MO.

It's a DLC civ, and to me it just looks like they just cranked it out for $ and didn't playtest and balance it properly for all levels. Aggressive is fine, I expect it, but not this.

 

[Mercade]

Sounds like a perfect thread for the general discussion forum, not the bug forum.

 

[The_J]

I agree.
Moderator Action: Moved to general discussion.

 

[Ankh]

I have to agree with EndoConvert even though he put it a bit harsh, Immortal isn't fair in anyway. Learn to abuse 1UPT combat and other game mechanisms to survive. Or go down a level to Emperor.

I don't enjoy immortal games since it forces you to play in a certain way.

 

[wurstburst]

I managed to build scout warrior worker settler and another settler

The problem is not the Incas. It's your build order.

You should have stole a worker from Brussels, not build one and you shouldn't have built a 2nd settler that soon.

You can't just sit around on Immortal building "stuff". You need to build enough military units to survive the inevitable early wars you get on this difficulty level. You could have had 3 more military units instead or a worker and settler, and probably wouldn't have even gotten a DoW that early. After that, you could then go and build a 2nd settler.

When you have no army on Immortal, you get DoW'ed. Don't be so weak next time.

 

[aatami]

I agree with wurstburst. You couldn't have done that in IV either... And it's not a bug or a game-breaking issue in any of the two.

 

[wurstburst]

One other thing. Once you've defeated his 6 units with your 4 units (you can leave the scout to continue scouting), you'll have essentially destroyed Inca for the rest of the game. Having spent the first 40 turns doing nothing but build military, they surely haven't been settling new cities. They'll have fallen behind the other civs. And with a decimated army, they'll likely soon fall victim to one of their neighbors. Problem solved.

 

[bonafide11]

You're saying it's a bug because another AI declared war on you in the early game while on the second highest difficulty? Like others have said, time to go down to Emperor. That's not a bug. The AI has a right to rush you, just like we have a right to rush the AI.

 

[builer680]

The build order I would have used for my first 4 units is

Warrior --> Warrior --> Warrior --> Warrior

Worry about the other things after that.

 

[ryantherenegade]

lol, noob got pwnd

Moderator Action: Please don't call others noobs or make such unproductive posts.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Soronery]

Go tradition and get oligarchy. Both are very powerful policies and there is no reason to not get them. If I get rushed I pump 1 extra warrior and then ignore them and continue my build. When I attack they are already behind and are an easy target.

 

[jacyp]

The build order I would have used for my first 4 units is

Warrior --> Warrior --> Warrior --> Warrior

Worry about the other things after that.

And at what game speed you play? Quick?

Cos doing that on Epic isn't funny at all and by the time you finish your 4th warrior your game has turned into a OCC since the AI will have expanded like an infection.

 

[builer680]

And at what game speed you play? Quick?

Cos doing that on Epic isn't funny at all and by the time you finish your 4th warrior your game has turned into a OCC since the AI will have expanded like an infection.

I put 4 Warriors, but I forgot about the one you start with. The point is I like to get 4 early, including the one you start with. So I'd build 3 of them, then and only then building other stuff.

I've played on and won at all speeds and difficulty levels multiple times, including Marathon and Quick. Even on Deity with their 2 free Settlers and on Marathon speed, what you are saying is simply not true. Your game doesn't default to a One City Challenge, even if you built the extra Warrior, because you can begin to burn/puppet things and settle your own cities pretty quickly after your army is built. In fact, the slower the game speed, the MORE advantage you have as a Human, due to movement speeds not changing at any difficulty level. This makes beelining more powerful (though harder to do now with no Library specialists) because the advantages you get from doing it last longer.

The fact is that on the higher levels, part of the "challenge" is that the AI gets a large army to start, and at least one of them WILL rush you early. It isn't just the Inca... it could just as well be Gandhi, and it has been for me a couple of times. If you aren't ready to defend yourself, you will lose. You can always get more cities once you've wiped out their army. If you can do that with 1, 2, or 3 Warriors, that's fine. I use four because it's a good nucleus around which to form "super soldiers" for the rest of the game.

Once you have your Warriors, fight a lot of field battles (no city taking yet) with other AI's to get some XP. Get all of them Medic especially. Beeline Iron Working. You don't have to wait until all your Warriors are done to start fighting, you can start with just a couple while the rest are still building. Just declare war on someone and let them feed you free XP while you're Fortified, Flanked, and in range of your city shots. As said above by another poster, Oligarchy is great for this, and it's great offensively later because of instant culture flipping from captured cities.

If you want, you can steal someone's Worker (CS or AI, doesn't matter) and detour to Trapping so you can start making some Trade Posts. It depends on how good of a start you got and how much money you can pull in. The more you have, the better, of course. For example, I really like Gems in Forested Hills next to a River to be in my starting City radius, as this is a 1f 1h 4g tile unimproved. Such a great tile isn't required, but it sure can be helpful.

Once your Warriors are done, you can then rush buy or build a Settler (iirc they're 1050g or so on Marathon, so get all the money you can, sell your Open Borders to anyone who has Writing, since you probably won't, for example)... and put the Settler on Iron, to save the time Mining it. Make those Warriors into Swordsmen and start burning/puppeting your entire continent. You can use the Civs on another landmass for RA's later.

In the meantime beeline Steel if you can. Even cities with Walls this early will fall to 4 Swords (or 2 Swords and 2 Warriors... whatever you could afford to upgrade) in only a couple of turns once you wipe out the bulk of their army in the field. Your first City or two for each Civ will probably rush buy Walls and maybe an Archer. After this, they frequently run out of money to rush things. So... if necessary, move around and hit a softer target City of theirs first if you see that happen. By now you should also have a Great General as well. Use him. Be careful, the AI tends to keep some units in reserve now for defense, so try to let any lower HP guys heal for a turn if you have to. This is why Medic is so helpful.

All of this is for a game with moderately large landmasses (Continents, Terra, et cetera). If you play a game with smaller landmasses (Archipelago, Small Continents), it often tends to be easier once you get a Navy... because of how poorly the AI handles their own Navy. They like to swim their units at you quite a bit early, but if you survive this stage and are able to get a Navy going, it's lights out for the AI. A larger Pangaea (anything bigger than Small), on the other hand, can become very difficult very fast if an AI far away from you starts to run away in score.

Now, all that said... if you have no Iron close by you're probably toast. Also, as I'm sure you're aware, on the slower speeds you can never really afford to lose a unit... so don't. Finally, I don't win every game on Immortal and Deity, even with great starts. I'm not aware of anything that will work every single time, but if you get a great start, it can be a good idea to keep the Initial Autosave just in case you suddenly find yourself losing deep into the game... so you can go back and try things a little differently.

 

[flyingbunnys]

No one has said this yet but the biggest mistake I see is the city locations, they are just too far apart.

I would have put Lyon between the elephants and wheat north of Brussels. This would have put it 3 tiles apart from your capital instead of 4 (2 would have been even better). It would have prevented a sounthern attack since brussels is there and the north is protected by water. You would have had 2 cities firing on invaders as opposed to just 1. On higher difficulties I tend to build cities close together since the AI gets such a large advanatage in military.

 

[Horizons]

That this difficulty is too hard for you is not a bug.

Sometimes you will get rushed, and not just by the Inca. Learn to deal with it, or go back to playing Emperor.

+1


Playing at a very high difficulty level and then whining about the AI being too harsh on you and that this is a 'bug', rather than dropping down a difficulty level, is just lame.

 

[aatami]

Playing at a very high difficulty level and then whining about the AI being too harsh on you and that this is a 'bug', rather than dropping down a difficulty level, is just lame.

+1, the op was probably just trolling. Any way be it, I still got good laughs.

 

[Soronery]

Personally I think they need to take out early rushes. They basically get stomped by 1-2 warriors now that cities have been upped. They just set the AI behind.

 

[builer680]

Personally I think they need to take out early rushes. They basically get stomped by 1-2 warriors now that cities have been upped. They just set the AI behind.

Rushing has been a basic staple of strategy games as long as I can remember. I'm not sure how you'd remove rushing. If you want to avoid rushes until everyone has grown a bit, it can be beneficial to use a later start (Classical, Medieval, etc).

I've never really been a fan of rushing in an empire building kind of game, but frankly it's always been one of the more powerful ways to get some modicum of early dominance in most strategy games I've played. So in many ways you kind of have to do it if your goal is to build a large empire.