Inca on Emperor+

[Thenewwwguy]

I’ve been trying to go for Science vics bcs of the mountain start bias. I find myself struggling on two accounts:

1. How to balance terrace farms vs. Mines. How many for each should I be putting in cities to maximize size and growth?

2. How should I go down the tech tree? In my last game, I was consistently second or third in science but because of spaceport production costs, I fell behind and missed out on going for the science vic. How should I combat this?

3. If I get rainforests on my good campus locations, how do I compensate for lower science outputs in the early game? Should I just take a worse campus, or wait it out for a good one?

4. Since I’m not focusing on wonder building, how do I make sure I don’t fall into a dark age?

 

[yung.carl.jung]

You can buy a spaceport either with Reyna or Moksha. They have a promotion for buying districts. Save up gold/faith in advance so you buy them the exact turn you hit your spaceports. As for Golden Ages, using Amani to suzerain a CS and then instantly switching to the next one can net you a lot of era score, depending on how many CS are available.

 

[monikernemo]

1. I guess depends on whether you want to work the mountain tiles. If you have earth goddess, certainly plant those terrace farms next to a mountain (unless they are blocking a high adj campus spot etc.) For hills that are not adj to mountains, I guess a mine would be nice if you have sufficient food. Otherwise, terrace farms are not too shabby.

2. Try to hit education early so you unlock universities. Also try focusing on culture by building monuments, some theater squares, getting Pingala Connoisseur promotion. (I think researcher is overrated since you can get science easily anyways) so you unlock rationalism (enlightenment civic).

3. Always chop everything, unless you are playing as brazil then... I am not so sure. You just have to ensure that your campus is +2 so you can take advantage of Natural Philosophy/Five Year Plan + Rationalism.

4. Some wonders are key to a good science victory for instance, Oracle gives you massive influx of Great People Points. Coupled with Pingala with grants promotion you get 4 times as many great people points just for having the base districts. Ruhr Valley helps boost some production, Bolshoi Theatre helps you unlock late game civics which again brings you closer to better set of cards for getting your science gains up. Oxford gives you free tech and massive science influx. Kilwa Kisiwani gives you 15% sci boost throughout your empire. Big Ben/Forbidden Palace gives extra policy slots. Mausoleum at the Halicarnassus gives your engineer extra charges. Pyramids gives your builder extra build charges which helps you build your empire faster since a builder now gives you more charges.

Golden ages are stupidly powerful I don't see a reason why not to try for consecutive golden ages unless you want a heroic age. If you dont have loyalty issues, dark age might be better than normal age since you have access to dark age policy cards, and your next golden age you get a heroic age. Someways to get era score; building unique UU/improvements for the first time, changing to next tier governments, exploring the world, improving units that use specific strategic resource, building first naval unit, building +3 holy site/theatre square/ campus or +4 industrial zone/commercial hub/harbor etc.