Inca v102

[Sirikam]

Another patch, another playtest of the Inca.

Victory conditions:
- The points per tile is still way to high, and should be lowered. RProadcount=10 would still give 500 RP easily, which is still quite a lot at 50 tiles with roads. I would still recomend a tiered point per turn for 10,20,....,50 yielding 1vp/turn, ..., 5vp/turn, which would make it a longer campaign, and gives the need to catch up with the colonizers
- max vertical extension now gives points, but is locked at 50 it seems. I checked the code, and it doesent seem to have any triggers, only RPextensionY = 50? is it intended for the inca player to expand along the andean spine and upwards? or, could the code for gold generated by road connection be used instead to get city-to-city extension in height by proxy? is scales with population size in the capital compared with the city connected by road by my understanding, and is a known modifier. It also ties in well with building the machu pichu, as it gives a 20% boost to city connection gold. Would be thematic to what the Inca is known for, as well as their unique improvement, and an identity to build tall in game.

Events:
Qonquistador event and plagues does not spawn on contact with europeans for inca, dont know where that is located in the code, i could check for the modifiers/triggers better if i find them(or it is pointed out to me!)

Tech: Arabia seem to consistenly be ahead in my games and almost always show up first, don't know if that science rework helps them out to much?

misc:
-45 turn settlers is still quite to long it feels, turn it down to 30 maybe, by lowering the production cost would help, as it makes parts of the run feel a little to punishing for the inca player, who should be catching up.
- the random placement of el dorado is great!

Bugs:
Philantrophy is still bugged. It has been for all my playthrougs on this patch.

Some pictures and comments:

VP halfway through

WP 3 turns before the end. you usally need 1040 points to trigger victory

The philantrophy bug.

 

[Skojardu]

One nerf to "territory with roads" would be again, to genuflect to the tombstone of Klaus Teuber (Catan designer) and have it instead be "longest road" --- that means if you wanted to stop the Incans from winning you would just attack a central city and sever the road, cutting its length by half. The VPs would not be added per turn like Carthage's ocean tiles, instead they would be a static value that would increase per link on the road; let's say, 25 pts per link. If you had a 20 link road for 500 points and then a central city was taken, your longest road would shrink to maybe 10 or 8 links, which would give you 250 or 200 points, severely reducing the roleplaying part of your score. But it's really hard to get to the Inca. Could Asians take a crack at preventing an Incan victory? Sirikam, did you meet China, Korea, or Japan during the game you won?

 

[Sirikam]

In my testing so far, usually Arabia comes first, then the Europeans. I've had Japan one times, where they have conquered Aztec first. The main issue is the conquistadors not spawning, or spawning bugged. That attack will mostly destroy the AI Inca, or hamper the human Inca player, leaving it almost impossible for the AI to win. It will be from this position you should as the Inca player gain your victory. Establish and hold the Inca empire.

The road issue can be viewed in a few different ways. With my empire below played for another 70 turns after victory, I have about 800 points of roads, or 40 tiles with roads for 20 points each. A reduction to 10 points, would give 400, and would leave me quite a distance away from victory. With my original point per turn for roads beeing 40 tiles = 4pt/t, that would give 400 pt per 100 turns. 800 would then be 200 turns. with the inca start being around turn 350, you only have half the game to achieve victory, and other civs to contend with. As such, you should be able to achieve victory from turn 500 to 600 somewhere for it to be a challenge, while not having all attempts being ended by AI victories with other competing civs.

The longest road Idea is interesting, but I do not see it as a problem with the AI. As as far as I know, it won't overbuild roads, leaving it at a comparatively lower score. Every tile on the west coast of the andes have a road in my attempt. Also, lategame Incas are resource poor, with one source of oil, coal locked in the amazon and no aluminum. Any player will be able to take out their capital, and/or burn almost all cities, as they have to be coastal. You can do this with caravels early even, as cities with walls have 10-14 strength at the time they show up. The low cultural output, in addition to the +40 turns of settler production right now, will also limit AI roadbuilding.

My reasoning for the roads beeing a victory condition, is the fact that the andean road is one of a few things the incas are known for, the other beeing machu pichu and gold. With my suggested changes, I think this sums up what people will associate with the incas going into any game with them, while also beeing a gameplay challenge unique to the Inca given CIV Vs and the mods restrictions.

To show some further stats, I have added the demographics for my empire at turn 544. I am min-maxing pretty hard, and I am still not caught up in tech, so any aggresssion by other civs would be a problem. I have multiple defensive pacts to deter aggression in this game. The incas are weak, and should be a challenge. Overcoming these challenges should give you a fair shot at victory imo.

To list what I have done to be somewhat competitive this game:
- inital conquest of quito, takes 20 ish turns from discovery to conquest, limited space and the whooping 25 city strengt means city + comp bow oneshot your slingers 50 % of the time. All early production is army, slowing you down.
- max running of internal traderoutes to increase growth, as pop = science
- hard focus science will give you comp bows when(IF) old world arrives, good luck
- painfully slow expansion, 40 turns of settler production is brutal to actually improve the cities, especially when having to build tall
- you only really have the dictatorship path available, as you need both exploration and science to have production, growth and science.

To sum it up, I think Inca will be a challenge for any player once the road bonus is tuned down, and an additional VP is added (my new suggstion is gold generated by city connections). Roads at 5VP/tile given another VP/t modifier that takes time to grow, would need you to survive into lategame to win, which I think would give you a satisfying playthrough.