Inca

[crdvis16]

I just realized that I flubbed my comparisons above. Hills are 2p, mines make them 3p, and forges bump it to 5p. So the comparison would be (using PAD's proposal):

5p mine vs 2f4p base Anden (likely at least 3f4p with freshwater or adjacency, sometimes 4f4p with both, and even more in some unlikely arrangement where you're getting tons of adjacency).

I would pretty much always take 3f4p Anden over 5p mine. The only case that you wouldn't is if you're freezing growth I guess?

 

[pineappledan]

Well, I was still suggesting 12 base on the TF. So that's minimum 14 for a TF vs 5 for a mine.
However, TF would have 3 different sources for adjacencies: fresh water, mountains, and 2 TFs, and they would still boost surrounding farms. That's a lot of easy synergies that boost TFs beyond mines, so it's a very strange assertion that 1 production makes so much difference, especially when hill starts can be so food poor, and there is much more scaling for farms than for mines.

Also, just because you can build a forge doesn't mean you have to. Inca could put off forges for a while and build other things without suffering from low production, especially since Forges don't have any base production on them until Arenas.

 

[Drakle]

Coding question. Is it possible to code a way for the Inca to build their UI on mountains? Or is it hard locked as roads/Rails only. Could be a different way to adjust yields, by having some lower mountains yields, that get buffed by building improvements on them. Maybe as part of their UA, also being able to build other improvements like mines or villages ontop of mountains. Both make sense for the Inca. Mountain top mining is done commonly today. And they settled villages up in the peaks. Of course villages would be less useful because of the trade route issue.

 

[crdvis16]

Coding question. Is it possible to code a way for the Inca to build their UI on mountains? Or is it hard locked as roads/Rails only. Could be a different way to adjust yields, by having some lower mountains yields, that get buffed by building improvements on them. Maybe as part of their UA, also being able to build other improvements like mines or villages ontop of mountains. Both make sense for the Inca. Mountain top mining is done commonly today. And they settled villages up in the peaks. Of course villages would be less useful because of the trade route issue.

As interesting as this would be, it would make Inca more RNG dependent on being near mountains.

 

[Drakle]

As interesting as this would be, it would make Inca more RNG dependent on being near mountains.

Well some civs UA are just things they would get later for free / or better. Like Carthage getting a lighthouse.

So, for example, the Incan UA could be unlocking general mountain improvements, at their tech level. So mountain mines at mining. While other civs could unlock mountain mining at say a Medieval or later tech (historically the Romans mined mountains by flat out removing them, but civ5 is only historically inspired). But mountain top removal mining is definitely a thing nowadays.

Additionally, Incan mountains would have better yields. So say a mountain mine would be equal to a normal hill mine otherwise, but to the Inca, they also get extra gold and something else.

 

[Stalker0]

Throwing this out as a crazy idea. What if part of the UA was that Inca can treat hills as mountains for any purpose. This means that hills can work for god of nature, macchu pichu, observatories,...and the mountain scaler. It would remove the RNG quite a bit...but its probably brokenly good.

 

[a3kov]

You all need to ask yourself a simple question: how to make it so when I get 5 mountains in the starting area instead of, say 40-50 I will not feel robbed/gimped ?
Cause right now there are too many advantages for having many mountains. You can say Machu and Nature pantheon are optional, and it's true (in isolation), but when you consider that you can get all of it together if you have strong start with many mountains, it's just a too good deal to pass.
Yes, adding all ordinary farm benefits to TF will help, but it's not enough as long as mountains buff TF. Also mountains having culture without food would indeed not boost early game, but it wouldn't reduce reliance on mountains as you would still want as many as you can get. As long as mountains are super useful to settle and for offense/defense while having some good yields at the same time, the situation will not improve.

 

[Drakle]

Throwing this out as a crazy idea. What if part of the UA was that Inca can treat hills as mountains for any purpose. This means that hills can work for god of nature, macchu pichu, observatories,...and the mountain scaler. It would remove the RNG quite a bit...but its probably brokenly good.

Well that is sorta of what I'm getting at, as Inca being able to build improvements on mountains, instead of the bulk of the yields being a scaling set of yields.


Okay, throwing out a different idea. The Incan had a very well developed transportation network, despite living in mountainous terrain, lacking draft animals, and wheeled transport.

They also engaged in large scale population movements, to integrate their empire.

So maybe their UA can be.

Units ignore terrain costs when on Hills and may cross Mountains.
Cities, Improvements, Roads and Railroads may be built on Mountains.
Cities Connected to the capital provide X% more yields, doubled for X turns upon new city connection

So this removes all yields from mountains from their UA. They have movement bonuses, but even without a single mountain they can still get boosts with just normal city connections. Mountains would get base yields of 2 production, like hills, so Incan mountain improvements, bar terrace farms would be the same as normal lowland improvements.

The only thing I'm unsure of is the doubling and the trigger. Similar to China, and I think another trigger than a new city connection, so Inca aren't forced to keep sprawling. Lots of options.

 

[CrazyG]

I think that being able to put improvements on mountains is the way to go. The thing with yields directly that scale with era is they are terrible tiles early game but super OP late game.

I think mountains ought to have a base of 2 production, like a hill, and you should be able to build a mine (do we have art for this?). So you build terrace farms on your hills and mines on your mountains.

You could also add like 1 faith (or culture) to mines on mountains. One of the old issues with Inca was that you could settle directly on mountains for free faith and gold, it was just get a super OP start, but if you put the yields behind an improvement it should be fair.

 

[Stalker0]

I think that being able to put improvements on mountains is the way to go. The thing with yields directly that scale with era is they are terrible tiles early game but super OP late game.

I think mountains ought to have a base of 2 production, like a hill, and you should be able to build a mine (do we have art for this?). So you build terrace farms on your hills and mines on your mountains.

You could also add like 1 faith (or culture) to mines on mountains. One of the old issues with Inca was that you could settle directly on mountains for free faith and gold, it was just get a super OP start, but if you put the yields behind an improvement it should be fair.

Do the graphics support mines and terrace farms on mountains, or would that require entirely new graphics?

 

[crdvis16]

I suppose an Inca who doesn't start near mountains isn't losing a whole lot in that case, assuming you also adjust the TF to be more mountain independent along the lines PAD suggested? It makes Inca capable of thriving in mountainous areas without feeling like they need to settle on mountains.

 

[DeAnno]

Maybe worth crossposting this here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-an-alternative-opening.660911/#post-15851557

TLDR: On actually playing post-nerf Inca I found the UU hits a lot harder than you would think. In particular if you rush math the dazing composite bows can rush pretty well, I was absolutely gutting Rome's army of mostly Spearmen on Immortal. The ignoring ZOC+move on hills thing is also quite useful in city siege too, it lets you reposition in ways that often save a shot.

 

[azum4roll]

Graphics is a problem if we want to support any improvements on mountains. If that can be done, I suggest Terrace Farms on mountains and +1 on the improvement, along with buffing Terrace Farms with every Farm bonus.

 

[Gazebo]

Just to note, Inca do have a start bias for hills.

G

 

[Vhozite]

I just finished a game where I won DV as the Inca. Personally I think the only thing wrong with the Inca is Terrace Farms falling off mid to late game. Without the Autocracy tenet giving them +3 science (Military Industrial Complex?), I would’ve replaced them all with mines or towns. At that point in the game I would’ve preferred the larger amount of hammers from mines or the combo of hammers, gold, and culture from towns where I could build them (I went Rationalism). My basic farms ended up better than Terrace farms with cathedral/agribusiness. Without Autocracy all the basic improvements were giving me more overall yields than Terrace Farms.

If TFs are supposed to fall off like that (the Inca are an early game Civ after all), then I guess it’s working as intended. But if that’s not the case then I think TFs should at least benefit from Agribusiness, if not all farm based bonuses.

Regarding mountains, i like how fun the Inca are with them but then I feel like I’m missing out if I don’t have a lot nearby. I honestly don’t think the current mountain situation *needs* to be changed, but if we are going to go down that route we could toning down the bonuses from mountains and move a bit of power towards hills.

Keep the mountain movement and settling, but remove the food and science. Maybe give hills +1 food and +1 science for each adjacent hill or mountain. Less flavorful, but potentially buffs TFs and tones down the large variance in power from map RNG.

 

[tu_79]

A small reminder of what Inca are known for:

Spoiler Machu Pichu :

So, now, what's the selling point of Incas?
- They can move into mountains, settle there if they want, and get some early science from it. Make hills produce some food, especially in mountain regions. Combined with a mobility advantage, it makes easy for Inca to expand into a territory no other civ would want, and be pretty safe there. Big food tiles with lots of mountain around calls for working on specialists. It's the turtle strategy for excellence.
- A supporting ranged unit that doesn't need to fear melee units.

The idea of a turtling civ is that, although they are not at the level of, say, Korea and Arabia in terms of achieving a peaceful victory first, they aren't vulnerable to a neighbouring warmonger. A turtling civ can win if its major competitors get beaten by warmongers.
The problem with turtling civs is that when there's a Korea in the game with no warmongers who can threaten her, they have a hard time taking direct action. Maybe if Inca were able to take indirect action against a better civ, that would improve its gameplay.
-

 

[DeAnno]

The idea of a turtling civ is that, although they are not at the level of, say, Korea and Arabia in terms of achieving a peaceful victory first, they aren't vulnerable to a neighbouring warmonger. A turtling civ can win if its major competitors get beaten by warmongers.

This is kind of an ironic comment because automatic Logistics on siege units is quite good at turtling too, and doesn't rely on any special terrain to do it. Just how the Zulus and Sweden are being compared elsewhere, a big problem with Inca is that in many ways it's a gimmicky version of Korea that doesn't have as much punch or reliability.

 

[a3kov]

Inca has a huge problem with access to mountains. I've rerolled many starts with Inca and many times there are barely any mountains in a huge radius from the starting location. If you get lots of mountains you can beat Korea peacefully. Nature Pantheon is OP and Korea doesn't have tools for founding (one of the huge disappointments with Korea). Korea in my games is rarely the runaway - I think their coastal bias hurts them too much giving them inferior land.
Arabia...of course Arabia is OP, they are amazing and don't have major weaknesses and are mostly terrain independent unlike Inca

 

[tu_79]

The only real problem with Inca, in my opinion, is that it relies too much on a very rare terrain feature. They are, in a sense, like the Iroquois, where all their kit is geared towards forests. But forest you can find anywhere, mountains not that much. Hills are more common.
Yes, you can get an amazing +4 food +2 production with a terrace farm that is next to three mountains, but this is really rare. On top of this, you are settling in a hilled territory where there is little room for farm clusters.

I like pineappledan proposal, but I'd drop the bonus from mountains (*) and make it behave more like any other farm, which it really is. There's already too much synergy with mountains.

Andens
Base: +1 + 2
If access to fresh water: +2
If adjacent Anden: +1 (**)
All adjacent farms get: +1
And the scaling by PAD.

* Funny thing, I was a supporter for the bonus from mountains.
** The bonus is just 1 food if there is at least one adjacent anden.

 

[chicorbeef]

Yeah, I think Terrace Farms getting bonuses from other Terrace farms instead of mountains would help the Inca overall. Also, they should be buildable on resources, it's annoying to miss out on Terrace Farms because of Sheep. Maybe having them connect Luxury/Strategic Resources might be a bit too much though.