Inca

[Ziad]

oh yeah, that’s fair. Maybe looks like the code allows for an initial type of yield for mountains, and a scaling value, so maybe 21, and 11 for every era after that?

I don't mind their current implementation, but I like this as well. Incidentally, 2 would match Civ6's initial yield on mountains.

 

[a3kov]

It's better to start with reducing terrain dependence, as it's already very bad. If we buff mountains with culture, it will actually make it much worse than now.
Mountains should be a small boost, not a gamebreaking feature of the civ.

It's hard to balance terrain features as if you have none you are gimped, and if you get too many you become a god.

 

[Ziad]

Yea one benefit of the current yields is that while you want to settle mountains if you can, you aren't as inclined to work them as much early on as you can make do with Terrace Farms, giving them time to scale. And it's not like you need to work that many for science.

In theory, all their food benefits let them achieve very high pop cities that in turn can work those "science specialist" mountain slots that both produce rather than consume food and avoid urbanization unhappiness, making up for the population increase somewhat.

The question is whether this elegant design has kept up with all the gameplay changes since its inception.

I rather enjoyed them a few months back (especially with events that add even more yields to the mountains) but I also play on Marathon so I'm probably not the best to judge their performance on Standard.

 

[a3kov]

Think of it: right now ALL their unique features work off mountains+hills, and their UU is almost generic. All of this while they don't have a working starting bias. It's clearly a broken civ from the balance standpoint.

 

[amateurgamer88]

Because mountains can't get improvements, so if there is not any era scaling on the mountain yields, then they won't be relevant beyond the early game.

In that case, then giving Inca a UI is a big issue, isn't it? First, there are no mountain bias starts so you cannot guarantee Inca will have a mountain. Therefore, you have a huge spectrum regarding how the UA will perform. You can have no mountains within 2 tiles of your starting location or start basically next to a large mountain range. How do you even balance the yields for a UA for that? The UA can be broken, absolutely useless when it comes to yields or anywhere in between. Meanwhile, the UI is built on hills and is competing with Mines which are one of the best improvements.

I think a possible solution is to give Inca a UB instead of a UI. I know it's drastic but it's much easier to balance. You can have the UB give yields based on number of mountains within 3 tiles of the city like Machu Pichu while also buffing Mines. This will cover the entire spectrum without hurting Inca as much. Of course, I'm probably in the minority for a change this drastic.

 

[a3kov]

I think a possible solution is to give Inca a UB instead of a UI.

I actually had the same idea. In general, civs that have UB have more predictable performance and therefore better balanced. But making UB depend on number of mountains would be also a mistake, it wouldn't remove terrain dependency and we already 2 other things that scale off the number: Nature pantheon and Observatories.

 

[Stalker0]

Anden (renamed from "Terrace Farm")
Can only be built on Hills and does not require a source of Fresh Water.
+12
+1 from Fresh Water
1 for every 2 Adjacent Anden
Gains +1 For Each adjacent Mountain
Adjacent Farms gain +1 Food
+1 at Civil Service, Ecology, and Fertilizer
+1 from Cathedral
+22 from Agribusiness
+11 from Exploitation
+4 at Urbanization
+3 at 5 Year Plan
+3 at Military Industrial Complex

So to simply this, I think what you are saying "A Terrace farm receives all improvements and benefits that effect farms"

Think of it: right now ALL their unique features work off mountains+hills, and their UU is almost generic. All of this while they don't have a working starting bias. It's clearly a broken civ from the balance standpoint.

I think there is some truth here. As flavorful as going all in on mountains are....that doesn't work when mountain bias is not an option, its not good design to give a race an entire identity something it will commonly not have.

 

[pineappledan]

I think a possible solution is to give Inca a UB instead of a UI. I know it's drastic but it's much easier to balance. You can have the UB give yields based on number of mountains within 3 tiles of the city like Machu Pichu while also buffing Mines. This will cover the entire spectrum without hurting Inca as much. Of course, I'm probably in the minority for a change this drastic.

Absolutely not. I will never agree with removing a UI; they have aesthetic and stylistic impacts on gameplay beyond the numbers and mechanics. As for a general overreliance on mountains in their kit, I specifically tried to address this with 4UC, giving them no additional interactions with mountains.

I really think you and @a3kov are overstating your case. The UA's most powerful bonus is the unobstructed hills movement, and the Terrace Farm receives only a marginal bonus from mountain adjacencies. In my proposal, I have suggested a change that makes TFs even less dependent on mountain adjacencies for good placement, and as for mountain yields, I am not advocating for a upgrade of their yields. I trying to advocate for a side-grade by adding culture and removing science for historical reasons, and trying to address balance concerns that proceed from that change. I am in no way interested in increasing the Inca's reliance on mountains, and in fact have worked to reduce it in at least 2 ways.

I know this is usually G's line, but the Inca don't need a complete rework, only minor tweaks.

So to simply this, I think what you are saying "A Terrace farm receives all improvements and benefits that effect farms"

Exactly, and I said as much in another post. I just thought it would be helpful to lay out specifically what that entails.

 

[amateurgamer88]

Absolutely not. I will never agree with removing a UI; they have aesthetic and stylistic impacts on gameplay beyond the numbers and mechanics. As for a general overreliance on mountains in their kit, I specifically tried to address this with 4UC, giving them no additional interactions with mountains.

I really think you and @a3kov are overstating your case. The UA's most powerful bonus is the unobstructed hills movement, and the Terrace Farm receives only a marginal bonus from mountain adjacencies. In my proposal, I have suggested a change that makes TFs even less dependent on mountain adjacencies for good placement, and as for mountain yields, I am not advocating for a upgrade of their yields. I trying to advocate for a side-grade by adding culture and removing science for historical reasons, and trying to address balance concerns that proceed from that change. I am in no way interested in increasing the Inca's reliance on mountains, and in fact have worked to reduce it in at least 2 ways.

I know this is usually G's line, but the Inca don't need a complete rework, only minor tweaks.

Exactly, and I said as much in another post. I just thought it would be helpful to lay out specifically what that entails.

The issue is still that you have a huge variance in how an Incan player or AI plays. More Mountains means they do very well, especially when more culture is quite powerful, while fewer or no Mountains means the UA isn't even that great. How do you balance around that when you still give yields to Mountains?

As for your new Terrace Farms, you have to make them better than Mines that are buffed by Forges at the very least because a player shouldn't have to pick between this and a Mine unless they want to connect resources. Otherwise, a Mine with a Forge is just better early game which might as well see Terrace Farm unlocked later. You can argue that it's a decision between Food and Production but most cities don't have the sort of infrastructure to sustain the happiness for these type of growth that early in the game.

Let's also not forget that a player and reroll for more Mountains to get the most of their kit while an AI is basically relying on rng.

 

[pineappledan]

I have played several games with the Incas, stretching back to 2017, when they had on mountains.

• The complaint back then was that the mountains were just way too good. If an Incan player rolled a good start, they were guaranteed a religion, an early tech lead, and immunity to poverty. They could crush you simply by existing on the other side of the map in their impregnable mountain fortresses.
• Then the mountain yields got changed to 11, and people began relying on the UU for early dominance. The mountain yields were so good before that people had been ignoring how broken the slinger's early logistics/movement advantage was.
• Now the slinger is marginally useful, a reliable initiator/debuffer, and people are starting to notice the Inca are pretty bad without their god-tier UU

11 on mountains really was too much of a nerf, especially now that they don't have the slinger to compensate. That tile yield doesn't improve until medieval, and it is beaten by any unimproved resource tile, or any improved tile, perhaps with the exception of a 3 farm. So, you are only settling cities on mountains for the early , and you won't work mountains unless you have run out of resource tiles, and not at all once you have improvements up. The growing base yields can lead to stronger cities in mid-late game, but 1-4 additional at that stage is hardly noticeable underneath the policy scalers and building yields. If you claim otherwise then you either haven't played Inca, you haven't paid attention, or you're just playing devil’s advocate. As it stands, the mountain yields only give city Centers a slight edge over flood plains or resource tiles, and are reliably outdone by improved tiles in any other terrain in any other stage of the game. So, while I’m not necessarily advocating for a buff to the mountain yields, I certainly don’t think it would be unwarranted.

As for your new Terrace Farms, you have to make them better than Mines that are buffed by Forges at the very least because a player shouldn't have to pick between this and a Mine unless they want to connect resources. Otherwise, a Mine with a Forge is just better early game which might as well see Terrace Farm unlocked later. You can argue that it's a decision between Food and Production but most cities don't have the sort of infrastructure to sustain the happiness for these type of growth that early in the game

as for making TFs better than mines. They are already, but only barely. With the buffs I proposed they would be better in all but the most extreme corner cases, where you have no adjacency potential, no fresh water, no mountains, and are production strapped.

 

[amateurgamer88]

I have played several games with the Incas, stretching back to 2017, when they had on mountains.

• The complaint back then was that the mountains were just way too good. If an Incan player rolled a good start, they were guaranteed a religion, an early tech lead, and immunity to poverty. They could crush you simply by existing on the other side of the map in their impregnable mountain fortresses.
• Then the mountain yields got changed to 11, and people began relying on the UU for early dominance. The mountain yields were so good before that people had been ignoring how broken the slinger's early logistics/movement advantage was.
• Now the slinger is marginally useful, a reliable initiator/debuffer, and people are starting to notice the Inca are pretty bad without their god-tier UU

11 on mountains really was too much of a nerf, especially now that they don't have the slinger to compensate. That tile yield doesn't improve until medieval, and it is beaten by any unimproved resource tile, or any improved tile, perhaps with the exception of a 3 farm. So, you are only settling cities on mountains for the early , and you won't work mountains unless you have run out of resource tiles, and not at all once you have improvements up. The growing base yields can lead to stronger cities in mid-late game, but 1-4 additional at that stage is hardly noticeable underneath the policy scalers and building yields. If you claim otherwise then you either haven't played Inca, you haven't paid attention, or you're just playing devil’s advocate. As it stands, the mountain yields only give city Centers a slight edge over flood plains or resource tiles, and are reliably outdone by improved tiles in any other terrain in any other stage of the game. So, while I’m not necessarily advocating for a buff to the mountain yields, I certainly don’t think it would be unwarranted.

as for making TFs better than mines. They are already, but only barely. With the buffs I proposed they would be better in all but the most extreme corner cases, where you have no adjacency potential, no fresh water, no mountains, and are production strapped.

Once again, you are proving my exact point where the issue is how heavily reliant the Mountain yields are on rng. You have a good start and the yields are extremely powerful. You have a bad start and it's utterly useless. Is the ability to settle on Mountains and move on hills/mountains a powerful ability? It can be but the mountain part is also too luck dependent.

I don't see other civilization with terrain specific UA suffer close even remotely close to the Inca because you can set their start biases. Even Songhai has a River bias so there's at least some chance of getting a favorable start. Inca has none of that so you cannot balance a UA around something with that big of a variance. Too little and a great start feels terrible. Too much and a great start will feel broken. Making it just right for great starts means a bad start equates to a reroll.

TF competes with Mines for hills and even you said they are barely better. As for your buffs, it's very food heavy until late mid to late game. Essentially, we have fast growth for cities that lack the production to build necessary infrastructure due to fewer mines in favor of TFs. We all know how tough it is when we have to fight unhappiness all the time.

 

[pineappledan]

The yields on mountains are so weak that, even if you get one, you wont use them other than to settle on them. That was my point. You are saying they are too RNG dependent; I am saying that the RNG doesn't matter because they are of too little value to care.

 

[amateurgamer88]

How much will you increase it? You won't find that sweet spot regardless of what value you go with. You can increase those values and, once working a mountain is worth it, what will happen if you have 10 mountains to work with? What if you have more mountains? Suddenly, people will complain that it's too strong with great starts and want it nerfed. Don't you see that this won't solve anything except repeating what happened before? Too much yields on a great start? We'll nerf it. Not worth it to work a mountain? Let's buff it. Repeat...

 

[pineappledan]

Why u not just read my posts? seriously.

I'm not advocating for buffing mountain yields, merely change what they are to better reflect the Inca.

You know what? Nevermind. I have better things to do than repeat myself a 4th time.

 

[a3kov]

I am saying that the RNG doesn't matter because they are of too little value to care.

Let's also not forget about Observatories, Nature pantheon and Machu Pichu. These things still scale off mountains. So there's already big imbalance besides mountains having good yields.
There's also the reason that settling on mountains provides great defense - you can create impossible to attack cities with 1 tile access, your civilians can travel on mountains unguarded. City built on a mountain range currently is head and shoulders above a city settled near few mountains. If you give culture to mountains it will exacerbate the situation, because culture is the strongest yield in the game.

 

[crdvis16]

Let's also not forget about Observatories, Nature pantheon and Machu Pichu. These things still scale off mountains. So there's already big imbalance besides mountains having good yields.
There's also the reason that settling on mountains provides great defense - you can create impossible to attack cities with 1 tile access, your civilians can travel on mountains unguarded. City built on a mountain range currently is head and shoulders above a city settled near few mountains. If you give culture to mountains it will exacerbate the situation, because culture is the strongest yield in the game.

I don't think Machu or God of Nature are relevant because they are optional- if you don't have mountains then don't go for them. Inca's kit is more problematic because if you're playing as Inca you simply want to be near mountains without exception.

If I understand PAD's changes, the UI would be less mountain dependent because it's mountain adjacency bonus would be reduced while improving other adjacencies or base yields. That seems like an improvement in terms of RNG and makes the UI more consistent.

Switching to culture instead of science for mountain yields would be less of an issue if mountains are somewhat weaker in the early game period. If they start off weak in the early game and then scale up later when the culture would presumably be a smaller fraction of your total culture then you alleviate the impact of the RNG of your start being light or heavy on mountains. It's still nice to settle a mountain for free early culture but you aren't likely to work any additional mountains until later.

Making mountains better tiles later also means you have time to purposely settle by mountain chains with secondary cities. You don't always get mountains by your capital but you very frequently have a mountain chain in your vicinity that cities 2-5+ could settle. This also applies somewhat to the movement on mountain bonuses- your capital not being in mountains doesn't mean subsequent cities won't be and doesn't mean you can't purposely attack other civs stupid enough to settle near mountains so they still get benefit from their UA at some point in all likelihood.

TLDR: making the UI less mountain dependent makes Inca more consistent. Changing mountains to culture/gold rather than science/food is ok because in early eras you probably can't work mountain tiles anyway when those yields are the most scarce.

 

[amateurgamer88]

If I understand PAD's changes, the UI would be less mountain dependent because it's mountain adjacency bonus would be reduced while improving other adjacencies or base yields. That seems like an improvement in terms of RNG and makes the UI more consistent.

Regarding the UI changes, when will you pick such an UI over a Mine?

 

[crdvis16]

Regarding the UI changes, when will you pick such an UI over a Mine?

A lot of hill heavy areas can be pretty food poor so in those situations I suppose. And if the only issue is mine vs UI then give the UI another production at base (or more) until the obvious winner is the UI in nearly any situation. I share your (presumed) belief that UIs should be almost universally the best choice if they are able to be built on a tile.

If I understand the proposal, the UI would make a hill 2f4p compared to a 4p mine.

A forge bumps the mine to 6p I believe? But assuming the UI has at minimum 1 adjacency or freshwater bonus it becomes 3f4p. If that seems too narrow then maybe do 2f3p as the base improvement to make it a 2f5p hill at base and likely 3f5p or even 4f5p at times (when you get an adjacency bonus AND freshwater bonus). I think at that point the base UI is pretty much always better unless you REALLY need production over food. Once other scaling boosts kick in later the UI likely outpaces mines even more.

 

[Stalker0]

The yields on mountains are so weak that, even if you get one, you wont use them other than to settle on them.

My experience with Inca (current version), is that while yes early on I won't use the mountains, once they become 4 food 4 science tiles they become very attractive.

 

[pineappledan]

I was going to say Modern (55) is the tipping point. That can start to surpass basic tile improvements.

Buit, if you are waiting for Industrial/Modern in order to START using this part of your UA, then it's not a particularly strong UA. It's also juuuust strong enough that relying on your mountain tiles means your GPTI game is super weak, and you're using this as a fallback.

IMO if they had 3 yields, but only scaled on 2 of them, that would do it. They just need a little push to be relevant in the first 3-4 eras.