Leader Discussion - Patchacuti

[disjointaccount]

Having had some time to play around with Lakshmibai and the Napoleon buffs, it's back to our regularly scheduled programming with Patchacuti.
His leader ability is Earth Shaker, which is a three-parter:

• All Buildings gain a +1 Food adjacency from Mountains
• Specialists adjacent to Mountains do not cost Happiness maintenance
• Cities gain a bonus to Production equal to 10% of that City's Food

His attributes are Economic and Expansionist, giving him access to the Open Markets and Farmers Market endeavors, along with events for attribute points upon researching Mysticism and discovering a Distant Lands settlement (per this post).
He has a starting bias for mountains.
Playing as Patchacuti unlocks Inca (otherwise unlocked by having 3 settlements with at least 3 mountains each) and Hawai'i (otherwise unlocked by having 2 settlements on landmasses no larger than 15 tiles) in the Exploration Age, and America (otherwise unlocked by having 3 distant lands settlements in grassland or plains terrain), Mexico (otherwise unlocked by having 3 distant lands settlements in desert or tropical terrain), and Nepal (otherwise unlocked by having 3 settlements with at least 5 mountains each) in the Modern Age.
As an AI leader, his agenda is Mountain King - Increase Relationship by a Medium Amount for the player with the least Mountains in their territory. Decrease Relationship by a Medium Amount for the player with the most Mountains in their territory.

So what are everyone's thoughts? Likes/dislikes? Fun strategies? Good civs to pair him with?

 

[disjointaccount]

All I'll say about Patchacuti is that if you haven't tried a super-tall game with him, you should. That last part of his ability after his buff is absurd.

 

[stealth_nsk]

All I'll say about Patchacuti is that if you haven't tried a super-tall game with him, you should. That last part of his ability after his buff is absurd.

Well, except the last patch nerfed cities and thus, indirectly, all city-related leader abilities.

 

[disjointaccount]

Well, except the last patch nerfed cities and thus, indirectly, all city-related leader abilities.

Oh true, I didn't think of that
I haven't played him since then. I suspect he'd still be decent given that the numbers got high to the point of overkill they'd still be pretty viable now, though he definitely won't be as good as he was.

 

[Leucarum]

If you want to play a later Civ with mountain bonuses you are kind of locked to him. He has had a rollercoaster of power level, curious where he stands now... Not really certain.

 

[marius_kaparius]

If you want to play a later Civ with mountain bonuses you are kind of locked to him. He has had a rollercoaster of power level, curious where he stands now... Not really certain.

What other leader could be to be added to give a way of influencing a Mountains start bias? I guess more obvious solution is adding precursors to Inca / Nepal

 

[Leucarum]

What other leader could be to be added to give a way of influencing a Mountains start bias? I guess more obvious solution is adding precursors to Inca / Nepal

This is kind of why I don't like later civs having a terrain dependency. If you are someone who likes to plan their games it feels really limiting.

 

[Krikkit1]

This is kind of why I don't like later civs having a terrain dependency. If you are someone who likes to plan their games it feels really limiting.

I think the better solution is to add a player selected start bias (nothing like Resources or Natural Wonders but choose one..not all three..of a Biome (Coast/Tundra/etc.) or Terrain(Mtn/Rough/Flat) or Feature(Vegetated/Wet/Nav.River))

 

[Leucarum]

I think the better solution is to add a player selected start bias (nothing like Resources or Natural Wonders but choose one..not all three..of a Biome (Coast/Tundra/etc.) or Terrain(Mtn/Rough/Flat) or Feature(Vegetated/Wet/Nav.River))

I've suggested it before. But I think the logic of how Civ7 has to evolve is going to push things in a different direction anyway.

Ultimately if the late game isn't impactful, I don't think Civ Switching can survive. I really sincerely doubt Firaxis can make the late game interesting. They never have before, and the direction of travel looks like it's going the other direction. The community seems to be railing against any attempts to curb snowballing, and without that the late game is not going to be impactful. If that's the case then locking content to that age in any form is a dead end. I think the age system can be smoothed out and still exist. But I don't think Civ Switching can survive Civ7. The question is whether Firaxis get there gracefully, are dragged there kicking and screaming, or Civ7 withers.

Long story short, I hope Pachacuti will be fine.

 

[Krikkit1]

I've suggested it before. But I think the logic of how Civ7 has to evolve is going to push things in a different direction anyway.

Ultimately if the late game isn't impactful, I don't think Civ Switching can survive. I really sincerely doubt Firaxis can make the late game interesting. They never have before, and the direction of travel looks like it's going the other direction. The community seems to be railing against any attempts to curb snowballing, and without that the late game is not going to be impactful. If that's the case then locking content to that age in any form is a dead end. I think the age system can be smoothed out and still exist. But I don't think Civ Switching can survive Civ7. The question is whether Firaxis get there gracefully, are dragged there kicking and screaming, or Civ7 withers.

Long story short, I hope Pachacuti will be fine.

Well players could still want to do that (have a start bias separate in addition to their start civ, say I want to get a Petra start or I want to use Mach Pikchu as Vietnam) even if they could start with Inca/Russia, etc.

I do think they will find a way to play civs "out of age" but I imagine they would be somewhat genericized (attributes, start biases, and graphics/names/icons being the only thing carried out of age)

 

[uppi]

Well, except the last patch nerfed cities and thus, indirectly, all city-related leader abilities.

I actually think the nerfs have made him even stronger relatively. His abilities favored few cities fed by many towns anyway and the changes encourage that type of gameplay. Also, his production bonus somewhat counters the changes. If you have massive production, you don't care that some things are more expensive to build. That might even be an advantage, because he can build more buildings than other leaders. In 1.2.4, you tended to max out on buildings at the end of the age, so the production bonus did not matter as much.

 

[A_Most_Foolish_Fool]

I actually think the nerfs have made him even stronger relatively. His abilities favored few cities fed by many towns anyway and the changes encourage that type of gameplay. Also, his production bonus somewhat counters the changes. If you have massive production, you don't care that some things are more expensive to build. That might even be an advantage, because he can build more buildings than other leaders. In 1.2.4, you tended to max out on buildings at the end of the age, so the production bonus did not matter as much.

Completely agree. In addition, the new map generation seems to have more mountain tiles (I realize this is anecdotal and not at all proven in any capacity), which means that Pachacuti has more opportunities to make use of his abilities and those of his favorite civ options (Inca, and Nepal, though maybe also Silla). Adjacencies feel much stronger in 1.2.5 and the combination of Pachacuti and his favored civ choices often means that he has in my opinion the most powerful combination of adjacency bonuses in the game (though Ashoka WR may have the most powerful individual adjacency bonus). I have a personal bias towards civs and leaders that take additional planning to fully optimize (as seen by my bias towards Jose Rizal), which means I am also fairly biased here as well, but I do think that in the absence of future patches/content that Pachacuti will be considered an S tier leader (even if he is on the weaker side of that S tier).

In my own games, I need to do a better job of planning for Nepal's adjacency bonuses (from Sagarmatha) in the early game to boost science/food/production as much as possible. In games I have played to date, culture focused quarters next to a few mountains can reasonably get double-digit culture bonuses per specialist and so I suspect applying that to a victory condition that synergizes better with Nepal (like Science) seems like a good way to further push what Pachacuti can do here (to create a higher risk, but much higher reward playstyle when compared to say Confucius), especially in light of the 1.2.5 patch and what we are seeing with the new map generation.

Edit: As I think about this further, I think the Confucius comparison is not quite correct, but I do think the potential modern age science output is not that far off, but you get other benefits to production and comparable growth bonuses.

 

[MutilationWave]

Reporting more mountains anecdotally here as well.

Also Patch-acuti ha!

 

[Renouf]

Inca into Nepal are pretty clear cut, but who's everyone's favourite Antiquity pick for Pachacuti? I flip flop between the Silla / Maurya which both have a mountain adjacency for their unique district.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Inca into Nepal are pretty clear cut, but who's everyone's favourite Antiquity pick for Pachacuti? I flip flop between the Silla / Maurya which both have a mountain adjacency for their unique district.

I don't have a clear idea. Mountain adjacency for unique district takes this spot from Terrace farms, for example. Maurya is fun, because it unlocks Nepal, but if you can't unlock Nepal with the number of mountains, why play it at all?

Hard to pick...

 

[A_Most_Foolish_Fool]

Inca into Nepal are pretty clear cut, but who's everyone's favourite Antiquity pick for Pachacuti? I flip flop between the Silla / Maurya which both have a mountain adjacency for their unique district.

Pre-1.2.5, I really liked Maya and Han. Maya made a lot of sense due to the boosts you get to Science and Production from the Unique Quarter (though I suppose it is a pick that is really just because the Maya are still OP). I really liked Han with Pachacuti as well since Han has minimal start biases, which helps to get a Mountain focused start. With the new map generation of 1.2.5, I am less certain that that matters (since there seem to be more mountains generated). I think post-1.2.5, my preferred antiquity pick would be Silla due to Pagodas getting Influence adjacency from Mountains. Unique quarters are reasonable early targets for specialists to begin with since they are ageless and get adjacency bonuses and the potential Influence boosts seem quite strong. I have only been able to do one game as Pachacuti Silla, so I really don't have a good feel for many of Silla's abilities (due to it being a game where the AI allied together early and applied a lot of early pressure, meaning that I had no one left to ally with), but it does seem to be a strong combo that synergizes well with Pachacuti's typical Economic/Scientific Modern Victory condition. There is a lot left to learn about how map generation works in 1.2.5, but I do also wonder if the rough terrain start bias that Silla has is helpful for starting near more mountains (though I do realize that is entirely speculative and may not necessarily even matter since it does anecdotally appear that more mountains are being generated anyway).

 

[Renouf]

Pre-1.2.5, I really liked Maya and Han. Maya made a lot of sense due to the boosts you get to Science and Production from the Unique Quarter (though I suppose it is a pick that is really just because the Maya are still OP). I really liked Han with Pachacuti as well since Han has minimal start biases, which helps to get a Mountain focused start. With the new map generation of 1.2.5, I am less certain that that matters (since there seem to be more mountains generated). I think post-1.2.5, my preferred antiquity pick would be Silla due to Pagodas getting Influence adjacency from Mountains. Unique quarters are reasonable early targets for specialists to begin with since they are ageless and get adjacency bonuses and the potential Influence boosts seem quite strong. I have only been able to do one game as Pachacuti Silla, so I really don't have a good feel for many of Silla's abilities (due to it being a game where the AI allied together early and applied a lot of early pressure, meaning that I had no one left to ally with), but it does seem to be a strong combo that synergizes well with Pachacuti's typical Economic/Scientific Modern Victory condition. There is a lot left to learn about how map generation works in 1.2.5, but I do also wonder if the rough terrain start bias that Silla has is helpful for starting near more mountains (though I do realize that is entirely speculative and may not necessarily even matter since it does anecdotally appear that more mountains are being generated anyway).

Even if Silla's rough bias doesn't give you more mountains, it still gives you more Terrace Farms which I hadn't considered before!

 

[Renouf]

I don't have a clear idea. Mountain adjacency for unique district takes this spot from Terrace farms, for example. Maurya is fun, because it unlocks Nepal, but if you can't unlock Nepal with the number of mountains, why play it at all?

Hard to pick...

I find that Pachacuti really likes the Mauryan traditions. No happiness for specialists adjacent to mountains means you're getting a crazy happiness surplus in Exploration, which turns into more science, gold and culture with Mauryan traditions + Sanchi Stupa. It is sometimes a nightmare to fit the district though.