Pachacuti, Aqueducts and Macchu Picchu

[Bibor]

Some people asked on if Macchu Picchu is actually not an interesting wonder for the Inca.

So here's my take on this after 30 or so restarts (till T100 or so) with Inca.

Macchu Picchu is a great wonder for the Inca because:
a) Inca high pop puts it roughly in the same spot as Germany - you can have all the districts you want.
b) You can grab some pretty sweet adjacency bonuses in regions on the map where any other civ would have real issues with land quality.
c) Flatland tiles which can happen quite often near mountain chains (so no good for Terrace Farms) are ideal for Macchu adjacencies.

If you're blessed with all-hill-mountain chains though, I'd say don't bother and go for terrace farms


AQUEDUCTS

For love of Goddess of the Harvest, build them aqueducts. Period.

They provide +2 production on each adjacent terrace farm and put any mine or industrial zone to shame.

Ideally, as Inca, I found it's best if you plan your cities around aqueduct placement first (ideally flat terrain with no river, adjacent to a mountain and 3-5 hills). Also, somewhat counterintuitive, you'll want to move off that starting hill, especially if a plains hill, and plan your capital around the aqueduct placement.

Yes, that's 6-10 production per turn from the same tile already netting surreal amounts of food, in addition enabling your cities to grow even larger.

Now that you more citizens than tiles to work, it's time to put them to good use in the campus and putting Korea adjacencies to shame

There. I can go back to my latest Inca game now

 

[MarigoldRan]

The problem is that while you could be building aqueducts and Machu Picchu, you could instead be building their UU.

 

[UWHabs]

Aqueducts I would agree with. If you plan them right, they give probably 6-8 production, plus their other bonuses. And like other civs that get aqueduct bonuses, it gives you a bit more flexibility in city placement, since you don't have to take the river spots (even if it's hard for me to mentally do that). Also of note, terrace farms do not actually need to be adjacent to mountains - especially if next to an aqueduct, it's now a 1 food/2 production/.5 housing improvement, which is actually competitive with a mine, especially if the housing is useful to you.

Machu I don't know if it's worth it. I find there's not too many mountain-adjacent spots, so whether it's worth investing all those hammers for maybe a +8 or +10 yield per turn, I don't know. Especially since they can actually work their mountains, if you have 2 terrace farms around a mountain, it's a usable tile that I don't necessarily want to disrupt. To me there's much better uses for that production.

 

[WillowBrook]

Next time I play Inca, I'm definitely paying more attention to aqueduct placement and will beeline Machu. The terrace farms alone are awesome, and when you combine them with Nazca lines and Cahokia mounds, desserts bloom.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Fun but maybe not useful: a lone mountain with machu picchu on it gives +3 adjacency to theater squares

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Fun but maybe not useful: a lone mountain with machu picchu on it gives +3 adjacency to theater squares

In my limited experience (12 - 15 Inca Starts) the Inca don't get Lone Mountains, they get Mountain Chains, Networks, and convoluted Knots of mountains. The trick, I've found, is to find a Mountain with enough non-mountain tiles around it to make the Machu Picchu bonuses worthwhile!
On the other hand, nice as it is, the Inca UU is not as necessary, because, with big cities nestled in the mountains, it is not easy to attack the Inca: in two of my games an enemy attack came down to a one-tile-wide approach against an 8 - 10 size Inca city on a hill with a melee unit in front of it and a ranged unit in the city. It wasn't pretty for the attackers, but the Inca were probably having chicha parties while they watched the bodies pile up . . .

 

[Bibor]

Macchu is really not worth it if you don’t have flat mountain-adjacent terrain. But if you do, it complements terrace farms well, especially the industrial zone, which, lets be honest, is a hard sell for the inca otherwise.

The theatre square adjacency is also great, pehaps for inca more than other civs, because you want tiles the game won’t prioritize

 

[Victoria]

Inca is a great and powerful civ.
Good District adjacencies are the thing they suffer from.

 

[Bibor]

Inca is a great and powerful civ.
Good District adjacencies are the thing they suffer from.

If you can grab Macchu, adjacencies are not really a problem. There’s plenty of desert hill and/or flatlands hidden within mountain chains if you’re after adjacencies, although I learned not to value adjacencies and districts too much, especially with Inca.

population, especially aqueduct-powered terrace farms, leave industrial zones in the dust - until coal plants, that is. And by that time you either won or can afford to purchase those 5-6 adjacency tiles

 

[Victoria]

although I learned not to value adjacencies and districts too much, especially with Inca.

Exactly my point... and you started by saying they are not a problem.

 

[Zenstrive]

Let me add that winning as Inca was my first GS victory. I just smack everyone silly with my high productions.

 

[comatosedragon]

I just started an Inca game because of this thread. Hadn't played them before, moved down to Emperor anyway (wasn't confident in my ability to get Macchu Picchu at Immortal; I have not tried for it previously). Continents. Settled in place. (I only saw one volcano at first, wasn't paying good enough attention .)

Aqueduct on the marsh tile, and campus in the valley (directly East), correct?

 

[Mikey1993]

I would be so afraid if I was a citizen in that city. Dear God..

Campus tour: "And in our beautiful city we also boast an excellent view of two potentially active volcanos. We always aim to have our students feeling as safe as possible here

 

[MarigoldRan]

Um. Yes.

 

[Softly]

People definitely overrate aqueducts as the Inca. Important to remember that the +2 is actually just +1 if the terrace farm is otherwise adjacent to fresh water.

 

[UWHabs]

People definitely overrate aqueducts as the Inca. Important to remember that the +2 is actually just +1 if the terrace farm is otherwise adjacent to fresh water.

True, although a few points:
-I find a large portion of mountainside hills are not adjacent to rivers
-The aqueduct bonus stacks
-Knowing that you can get an aqueduct bonus means you can more easily plan cities off of rivers and not worry about housing

Now, you need to pack cities in close for the stacking bonus to actually pay off, but if you can get the aqueduct to cover, say, 3 adjacent terrace farms, 2 of them not otherwise adjacent to the water, that can be worth 4-5 production, which is not bad. I wouldn't do it for less than that, though, if I didn't need it for the housing. So in the above example, I would skip building the aqueduct on the marsh tile, since it's really only going to help the terrace farm NW of it (maybe also give +1 production to a terrace farm W of the city but still only 50/50 whether I would place the terrace there). Personally I'd probably just use that marsh tile for my 2nd early district in the city, maybe a commerce hub to get a nice little triangle with the campus next to it. And then just plan to rebuild that campus a lot if those volcanoes wake up...

 

[Bibor]

Aqueduct on the marsh tile, and campus in the valley (directly East), correct?

It really depends on the disaster levels, but if its set to 4, I’d say not the marsh as it will turn to volcanic soil

Settling 1 west would’ve been a better option, because then you can place an aqueduct on the tile your city is now on, and it could grab 4 tiles with the aqueduct (provided tiles north of the river turn to volcanic soil which can be terraced even as flatland) for additional 5 production. Not head- turning for sure, but this start is not very hilly so that’s the absolute max you can gain.

Foe this start I would’ve personally settled on the rice and use the current city spot for a kick ass industrial zone, and hope there is more hilly terrain to the north and west and place the aqueduct probably 1 W of rice

 

[Bibor]

It's a (common?) misconception that the Inca require mountains to shine. Yes, hills adjacent to mountains certainly help, but only mountainside hills are of value.

Inca in fact require only hills, with or without mountains, to get the terrace farms going.
The strong inca foundation is the critical first 4-5 population that can work 6-yield tiles with aqueduct-powered hills.
The rest can be a combination of farms, mines, pastures etc.

Certainly, some Inca starts will have numerous 7+ food terrace farm tiles, but its actually struggle to put all this food to use, except if you space out your cities way more than usual.

 

[Infixo]

Inca in fact require only hills, with or without mountains, to get the terrace farms going.

It is true.
The funny fact is however that Inca have a mountain start bias of 3, and they don't have a hills bias.
I am wondering if hills spawn usually close to mountains or if they are somehow generated separately, no matter where mountains are?

 

[kb27787]

Tried them and the fact that terrace farms are available at the very beginning is insane! Your early game just EXPLODES if you get a free builder from a hut early on.
Compared to other things such as sphinxes, kurgans, or mekewaps which are clearly inferior but require one tech/civic to unlock and we have a balance problem. In BNW this was so powerful they put it all the way at construction so that Inca will struggle with early game food to compensate.

You don't even need mountains. Just a grassland hill with freshwater is a 3f 2p automatic tile... plains hill 2f 3p. With a few mountains in your starting position you are looking at 8 yield tiles early on.

Yes, they do struggle with housing due to all the wasted food, but that is where the aqueducts come in. +2 housing is not bad, but more importantly you want aqueducts anyway because there are so many places with juicy mountain tiles without freshwater. Aqueducts solve that problem (and you always have mountains to build them next to)