The Quechua: A Highly Overrated Unit

[DangerousMonkey]

Lately I've noticed a lot of love for the Quechua, the Unique Unit of the Incan Empire. I've heard a lot of talk about how much of an early game powerhouse they are, and I've even heard it argued that they are one of the best, if not the best, UU in the game. I disagree.

The Quechua is a mediocre UU and it can be countered easily by a skilled opponent. This is not to say the the Quechua doesn't offer some useful advantages over a standard warrior, it does, but you can do much better with other UUs. I concede that that the Quechua is somewhat strong against an AI, because the AI doesn't understand how to counter them. But you can still do better with other UUs. However, a skilled human opponent can defeat a Quechua rush almost as easily as he can defeat a warrior rush.

There are several main problems with the Quechua Unit:

1)Against anything other than an Archer, they're just a regular warrior. Thus, the only way Quechuas can be highly effective is if someone doesn't understand this principle, and tries to defend himself exclusively with Archers. Also, as soon as your opponent is capable of building something better than archers, all your Quechuas are obsolete.

2)Archers defending cities generally have a slight mathematical advantage over a Quechua. In a standard situation, where a given city has a +20% defense bonus and is defended by an archer is attacked by a Quechua, that Archer has an equivalent power of 2.3 [3/(1+1-.7)] against the Quechua's equivalent power of 2.2 (including the Combat I promotion he will have because of the Incan Aggressive trait). The numbers for this are explained in the article "Combat Explained" appearing in the Strategy Articles section of this forum (hopefully my math is right, please inform me if it isn't).

3)If you choose to, you can build warriors just as fast as the Incan can build Quechuas, and you'll have the defensive advantage. You can let him attack you in defensive terrain, and you'll be close to your production center.

With these things in mind a Quechua counter-strategy becomes obvious. This is the basic deal, step by step:

1)The game begins. You know you are facing an Incan opponent because you've either checked along the score bar (multilayer) or you find out as soon as you run across him. If he isn't close by you don't have to worry because he either wont be able to get to you fast enough, or there will be a closer opponent for him to attack. Otherwise, move to step 2.

2)Begin your standard chop-rush oriented starting strategy. Make sure to build a few warriors before building that archer (to defend yourself with if a non-Incan attacks), and position a unit between you and the Incan so you can keep an eye on him. Get Bronze Working early (which you should do anyway) and if you have some copper in your starting radius hook it up and chop-rush an Axemen and you are pretty much home-free. If you don't have starting copper (and you probably won't) move to step 3.

3)Defend yourself. If your incan opponent is planing to attack he'll either be speed building or chop-rusing a stack of Quechua's while you are dealing with step 2. He'll probably be ready to launch around when you have finished getting Bronze Working and maybe a few other techs. If you don't have copper yet it's crunch time. Take those warriors and put them in forests/hills along your boarder. You should see his stack coming because of that picket you placed in step 2, so you should be warned.

4)Draw it out. The Incan cannot win a long-term war this way. Keep chop rushing a few warriors and place them in annoying places along your boarder. If you get a chance, send some of those warriors into Incan territory to draw units away from you. Meanwhile you should either be teching animal husbandry or iron-working if you can't find copper, and hooking up those horses/copper/iron. If your closest strategic resource is out of your boundaries chop rush a settler and drop him on it. Use rivers instead of roads to get those resources back to your capitol faster if you can. Once you can build Chariots or Axemen you've won. Remember, the Incan will (if he's smart) try to station a bunch of Quechua's on top of that horses/copper/iron before you can connect it. Make sure to put a few units there first to control that space.

5)Counter-Attack. If the Incan has been building nothing but massive Quechua stacks all this time he's in deep trouble because they're all obsolete now. Don't bother killing every single Quechua polluting your territory, take the fight to him. Now it's your turn to move those Axemen/Chariots into is territory and cause trouble. If you're lucky a few of these units will be enough to kill his capitol, if not you should at least be able to deny him resources and pillage him good enough to keep him down and kill him later. Either way if you don't kill him outright he'll have to withdraw his forces just to stay alive.

Well, that's it. I'd welcome any comments/questions/disagreements people would like to put forward.

 

[walkerjks]

I don't fundamentally disgaree with you, but you tend to assume a multiplayer environment. In this case, you are correct - a smart human player will defend with warriors and destroy an Incan quechua invasion.

That said, the quechua is a great uit for an early rush in single player games. The AI inevitably uses archers (Mali being the exception). Quechuas are cheap. At essentially every difficulty level, a human-controlled Inca civ can destory at least 1 AI-controlled opponent. This can give the sort of jump-start necessary to win a game. Even considering the defensive bonuses of archers, a stack of 4 quechuas (which are cheap) will beat a fortified defensive stack of 2 AI archers almost every time.

 

[Bismarck II]

Prettty good, but what happens when you build a settler and keep up building more clubmen? Is the Inca player supposed to have done nothing? You are suggesting a scenerio where you cannot attack only defend and stil somehow take back and hold 3 resources and/or build a city or two? Very hard to pull off and that wil take a long time, the Inca unit is supposed to give him an advantage, maybe getting him to hrses faster than you. In yours it is a must, the Inca player would already have researched enough to make him have better defensive, economic, and/or offensive units.

Other than that, a very well written article (contrary to my posts). And I enjoyed reading it, it could happen and yes I do agree that all the hype on the Quencha is overated.

 

[Gaspar~]

The value of a quecha rush isnt taking cities as much as it is that by forcing your opponent to do nothing but defend, you can get to the next level ahead of him, and land the finishing blow. In reality, the only real difference between a quecha rush and a warrior rush is that you have to do a little more work to end it. Normal warriors, its over as soon as archers are built, which require only the tech, which is 1 or 2 techs from 4000 BC (depending on if you start w/hunting or not.) Quecha, you need to get to either AH + wheel and hook up horses or BW and hook up copper to completely end the threat.

Its not the most powerful UU (that's easily Praets) and its not the most effective strat in the game. It is a valid strat, and can work, depending on the map/difficulty level/opponents. Like any other gambit type strategy (Various rushes, various slingshots, etc.) it can either be spectacular or blow up in your face.

 

[Islandia]

I think you underestimate the usefulness of the Quechua. The good Incan players will not try to take your first city with a Quechua rush. Their goal is to confine you in your city and unable to move to hook up resources, chop forests or expand. This can easily be done with 2-3 Quechas, which can be built while waiting for your first city to get to size 2 and teching bronze working.

Once a Quecha gets into a forest square in your capital radius you will need to have two warriors escorting every worker around. In addition, you will not be able to remove that Quecha unless you can hook up a horse, copper or iron ( the exception being if you are Montezuma of course). With 3 Quechas around your capital that means you will probably need to build at least 7 or 8 warriors to protect your capital and escort workers around. This will really slow you down, allowing the Incan player to expand and build up at will.

I will say that the larger the map and the more players there are, the less effective the Incan strategy becomes, however in 1 v 1 duels they are one of the deadliest civs out there.

 

[petey]

I love the Quecha and have had great success with it up to Monarch level (haven't played higher levels yet).

The key with it is not to try and take over your neighbour's civ, but to cripple it. The only two opponents that you'll be meeting are warriors and archers - if you wait for axemen, you're too late and the unit is now relatively useless. Against archers you have a big advantage and against warriors you're even if they're Aggressive and have a 10% advantage if they're not. If you fortify on their resources or in woods/hills, you always have an advantage and they have to waste a lot of time and units trying to dislodge you while you expand.

Most of the time, you can take/raze a city or two at the same time and both losing this early city and having to focus on dislodging your units pretty much cripples them for the whole game and then you can wander over with your axemen/swordsmen and conquer them at your leisure.

 

[Zombie69]

The Quechua is a mediocre UU and it can be countered easily by a skilled opponent.

Of course it can, nobody said otherwise. However the AI isn't a skilled opponent, and so in single player Quechuas are overpowered. All you need to defeat them really is to build warriors instead of archers, but the AI is so dumb it doesn't even realize this.

Multiplayer : Quechua sucks.
Single player : Quechua overpowered.

You need to understand that most people don't play multiplayer, and therefore most strategy discussions (including those stating Quechuas are one of the best UUs) are aimed at single player only. We know that Quechuas are easily countered, but we don't care because in our games, it won't be.

 

[Wreck]

Quechuas are great against AI-controlled archers. Not human - human either don't build archers, or, they don't use them against you except to guard cities and hills.

But AI-controlled archers appear in two situations. One is single-player - not a small thing. The other is barbarians. If you play on a larger map, and/or with Raging Barbarians, you'll get a lot of pressure from them when you really want to be throwing every resource possible into the maw of the early-game exponential growth curve. It's real nice to be able to counter barbs effectively with cost 15 units, rather than having to wait for, and pay more than double for, axemen.

 

[Yzen Danek]

Mostly agreeing with what has already been said.

If I get assigned as the Inca, my opening strategy is always going to be pinning down one or two nearby opponents with Qechua and setting them so far back that I have a decisive advantage by mid-game.

The idea is to prevent them from being able to build better units for a while, by restricting their access to bronze or horses. The Quechua is the best unit for this because it naturally counters the best early unit requiring no resources - the archer.

Counter the Quechua with standard warriors? Only if your Incan opponent is a fool and not building superior units themselves. If both you and your Incan opponent both have Archery, their unit stacks will be Qechua and Archers, while yours will be Warriors and Archers. They don't have a decisive advantage at the attack, but they don't need to; their only goal is to park right outside of your city, pillage all improvements, and block you from hooking up bronze.

In the meanwhile, they themselves hook up bronze and then take your cities with axemen.

This advantage is most decisive on marathon games and smaller maps. On quick games or larger maps, the Qechua is usually irrelevant before the Inca can even find a neighbor.

 

[Gaspar~]

Of course it can, nobody said otherwise. However the AI isn't a skilled opponent, and so in single player Quechuas are overpowered. All you need to defeat them really is to build warriors instead of archers, but the AI is so dumb it doesn't even realize this.

Multiplayer : Quechua sucks.
Single player : Quechua overpowered.

You need to understand that most people don't play multiplayer, and therefore most strategy discussions (including those stating Quechuas are one of the best UUs) are aimed at single player only. We know that Quechuas are easily countered, but we don't care because in our games, it won't be.

I surely wouldn'y call Quecha overpowered in single player. The difference between doing this with Quechas and warriors from a similiarly aggressive civ is there, but not significant enough to be overpowered. Quechas have one solitary advantage, and thats being hard for archers to kill. A combat 1 warrior fortified on a forest is also hard for an archer to kill, not as hard, but it can still be a moderate crippler. Is the Quecha more effective? Yes. Is it overpoweredly more effective? Not hardly.

 

[atreas]

There are two or three things you have to consider before deciding for or against a Quechua:

1. Map size and Nr of players: the larger the map, the more distant the starting positions - so more turns to go to another player's area, and also to send reinforcements. Quechua is much better with the more "dense" maps.

2. Level of difficulty: Of course, at Emperor level the Quechua "attack" is much much more difficult, as AI cities are much better defended. This also is related to point #1, as even if you take a faraway city you will normally want to raze it - that means, not much good to you, very bad JUST FOR ONE of the opponents.

3. You usually cant do that against anything like Mali or Aztecs (in some cases, also Egyptians and Persians as they need "cheap" Techs and only a Horse to get to their UU).

In general, I think that, the more scarse the map, the more useless are the early UUs. In Large Map I would much prefer Immortal from Quechua, due to speed plus AI difficulty to handle. But still I think that, for the not so dense maps, good units are the unique units of the Middle Age and beyond - but usually not the UU of the LAST age (it is far too late).

 

[Yzen Danek]

I surely wouldn'y call Quecha overpowered in single player. The difference between doing this with Quechas and warriors from a similiarly aggressive civ is there, but not significant enough to be overpowered. Quechas have one solitary advantage, and thats being hard for archers to kill. A combat 1 warrior fortified on a forest is also hard for an archer to kill, not as hard, but it can still be a moderate crippler. Is the Quecha more effective? Yes. Is it overpoweredly more effective? Not hardly.

Well, I don't know how one would evaluate the term 'overpowered,' anyway.

What I would say is that in certain game types, the Qechua is absolutely decisive. Using your example, a pair of combat I warrior fortified in a forest would be relatively strong in the opening game as well, but the way the mechanics of combat work in this game, the +100% bonus doesn't make the Qechua just twice as strong; it makes them 3 or 4 times as strong.

A pair of combat I Qechuas fortified in a forest right outside your city are going to require such a larger force to remove that you've already lost the game by the time you remove them; you were just set back 40 turns. In the time it took you to come up with a superior force, your opponent built two more settlers, and his/her empire is now triple the size of yours.

As I said, though, most of these 'overpowered' types of claims are all on ridiculous, artificial settings that people come up with trying to win as easily as possible, like playing the Incans on a small map at marathon speed with 18 civs. Great, you beat the computer on Deity by making it as easy as possible. You could have also made it easier by turning down the difficulty setting to Noble.

Play on a huge map at quick speed, and the Qechua is probably the weakest unit in the game, while the Fast Worker is probably the strongest.

 

[DangerousMonkey]

I've seen it pointed out here that the Quechua is very difficult to dislodge once fortified in defensive terrain because you can't use Archers to do it. This is absolutely true. As a result you can't afford to let an Incan get the drop on you and rush you while you're unprepared. You can parry a warrior rush pretty handily even if you get caught off guard, but not so with Quechuas. If you find yourself in a situation where your opponent has filled the terrain around your capitol with Quechuas before you have a chance to react, you're in big trouble. Still, I feel that preventing this from happening can be done rather easily if you follow the steps I outlined, and doing so effectively is the key component of the overall strategy.

Keep in mind that you are capable of building Warriors at the same rate your opponent can build Quechuas. And as long as it's Warrior to Quechua it's an even fight. If your opponent doesn't have the advantage of surprise, and he won't because you should be working under the assumption that he's going to rush you, he lacks a significant advantage. If you are careful to build enough warriors early on and station them along strategic points in your empire (especially to protect chopable forests) you'll be able to simultaneously protect your territory (and workers) as well as threaten your opponent with the possibility of moving against him.

Gaspar pointed out that the only difference between a Warrior rush and a Quechua rush is that a Quechua rush isn't over when you get Archers, and this is completely true. So you have to make damn sure you don't let those Quechuas get established. If you let those little guys hold the terrain around your capitol you won't be able to dislodge them effectively until you get Axemen, and that'll be mighty hard to do when you're pinned.

Yzen Danek made the point that once your Incan opponent gets Archers he'll add them to his stacks to increase their survivability. This is a completely valid point. This will indeed make the Incan more difficult to deal with and will make it very difficult to dislodge him if he's already established in your territory. Of course, hopefully he won't get that far if you've been careful. Also, you'll want to add Archers to your Warrior stacks at this point to protect your warriors from those Incan Archers. As long as you are defending your best unit will deal with each given attacker, so your Archer will deal with Archers, and your Warriors with Quechuas.

Basically, if you're dealing with Quechuas in the early game, you are at a natural disadvantage. My overall point is that this disadvantage can be overcome handily with a little bit of preparation and skilled play. By doing a little mini-rush on warriors yourself you can prevent your Incan opponent from gaining control of the space around your capitol and either win the war of attrition through defensive action, or hold out effectively (without serious loss of production) until Quechuas become obsolete. This is why I feel that while the Quechua does give you a nice edge, the edge isn't significant enough to raise the Quechua's overall usefulness above that of many other Ancient/Classical age UUs that are, in my opinion, far better. This is why I would give the Quechua the overall rating of “mediocre.”

 

[DaviddesJ]

A pair of combat I Qechuas fortified in a forest right outside your city are going to require such a larger force to remove that you've already lost the game by the time you remove them

Why do you care if the Quechua are in a forest? They don't get defensive bonuses, right?

 

[Yzen Danek]

Why do you care if the Quechua are in a forest? They don't get defensive bonuses, right?

Sure they do; they're an upgraded warrior, a melee unit.

 

[joasoze]

I love the fact that the quechua doesnt become obsolete as the warriors quickly do. When I get axemen my warriors will be obsolete, but not the quechua. I mix quechua with axemen and they are still useful against defending archers. The quechua can do damage for quite a while.

 

[Nuke_Exchange]

Quecha are obsolete as soon as chariots\Spearmen, axemen appear.
But if the opponnet doesn't have Horses, Copper OR Iron? he's toast.

 

[joasoze]

Quecha are obsolete as soon as chariots\Spearmen, axemen appear.
But if the opponnet doesn't have Horses, Copper OR Iron? he's toast.

No, the quechua are valuable far beyond that, but you have to mix forces. The AI will use archers as defenders for a long time.

 

[Wodan]

No, the quechua are valuable far beyond that, but you have to mix forces. The AI will use archers as defenders for a long time.

Saying they're "valuable" makes it sound like they're the unit of choice when fighting archers. Quecha are NOT some kind of Archer bane, reaping them like wheat. The thing about Quecha is that they hold their own against archers, that is, they aren't obsoleted. That's all. There's a big difference between "valuable" and "not worthless".

Anyway, given the choice to fight archers, I'll take Axemen or Swordsmen any day over a Quecha.

Wodan

 

[Zombie69]

I surely wouldn'y call Quecha overpowered in single player. The difference between doing this with Quechas and warriors from a similiarly aggressive civ is there, but not significant enough to be overpowered. Quechas have one solitary advantage, and thats being hard for archers to kill. A combat 1 warrior fortified on a forest is also hard for an archer to kill, not as hard, but it can still be a moderate crippler. Is the Quecha more effective? Yes. Is it overpoweredly more effective? Not hardly.

Try playing as Inca, building a barracks and then as many Quechuas as you can, giving them all the cover promotion. Take over one or two enemy capitals. See how easy the game becomes from then on. Remember that capitals are always placed in great spots as far as resources go. I'd rather get 2 extra cities in starting spots than my own capital plus 4 normal cities.

After you've done that, come back and tell me that Quechuas aren't overpowered in single player games.

Their true power in single player doesn't come from harrasing and defending in forests, it comes from taking over cities fair and square.