Incas - a bit lame?

[Cort Haus]

These guys have a problem, IMV.

The way to play any civ is to maximise on their traits. Expansionist civs should send out a bunch of scouts to grab huts and make all the early contacts to get that ancient era tech lead - and hopefully get a 2nd settler or city.

However, the Chasqui Scout is an expensive little bugger which gets in the way of your REX and offers a rather marginal benefit if you're not on a young and large-landed planet.

If you don't build them you've lost out on both the expansionist trait and the UU, and if you do build them you're behind on granary, settlers, MP's and workers - and lose out on the agricultral trait in the opening stage of the game.

[Mad Bomber]

Cort Haus:

The trade off is that you have a scout that can hold its own against the barbs and can knock off a settler team or two with a little luck, or pillage a few tiles to disrupt other civ's REX (which also makes them misdirect their building priorities) For a builder; this unit has minimal benefits; for a warmonger it has infinite opportunities for mayhem.

[Cort Haus]

Good point, MB. I was looking from a builder's perspective. The warmonger has better use for it.

[Aqualung71]

Jag Warrior has the same stats but is cheaper at 15. The Impi has the same cost but has better defence at 2. The only advantage of the CS over these units then is its ability to run across mountains and hills (what about forests, jungles, etc? - civlopaedia doesn't mention this).

I agree with CH - it seems too expensive compared to similar units, though as MB says, when handled well its use as a military unit could be pretty powerful.

[Donegeal]

As of late, I have been more and more inclined to choose the Inca as a civ.

I play on Regent/Monarch. At this level, I almost always get a settler/city from a goodie hut. Additionally, after I have built 2 CS, I then have a scout and 2 CS running around getting contacts and popping goodie huts that frequently end up as techs.

The agricultural trait speaks for itself. However, in all of my games that I have taken the Incas, I have not had any bonus food tiles anywhere near my capital, making the ideal 4-turn pump impossible. Not that big of a deal when I have a 20 shield scout that I can slip into the build queue to keep my population up.

[Jon Shafer]

One of the major boons of being the Inca is the Expansionist trait, but even then not so much for the Scout. On higher difficulty levels and with more aggressive barbarians the risk of getting barbarians from a hut increases dramatically. Being assured that you WILL NOT get barbs from ANY hut is a very powerful tool on higher difficulty levels, especially in MP games.

That having been said, the Chasqui does suck kind of a bit.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Cort Haus:

The trade off is that you have a scout that can hold its own against the barbs and can knock off a settler team or two with a little luck, or pillage a few tiles to disrupt other civ's REX (which also makes them misdirect their building priorities)

Yeah, but if you use it to attack early AI settlers, you risk a GA when you probably have no more than 2 tiny cities. Almost a complete waste.

Inca traits are good but the UU is subpar and the GA timing is horrible.

[Cort Haus]

I wouldn't compare the Impi with the Chasqui. Impis are fast-moving defenders - very handy for the job of early defence, and upgradable afterwards. I'd never use Chasqui's for anything other than interim defence and reinforcement deterrence once scouting was over.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by gunkulator

Inca traits are good but the UU is subpar and the GA timing is horrible.

Furthermore, I think that the UU hampers the expansionist trait. If I could build a regular scout as well, then fine - I'd squirt out a couple of those for starters and add Chasquis a bit later for longer journeys.

To be fair, playstyle is a variable here. I like to get roads down on (ideally river) tiles for commerce - especially with agricultural fast-growers. Maybe sacrificing commerce and growth for earlier shields would help but "must ... dash ... for ... philosophy".

[alexman]

I agree that the Chasqui is weak.

After much debate we decided to reduce its cost to 15 chields in the AU mod.

[DrSpike]

15 shields makes way more sense.......I wonder if we will ever see such tweaks applied to C3C by Firaxis.

[ZargonX]

15 shields makes way more sense.......I wonder if we will ever see such tweaks applied to C3C by Firaxis.

Who can say? That's why you have your friendly, neighborhood AU panel

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Aqualung71
Jag Warrior has the same stats but is cheaper at 15. The Impi has the same cost but has better defence at 2. The only advantage of the CS over these units then is its ability to run across mountains and hills (what about forests, jungles, etc? - civlopaedia doesn't mention this).

I agree with CH - it seems too expensive compared to similar units, though as MB says, when handled well its use as a military unit could be pretty powerful.

But, when you add in the advantages of the scout (no barbs from camps) then it becomes much more powerful than the jag or the impi as it is far better at exploration and tech advances.

15 shields does make more sense for this unit. I have also modded the scout to 0.1.2 at 10 shields.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber


But, when you add in the advantages of the scout (no barbs from camps) then it becomes much more powerful than the jag or the impi as it is far better at exploration and tech advances.

15 shields does make more sense for this unit. I have also modded the scout to 0.1.2 at 10 shields.

Which brings us back to the debate that the Jag Warrior is too expensive at 15 shields compared to a 15 shield CS!

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber


But, when you add in the advantages of the scout (no barbs from camps) then it becomes much more powerful than the jag or the impi as it is far better at exploration and tech advances.

15 shields does make more sense for this unit. I have also modded the scout to 0.1.2 at 10 shields.

wait a minute, thats an advantage that all units from an expansionist civ gets isn't it(or atleast scouts)? So why would that be added into figuring out which is better unit per unit? The Aztecs got to have another trait for that, and if you lump a trait in with the incas units lump a trait in with the Aztec unit.