Granted I did not watch every series, but I’m pretty sure Incas showed up quite often (certain players picked them more while some others didn’t at all) and had a pretty good winrate with them as well.
I think only Viper regularly won against them and you could argue that
Spoiler
Vinchester threw the Incas match in the final against him.
I’d still change the team bonus because it’s just sort of…nyergh. For a civ with roughly 3-4 eco bonuses, it sure feels like you’re playing with half an eco bonus that just smooths out your gameplay. Guess Eagle Warriors are the meso civ eco bonus with how they allow you to spam eagles while not taxing your food at all.
Indians are like Chinese without the awkward start: Strong economy, flexible tech tree with an answer to almost anything, and cheaper tech switches (by cheaper comps rather than cheaper techs.)
Incas are like Byzantines for gold units: Bait the enemy into making a counter, then counter that counter with an even better counter, and win by slowly grinding down the opponent’s army.
I think both civs have a unique identity and their power level is in a good spot. I wouldn’t change anything about them, except for the Inca team bonus.
I have to disagree on this one. Indians don’t get Arbalester or Knights, while Chinese can commit to either of the meta units with full upgrades (on Cavalier, missing only Paladin). Chinese have much better Infantry with Plate Armor, and even their Light Cav beats Indian Hussars. I’d argue that the Chu Ko Nu is often a better unit than the Elephant Archer, especially for protecting Castles. Indians just have better gunpowder (which is strange), and slightly better camels in late Imperial (Chinese have a cheaper Heavy Camel upgrade and Plate Barding in early Imp).
I think incas biggest issue is that the civ is pretty trash after early imp power spike, since they lack scout line, bombard cannons and differently from the other mesos they don’t have any direct bonus to make their gold supply last longer (tbh you can make the case that cheaper castles can help securing extra gold spots but it can’t always be the case).
So if you’re an aggressive player you can make the civ work, they have definitely good options for aggression on each age since dark age to early imp, but if you’re oriented towards cost efficiency and late game play then they’re not a good civ. In fact Viper (late game oriented player) put them bottom tier.
Yeah, I think Incas has a cool identity of as long as you have gold, your army composition is really really strong, only missing things like Siege Onager or Bombards (like all mesos), arguably strongest of all meso civs with Kamayuks. Probably Mayans still has the best trash out of all meso civs due to Hul’che skirmishers, but Incan skirms are still nice with Andean Sling (I think the tech is slightly underrated tbh).
I’d also say that very few games actually went to the late game, and even though Viper won KOTD4 and Red Bull, his view on the civs isn’t very objective either or he just misunderstands how to use some civs - there’s like, so many after all and you don’t need to know all of them. He was getting spanked by Incas after all, until Vinchester threw.
Also, I’m not sure if giving Incas a gold bonus of some sort would be a good idea, I think the civ would be a little broken then. You kinda have to have them gold-reliant. I’d much rather just see a better team bonus so in team games you don’t feel like you’re messing up your team’s build orders by having the farms be built before upgrades
Maybe like, bring the llama into a team bonus and give them a better farm bonus instead!
Here I disagree. Maybe Incas aren’t the best TG civ, but the Llama bonus would make them OP immediately. And I also think the farming bonus is undderrated. Bonusses you don’t immediately feel are ussually underrated.
You indeed don’t feel it immediately. You feel it in castle age when all your farms are depleted because they were completed before horse collar was researched 11
I am surprised this happens, ever. At least I wait always until my research is completed before making new farms. The researches also take way longer than the 15 secs so how do you even achieve this narrow window of timing?
Are you using tools that automatically reseed your farms when the research has only 15 seconds left or what?
Normally it’s easy because if you clicked the tech a villager possibly can’t complete a farm before the research is finished, but if there is an inca player in the team then suddenly you can’t really do that anymore. And if you wait for the research to be finished 100% every time then you just gave yourself idle time for free which makes the “eco” bonus even more pointless.
There is so much stuff to macro usually, you can just wait until your research is complete before looking the next time for idle villagers. At least that’s how I do it.
And btw if you do it earlier you are also very likely to lose the extra food on your farms with each other civ, the 7.5 secs of incas don’t make a big difference there.
Uh what does “it” refer to? Anyway the point is, an “eco” bonus shouldn’t have a chance to screw the whole team all that for a pay off of like 1%, and the fact it’s given to one of the worst TG civ is just downright dumb.
It depends on when you do horse collar. If you get it on your way up to castle after playing archers or so it doesn’t really matter. But oftentimes you do horse collar to immediately put down a lot of farms. For instance when doing fast feudal scout build or fc on arena or the like. Usually when horse collar is at around 30% you already can place your farms and they’ll have the extra food. Not with Incas though (you have to wait until it’s at 60%) . Happens to me a lot when I play the civ. It’s like with goths. The basic early game mechanics are pretty internalized so that I mostly have horrible boar lurs when I random into goths. Sometimes even with both boars in a row 11
Yeah Inca tb has been discussed a lot. And roughly calculating the numbers bonuses like the above are way worse. Actually the current inca one isn’t even super bad as a tb it’s just somewhat inconveniant.
Well no if you mean imp camels than Indians aren’t generall worse. They are a bit worse against cav but they’re much better vs everything else. The upgrade is more expensive though.
Same as above. Depends on upgrades and techs. Also Indian eco bonus indirectly makes their camels cheaper. And also don’r forget about atk bonus vs buildings that makes them take down buildings super fast.
Why? 11 It’s one of the most unique and most interesting civs to play! You lack knights but have a super diverse playstyle in castle age. Extra pa isn’t only great for camels, it’s insane for late castle age light cav spam that straight up can win you games vs archers civs (mass indians light cav in rekts any ranged unit at that stage with 5 pierce armor). Yes the civ is a bit awkward because vs pikes you probably need to go ca. But pls no, imo we have enough of those streamlined cav and archers civ. Indians are in a great balance shape atm and super fun to play.
Not sure where you get that? Anyways that’s not true. Hussar with one less melee armor still beats FU light cav because of +15 hp.
And don’t forget in effect Indians don’t really miss last armor expecpt for that one melee armor (which isn’t really important for hussar as a raiding unit). Instead they have full pierce armor when you reach imp so you save the time and res to research the tech. Nice early imp powerspike.
I mean, yeah Imperial Camels do slightly better against Arbalesters and Halberdiers than Saracen Heavy Camels, but this generally isn’t a fight you should be taking. Losing less severely is not a selling point IMO, camels have great mobility to avoid these units. For any situation where you would want to make and use camels, Indians’ are worse. Indian Camels used to be more versatile when they had +1/+1 armor (relative to current stats), but these days they are only good for typical camel role, and do not even excel at that.
You’re right, my mistake. That is actually interesting, I’ve always prioritized the plate barding upgrade over the Hussar upgrade, but maybe I should reverse that when I’m not facing enemy archers or castle fire. I did not realize that the less-armored Hussar was superior to the fully armored Light Cav.
Every civ has a super diverse playstyle in Castle Age, but most have better options in Imperial (Indians are forced to swap from crossbow to HC or CA, which can be a slow and awkward transition, and their Infantry becomes terrible without the final armor upgrade). I agree that lacking knights is unique, but simply missing options is not an acceptable identity. They were designed well from the start, with the best camels and better than average hussars, but I think that has gradually been lost over the years. It’s probably the best example of why balance decisions shouldn’t be based on win rate and forum complaints. When Paladin civs are very popular (particularly in team games) both of these will be inflated.
Why would this be OP? You generally just get an additional herdable which… isn’t OP for Incas as a bonus, but just helps smooth out your Dark Age. Some other civs can synergize with it better (Britons/Tatars), but other than that it’d just help smooth out the Dark Ages or make them more resistant to lames.
It’s not like a Spanish team bonus for OP trade 11
I think one suggestion I’ve also seen is that farms would be built instantly. Mills researching 100% faster would also be similarly useless - in general the current bonus may just as well not exist as pointed out below, it might screw your teammates over instead. You would at least see the change with instant farms maybe 11
Imagine this: 4v4 with incas and tatars or britons. The inca team decides to everybody just sending 1 sheep to the britons/tatars player whtich then can make an insane tattoh rush.
Absolutely not OP.
