There is no answer to multiple cannons as Incas. This usually happens with games that last longer than 15mins. Huaracas are supposed to be the answer to this, but they make a poor Culv.
In age 3 a Falc has 200hp, and a Culv (5 pop, 500 resources) can deal 160 damage in one shot. For Huaracas (2 pop, 120 resources) to deal 160 damage against a cannon you need 4 of them, that’s 8 pop and 480 resources. Then there is the range disadvantage Falc has 26 range and Huaraca has 20. Huaracas also have the infantry tag so they get killed by cannon fire that does 300 damage while only having 150hp (not to mention area damage).
Huaraca is 2 pop. Bolas Warriors and Macemen had the same issue of having a high pop count and they have been fixed. Why not fix this for the Huaraca?
Huaracas do not have the range to deal with cannons, 6 range difference is a big problem.
Huaracas can’t even take 1 shot from a Falc.
There are many ways to make this unit better do its job:
Buff range
Give them resistance to cannon fire/ remove the infantry tag.
Rework the unit to behave more like a Culv, which would mean they can kill cannons well but not infantry.
Questions:
Inca already have Chimu?
Chimu work well with small armies but as soon as the enemy has enough anit-cav to cover their canons then you could sacrifice 50 Chimu to kill 5 cannons. That is not a good trade in resources or pop.
Other civs also struggle against cannons?
Aztec are also all infantry like Inca but they have the Arrow Knight which works because of their range. Lakota armies consist mostly of cav and so they suffer less from cannons. Houda has light cannon.
Huaraca can’t have 2 roles, killing infantry and cannons?
Other units have this ability so it’s not much of an argument but at this point, I would be happy to have them reworked to be able to do their job.
They get cards and upgrades that buff them
The extra bit of range, hp or attack that they can get does not solve any of the listed problems
Final Note:
These numbers have been all in age 3 (no cards or upgrades) and compared to a Falc. In age 4 the problem is worse with horse artillery and heavy cannons.
The huaraca seems to be in a weird place, first they made it quite strong against infantry like an abus, then they nerfed that a bit and buffed it vs artillery.
The issue is it does neither well, this unit loses cost effectively vs any ranged infantry due to the animation so it is no where near an abus gun. It also loses vs artillery because it gets countered by them and out ranged, see how well it does vs heavy cannons lol.
My suggestion was make it bad vs infantry if need be give it a negative multiplier but give it more range than a falc. It still couldn’t be abused like arrow knights due to the god awful animation and slow speed.
The unit needs to do something well instead of several things badly, alternatively give it high siege resistance and perhaps the age 4 card could improve range a bit more and not just siege range.
The only reason inca haven’t become d tier is because chimu actually got buffed a bit vs artillery with a 1.5x multi but even that isn’t enough late game vs musk and cannons, units like soldados just delete them.
The Incas should have access to light cannons and the huaracas should be an equivalent to Abus-Gun.
I would also like the Tupac Amaru II revolution to be a revolution equivalent to the Mayan revolution, basically giving us gunpowder weapons to all units.
Chimus are supposed to be able to handle cannons with the button they have in conjunction with ignoring snaring. But as has been said, when there are enough musks, you just get deleted. And almost no one is walking around artillery with no anti-cav, especially if they are facing Inca. And actually Huaraca aren’t even so great versus buildings, you put them against a fort and their infantry tag and lack of range gets them obliterated quickly (why not just make macemen). It is cool to have a short ranged unit like the Huaraca, but in my opinion it needs cannon/fort cannon resistance if it is going to have such short range.
P.S. I am against giving Inca light cannons, that should remain a special haud only unit. Civ differences are a good thing.
@MrCrispyButt I fully agree with you that the [Light Cannon] should be exclusive to the Haudenosaunee only.
The Incas could get their own unique cannon which could be called the [Blasting Rod]. In terms of looks the artillery unit itself could be based on the cannons that were used by the early Conquistadors. According to a post on a website called “How to Peru” the early Conquistadors were unable to haul heavy artillery across the “New World”. And instead they made use of their lighter ship-based cannons, which were apparently Falconets that were remounted on makeshift carriages or on timber scaffolding.
Edit: There could also be another new military unit for Incas which can be called the [Ku-mana Prowl Runner]. They will basically be the Incan counterpart of the [Eagle Runner Knight] that is available to the Aztecs as a ranged cavalry substitute. But unlike both the [Chimu Runner] and the [Jungle Bowman] who can only go into stealth mode after sending the “Cloud Warriors” card, The [Ku-mana Prowl Runner] will have the ability to go into stealth mode by default as soon as they are available.
According to a small piece of text that I found on the Wikipedia concerning the weapons of the Incas. They did use spear throwers for warfare but it was later adopted. The weapon was apparently mainly used for guerrilla tactics to attack the Peruvian cavalry. Ku-mana means “Spear Thrower” in Quechua.
The word Ku-mana is not supposed to have dash symbol in it but if I didn’t use it then the word would get censored.
Being “unique” should not be an excuse for objectively bad designs. Inca has by far the strongest case among the native civs for having artillery. Unlike all the others, they actually used it extensively. And right now they have many dysfunctional units that could be fixed by actually adding units with proper roles instead of a bunch of multi-role units that are either super OP or complete duds.
Maybe some future civs could get some unique anti-artillery units, but Inca is not a civ it makes sense for.
That’s just a poorly named Falconet. There’s no reason not to just keep things simple and give them the same unit. If necessary for balance, the base stats/multipliers of the unit could be tweaked, and it’s role could be customized for each civ through cards and big button techs.
I agree with your post. But just want to point out lakota also suffer against cannons. The rifle rider is their culv, but it also die easily to skirms or dragoons and they have range disadvantages
Huaracas are definitely anti-artillery units, but their anti-infantry ability also makes sense as they are successors of slingers in AoE2.
In my thoughts, I would let them have both. But as others might think differently, then here are suggestions;
Huaracas stay the same, but rework Chachapoya Support to buff Huaracas with extra range, multiplier, and damage negation like Arrow Knights. (would be best if they get a new counter-artillery tag that nullifies artillery damage)
Rework Huaracas’ base stats to match Arrow Knights, for counter-artillery only use, but give Inca 2nd card to gain additional damage to infantry for dual purpose.
Give Huaracas 2 types of attacks instead, they become strong against artillery in the long-range and strong against Infantry in the short-range, but not vice versa. Or make Huaracas attack fast when enemies are closer, and reduce base RoF.
Devs probably don’t want to give Light Cannon training to Inca, since giving LC without condition means that Huaracas become obsolete.
I think all they really need is the age 4 card to buff them in range so late game you can handle stuff like heavy cannons. 2 falcs isn’t really an issue because chimu can deal with that it’s late game when they suffer or perhaps allow the guard upgrade to buff their range more.
I’d really love to see them split up the attack into an anti artillery attack at 30 range and an anti infantry attack at lower range, (maybe at 20 initially and 22 buffed?), tbh I’d also love to see it done to the arrow knights at least in the pup to see what implications it would have in practical use.
Yes but the Huaraca unit is essentially useless in age 3. If you are going to make it an age 4 only unit, then it should just come with the features that make it usable and not require a card, and of course it would be ‘industrial’ tech level. Like the Italian skirm. Its not a terrible idea and not unprecedented, when I play Haud I basically have in the back of my mind that I must go to age 4 to deal with cannons.
I actually love the idea of making Huaraca a special age 4 only unit which does extra well against artillery and skirmishers and buildings, kind of like a heavy cav replacement.
Lakota don’t suffer vs cannons. It is a cav civ with a cav hero for gods sakes! Tokala, Axe, Rifle, and even the War Chief with battle anger (which really works insanely well vs cannons and is super fun to use). In fact Rifle specifically counter heavy infantry + cannon, a very common combination. The fact that the unit has counter units, well of course, all units are supposed to have counter units unless they are Caroleans.
Lets make Huaraca an age IV only unit and give the unit the bonuses found in the Chachapoya support card. (+5 LOS, +5 siege attack maximum range, + 0.10 siege armor)
The problem with that is it still remains useless because the card only effects siege range and not noraml range against units, so it will still suck against artillery and any unit but you’ll be able to siege buildings from 5 range further out, if the card affected normal range it would pretty much solve a lot of the issues with the huaraca.
