A little over a year ago I made a post warning and asking for changes in the Inca, as the civ was on breathing machines and in a deep induced coma… well it looks like they turn off life support devices.
The inca currently in treated mode, FFA, DF, team games even in sup mode is completely dead.
Currently the civ is easier to drain, as the economy was completely nerfed, units were destroyed with nerfs after nerfs, the civ no longer plays any role in the game…
Civ like ethiopia, lakota, hausa and hauda have much superior economies, much more powerful units than the inca.
Of the indigenous civs it is by far the worst.
When the DE was actually launched, the civ was too strong, really, really too fucking strong, and in fact several things in Inca needed to be changed, like the way the kallancas and forts worked, Chasqui, but EVERY, LITERALLY EVERY PATCH RELEASED SINCE DE’S LAUNCH, A DIFFERENT NERF IN THE SAME CIV.
Have you been changing the inca since update 3552, either you delete this civ from the game altogether, or give it a rework… Because it is currently unplayable.
Perhaps the developers hate the Inca civilization because it is South American, while they adore the Lakota and Haudenosaunee because they are North American, not for nothing that the first new civilization was the United States.
Jokes aside, throughout the entire timeline of the game the Incas managed to survive much longer than the Aztecs, they even used horses, cannons and gunpowder weapons.
There is no reason for the developers not to give the Incas new units to cover all their weaknesses. Just give the Incas a modernizing industrial age, give them cavalry, artillery and gunpowder units.
PS: Sometimes I think that the developers only wanted the Incas as a means to attract AOE2 players, but the developers would never do that, right?
I can assure you, these civs are botched just as badly as Inca. At least Inca doesn’t have the PC police preventing them from mining like the Iroquois do.
Inca sits pretty much middle of the road play rate wise and had a great win rate till last patch. They still 2.to 3x more popular than KotM civs. And AR civs. So thousands of people prefer them still. Higher play rates in team but data is a bit old (3 months so right after nerf)
Huaraca and kallanka needs redesign but to call a civ ded is a big stretch. Clearly people generally enjoy the base design.as well.
They were not completely freed from this “superior vision of the world.” They lost friendship with nature. Apparently domesticating an animal turns you into an animal.
All the Native American civs are a disaster designwise, it’s almost impossible to balance them because they are broken from the base and any fix is just a patchy solution that doesn’t adress the structural issues.
Completely agree, now we just need the developers to do something about it… Yes, maybe the real problem is that the developers aren’t going to do anything, right?
The original design of inca civ had a lot of elements from aoe2. The garrison in castle to shoot more arrows, monks converting, unsnared units etc…when they designed de they were considering aoe2 players. I was one of the aoe2 players attracted to aoe3 after release of aoe3 de.
Why didn’t they split the units between ranged building and melee building like AoE2? Why does the Priestess not convert as an attack and you must micro her with the ability?
What on Earth were they thinking not giving them a Siege Workshop?
It’s only superficial references, the civ doesn’t play anything like AoE2.
Stuffing too many gimmicks exclusively to one civ is always a bad idea. Making these gimmicks the civ’s only identity is worse.
Inca at release could instant garrison-ungarrison which was toxic as hell.
In the meantime conversion is near useless.
And don’t forget it has only one do-everything warship.
It needs a rework that gives them real strengths not stacked gimmicks, because when these gimmicks got nerfed there is nothing else worth using.
I hold the same criticism for the first DE civs. Later ones generally have more matured designs (except Malta). There are gimmicks yes but they can play without them. For Inca however all their unique features are gimmicks.
It might seem useless at first, but actually after many games of working on it, I have made it work at my ELO level (which, fortunately for my enjoyment of AOE, I don’t care about at all). Here are a few games I just had using Priestesses. IncaPriestessVsSpainUWU.age3Yrec (7.8 MB) IncaSomePriestessVsFrance.age3Yrec (7.7 MB)
They are fun to use vs raiding cav especially. The key is not to rely on them too heavily in your army comp. A massive trade off with the unit is that it takes a MASSIVE amount of APM to use them, so it makes it impossible to do anything else such as deal with your other troops or economy or anything else. At least there should be a hotkey for convert and for go to next priestess. Of course, if you are worried about ELO too much, your strategic options are by definition severely limited and you might as well stick with skirm goon dance competitions.
It is still a fun civ to use, you don’t HAVE to be super toxic and annoying when you use them. I do wish they had a better answer for massed muskets. Zapotecs are cool but you run into a build limit issue and I don’t like their bowmen in general, hurracas don’t trade cost effectively and of course they have no artillery.
Bolas Warriors go to 4.5 speed and are tagged as Ranged Shock Infantry.
Add a weak, general purpose artillery (flaming arrow like stats).
Huaracas become a long range, siege archery type longbow unit (better against buildings than heavy infantry and light cavalry).
Partially revert the Jungle Bow and Spear nerfs.
Inca suffer from being annoying to play against. Huaracas are either too good or garbage. I’m not entirely sure this will fix it entirely, but it’ll be a good start.
