Inca nerf is justified, and this why

I see already too much post about the same topic, and instead of replying to each of them, I prefer making this one, in hope it gets viewed and people would actually understand why. Yeah, it sucks Incas lose their only identity, but that’s for the “greater good”.

1 - Why are Incas TRush unhealthy for the game ?

First, Incas TRush is not strong because of towers, but villagers. During TRush, you often commit to villagers destroying a tower, and this is where the Incas bonus is toxic (at least in early feudal).

As seen above, Incas villagers take 1damage from enemies standards villagers, and deal 1 more damage, for a total of 3 each hit.

It’s a huge difference, it means as Incas, your villager will last longer (on top of the +1 pierce armor from Blacksmith), when you just have to commit at your base on stone and build time to time.

The opponent, on the other hand, needs to commit to its own economy plus all of that above. The “only” villager difference is the thing that matters. And as the stats were shown above, it’s super strong and game decisive.

Nonetheless, pros players already stated about this, with most recently Nicov.

2 - You can still TRush as Inca with the stone discount

You can still TRush with the Stone discount. It will be strong, with a distinct unique bonus, same as the other civs that can also do a better TRush.

3 - Then why many players still dislike the nerf ?

I think here it’s because that’s their only strategy viable. And taking them off their powerful and healthy TRush, they don’t have much left. Kamayuk are nice for example, but their Team Bonus is terribly bad.

This is why I’m surprised dev didn’t give anything in return to compensate that. Incas need to find their identity in aoe2 :).

I’m pretty sure if dev added some unique game mechanic/passive/gameplay for them to be able to build something, do something, and in an healthy way, there wouldn’t have that much complain.


Conclusion

I do think Incas needs an overall rework, with all the points I’ve stated, with better civilization bonus.

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Incas win rate was ~51% Civ didn’t really need a nerf based on stats. Nerf was based on feelings, not statistics.

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No.

Here <1000 elo stats :

Now here 1650+ elo stats :

You can notice their strength is in early feudal, and only because of their TRush. Only that.

In higher elo, players tends to play better against TRush, and you clearly see the winrate of the civ dropping down, to a 40% winrate !

Stats are stats, not feelings. You’re wrong.

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tower rush deserved to be hit - but they also deserve a compensatory buff elsewhere imho.

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So there is nothing exceptional about incas, according to your own screenshots. The civ overall gets wins in the 50-55% range, which is fairly acceptable. Not every civ is going to be good across all ages, that would be incredibly hard to achieve with this many civs.

EDIT: also note the play rate of the civ, already barely get picked, 1-2%. The Nerf will decrease it even more.

Incas don’t need any buffs now.

it is sad though on the other hand - i like the variety it added to the game. i hope walling continues to get hit so that they can add more offensive options back into the game.

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Yes, there is something exceptional and that’s the obvious TRush I explained in my original post.

Villagers vs Villagers is unhealthy, just like were Archers able to melt buildings when playing Saracens or Mayans.

Here you notice a drop of 15% winrate just from the early feudal to late castle/early imp.

According to the win rates, there isn’t anything exceptional. Just some people get salty that their build order gets disrupted and don’t know how to play the game without it.

+1

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Yep, that’s my 3rd point and I totally understand. I guess Devs are just waiting for stats if that hits them really bad, maybe they can add some unique flavor to the civ. It’s maybe too early to tell, but yeah, I think so far I don’t see a good reason to pick Incas over Aztecs or Mayans with this nerf.

I don’t think you understand my point at all.

That’s true in low elo where they’re above 50% winrate, but again, when people start to play better, so 1650+ elo, they still dominate really hard with just that TRush thing, and then suddenly gets a way lower winrate as the game goes on. No other civs has that.

See it as a low effort high value strategy, and that’s pretty lame.

Even in tournament you see games ending in Feudal just because of this, and that sucks, it’s not interesting to see a player lose just because of villagers differences in feudal

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Taking a risk should be part of an RTS game. Even in chess you can gambit for a better position…

That’s pretty much expected to happen. The villager bonus is a strong bonus, but only in Feudal. In Castle, even knights with no upgrades takes out the inca vills easily. Many of the inca civ bonuses are early game bonuses, the free Llama, the more efficient houses (matters less to spend wood in late game). To make it all balance out in the way you imagine, you have to basically redo this civ from scratch

Come on, don’t use biased comparison when you didn’t even justify your point yet. I gave you examples, stats, and, yet I’m still fairly convinced this is just a toxic gameplay that indeed needed to be adressed and nerfed.

Yes but not scouts. And scouts are still a thing to raids villagers :). See, it depends vs what you fight, and it’s still useful (not as strong tho).

This I agree, and that’s what I’ve conclude in my original post.

based on feelings… but not statistics, which is why I don’t agree.

That was kind of the point of the bonus, so makes sense.

Yeah I’d much rather they focused on balancing civs that are actually OP, or civs that no one ever picks because they are so bad

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this from the guy who was just crying about games ending early. guess what trush does?

but the problem is the feudal age. thus the feudal age bonus nerf. you know what beats incan feudal villagers? archers. only.

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Not my fault that Arabia is so popular. On many maps this strat just isn’t even possible to begin with. But this discussion we already had and don’t need to have again - so I will not respond any further as we’re going around in circles :slight_smile:

pretty much any open or hybrid map. the only maps it wouldn’t be that great on are arena style and black forest style. so yeah. on most maps its a pretty much possible to pull off.

but again - arena style and black forest style maps don’t teach you crap about dealing with early aggression - which is why they are terrible maps for learning anything other then how to fast castle/boom.

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I think incas being affected by blacksmith upgrades was initially meant to help fend off raids, and indeed it sounds good on paper. I don’t think vill rushing was the expected result of that bonus.

I think the removal of that bonus is a good thing for the civ and the game in general, but at the same time I think inca deserve some early game buff now, although nothing too big.

What about Barrack techs costing 33% less?

People who don’t use Incas to trush all the time know that they are the “American Byzantines” They get a tech tree that let them defend very well by using varied counter units and have the most techs of all meso civs, like the Byzantine have one of the best tech trees among Old world civs. While they lack the cavalry options of the Byzantine, in exchange they don’t miss key upgrades like siege engineers or blast furnace. Actually, almost every Inca unit can be fully upgraded, which makes them very fun to play without the need to build a single tower.

People don’t play Incas because they don’t want to be criticized for trushing, or they don’t know Incas have other options.

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