Inca review + discussion + rework suggestions

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

I love playing Incas and have played many ranked games as them (not always successfully) but nevertheless I’m sure many players would agree that they lacking in a few areas.
I have seen many players discuss the need for the Incas team bonus to be changed which I fully support. However, it might be good to take a closer look at how the Civ is oriented and see where the major flaws and weakness are before we change it.

The most obvious problem for Incas is of course economy. I believe the main problem is that they are built around infantry/counters and defenses but then make it useless by forcing you to play as aggressive as possible (for gold). So, you must leave your defensible position (if you built one) for gold while spending gold the entire time. This made tower rushing inevitable.

The late game is especially bad. Their lack of strong siege counters makes the trebuchet pressure that much stronger.

Also, there are only two good counters to the trebuchets: Eagles or trebuchets themselves, both of which are gold intensive, unlike light cavalry. Also, trebuchets are built in castles. Soo if you start losing castles in Imperial age, good luck. For them to be truly defensive they must be above average when defending

Weaknesses are necessary for a civ to be balanced, it doesn’t need to be perfect, but they do need to have a focus and an identity.

If its defense, then make them good a t defense. If its economy, then let them be good at economy. What we have now is a strange combination

So, what is good?

-Unique units and tech tree are a solid plus and I don’t think they need to be changed

-Stone bonus and house bonus are a solid.

-Llama is ok (but could be improved). They give you a good dark and feudal age with a possibility to either push with tower or wall up.

-Villager armor is OK; I understand why they were nerfed. However, by castle age the effect is less useful.

-The no min. range on skirmishers and slingers is fine, maybe make it cheaper or cost no gold

So, in conclusion what do they need?

1 a gold bonus (discount or bonus) or a (real) food bonus

3 a way to counter siege- either a general speed bonus or an eagle discount bonus.

  1. A team bonus that is actually helpful and doesn’t make you a weak link on your team.

Possible bonuses

Economy:

  1. ability to create Llamas (in mills for wood) - would allow players to gift Llamas to allies

  2. Smaller farms (would be able to make compact and more defensible bases)

  3. A flat +25 food to all farms

Siege counter:

  1. speed bonus when moving on hilly terrain. (Fits their mountain culture)

  2. Eagles cost 10/15% cheaper (maybe something like supplies for eagles)

  3. Andean sling tech also gives + 3 damage to siege for skirmishers and slings (possible team bonus)

Team bonus:

  1. slingers available in ally archery ranges

  2. Trade carts move 10% faster (fits with the famous Incan Road networks)

  3. Generate gold from healing units (fits the Incas great medical abilities)

Please Let me know what you think about some of these suggestions or what you would like changed.

1 Like
2

I dont really agree with your list of strength/weaknesses.

To me, the inca got two big strengths: Their Kamayuk which is one of the strongest UUs in the game and the fact that they are the only civ in the game with a ranged infantry counter in castle age (apart from bohemians).

Both those strengths are about army composition. While you can counter aztec eagle spam with longswords, try the same against inca and you run into slinger problems.

Their weakness isn’t really siege; they got siegeram, kamayuk and to a degree eagles to kill enemy siege. Its not amazing, but it works. Their weakness is that their eco bonus is weaker than the bonus of other civs. But that bonus is kinda needed: Buff their eco to lets say mayan level and its really rough to stop eagle/slinger pushes. Buff their booming potential and they have an easier time reaching mass kamayuk.

So if you massivly buff their eco, you have to nerf their military options. And i dont like that. It takes away their uniqueness.

2 Likes
3

Pretty weird tbh, dont really like it

May work but notice that smaller farms is a huge boost fo farm efficiency

Too much +food bonus from other civs already imo

Don’t think eagles need a buff, they are already used a lot by incas (rather I would like promotion of UU/slinger instead of yet another eagle spam civ)

Way too OP imo (knight+slingers are hardly counterable)

Fair

Mangonel can deal friendly damage so it can turn into a gold generating machine real quick

2 Likes
4

Incas is balanced indeed. The only change needed is team bonus.

3 Likes
5

Feels a little useless and ‘gifting’ herdables is already annoying.

Don’t know how OP this would be, since the big part about farms is villager moving time and this cuts that down.

A little boring, but iirc no other civ has a +food bonus right now, so maybe. One small idea I’ve had is that farms built on elevation give, let’s say triple food. But that’s very situational.

Same way I think the hilly terrain speed bonus might be a little too situational.

Slingers already have +3 damage vs Rams! I think it still might be meh as you still end up being flattened by onagers, especially with the death bug. Might backfire.

It’s a bonus I’ve suggested before and would like to see myself. Also makes them better in Team Games. It’s what I’d like to see, alongside a better farming bonus. I think Incas then are fine, the gold thirst is signature for all Meso civs and they’re balanced by it.

(Maybe Andean Sling can also add 1-2 damage to the units, idk.)

6

Give Incas barrack technologies costing 33% less and replace team bonus to infantry +2 LOS, is imo the best way to improve the civ.

7 Likes
7

I like this suggestion.

Though I also think that the Dark Age Eagle Scout would probably need to lose 1 base LOS, for +1 LOS for Incas and -1 LOS for Mayans & Aztecs

8

Incas are fine and their eco bonus is the more population for houses. You save a good amount of wood for that and it’s comparable to something like 1/2 of Huns bonus. Yes they could have more but their tech tree is also fairly nice, since they have FU Arbalest, Siege Engineers, Siege Ram etc.

As meso in general you are meant to win the game fast, if you find yourself in a post-Imp situation fighting Bombard Cannons/mass Trebs, it means you misplayed.

Incas unlike Aztecs furthermore have a power unit, too, in the form of Kamayuks which decisively beat equal resources worth of Champions in mass battles. Mass Kamayuks + Arbalest is a very good Incas comp and beats a ton of civs, for example Franks or Celts can struggle vs that.

Incas is probably still a bottom-tier civ in the game but there will ALWAYS be a bottom-tier civ, they could use a small buff but they are far from unplayable, they still get eco bonus and CA Eagle Warriors are insane like usual.

1 Like
9

I wasnt to committed to this idea just a generic buff

I have heard the hill farm idea and I like it. However like you said it may be a little situational.
I think that we could minimize the disadvantage of this by giving them more bonuses of this type

Like give them a hill farm bonus + a speed on hill bonus + maybe buildings on hills take even less damage
that would make them good at maps with lots of elevation. This is great for giving them a strong identity.
There are no mountain oriented civs really it could be an interesting experiment.

10

It’s basically the only thing I agree with.
Imo the current malians bonus would have been way better with the incas.

11

I agree that incas need a rework. But I disagree with your suggestion. That will buff them, and they don’t need a buff.

First of all, I think their power is fine and it should remain the same. Their problems are two: 1. Their core army costs more gold than aztecs’ and mayans’, and incas mine less gold than aztecs and obviously mayans with their +15% bonus. Plus inca castle tech andean sling is worse than aztecs and mayans’ versions. Inca trash is weaker. 2. Out of the three mesos, incas take too long to reach imperial age and use their wide tech tree which, in my opinion, is their signature or identity right now. A counter generalist civ. Plus before that, incas struggle (take longer) to research essential techs for mesos like eagle warrior upgrade and ballistics; unlike aztecs and mayans that can research these just fine and easy because of their eco.

Before the blacksmith nerf, these 2 points weren’t a problem. Because incas could tower rush safely in feudal and that allowed them to delay their opponents or overwhelm them there. The thing is that mesos need to win fast or before gold runs out by design. Something aztecs and mayans can do far better than incas.

Imo a decent option would be to replace the free llama for all units cost -15% food. Basically, 1 llama is equal to 88 food and faster scouting. That means incas have a safer dark age start but sill not as good as lithuanians or persians. Before the blacksmith nerf, it also meant that incas could send only 1 extra villager forward for tower rushing in feudal. Now post-nerf, someone else suggested to give them 2 llamas. That’s 176 food. Better than persians resource-wise but still worse than lithuanians because they get 150 food from the start while incas would still have to collect the food. Personally I don’t like it because that means incas would send 3 villagers forward for TR or send them to work and snowball into one of the safest feudal ecos, only on par with vikings, mayans and slavs in that age.
As for my suggestion about -15% food to all units, inca villagers would cost 43 food and they would save 127 food by the time incas click advance to feudal. This means incas can send at most only 2 villagers forward for TR without the risk of their feudal eco getting out of hand. So inca tower rushing could be revived and comeback in feudal age without having to rely on extra armor. This bonus also means that incas can advance to imperial age faster (which they desperately need) but still not as fast as aztecs, mayans, indians or italians. Plus, it’s not going to affect their military that much because spears will cost 30 food instead of 35, skirms will cost 22 food instead of 25, and eagles will cost 17 food instead of 20. To be honest this is fair for the weakest eagle and trash army out of the the 3 mesos. Besides it’s best to give this bonus to a civ without knights, camels and elephants to avoid crippling their cavalry armor or nerfing them somewhere else. The impact on incas, as other mesos, is minimal because eventhough eagles are their best units, their food cost is pretty low anyway. So inca military power will remain the same.

As for the gold bonus, before I suggested something similar to pole’s stone bonus for incas: gold miners generate gold in addition to the mined gold.

12

I glad for all your input. I am not exactly saying Incas need a buff. I play them constantly, I think they are a good civ. But they are lacking. these were just ideas not definitive bonuses I want. But I do think a civ based on counters is fundamentally a defensive civ. I can’t counter if I am constantly making the first move. And I cant counter if I don’t have the economy to do it.

All the Mesoamerican civilizations have a way to help prolong their gold needs
Aztecs have the 33% faster producing relics
Mayans have the longer lasting resources.

Incas have no gold bonus. that’s why I suggested the healing one. Now that may have been not necessarily a great idea as was pointed out (healing is a way however to save money). But something is needed.

The main issue I have is that Incas have not one but three gold and food intensive units- Eagles, Slingers & Kamayuks. And no real economic bonuses in either of those areas besides a Llama and a few seconds off the build time of the fastest built building in the game. It makes it difficult to build into that mass that is effective if you are constantly having to split those resources on different units. Instead of being able to use all resources for various units.

Skirmishers interestingly is something all meso civs have bonuses for. However even though the no minium range is great, They could use a little more. Maybe make the fabric shields armor upgrade effect skirmishers too?

I think maybe the meso civs should be a trio of civs that compliment each other. the relic bonus and wall bonus are geat bonuses. especially for the other meso civs. If the Inca bonus filled that last gap well, then they may be fun to play together. A food or trade bonus would probably be best.

13

I like the +2 LOS. Sometime i like to wall off and boom with a late castle age push. And being able to scout around and see the enemy is really useful.

The cheaper barracks technologies would be quite useful. If you mean both unit upgrades as well as buffs.
The spearmen line especially. Investing both into halberdier and elite kamayuk seems to be too much of an investment. However if spearmen were cheaper to upgrade then I could justify mixing them together.

I wonder If making supplies arson and tracking affect villagers would be a good bonus - it would give a significant eco bonus and keep the tanky villager idea

14

What about…

Barracks technologies and upgrades cost no gold and get +2 LoS? :smirk:

15

That’s broken on arena, you won’t be spending any gold upgrading a Halb+siege ram push leading to obscene gold savings lol

16

Finally, breaking up the other OP Arena strats!

Besides, you’re only saving like, 690 gold with that, no? That could quite literally help with the meso trash options. :person_shrugging:

17

Calling it broken seems like a big exageration I think. Comoared to what other civs save this is fairly meh and Incas arent that strong either on arena

Either way, I rather buff their early game a bit more and remove the villbonus entirely

1 Like
18

I ran some tests and compared aztecs with gold shaft mining + 2 relics (1 gold camp, 10 vills), poles with gold mining (1 gold camp and 1 stone camp, 5 vills each), and incas with gold shaft mining + the gold version of the polish bonus at 30% rate (1 gold camp, 10 vills). And found out incas would need the rate to be 46% to catch up with aztecs and 58% to catch up with poles. I think the problem wasn’t the bonus itself, it was the pathfinding. Aztecs walk less and carry more gold + the relics. While poles don’t bump as much because the camps are separated. So yeah, forget what I said about nerfing that gold bonus for incas.
Maybe the malian bonus gold mines last +30% longer would have been better for incas. Oh well.

19

I think the 10% faster trade would be a good team bonus. But a separate gold bonus would be needed for 1v1.

It would be preferable to choose something that has a historical connection.
I read that they used a complex record system by tying knots in strings.

  • Maybe they could get a small amount of gold from sheep?

Also taxes were supposedly collected as labor instead of money.

  • Maybe you could have villagers produce gold while constructing buildings, kind of like how the Keshiks produce gold while attacking.
20

I really don’t think Incas need a bonus at all, they are in a good spot right now
They are an underrated civ and after the BS nerf they lost popularity
If something what about military upgrades research faster?
Incas are a gold-counter civ, this will help them a bit