Hey everyone,
I was randomly thinking about Incas and checking their winrates in aoepulse to see If some kind of eco Bonus could be justified since my impression is that they’re generally considered as a civ with good military options but Not that great of an Eco.
Anyways, what i noticed is that their winrate in Arabia, nomad and four lakes is always as good as aztecs or even better and the higher the Elo you look at the better they get (absolute winrates and even better in comparison to aztecs).
Now im wondering why we so rarely See Incas in tournaments but Aztecs quite often (im not talking about Arena), and whats the reason for their good winrate at higher elos.
Im Happy to hear your thoughts in it.
Incas are like a “3rd best” choice on basically any map. They aren’t bad, and they have a chance vs nearly every civ, but often, another civ is better on a specific map.
Arena? Aztecs/Bengalis if you wanna play full Monks, or Bohemians/Turks if you wanna play for late game
Valley? Mongols for the hunt bonus
Scandinavia? Byzantines or Mongols come to mind.
Arabia? Hindustanis, Chinese, Aztecs come to mind.
This doesn’t mean Incas are bad, they have very good chances to beat even top dogs (maybe if you exclude civs like Chinese or Khmer). Funnily, they counter meso pretty well, too, in fact if you know opponent is going meso, you can counterpick with Incas yourself (but often the preferred counterpick is considered Chinese), because Meso mirror is generally about Eagle spam, and vs Mayans you have a better eco bonus long-term in the form of less houses needed, and option of Slingers, and vs Aztecs you have the strong Slingers which counter their main bonus (faster military production which in this matchup means faster Barracks essentially).
Again though they aren’t picked because they often fall in this 2nd/3rd best tier of civs on a certain map. It’s a bit like picking Byzantines on Arabia, technically you will counter A LOT of civs, but you are a tiny bit weaker in the early game, and that tiny bit is enough to make you not want to pick Byzantines on Arabia.
versatile tech tree I’d say is the main reason. Redemption Monks, Slingers which are good in like only 3 matchups, but in these matchups they are very hard to stop (Aztecs, Mayans and Goths mostly come to mind), not bad Eagle all-in potential, possibility of FU Arbalest, Siege Rams with SE, Onagers, hell even their late-late game isn’t looking horrible with a decent UU (which is also resilient to ranged once you research Fabric Shields) and the cheaper Castles.
Their only flaw, if you have to find one, is that they don’t have a power unit in late game if you exclude Kamayuks (which you generally can exclude as they require 3+ active Castles to mass), and also that their Castle Age UT isn’t very relevant (they have the worst Skirms of all 3 Meso and arguably the min range removal bonus is useless because the main application would be mitigating Hussar spam which is the unit you see the opponent make if you mass Skirms, +4 armor on Hussar trumps your no min range Skirm play).
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I agree on almost everything, especially on your “Jack of all Trades, master of none” Point, and would also add tanky vills from Castle age onward and a convenient start to that.
But what made me wonder was their high winrate, on Arabia especially in comparison to aztecs (not Inca vs aztecs), they’re always better than aztecs If you go by 1v1 RM Arabia, but still seen less than them.
I have seen some Bulgarians.
Aztecs, Mayans and?
At this point, I think it is just people are more familiar with how to play Aztecs/Mayans. Incas being newer as well as weaker (until DE when Aztecs and Mayans got some nerfs), made them unpopular.
Exactly that. On the ladder Incas have inflated win rates as they have good matchups against a lot of civs. But the Top Dogs on Arabia incas often struggle against as they often not only have really good bonusses to their core units but also a better eco than Incas.
When Incas just get overwhealmed they don’t have the opportunity to make their counter units work.
Some people already suggested to give a bonus to their eagles like higher Speed.
I think an intersting bonus could be to give them a discount to the Barracks, allowing them to make faster drushes and/or even add more eagles in feudal to compensate for their lack of a good early eco bonus. In compensation the Stone discount could be reduced to 10 %.
Imo this would be enough to bring them to a point where they are viable on a huge chunk of semi-open maps.
The whole “counter unit” concept doesn’t work as well on closed maps (in 1v1s, in TGs incas can make a lot of work with the Kamayuk). Especially for a civ that has no BBC or equivalent tool. (Incas could get Monks with insane range to counter BBCs, but idk if that can be justified…)
I think if we want to improve their eco, we can give them back the farm bonus (as civ bonus).
If we want to give them a nice flavor, we could replace the “+2 LOS to pikes/skirms” with “+2 LOS to all infantry units”, which in particular includes eagles and UU with raiding potential (woad raiders, huskarls, ghulams, Berzerks, …).
He mentioned Goths afterward.
I do not really get it either.
Maybe many people underestimate how well rounded they are compared to Aztecs, who lack halberdiers and thumb rings ?
Maybe many Aztecs mains are older player used to a stronger version of the civ ? (+5 carry capacity)
Maybe many aztecs players fall into the “trap” of all in-ing with monks & eagles every game, whereas Incas players play more standard since the villagers nerf (blacksmith upgrades were from feudal before) ?
That would be basically equivalent to +2 LOS to eagles as the other infantry units don’t really need LOS.
Sure, would eb a comparable bonus to Mongols in 1v1s… in TGs the mongol bonus would vastly outshine that though.
But What about “Barracks cost -50 Wood” as a Team Bonus? That sound really falvaourful to me. Giving Incas a nice bonus for early militia rushes. And ofc helpful in TGs especially in combination with other civs that like to add some infantry. Also saving basically all civs 50 wood in the beginning. It’s not much, but neat.
Barracks and SW cost -75 wood will be nice bonus for a future infantry+siege civ.
Give them Gold Miners generate stone in addition to gold (at a ratio of 1:3, same as Poles bonus).
Change the team bonus to: Relics generate stone in addition to gold (30/min).
Yeah i agree Incas are a bit lame. They are like meso-bizantynes with their counter identity, which is there, but something about them feels off.
Their eco bonus is bad, their castle Age UT is bad…they could use a Little buff as they feels average atm, not weak, but boring to play, at least imho
It would be cool if Incas would get the “El Dorado” tech.
And the effect could be something like paper money or burgundian vineyards but for all ressources.
Or any other “more gold” bonus.
what exactly about them is a “counter-identity”? They have 1 counter unit, the Slinger, and other than that they are basically carbon-copied Aztecs. Their UU is as generalist as it gets, basically a Champion that does well vs cavalry.
they have 1/2 the bonus of Huns, which is considered a very good bonus, probably top 3 eco bonuses in the game. You save some 500w over a long game as Incas.
this I agree, it’s 1 of the worst UTs in the game.
and average is perfectly fine, there are many civs that are “boring to play”, for example, most pros find Byzantines very boring to play, I myself find Gurjaras or Ethiopians or Berbers or Italians rly boring to play.
I think Incas tbh are incredibly underrated, right now any tier list almost regardless of map will go more or less like this:
S tier) Hindustanis Poles Chinese Burgundians (Turks + Bohemians on closed maps)
A tier) Mongols Tatars Aztecs Khmer Mayans (Bengalis on closed maps)
B tier) basically everything else
If you deleted tomorrow the S tier from the game (which is 4 civs if we exclude the closed maps ones), then BAM Incas suddenly are A-tier because they counter basically everything in A tier except Khmer, for example Mongols vs Incas, I’d rather be Incas than Mongols if it’s say an Arabia-like map, Aztecs vs Incas, again I’d rather be Incas.
Given that most civs in S tier need a nerf, I’d say Incas are more than fine, they don’t need to be picked in tournaments to be solid, not everything is about tournament pickrates.
Although again, I agree that Incas should get their Castle age UT changes and in my opinion it’s the main thing holding them back, but in Imperial age they are unique with Eagles with extra PA, Kamayuk, cheaper Castles, Trebs with Siege Engineer (Mayans don’t get that for example), FU Arbalest…
Slingers actually pull their weight in Imperial Age, too, because they have lower base damage but also faster firerate, so in the end their damage output ends up being not too dissimilar from Handcannoneers.
Literally give Hul’Che Javelineers to Incas and the no min range to Mayans, bam you made Incas a good civ and Mayans toned down slightly (although Mayans suffered greatly from Arbalest nerf + Knight meta so I am not sure they need a nerf).
I guess at higher elos except a few most players go random on ranked and Incas are decent against the average civs. Also they do well against the commonly picked camel civs like Hindustanis and Gurjaras. So these must contribute to an above average win rate. Whereas in tournaments, they’re not generically good against the big meta picks, players have to come up with something unconventional like Vinchester did in Kotd-4 semis and warlords quarterfinals.
And the slower eco becomes a bigger factor in tournaments as well.
In every civ tier list (except team bonus ranking) Incas have nearly always fallen into B category. It’s really funny, they’re the B-tier civ.
Arguably better than Huns since you can still housewall.
I feel like this one would be incredibly game-impacting, as Stone is the scarcest of resources.
Rather have it be some form a more meaningful farming bonus. I’d also like the Castle UT to become a Trade tech for teamgames, it’s already not really teched in 1v1s because the minimum range could honestly just become a civ bonus anyway.
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You missed Gurjaras.
Add Berbers, Britons, Huns, Vikings and now Portuguese. Teutons for closed maps.
As you said later, their Castle Age UT needs a change. I think their problem is they are not fun to play for most of the players compared to other 2 American civ, and also have slower gameplay than them.
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Yeah, of all the “other resource from relics” bonuses, this should definitely not be a TB at the gen rate of other resources (or at all really). It’s probably too strong even as a civ bonus (tho obviously situational), where if you manage to get 4 relics, it’s a free tower every minute/ free castle every ~5.5 minutes. To add further perspective, even if you only get 1 relic, that’s the stone gen of more than 1.5 Feitorias without the pop malice.
The Bonus i thought about was making vilagers affected by all infantry techs, namely arson and squires (supplys is only for militia Line, not infantry in general and would also bevor strong of a buff).
Admittedly that would still kinda Bland and also too similiar to berbers and bohemians, and arson for vills would be useless to super situational, i know.
Anyways i dont think they need any buff atm since they’re in a top spot in top ELO.
@Pulikesi25 your point of being able to pick civs in tournaments makes lot of sense (atleast to me), Just as others said they’re good at everything but in specific strategies there’s Always someone better.
Im still surprised of their winrate stats
2000 Elo and above 52,82%wr 2,1%pr (14th best and second lowest)
2100 Elo and above 54,17%wr 2,08%pr (8th best and fourth lowest)
2200 Elo and above 55,95%wr 2,03%pr (6th best and 3rd lowest)
Thanks for all your thoughts and comments so far
Edit:
All stats are from aoepulse.com for RM 1v1 Arabia patch 73855
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Slingers counter infantry, kamayuk counter cavalry, Eagles counter siege, monks, and archers. They have all counters just like byzantines or other counter civs
Like no that’s not even close to the Truth. They do not have 1/2 huns bonus lol. Huns do not need to build houses, which not only saves wood but saves a load of worktime, and you have that bonus right from the beginning.
Incas have to build their houses still, they just have to build less, but still spend wood AND villager worktime AND micro investment in base-managenent basically, which is very different.
Also other meso civs have unusually good eco bonuses to offset their military holes, so Incas bonus could be ok on a regular civ, but on a meso civ it plays and feels like just a bad bonus, because compared to mayans and aztect is not even close
They are not bad don’t get me wrong, but atm there is little to no reason to pick them over other meso civs. They are 1 tiny bonus away from being cool. The TB still sucks so something economy related in that regard would help the civ
And their castle Age UT need to be changed to give a proper buff to skirmisher like other meso castle UT
But Incas only have to build 50% as many houses as a regular civ. That makes it close to half of the bonus, because for every house they do not need to build, they also save the worktime…
The micro investment doesnt make the bonus itself weaker, it makes it harder to take advantage of.
And Incas do not strart with -100w like Huns.
It is a big overstatement to say these boni are that different.
I don’t see how Huns eco is top 3 in the game. It is like +35w at 10 minutes, +300w at 20 minutes (12 houses) and 1200w late game (39 houses), assuming 33w saved by house.
Chinese, Bengalis, Teutons, Malays, Poles, Hindustanis, Vikings, Mayans, should easily do better.
And Franks, Burmese, Khmer, Japanese, Celts, Portugese, Dravidians, should be at least a sidegrade for the first 25 minutes.