This civ has been a massive joke since day 1. They’re just sitting in their base forever without needing any mapcontrol, with unkillable buildings. Raiding you with their super fast melee units, which buys a ton of time for their stupid turtle play. And you can’t catch these raids efficiently because your only way to catch these fast units is with hand cav, which gets hard countered by the pikes obviously. Or you need to send a big mass of goons, which will take forever to snipe down the pikes and have to be constantly microed, while the inca player is playing with 1 hand.
Now they also age at like 3:30 and instantly get the 5 pikes big button so they deny any forward base and you automatically lose any TP out on the map. There’s just no counterplay to that. They dictate the pace of the game from the start, yet it’s on the opponent to make something happen somehow, as Inca will eventually outscale virtually any civ. The civ is broken, easy, and annoying to play against.
Inca has been impacted by massive nerfs this patch, 2 builder travois no longer can be converted to kallanka, meanwhile Inca gets 1 less vill with start of the game. The main reason Inca is considered broken by some players is because of lacking the counter play strategies against Inca. In fact, Inca doesn’t have minutemen card and age 2 play of inca is considered to be rather slower now as they don’t get 2 warhut travois anymore, however Inca age 3 has a problematic design with xp dance, which could be reworked.
Attention is needed for the bolas warrior and huaraca shipments in age 3. People are reporting that the inca if is still like otto FF but on steroids especially with the infinite bolas/ (or huaraca, i cant remember) shipments.
I still think that the huaraca should have 20 attack and multiplier x2 vs artillery. The rest of civilization would encourage me to say that it is fine. Maybe, as harrinson said, check fortress shipments.
its also inca units able to sit inside a kallanka and wait until their next power shipment arrives and can just teleport through this large building rendering cav attacks/pathing pretty useless
the dev sees nothing, the devs don’t listen to us, and the devs never answer you so inca will be never nerfed
BTW i suppose you faced osteobaste inca which insult after the game ( like every game anyways ) and this guys still in this game even the ton of report he has
Imo, they are 2 really similar civilizations, both are locked in their base, both have very powerful units, in the case of Dutch their units cost more than anything gold, while the Inca units cost more than anything food (which explains why have buildings that produce these resources automatically). I think the Incas are almost a Dutch, but a native version.
Don’t get me wrong, I consider that the two civilizations deserve to be nerfed, but I don’t consider it fair for Inca to be nerfed and Dutch to remain untouchable, sharing so many strengths in common.
Dutch still needs a reasonable amount of hunts. After all banks cost a lot of food and their unit still cost quite a bit of food. They don’t need a huge amount of mapcontrol but they need some. Besides they often need to contest a stagecoach boom, which requires some presence on the map, while doing that against Inca would be kinda suicidal.
Anyway map control isn’t the only thing. Inca has a dozen gimmicky features (though thankfully some of them were fixed already) while Dutch is a pretty reasonable civ overall. The whole design of the civ is the issue.
I think you really nailed the big difference here. Dutch needs food and wood for their resource generating buildings. It really drains their hunts, while inca can sit next to a woodline and just afk. Plus banks don’t support population, which constrains their wood supply as well because they still need houses on top of banks
Inca is just gimmick upon gimmick and it destroys balance, fun, and realism. A lot of the themes and character of the civ could be implemented in much better ways.
Issues:
Kancha Houses
Houses that are mini factories are overall a very poor design. You need to build houses anyways so the cost for the extra production is tiny and provides unraidable income. Torps and Shrines are already terrible, but at least they actually consume resources or require hunts and come with a lower villager cap. At most, Kancha Houses should provide a Llama when built.
Dutch banks should be the template for resource generating buildings since they are balanced by having a large upfront cost and only serving one purpose. The Incas have a building that would be perfect for a role equivalent to a bank: Qullqas
Qullqas were storehouses of the Incan empire. They could generate mainly food, but have upgrades to generate all resources (Quipu would be a good name for an upgrade). They could possibly even have a much smaller generation rate but also provide a gather boost like granaries.
Kallanka
Garrisoning of military units should be limited to Strongholds only (Maori with their Pa would have made a much more interesting civ to give this mechanic to). It’s way too strong to have units able to hide from their counters and effortlessly avoid unfavorable fights.
Unit Speed
Super fast pikes are too strong. Similar units that can do hit and run siege (Steppe Riders and Oprichniks) at least don’t counter the cavalry units that are capable of catching them. And other heavy infantry can be easily intercepted when committing to far away sieges.
The speed boosts to Incan units could be limited to a speed boosting aura around Incan buildings or when nearby Chasqui rather than just huge speed upgrades by default.
Chincha Rafts
Chincha Rafts are never going to be balanced or fun to fight against when they have to fulfill the role of every single ship in the game. The Inca need at least one more boat type so that the Chincha Raft can be given a more defined function and not have to do gimmicky things like train itself.
They should have smaller Balsa Boats (like the ones used on lake Titicaca) to fill a canoe equivalent role. That type of boat is even pictured in one of the Chincha Raft upgrades!
Priestesses
It is baffling why these are the only unit in the game that can convert things. The Inca were converted to Catholicism, not the other way around. If anything, Missionaries should be the unit that has a conversion ability.
Even disregarding the logic of it, the conversion mechanic really sucks and it doesn’t seem viable to use. You need to sacrifice Priestesses’ time on the plaza, and most high value conversion targets like cannons are going to be surrounded by enemy units and die as soon as they are converted.
They really should just have the crate and treasure gathering ability by default without the need of a card and they’d still be useful enough without a conversion gimmick.
Stealth Buildings
This is just silly.
Plantation Trickle
Having a trickle and limited number of plantations makes no sense. If an agriculture bonus is needed, a unique building like a terrace farm or gold trickle of gather boosting aura from the above Qulla would make way more sense.
If they went with Qullqas as an alternate resource generating building instead they could even simplify things further and do away with Kanchas entirely to just have regular houses. 20 free llamas from houses probably wouldn’t be too much especially if you took away the starting llama.
Basically not such a bad idea, or not such a hard problem in my opinion.
I would first try to reduce their initial food trickle, maybe 0.15 / 0.3 / 0.45 / 0.6 in the Exploration / Commerce / Fortress / Industrial Age. Then costs 150 wood, provide 20 pop and build limit to 10.
If it become an equivalent to Bank, it have to cost for a high price, and that would make their offensive late like the Dutch, while the native Americans should have a powerful early game.
If it become an equivalent to Factory and able to trickle other resources, it would be unavailable until the Industrial age. The economy structure has to get redesigned since the current situation is based on the design that there are Kancha food trickles in the early game. So that I do not support this solution.
They said this feature is for making it close to AoE2. I don’t get it clearly, I just feel it complex even if I play AoE2 too.
The Priestess actually inspired me, push me design Kunoichi (くノ一) as the unit of the new semi-civ of Japan, Shinto Grand Shrine.
They are Agent-like and Ninja-like female military unit, may not get strong combat power but able to use the stealth mode and heal ability, and to convert enemy units, reflecting that they worked as information gatherers, seductresses, messengers, assassins and Aruki Miko (歩き巫女).
I think making Kunoichi have the convert ability may be more accurate and suitable than Priestess anyway. I guess the female priests of the Inca had not seduced enemies like the in-game Priestesses.
I don’t think a bank-like building would necessitate a full economic overhaul or need to be limited to industrial age.
A Qullqa could be a bit cheaper than a bank and only generate food at first, with a mix of resources being enabled by later upgrades (like the Chinese wonder). Add to that houses that spawn llamas and Inca should be in a strong position for food income. Giving them normal houses would allow them to get more llamas and spend less wood on housing.
That would be a much better fit for the role but stealth conversions would probably be pretty annoying. As far as I’m aware, Incan priestesses were temple virgins so of all the units that could have the ability, they by far make the least sense.
