I’ve been playing aoe3, and as in this communities long tradition, after loosing several matches with inca i am now seeking ego insurance. But jokes aside, while everyone else take the meme of “inca pikes cost more food than normal pikes” without realizing its statwise a dead ringer between base pikes and halbs, the real issue is that everyone was mad cause the pike/chimu combo got nerfed. And why are us inca players using whats on paper a trash composition? because jungles, patch after patch, suck more. Now I want to go over the Jungle and explain why I think its trash in context, because its not that it cant ever get value, its that every other light infantry will fill its niche better 99% of the time. Hold on, cause I’ma go over a bunch of stuff. Lets start with base stats
For roughly 30% (hard to truly compute for inca with plaza, age up option and other civs bonuses tbh) more cost in vill seconds, compared to a crossbow you get -10 health, -1 attack, in exchange you get .5x better vs heavy infantry, .5 speed more, and 3 more attack in melee. You also get poison (more later). The animation is slightly less good than an xbow but almost never noticable unless you playing very good players. Both have range 16, with the jungle getting +1 range for Veteran and then +2 range for guard. With 3 cards (curare+ranged inf cards) and a plaza you can get to 40 base damage in imperial. Plus the ally card to get to 2.75 vs heavy infantry. Veteran/guard upgrades are cheaper. So far, doesnt seem to bad right?
But when you start comparing the weakness and stats with other civs light infantry, it starts to fall apart. Xbow are, for their cost, very hp efficent. even non malta civs can use their xbow or similar archaic style infantry to stand and shoot out with skirms due to higher base damage and hp. the jungle lacks both of these. it also doesnt do great vs other skirms due to shorter range, less hp, and low base damage. its like a cass, with neftenya base damage, less ranged armor than either. Now poison should fix this but as ill get to poison rarely works as intended. Jungles arent cheap either, meaning you are investing alot of res and cards to even keep up with other civs light infantry. you are like worst parts of a bow and a skirm combined. less multipliers than most vs heavy infantry, low base damage to scale raw dps like cheaper other bow types. Skirms have more hp/armor and similar base attack with more range and more techs often to scale; archaic light infantry is cheaper (strelet, std xbow) and better hp than you for often better base attack (aenna, pavs, yumi) . Having a subpar light infantry isn’t inherently bad and in theory as inca you can run jungles away, but speed 4.5 is less than cav which btw wrecks you hard thanks to low hp in fights. Now when our spears and chimu were criminally op this was less an issue but its worse now we can’t just lame chimu pike huaraca every match.
Poison doesn’t work as intended it appears still. They’ve tried to fix it but in short: poison is on a timer that doesnt always mesh with host server I believe the Poison mechanic of the Inca Jungle Bowman is not working as intended : r/aoe3 (reddit.com) . so that 5 damage or more thanks to Curare? it still doesn’t always get the full effect. then add in the random nerf to poison vs cav (cause cannons are hurt more than horses ig) and you are paying for an ability that is working less often than you would expect. This does help bump up the jungle but hardly enough for it to consistently win battles it should. it means you are often paying for an ability, assuming its not just used in overkill thanks to micro/attack move, that isnt functioning as intended. This leaves you with a bow unit that just cant tangle with skirms
Ok by now some of you clever folk are like "but plat, ofc the jungle isnt supposed to fight skirm wars, its to be better vs generalized things that skirms arent than skirms are. IE it can fight cannons, musk, huss offensively better but cant take return fire like a skirm can. But here is where the civ design after many many wild ups and downs patchwise to inca units really showcases the core issue: pike bow cant really beat musk huss or musk cannon anyways. In theory with insane micro pike/bow beats equal res musk huss. but thanks to prices, low hp.damage of bows. the fact that musk/huss civs tend to have good age2 booms and scaling, means your outclassed here. comps like lancers just completely shred you, and thanks to the low bow range to use poison you need to dance far into cannons range. also thanks to low hp, you die to most musk in a straight up fight. so you have to somehow dance the perfect range more than musk, in cannon range, and not get bullied by cav. your spears are pricey so they are going to have top tank fire and also pulltrick into cav constantly all while not getting wrecked by ranged fire or the likes of say lancers or sipahi. goons also while loosing cost effective long term, can basically shoot it out or godforbid vs hakka/bow rider types, you’ll just get ran down by your counter. The way you win here is usually having such a powerful eco and raiding the piss out of your opponent so this massive micro burden is leveled out by distracted opponents. Still, as you can see in about any non water high level inca play, it wont matter because your ranged age2 infantry is subpar into ranged infantry and cannons/fast heavy infantry/good cav all demolish your age2 comp, which is better than your age3 usually.Wooooooo
I don’t think anyone will argue the jungle is underwhelming at best, crud at worst. The question would be how to move forward? Some, many, would rather just rebuff pikes and chimu and huaraca and forget this unit exists until you are vs halbs or soldado and think of it like DE wakina- meh, but paired with better units its fine. Personally, i think spamming pike chimu is lame and id rather like to have 1 ranged unit that’s not a fragging ########### ## stats. Given inca can wall and fort the map, having a subpar light infantry to fight other light infantry is probably ok. But lets make it back to what i think was its clear role- to be with spear a good allrounder ranged infantry. So my proposal would be:
Keep the price for now. inca units are costed too much or not enough depending on how food gathering is going. but in exchange- make vs hvy infantry 2.0 base like aenna and cetan. you gonna cost me more than a musk? make me beat a musk consistently. make ranged resistance 5% higher or make base hp go 90>95 or even 100. Poison should not do less vs cav, and i think should instead of a timer be a 2nd attack that does say 3 flat siege damage on top of base stats each shot. or hell 2 base and have it go to 5 with curarae. unless they can figure out how to make it bleed damage properly, id rather it be consistent. just something to ensure poison 1- works and 2- actually helps it do its job. if the above boosts it too much, id say make it 4.25 speed but as long as italy’s are 5 and i got less than 75% the hp of them and less range/damage, I dont think this is fair but w/e such is life people are tired of speedy light infantry.
Thats my rant. I know inca fuels hatred and love in equal measure and i think making this change instead back to “hurrdurr raid chimmer and bikes me jenius” play inca is famous for, we instead buff the bad units to be more viable. Curious of others have had thoughts on this unit, and thanks for wasting your limited lifespan listening to my cope and wishlisting!
