In 1v1 Arena games in my ELO Range (1250-1650) Incas have the lowest pickrate of all civs (0.86%) yet the highest winrate of all civs (60.32%) !!!
(According to aoestats.io)
This is no fluke. They have been consistently in this position since the double castle arambai strategy got nerfed…
How does this make sense? 0.86% playrate means that almost nobody picks them but the 60% winrate indicates that all those people who get them by playing “random civ” actually do great.
I am kind of baffled by this. Does anybody have an explanation?
Idk why incas have about an average score on arena tbh. Maybe it’s because of their strong skirms, kamayuk and slingers plus cheap castles. They don’t have BBC, good Monks or Siege.
I was thinking that perhaps a good Inca loving player was creating some smurf accounts…
Yes that’s true. Although I noticed the same thing over several updates (when aoestats.io was still updated…)
What I find mostly surprising is their low pickrate though. Their cheaper castles and good counters should make them a decent choice for people who like to go aggressive on Arena…
Before the DLCs, I picked Incas on Arena very often, and I had a very high win rate with them (1400 Elo).
My opponents often did not know what to expect from me, while I was able to guess what my opponent would be going for. I would prepare the (gold unit) counter to my opponents army and hide it behind my walls. Then I would show my hand and win.
The only army composition I found annoying to deal with were Champion + Onager, as Incas don’t get Bombard Cannons. They do get Monks with Redemption and Block Printing, but I still struggled.
Incas can also still Tower Rush on Arena, but I never tried that out myself.
I also liked to play Incas on Arena but used their stone bonus for a very fast and aggressive castle rush + forward siege workshop. I then pushed with Mangonel + Kamayuk Vs knight civs and Mangonel + Eagles Vs archer civs.
This strategy worked better on teamgames then 1v1 though…
I tried that one couple of times and it can work decently but there’s couple of problems associated with that. First kamayuks bonus dmg vs cav is quite low compared to pikes so you need good numbers to snipe cav cav fast. The extra range helps here and makes microing easier but just having couple of kamayuks probably isnt enough. Secondly kamayuks don’t really pressure anything so your opponent might be fine doing monks and mangos themselves. And if they have redemption this comp is pretty bad. So basically you need a quick second castle deeper in their base to really make dmg.
And more generally while incas have good counter units you have the general meso problem of relying heavily on gold while at the same time your units aren’t really pop efficient. So long term they don’t have the best unit comps. Especially against civs with good siege and gun powder incas can struggle a lot. They are a decent arena civ imo but also not a great one. Compared to the other mesos certainly better than mayans but weaker than aztecs.