The Inca Empire Speculation

[Toltekatl115]

I’m going return to America for my next posts, thanks to the fact that the books and documentaries that I have been watching are very connected, the next post will actually be about the Purepecha, but now enjoy the Incas:

In the Andes rose the hegemonic empire of South America, the Inca. The Inca or Tahuantinsuyo empire was a nation that managed to conquer almost all of its neighbors before the arrival of the Spanish and assimilated many elements of other cultures.
The cities they built had many stone buildings that also had stone foundations, this because the mountainous terrain in which they lived was very irregular, also thanks to this they implemented a design of terraced crops to take advantage of space and water. They adopted the use of bronze so they advanced a lot in the manufacture of tools and weapons. His main crops were potatoes, corn, various tubers and multiple types of chilies, in addition to having llamas as cattle. Llamas were particularly useful, because in addition to wool, leather, and food, they served as pack animals. They had institutions like the Acllahuasi in which women were interned to learn advanced manufacturing, be wives of nobles or sacrifices (although they were very infrequent compared to those of animals). The main social unit was ayllu, groups of families united by a common ancestor, in addition the people lived in Kanchas (stone houses with space for cultivation or animal husbandry). Perhaps one of the most important things was its networks of imperial roads with tambos (rest structures every 30km).
Militarily they were quite developed, they began to implement the use of phalanxes when training infantry with long spears, in the most traditional combat their warriors used to carry masses or batons, but in general they were all supported by infantry with projectiles, of which the Bolas launchers and slingers. The army includes many auxiliar troops like the jugle tribes or “antisuyo” tribes who used bows with poisoned arrows. It is also important to mention that they implemented the use of halberds and a kind of prot greatswords, although the former were the ones with more status.
It is also important to mention that they developed a lot of navigation and reached several Polynesian islands, including the island of the Moai, it is possible that thanks to that they came to trade with the Purepechas of Mesoamerica. In addition, the fishermen used a lot the “Totora reed horses”, which were cheap boats and easy to build.

CIVILIZATION BONUSES

• Initial town center spawns with 2 llamas.
• Most buildings cost stone but have many hit points.
• Villagers extracts stone 20% faster and are more efficient extracting stone, because take 50% more from stone mines.
• Totora reed horses: Fishing boats 40% cheaper.
• Villagers take food form farm animals 20% faster.

UNIQUE BUILDINGS

• Kancha: Replaces the house, can keep double of units, garrison villagers and produce one llama every minute. The llama limit depends of the number of kancha.
• Tambo: Replaces the out post and have an aura that increases the speed of the nearby units.
• Kallanka: Barracks and warehouse, villagers can deposit resources here which increases the training speed of their units by 15% for 2s or until they receive resources again. Research blacksmith technologies and is affected by the production bonus.

LANDMARKS
To Age II
Palace of Colcampata: Nearby town centers works 20% faster and gains additional armor.

Acllawasi: Research economic and villager technologies with -30% cost, also ads the next technologies: Professional Fabric, State Artisans.

To Age III
Tipon Waterworks: Are special farms, can be worked up to 10 villagers and produce 30% faster than normal farms.

Coricancha: Fortified version of a temple, shot one additional arrow per garrisoned relic.

To Age IV
Fortress of Sacsayhuaman: The stone walls gains additional armor and ranged units in walls deals +1 of damage.

Palace of Túpac: Fortress that can train Sapa Inca Guards three times faster, this unit also gains +1 of damage and +10% hit points.

UNIQUE UNITS

• Bolas Thrower: Ranged unit, din’t deals much damage, but it reduces the movement of the impacted units, it also has a damage bonus against cavalry.
• Sapa Inca Guards: Upgrade for the spearmen’s in third age, become most powerfull and gains a +1 of range.
• Maceman Runner: Replaces the axeman of the American civs, deals more damage.
• Chin - cha Raft: Is a better version of the canoe.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

AMERICAN CIVS UNITS
This aren´t unique units, but only are shared with other civs like mexicas and other possibilities like Mayans and Tarasco/Purepecha.

• Slinger: Fast shoot and move unit, but don´t deals much damage.
• Javelin Thrower: Replaces the crossbowmen and have bonus damage against ranged units.
• Axeman (Thanks for the suggestion): Replaces the Man-At-Arms, have less armor but more speed.
• Canoe: Cheap, fast and weak archer ship.

Barracks

• Spearmen: Age I – Becomes Sapa Inca Guards: Age III.
• Maceman Runner: Age II.

Archery Range

• Archer: Age II.
• Slinger: Age II.
• Javelin Thrower: Age III.
• *Bolas Thrower:*Age III.

UNIQUE TECH

• Antisuyo Recruits: Archers arrows gains poison damage.

• Pukara: Fortress +20% hit points, ads two sling shoots and can garrison units to reduce their population cap 50% (only when is garrisoned).

• Imperial Routes: Villagers and traders +10% movement.

• Spiked Bullets: Slingers +2 damage.

• Autarchy: +10% of recollection speed for all resources.

• Aillu: Kancha houses can keep +1 of population and can garrison villagers in order to auto gather the llamas food 15% faster. Houses with villagers also produces llamas 20% faster.

• Professional Fabric: +1/+1 armor for villagers.

• State Artisans: Traders gains 10% more gold.

ARCHITECTURE

The Incas developed an architecture based on the extensive use of stone joined into blocks by highly precise cuts. Many structures had stone platforms as foundations to level the steep mountainous terrain, farms were fed by networks of canals connected to man-made lakes, and were built on stepped terraces to take advantage of the land and water. It must be taken into account that the Incas did not have draft animals and that most of their cities were built on mountainous terrain, which only makes what they built and what still remains even more surprising.

[M00Z1LLA]

@Antonimus80

Autarchy: +10% of recollection speed for all resources.

Seems like you’re just copying AoE3 cards for techs. Autarchy isn’t really an Incan thing, it just means self sufficiency. Mit’a would be a more appropriate name for a tech like this.

[Toltekatl115]

The truth is that I have never played with Incas in AoE 3 and although it is not something exclusive to them, it was characteristic of Tahuantinsuyo, since they hardly traded and gave themselves more to the task of developing an agricultural production that had enough surpluses to redistribute products to areas with drought and thus not depend on the outside.
Anyway the name you mention is more appropriate according to the article.

[M00Z1LLA]

Maybe the AoE3 devs were looking at the same sources as you.

The rest of the unique techs could use some better names too.

State Artisans could be Quipu Accounting, and Professional Fabric could be Alpaca Wool Textiles.

[Toltekatl115]

The idea behind the state artisans is for the women interned in the Acllahuasi who were taught more advanced techniques, but the Quipu is still very important. Being that the Quipu is more than anything an accounting system, perhaps an adjustment to market prices or the collection of some resource.

[GoldenArmorX]

Nice. I especially liked your ideas about Landmarks effects. The ​​units for age also seems fine to me.

Just some historical considerations:

• 20% livestock collection bonus.- Interesting but I must decline the idea. I know that many like llamas, and since they lived in the same area as the Incas, sometimes one thinks that they were also the daily steak of the Andean inhabitants. Unfortunately, the reality is that this is not the case: Of their two domesticated animals, alpacas were used primarily to gather their fur, like sheep, while llamas were used to carry things, like donkeys, although also for fur. Its use as food was only as a last resort and on special occasions. The Incas did not eat llama in industrial quantities as European and Asian peoples did with chickens, pigs, cows and sheep. The Andean diet was more related to eating vegetables and fruits, dry or fresh, and some llama or guinea pig meat at parties. The other great use of the auquénidos was for animal sacrifices in religious festivals, which depending on the ritual should be consumed or burned.

• Kancha ability to produce llamas.- Sounds good, but I either have to decline. If a civ. would create free llamas just by creating houses (+pop+free livestook), and on top of that being able to produce farms, it would be very broken. On the other hand, although the llamas had multiple uses in the Inca culture, they were not pets or home breeding (as we say one can raise chickens), they were an important animal for the textile industry, both for the lower class and the nobility and even the inca sappa The same Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, mentions that those in charge of raising llamas were the “llama michec”, and that they fed them by grazing, just like sheep. In fact, it is also mentioned that they did not put them in their houses, the same shepherds had their portable tents to camp outside the city and not put them to make depositions in the town markets. On the other hand, there were also shepherds from the state, who were looking for llamas and fine alpacas to make the garments of the nobles.

Another reason is that some houses in the game, such as those in the Holy Roman Empire, in the fourth age have some animals or even aesthetic crops (chickens), so their houses do not also produce extra food. The thing about houses producing food and other resources was an AoE3 mechanic for balance, like the Japanese free resource shrines that replace houses (As if sengoku-era Japanese didn’t live in houses), or the Swiss houses that come with bush of berries

In AoE4, I would suggest that like the Mali, who produce cows, the Inca produce llamas (perhaps in stables, ranches, or urban centers). It does not occur to me to give it a greater use than that of meat, or ritual sacrifices. Remember that in AoE4 no civ. Sheepskin or wool is used as an extra resource, or is assumed to be obtained while gathering the animal, It would be applied as a 5t resource, like que ottoman fame and badget resource, but I think making the civ. mechanic only focused on llamas would rule out other types of ideas, such as the agricultural bonus.

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En español:
Esta bonito, me gustaron sobre todo tus ideas para efectos de Landmarks. La idea de las unidades también me parece bien.

Solo algunas consideraciones históricas:

• Bono de recolección de ganado 20%.- Interesante pero debo declinar. Se que a muchos les gustan las llamas, y dado que están habitaban en la misma zona de los incas, a veces uno piensa que también eran el bistec diario de los habitantes andinos. La realidad es que no: De sus dos animales domesticados, las alpacas eran usadas principalente para recolectar su pelaje, como ovejas, mientras que las llamas para cargar cosas, como burros, auque tambien por pelaje. Su uso como alimento solo era en ultima instancia y en ocasiones especiales. Los incas no comían llama en cantidades industriales como lo hacían los pueblos europeos y asiáticos con pollos, cerdos, vacas y ovejas. La dieta andina estaba más relacionada a comer vegetales y frutas, secos o frescos, y algo de carne de llama o cuy en fiestas. El otro gran uso de los auquénidos era para sacrificos animales en las fiestas religiosas, que dependiendo del ritual se debían consumir o quemar.

• Kancha ability to produce llamas.- Suena bien, pero debo declinar. Si una civ. pudiera crear llamas gratis solo creando casas, y encima pudiendo producir granjas, estaría muy rota. Por otro lado, si bien las llamas tenían multiples usos en la cultura inca, no eran mascotas ni de cría hogareña (como digamos uno puede criar pollos), eran un animal importante para la industría textil, tanto de clase baja como la nobleza y hasta el sappa inca. El mismo Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, menciona que los encargados de criar llamas eran los “llama míchec”, y que las alimentaban pastando, igual que las ovejas. De hecho también se menciona que no las metían en sus casas, los mismos pastores tenían sus tiendas portátiles para acampar afuera de la ciudad y no meterlas a hacer deposiciones en los mercados de los pueblos. Por otro lado, también había pastores del estado, que buscaban llamas y alpacas finas para hacer las vestiduras de los nobles.

Otra razón es que algunas casas del juego, como las del Holy Roman Empire, en cuarta edad tienen algunos animales o hasta cultivos estéticos (pollos), no por eso sus casas también producen alimento extra. Lo de las casas produciendo comida y otros recursos fue una mecánica de AoE3 para balance, como los santuarios japoneses de recursos gratuitos que reemplazan casas (Como si los japoneses de la era sengoku no vivieran en casas), o las casas suizas que vienen con arbusto de bayas.

En AoE4, yo sugeriría que al igual que los Malí, que producen vacas, los incas produzcan llamas (tal vez en los establos, ranchos o centros urbanos). No se me ocurre darle mayor uso que el de carne, o sacrificos ritual. Recordemos que en AoE4 ninguna civ. usa la piel de oveja o lana como recurso extra, o se presupone que se obtiene mientras se recolecta al animal. Si bien podría arreglarse agregando la lana del animal como 5to recurso, igual al nivel de honor Otomano, pero creo que hacer que la mecánica de la civ. solo enfocada en llamas sería descartar otros tipos de ideas, como la del bono agrícola.