Inca build order

[Colonel0tto]

Boomy build:
- go 4v BB and 300w and age up at 800f with the 2 travois
- send koncha card while making full houses (make them as a wall). TC rally point is on wood.
- send Alpaca wool while dropping a market and a firepit
- research spirit medicine (vill hp and damage) while dancing with 25 vills on firepit on fertility dance
- trade food for 250g and send TC+travois card
- just boom from 2 TCs and fertility dance. Against any pressure you need good firepit, vill and TC micro. Send town dance if needed.
- age up whenever you can (the sooner the better) by selling food and/or getting gold with many vills (easy with 2 mines in base and koncha still gathering food).
- in the 3rd age send 2 TCs and keep booming to 99v. Consider dropping/sending stronghold(s) and building more war huts.
- make units only if strictly necessary otherwise reach 99v first.

If you want to make this even more meme-tier (read - better, and also this might genuinely be good on Pampas Sierras where you can reliably find 6 llamas):

The Lifestyle

- 4v BB
- Age with 5 llamas and 2 settlers. Build a plaza and a market.
- 1st card Farm Travois - keep gathering food/wood and train llamas in transition (70f each).
- 2nd Card Llama Lifestyle. Now llamas gather at the firepit at (EDIT) half the rate of vills, so your age up was a 4.5 vill shipment. Keep your llamas on XP.
- After this go freestyle:
Vs Aggro civs - 2 warhut, town dance, unit shipments, 700 gold
Vs boom civs - 600 wood and spam kanchas, Chincha brewing, 700 gold
With your stronghold up, send 2 TCs and keep up the boom.

If you're booming and turtling you really want to get to age 3 pretty quick to slap down a stronghold.
Farm and plantations are more useful buildings for Native civs since their upgrades give additional boosts to their hunting and mining rates, which are lacking in the market. These upgrades can be granted for free using an age III card.

The reason why llamas are so great for using on the plaza, apart from the fact they take no pop, train simultaneously to vills and cost less than vills, is because the plaza gets exponentially more powerful the more units you have tasked on it. So slowly tasking individual villagers onto the plaza one by one is a lot less powerful than sending a batch of five llamas onto it at a time.

Llama Facts
A battery of 20 llamas living the lifestyle in the plaza cut villager train time down to 13 seconds (from 25) - this is also an 85% boost in train time for all your other units too. On XP dance they give you 5.2 xp per second, which as about the same as 4 tambos. On Town Dance they give all your buildings 68% more hp and 33% more attack, so your TC now 2-shots Janissaries. It takes them 4.8 seconds to spawn an annoying little Warrior who can be garrisoned inside strongholds to permanently boost their damage. A 20 llama war dance is a 10% attack buff to all your units.

Things get even better if you train or ship priestesses. 20 llamas and 5 priestesses spit out villagers every 9 seconds - an 176% improvement. At 11 XP per second, you now have the equivalent of 4 TPs with stagecoach on XP. Your town dance puts your strongholds at 15k hp and 500 attack. War dance is a 20% damage buff.

If you're able to train or ship more priestesses with the age 4 card, you can eat some fattened llamas and end up with 15 llamas and 10 priestesses. Now your vills come out in 6-7 seconds. You have 16xp/ second, or the equivalent of 4 TPs with Iron Horse upgrade. Strongholds have 18k hp and 570 attack. War dance is a 30% damage buff.

[klonko]

Boomy build:
- go 4v BB and 300w and age up at 800f with the 2 travois
- send koncha card while making full houses (make them as a wall). TC rally point is on wood.
- send Alpaca wool while dropping a market and a firepit
- research spirit medicine (vill hp and damage) while dancing with 25 vills on firepit on fertility dance
- trade food for 250g and send TC+travois card
- just boom from 2 TCs and fertility dance. Against any pressure you need good firepit, vill and TC micro. Send town dance if needed.
- age up whenever you can (the sooner the better) by selling food and/or getting gold with many vills (easy with 2 mines in base and koncha still gathering food).
- in the 3rd age send 2 TCs and keep booming to 99v. Consider dropping/sending stronghold(s) and building more war huts.
- make units only if strictly necessary otherwise reach 99v first.

If you want to make this even more meme-tier (read - better, and also this might genuinely be good on Pampas Sierras where you can reliably find 6 llamas):

- 4v BB
- Age with 5 llamas and 2 settlers. Build a firepit and a market.
- 1st card Farm Travois - keep gathering food/wood and train llamas in transition (70f each).
- 2nd Card Llama Lifestyle. Now llamas gather at the firepit at the same rate as vills, so your age up was a 7 vill shipment. Keep your llamas on XP.
- After this go freestyle:
Vs Aggro civs - 2 warhut, town dance, unit shipments, 700 gold
Vs boom civs - 600 wood and spam kanchas, Chincha brewing, 700 gold
With your stronghold up, send 2 TCs and keep up the boom.

If you're booming and turtling you really want to get to age 3 pretty quick to slap down a stronghold.
Farm and plantations are more useful buildings for Native civs since their upgrades give additional boosts to their hunting and mining rates, which are lacking in the market. These upgrades can be granted for free using an age III card.

Could this be the 10 WP aztec semi-ff version for incas?

[Garja]

Too much wood chopping. You forgot the houses in the process. No houses = bad Inca.

[Colonel0tto]

Too much wood chopping. You forgot the houses in the process. No houses = bad Inca.

Yeah the thing that balances this out is the bonus xp you have so you can send inf 600w a couple of times. I'd rather build up an XP 'battery' early which I can turn into other resources, rather than get a ridiculous food income right away that I can't efficiently turn into settlers.

Also all my vills are gathering rather than just chilling at the plaza, so this boom seems more efficient in terms of VS.

Tupac rebellion is a pretty great card in some matchups if you're able to keep the game going late enough. Your units reliably covert into the following:

Villagers and Pikemen: Revolutionaries
Jungle Bowmen and Huaracas: Guard Skirms
Chimu Runners: Guard Hussars
Bolas Warriors: Guard Grenadiers
Macemen: Field Cannons

So sending the 7 macemen Big Button from the plaza, and training chimu runners will give you a good composition for when you revolt.

[klonko]

Too much wood chopping. You forgot the houses in the process. No houses = bad Inca.

Yeah the thing that balances this out is the bonus xp you have so you can send inf 600w a couple of times. I'd rather build up an XP 'battery' early which I can turn into other resources, rather than get a ridiculous food income right away that I can't efficiently turn into settlers.

Also all my vills are gathering rather than just chilling at the plaza, so this boom seems more efficient in terms of VS.

Tupac rebellion is a pretty great card in some matchups if you're able to keep the game going late enough. Your units reliably covert into the following:

Villagers and Pikemen: Revolutionaries
Jungle Bowmen and Huaracas: Guard Skirms
Chimu Runners: Guard Hussars
Bolas Warriors: Guard Grenadiers
Macemen: Field Cannons

So sending the 7 macemen Big Button from the plaza, and training chimu runners will give you a good composition for when you revolt.

And for the revolt: the llama dancing means you can replenish your vills too with fertility dance if you have a good food bank and all the house!

[Garja]

Too much wood chopping. You forgot the houses in the process. No houses = bad Inca.

Yeah the thing that balances this out is the bonus xp you have so you can send inf 600w a couple of times. I'd rather build up an XP 'battery' early which I can turn into other resources, rather than get a ridiculous food income right away that I can't efficiently turn into settlers.

Also all my vills are gathering rather than just chilling at the plaza, so this boom seems more efficient in terms of VS.

Tupac rebellion is a pretty great card in some matchups if you're able to keep the game going late enough. Your units reliably covert into the following:

Villagers and Pikemen: Revolutionaries
Jungle Bowmen and Huaracas: Guard Skirms
Chimu Runners: Guard Hussars
Bolas Warriors: Guard Grenadiers
Macemen: Field Cannons

So sending the 7 macemen Big Button from the plaza, and training chimu runners will give you a good composition for when you revolt.

You are sending 2 cards just for the xp, the trickle will never pay off in time.
Also you want houses asap as it's the main mean of booming for Inca.
You do get 2 extra vills from age up, but you're missing 2 WHs for defense and units which you have to chop for at some point.
Also I can use the food income pretty quickly with 25v on fertility dance, then a 2nd TC.

The rebellion thing is way too prize for what you get. Remember you need to train units to have them converted. Basically to break even in terms of resources (including the ups to guard status) you probably need like a 50 units or so.

[uberjz]

I don't really believe in this strat but surely exotic hardwoods would be better than 300w if you're really gonna do this

[uberjz]

Also, with llama lifestyle each llama = half a vil, not a full one.

[_NT_sven]

I don't really believe in this strat but surely exotic hardwoods would be better than 300w if you're really gonna do this

Exotic hardwoods adds 0.1w/s per villager. In transition you would have 16v, and gain 1.6w per sec. 300/1.6=187.5 second.

On average, though, maybe 18v is more applicable (which includes the whole effective period of comparing these two BO), and that would be 166sec when 300w is surpassed. That's roughly 3 min but you've already finished your booming by then and need to switch more vill to food.

Also, gathering 300w would let you build 2 houses immediately which is >1 vill. Considering the snowball effect, exotic hardwoods is not as good as 300w unless you go full turtle mode, against sioux for instance.

[uberjz]

We are doing full turtle mode though, in Garja's build he suggests to make no units at all and just rely on buildings + firepit + WH fire

[_NT_sven]

We are doing full turtle mode though, in Garja's build he suggests to make no units at all and just rely on buildings + firepit + WH fire

sorry, was replying out of context

[Garja]

300w is the standard for Inca, it is better for turtle strat too I think as it gives more of a jump start.
Anyway need someone that actually likes to play turtle style to practice the strat well. Standard play is easier and surely works. Turtle play probably plays to Inca full extent tho, so maybe if perfectioned it is superior.

[Colonel0tto]

You are sending 2 cards just for the xp, the trickle will never pay off in time.

I'm sending two cards and spending 1600 VS of resources (1400) to get the equivalent of 4 TPs that are safely in my base, as well as the additional flexibility to turn the plaza into a defensive buff or boom. That isn't just a 'trickle'. Your alternative is to spend 2 cards and 2100VS of resources (1050 wood) to build 10 houses that gives you the equivalent of around 11 food villagers. That food is only useful for building more villagers, so you have to put your villagers on the plaza to make more villagers, so you're taking a huge VS hit in order to get your boom started and you're still probably floating food.

Also you want houses asap as it's the main mean of booming for Inca.

It's definitely the way Inca is being played, but that doesn't mean it's the most efficient one. You get the kancha up slower in this build, but you get way more xp, you don't float useless food and you don't balloon your popcap way beyond what's necessary.

You do get 2 extra vills from age up, but you're missing 2 WHs for defense and units which you have to chop for at some point.

Because I don't need 10 kancha asap to make my first shipment efficient, I can build a warhut in transition and have it down earlier than if I aged with the Chief. This actually makes me less vulnerable to dumb fast rushes (like the Inca chasqui rush) than if I aged with 2 free warhuts and my eco doesn't suffer for it.

Also I can use the food income pretty quickly with 25v on fertility dance, then a 2nd TC.

But at what cost? That's an awful lot of villagers not gathering.

The rebellion thing is way too prize for what you get. Remember you need to train units to have them converted. Basically to break even in terms of resources (including the ups to guard status) you probably need like a 50 units or so.

How would you estimate the value of a revolt that A) didn't prevent you from training settlers, B) you could pull of while having 3 TCs and lots of passive food income and C) didn't lock you out of your regular home city shipments or Imperial Age up? At worst I'd put that 1000 food, wood and coin. Free Guard upgrades is basically the worth of a shipment, so let's say 1600 resources. Then a card that turns all your chimu runners into hussars? Another 1600 resources. How about if it also gave you a big button that made 7 Field Guns...?

Even if you only have 70 settlers, an army of 70 revolutionaries, 30 guard hussars and 7 Field guns is probably all you need to make a very decent push. With 20% damage bonus from llamas/priestesses each of your field guns will 1-shot regular falcs.

[Garja]

Are you seriously arguing that xp > resources and that shipment > vills?
4tps will take a lot to repay for the 2 shipments. Sure if you want to use the lama card for the xp it is better to send it soon. but I don't think it's ever good for that purpose, unless treaty. To me it's more for for when you want to have all vills on resources and just have lamas on firepit in late game.
Also sending multiple 600w is bad for the long term. It may be good for practical reasons, like when you do multiple 600g with aztecs but for a long term build you want to save shipments for upgrades. The shipment curve is so that shipments are harder to get later so you want to economize on that.
The rebellion is good ifyou have units. I doubt you will ever have a decent army and 6k res (+ a shipment) to spend on that in industrial. That is without booming super hard, in which case you do want many vills and TCs.

[Colonel0tto]

Are you seriously arguing that xp > resources and that shipment > vills?
4tps will take a lot to repay for the 2 shipments. Sure if you want to use the lama card for the xp it is better to send it soon. but I don't think it's ever good for that purpose, unless treaty. To me it's more for for when you want to have all vills on resources and just have lamas on firepit in late game.
Also sending multiple 600w is bad for the long term. It may be good for practical reasons, like when you do multiple 600g with aztecs but for a long term build you want to save shipments for upgrades. The shipment curve is so that shipments are harder to get later so you want to economize on that.

The build is definitely not optimal and I'm going to try to modify it based on your Aztec and Inca strats. But I think the core idea is pretty solid. There are little things about the build I really like, such as the fact that LLamas on the plaza are really nice for defense because they can keep dancing and can't be shot by enemies. It means they can pump out warriors or boost your buildings unless the opponent takes time to siege the plaza, meaning your TC and Warhut are still operational.

[klonko]

Are you seriously arguing that xp > resources and that shipment > vills?
4tps will take a lot to repay for the 2 shipments. Sure if you want to use the lama card for the xp it is better to send it soon. but I don't think it's ever good for that purpose, unless treaty. To me it's more for for when you want to have all vills on resources and just have lamas on firepit in late game.
Also sending multiple 600w is bad for the long term. It may be good for practical reasons, like when you do multiple 600g with aztecs but for a long term build you want to save shipments for upgrades. The shipment curve is so that shipments are harder to get later so you want to economize on that.

The build is definitely not optimal and I'm going to try to modify it based on your Aztec and Inca strats. But I think the core idea is pretty solid. There are little things about the build I really like, such as the fact that LLamas on the plaza are really nice for defense because they can keep dancing and can't be shot by enemies. It means they can pump out warriors or boost your buildings unless the opponent takes time to siege the plaza, meaning your TC and Warhut are still operational.

What about the middle ground:
llama plaza card age1,
Chop wood for house in transition,
Age up with 2 travois -> one WH et one farm,
All villager to food -> train llama from farm and villager,
Send 600w/house upgrade

I don't know if it makes sense investing so much food in llama haha. It is sure less costly than 25 vills on plaza... On map with livestock, I could see this being ok with the possibility to switch llama to the farm for vills in the plaza at one point when you run out of hunt and need the food as well as having the farm for safe gathering and possible food eco upgrade ?

[Garja]

Using one of the travois for a farm is interesting.
Anyway I tried the strat in QS and the strat does kinda work, tho I lost an Inca mirror vs a delayed timing (and won the rematch by just making few units).
The main problems are 1) you often get caught before farm switching if you do go for max vills and 2) is just that Inca don't have much anti cannon options.
So ye, might consider stopping the boom at like 50-60 vills to make units (need to age up if the opponent also did) or just boom without fertility and make units, which is very similar to the standard play.
Vs civs which make artillery, the 4 light cannons might be enough. I didn't get the 4 light cannons in any of my games (actually forgot lol) so I can't tell for sure.
It's important to not overreact with defensive cards such as Alpaca wool and town dance if not strictly necessary. Shipments are important, both for surviving sticky points (e.g. send 3 farms when out of hunts in base) or to keep up with an opponent who's also booming (unit/eco ups).

[Colonel0tto]

What about the middle ground:
llama plaza card age1,
Chop wood for house in transition,
Age up with 2 travois -> one WH et one farm,
All villager to food -> train llama from farm and villager,
Send 600w/house upgrade

Cool idea but the reason I don't love this is because I prefer getting the farm first so I can pump out 10 llama in transition and put them on XP dance (the equivalent of 2.5 WP when living the Lifestyle).

During my current testing I'm aging with 16 vills, keeping 10 on food and the rest on wood. I chop for and build the plaza and house in transition and then put my wood vills on the plaza. All my extra food goes into llamas until I get to 20, then I put some vills back on wood to gather for a war hut.

Taking a leaf out of Garja's book with the 10WP Aztec Semi-FF, my first colonial shipment is 2 Priestesses. I put the 5 vills I had on the plaza onto coin and when my second colonial shipment (600 wood) is nearly ready I switch my plaza to priestess production. At around 7 minutes or so I have my 20 llama 5 priestess battery ready (since 20 llamas = 5 WP, you basically have a 10 WP setup.

Compared to the Aztec semi-ff the Inca WP/LLama boom is slower but you end up with more useful priestesses rather than warrior priests and the ability to boom from two TCs in colonial. And of course you have a livestock fattening building that gives you food eco upgrades.

Using one of the travois for a farm is interesting.
Anyway I tried the strat in QS and the strat does kinda work, tho I lost an Inca mirror vs a delayed timing (and won the rematch by just making few units).
The main problems are 1) you often get caught before farm switching if you do go for max vills and 2) is just that Inca don't have much anti cannon options.

Thanks for giving it a go . I'm curious - how do you prefer to deal with artillery when you're playing Aztec?

It's important to not overreact with defensive cards such as Alpaca wool and town dance if not strictly necessary. Shipments are important, both for surviving sticky points (e.g. send 3 farms when out of hunts in base) or to keep up with an opponent who's also booming (unit/eco ups).

Really good point, and I realise I definitely want 3 farms in my deck now lol.

[klonko]

Using one of the travois for a farm is interesting.
Anyway I tried the strat in QS and the strat does kinda work, tho I lost an Inca mirror vs a delayed timing (and won the rematch by just making few units).
The main problems are 1) you often get caught before farm switching if you do go for max vills and 2) is just that Inca don't have much anti cannon options.
So ye, might consider stopping the boom at like 50-60 vills to make units (need to age up if the opponent also did) or just boom without fertility and make units, which is very similar to the standard play.
Vs civs which make artillery, the 4 light cannons might be enough. I didn't get the 4 light cannons in any of my games (actually forgot lol) so I can't tell for sure.
It's important to not overreact with defensive cards such as Alpaca wool and town dance if not strictly necessary. Shipments are important, both for surviving sticky points (e.g. send 3 farms when out of hunts in base) or to keep up with an opponent who's also booming (unit/eco ups).

You could also transform the travois from the TC+travois shipment into a farm and boom the llama from there too if you have enough food that is .

Also is 3 travois strickly better than 3 farms shipment since you can build somehting else also instead of only farms? I dont know if they are the same age tough.

[Colonel0tto]

You could also transform the travois from the TC+travois shipment into a farm and boom the llama from there too if you have enough food that is

I think by the time you ship the TC+ travois shipment you already have 20 llama easily with the age 1 shipment.

Also is 3 travois strickly better than 3 farms shipment since you can build somehting else also instead of only farms? I dont know if they are the same age tough.

They are, and that does work - thanks for spotting it! Not even sure why 3 farms even exists as a card for Inca when 3 travois is a much more useful shipment and it's infinite...

[klonko]

You could also transform the travois from the TC+travois shipment into a farm and boom the llama from there too if you have enough food that is

I think by the time you ship the TC+ travois shipment you already have 20 llama easily with the age 1 shipment.

Also is 3 travois strickly better than 3 farms shipment since you can build somehting else also instead of only farms? I dont know if they are the same age tough.

They are, and that does work - thanks for spotting it! Not even sure why 3 farms even exists as a card for Inca when 3 travois is a much more useful shipment and it's infinite...

The only thing I don't like about your build is the second age1 card. It feels like a waste haha. I think I prefer the 2 travois age up into llama (fertility dance cause they are affected by it) and 600 wood + upgrade to house gathering rate. You finish quickly the llama then switch all out wood for house spam and your boom is finished about 7-8 min in the game. You can go to fortress or stay more in colonial and send the second TC.

Also using the llama as a fertility battery (and food battery too if the situation becomes dire) seems to do wonder since it is not too quick to not be able to keep up with vils and military but allow a nice decrease time for settlers on 2 TCs if you plan to stay in colonial.

Finally, consider the farm big button for fattened llamas before sending farms. For 400w/400g it can generate ALOT of food!

[willieb3]

What do ppl think about backing chasqui/spearmen rush with the american allies card in age 1? The one that allows you to train blowgun/zapotec/mapuche and gives a free native travois? You could ship 300W and build a war hut but you will run into pop issues until you start shipping wood for extra kancha houses. It allows you to back up your 10 spearmen with another 5 zapotec which is nice since they have bonus vs heavy inf.

[klonko]

What do ppl think about backing chasqui/spearmen rush with the american allies card in age 1? The one that allows you to train blowgun/zapotec/mapuche and gives a free native travois? You could ship 300W and build a war hut but you will run into pop issues until you start shipping wood for extra kancha houses. It allows you to back up your 10 spearmen with another 5 zapotec which is nice since they have bonus vs heavy inf.

You mean sending this as your first shipment and sending the treaty that give free natives? For 2 cards, it is not that good of an investement. And instead of zapotec, i would go for blowgunner to complement your 10 pikes and also they are more food heaby than wood heavy. But then again, I think it would be better to go full native with that card age1 then use the 2 age up travois to ally with 2 different tribes on the map (or 1 and a warhut) for a shipment of 10-15 units (or less if they are powerful). With the incan warchief boosting their HP, the big button, and the embassy in forward position, it is actually decent.

[HUMMAN]

Hey @[Armag] diarouga Tried to execute your BO, can you give me some feedback?
Thanks

[[Armag] diarouga]

1. Put your 5 vills on the food crates. By killing an animal and then walking, you delay your first vill, which is big. It will delay the 6-7 vills you train by 3 sec -20 food
2. In my BO I don't put 3 vills on food, and I don't herd before getting the 4v bb. It will delay your 3v button.
3. Stop typing at the beginning of the game if you want to play a serious game. You get some iddle vills, and waste like 10-12VS because you're typing instead of putting your villagers at the right place. -10food
4. Build the kancha ASAP. You delayed your kancha by like 40 sec. -20 food
5. Shift click your crate villagers. They're iddle after finishing the crates. -5 food
6. At 1:44 your realise your mistake, and switch your vills from food to gold, after killing 2 bisons... It is a very precise build order, you cannot afford to waste villager seconds like here. -5food
7. You over gather wood and coin, and forget to eat your lama. As a result, you get 10 sec of iddle villager time. -30 food.
8. On top of getting your 4villagers extremely late (like 1 min late). -200 food
9. Because you killed your first bison in age 1, you didn't herd your hunt, and waste ton of walking time. -60 food.
As a result of all these macro mistakes, you lose about 350f, which is why your age up is delayed by 20-30 seconds.