Bridger. you may be right.
I was really hoping to bounce this idea off one of the DEVs.
I have really seen 2 completely contradictory opinions on inca.
some people swear by them..
.. others think they are weak.
regardless, as it is right now, if you play inca, unlike other civs, there is real incentive to go Classical as one of the first 4 areas you research....
and by doing so, inca gets many advantages... if they get to level 2, then they can make mines.. and then instead of paying 189 food and 54 wood for commerce 2, they can buy commerce 2 with wood and KNOWLEDGE. (which should be easy forthem to obtain.
simply put, they just have to set up mines and gather wealth.. and as soon as they hit commerce 2, they are in business.
of course , the only draw back for incas is that their wealth advantage is definately limited by trade prices... when everyone starts buying a certain resource, this drives up the prices for inca.
in fact, areasonable counter to play vs incas is to try to buy up as many resources as you can as soon as possible. this way, if you buy first, the inca player will have to play a higher fee to buy the same resource. this is a super strategyfor both oil and metal. if you hit indus early, buy as much oil as you can asap. this will significantly hinder even a wealthy incan civ when they have to pay highter prices.
ok?
so to reply to your thoughts onthis,bridger, I think Inca is good , but not great. I would not put them in the top 5 civs that I think RoN offers.
if you are a good player and garrison your military units when they are injured, you will have little need to use the incan insurance bonus. (this is where a civ like aztec is superior- gaining resources when you attack and kill another civs units is aMUCH BIGGER advantage!!!). you can get a HUGE BOUNTY here!!!
I still stand by my concept of introducing mining to incas in ancient. this way they can theoretically refrain from pushing into slassical as soon as they can and this just gives them some flexibility.
id love to play a non aggression game withsomeone, inca vs inca, with this option turned on. to compare one incan with early mining enabled and another with it off. then see whattheir resource situation looks like after 10 minutes of game play... and to make it fair, there would be no markets or temples built. no trading. just gold from mines etc.
i know this game can be modded , but i am not into this. if someone can mod this, and try it out id love to seee the results...
ie - total metal gathered.
times to classical
total resources gathered at the end of lets say 12 minutes, etc.
i bet you might be surprised that the early mining rather than adding a lot more resources to you really only adds more options for incans.
by the way, it would seem like another great strategy agains an incanis to constantly raid their mining productions. archers and ranged cavalry would do well. think of how much you could hinder an incan with the mongols.....
Audentis Fortuna iuvat.