Rhye's and Fall of Civilization - Incan strategy
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Incan 600 AD BTS strategy (monarch)
by Pacifist
This is finally achievable, since Rhye decided to allow the Portuguese their little Brazilian enclave in your South American empire. (I did it before in Viceroy with whole of South America, but it's viceroy). It's actually quite fun to go from second to last place in 1600 all the way to third place (I was lucky France collapsed).
UHV criteria
- No European colonies in SAm (except Brazil) in 1600
- 3000 gold in 1700
- No European colonies in SAm (except Brazil) in 1800 (actually 1799)
Unique power/building/unit
The combination of terraces and having 1 hammer/2 food is actually quite instrumental in your eventual success. It means that you can grow large cities where only other civs can settle for a place holder for resources. Terraces give culture, which means that you automatically enclose a large cross after 5 turns without any religion or libraries; this is useful to keep in mind when placing your cities to claim SAm. Unfortunately, your unique unit, the Quechua, isn't so spectacular: he's just a glorified warrior. He's cheap to produce, and I used him mostly for absorbing the damage of plagues (I keep 1-2 quechas in each city for this reason) so that my more advanced units don't die automatically. They also provide happiness with monarchy cheaply, until you get some religion and can build temples.
Starting moves
- Settle Nazca 1 SW of starting position. Being on the coast helps with trade, even though Cuzcu can encompass more resources, it's not worth it. Nazca builds 2 work boats, library, quechua, market and settler.
- Send 1 settler with 2 archers south to found on the southern-most desert (which will be stone): this city will be your defence against the 3 dog solders that appear south from time to time, and when the mountain pass opens after the Old World meets you, you need to send units across to Uruguay to deny it to the Spanish. This city builds walls and library.
- All other units (including your 2 other settlers) head towards NW and capture Tucume, which will have 1 archer with a 25% defence bonus. You can kill it usually with the loss of 1-2 Quechua (which have a bonus in attacking cities). Defend it with an archer and send all remaining units north where the mountain pass is open. Tucume builds work boat, terrace, walls, archer and settler.
- The first work boat by Nazca goes around the southern end of SAm and back north. This is really important to prevent the conquerors event (which will not happen if you meet the Europeans before they can see any of your land). If you're unfortunate enough for China and Japan to make caravels to discover you first and spawn conquerors, you should restart. (I'm sure this is less likely with the 1.09 BTS version since Japan no longer starts with calendar which makes Optics less likely for them). Also, if you meet the Old World early, you may not get any plague until 1400 or so.
- Send your settlers towards modern French Guiana(where the goody hut is) and Caracas. DON'T found your cities yet until you meet the Old World. Then grab land as much as you can: the settler from Tucume needs to found a city in modern Guyana to fill in the gap between your other 2 northern cities. The settler from Nazca goes straight towards Uruguay (where the goody hut is).
- If you really want to piss off the Portuguese and get some iron you can found another city in the interior of southern Brazil, just expand enough to enclose the iron. This is really not necessary and expansion stability problems actually discourage it.
Science
You're way behind when you start, but don't worry, you'll catch up eventually to 3rd place with appropriate trading. In order of research:
- Sailing (you need those trade routes and harbors which will be automatically built once you get sailing)
- Bronze working (for slavery and copper): this is essential to whip all your necessary buildings and settlers.
- Monarchy (for keeping people happy with the whip); after the above 2 switch to slavery and hereditary rule. Build Quechas to eat up turns between projects to make the people happy.
- Calendar (for making plantations)
- Civil Service (I've found that no civ on earth will trade you this); switch to Bureaucracy ASAP.
- All other techs that lead eventually to early defence (Feudalism, guilds (also for grocers))
- The road to caravels: iron working, metal casting, machinery, compass, optics
The rest is up to you, but I like Banking, Printing Press, Paper and Education early for the obvious monetary reasons. Later in the game you'll have to find out what people don't have. For example, I went for gunpowder which Mali traded for Divine Right. Japan loved Divine Right (even though it's the most useless and expensive tech in the world other than getting to Nationalism) and gave me liberalism (for a price, of course). By dealing with other countries as backwards as you (such as China, Japan, Mali, Mongolia, Khmer, and even the Vikings in some techs) you can trade yourself all the way to 3rd by 1800 (your land area and population makes you far ahead of more advanced countries like Netherlands). You'll even see the phrase "we fear you're becoming too advanced" from jealous civs... Unfortunately with no tech brokering on in the later patches your trade options might be a little more limited.
3000 gold
In Tucume, Montevideo and Nazca (hopefully these will be your largest cities) you need to have 2 (at least) markets built. Start hiring 2 merchants in each of these cities around 1550. Build 2 caravels (or 2 triremes and upgrade them eventually). You'll pop 2 great merchants in the early 1600's and send them towards Amsterdam (usually the largest city in the world and the banking center of Europe). You'll easily net 1500-1700 gold each. (in fact I kept my science going at 100% all the way till the late 1600's). All your workers should build cottages (you do not need any farms as long as you're close to mountains and sea): this is crucial to your eventual science success. In fact for most of the game I had my science at 80-90% with just a slight loss.
In the more recent patches getting to optics may be impossible. A reasonable compromise is to use a galley to send your great merchant to NAm (being a different continent will give him more gold) to New York or Boston, which is usually built by 1550-1600. Or you can turn research down all the way...
After your golden age in 1700, use your money wisely. Usually pair up a tech with some money to trade for another tech. Buy an expensive tech from the more advanced countries and sell them to get what you need from Mali, Japan, China and Khmer. (India, when they spawn, is usually very unrealistically advanced for an Asian civ in 1600)
Further expansion until 1800
By 1600 you should easily cover the basic areas. Further settlers should found Quito (on the gold north of Tucume) which will be good defence against the dog soldiers coming that way; a city just south of the mountains in southern Chile (where there's fish and deer); a city in southern Argentina just enough to enclose the tip of SAm; and maybe another city east of the southern mountain pass (eventually there will be corn and horses there). You may also want to found one more city in your narrow strip of Chile to get maximal use of your 2nd copper and whale. Just keep the Portuguese hemmed in their narrow strip of Brazil and you'll achieve the 3rd goal easily. SAm is a large place; build enough courthouses and Summer Palace in either northern SAm or in Uruguay: this will save you a lot of money.
The inevitable war with some Europeans
The usual suspects are England and Spain. Both of them are rather difficult to please. Initially give them the corn they demand. By the time you're really advanced in the 1700's, build enough troops and sign defensive pacts with France, Germany, Vikings, Netherlands and Portugal to keep these 2 colonial powers busy. I never saw a single troop in my lands even though both of them hassled me with their frigates.
Religion
No state religion at all, if you want to trade with the civs that are not Christian. In fact, when you get liberalism (usually from Japan) switch to free religion. In your Christian cities, you should build monasteries and temples for the extra hammers.
Conclusion
This is actually quite fun to play: not as much need to beg like the Malians. While balancing trade and research you can prop yourself up to a great civilization. By the end I was able to spawn a great engineer to get a golden age with Olympic Park, which helped my science to steam power. You'll get a Warren G. Harding score easily.
North American colonization
It is possible to colonize all the good North American land before the French, English and Americans show up. Send one of your settlers north towards Caracas, found it and send another one with quechua backup (they can pass through jungle) to New Orleans either via water (build a galley in Caracas) or via land (pass through Central America and give some gold to the Aztecs for open borders. Be sure to build/hire some axemen/catapults early on as the natives/barbs will be numerous and the Aztecs sometimes declare war for no good reason.
Emperor strategy
Most of the above applies, except that you will not be able to get optics in time (needs iron working, metal casting, machinery, compass and optics). Instead cap your research at 0% after sailing, bronze working, monarchy and calendar. Spawn a great merchant in either Tucume or Uruguay and send him towards a Portuguese or English city, and net about 900 gold. The rest is your research money. Just to be safe, found a city in the Falklands and southern SA soon (Spain beat me to the latter in 1600). Switch to Christianity ASAP, because you cannot trade with any civ on earth (you're so behind) and you don't want to piss off Spain or Portugal. After 1700 it's anticlimatic just waiting for 1802.
