Extremely well thought out balance changes for Incas.

Hello AoE community, my apologies in advance. I spend a lot of time living inside my own head to speak and for once have made the arbitrary decision to put some of those thoughts onto paper.

One thing I've noticed since I started browsing the some of the AoE forums is everyone seems to have an opinion about balance changes for Incas (Myself included). As far as I know this stemmed after the developers killed the Inca trush by making their blacksmith upgrades affect villagers only apply in castle age and gave them nothing in return. As a result the civ was left in a very underwhelming state with one half being thrilled they didn't have to deal with an Inca trush ever again and the other half disappointed that their favourite civ lost their "identity" and received nothing in return.

I started playing AoE2:DE after all of that so I don't have any PTSD from being Inca trushed clouding my judgement nor any recollection of their previous identity. I just like the fact that the civ is very well rounded and has an open tech tree along with some specialized counter units.

My understanding was that the intention for the blacksmith bonus affecting villagers in feudal age was to make them more defensive and resistant to raiding but naturally had the consequence of doing the opposite.

As it stands they have a sub-par winrate with a very low pickrate (48.4% winrate at 1650+ ELO as per the previous patch according to aoestats.io with a sub 2% pickrate). There was also this post which gave some preliminary win rates for the latest expansion showing Incas at a ~46.5% win rate on the new Arabia at >1200 ELO. Therefore I think most people would agree that some minor tweaks are in order.

If there's one thing I learned after over a decade of playing Dota is that balance is a precious thing and drastic changes are not necessarily the solution. You can easily take a hero from completely unused to absolutely oppressive overnight if you make drastic changes. For Dota you will quite often see a very rapid succession of sub-patches after major balance updates for this reason. I don't think that style of balancing is suitable to AoE and more minor tweaks are often a better solution.

My take on the overall identity for the civ is smooth, well rounded and defensive/reactive in nature. Jack of all trades, master of none. Therefore keeping that identity in mind I have spent tens of minutes coming up with the following balance changes to Incas.

Infantry Civilization

Incas;

• Houses support 10 population
• Buildings cost 15% less stone
• Houses and Walls build 66% faster
• Villagers affected by squires and blacksmith upgrades starting in castle age

Team Bonus;

• Start with a free llama

Andean Sling;

• Slingers/Skirmishers no minimum range and increased rate of fire (+15%)

Fabric Shields;

• All infantry +1/+2P

Justification for the changes are as below;

• Houses and Walls build 66% faster (4s Palisade Wall, 6s Stone Wall, 15s House vs 7/10/25).

This fits back with the identity of the civ being defensive in nature and resistant to raids. I think this is an excellent replacement for their current useless farm build speed bonus and will also provide a minor eco-boost. The number itself can always be tweaked but I think the principle of it suits the civ well. However I think it's a bit too strong for a team bonus so I've moved it to a civ bonus (Swapping it with the llama).

• Villagers affected by squires

This was definitely inspired by the Bohemian bonus. It still keeps in theme with villagers receiving a defensive bonus (Movement speed is an excellent defensive tool) and also provides a minor eco boost at the same time. You can watch Spirit of the Law's video about Berbers to see the effect this will have on their economy. Overall it's more of a quality of life improvement for an upgrade that is very commonly researched.

This will stay in line with their existing blacksmith upgrades in castle age bonus to make their villagers more resistant to raiding.

• Andean Sling

I think the technology as it currently stands could be essentially removed from the game and have minimal impact on the balance of the civ. This just makes them slightly better at what they already do and also offsets the removal of fabric shields affecting slingers.

• Fabric Shields

Buff to all Inca infantry in Imp. I think that the impact of this will probably be felt most in trash wars post-imp with stronger halbs but also makes the champion line a more viable option.

I think overall these would be a moderate improvement but doesn't make them and instant S+ tier. It also keeps the theme of the civ well in tact. Some of the changes may warrant numbers tweaks or resource cost changes to the unique techs to keep them balanced but over all I think these are good ideas.

In addition before /u/Reboku_thegreat comes in here and suggests the following;

• Farm bonuses now add food to already completed farms.

If you do the math behind this essentially it reads "33% Cheaper farms until your opponent researches heavy plow and starts to re-seed farms". This is assuming all farms have been seeded with horse collar (It's about 53% cheaper without horse collar). The effects would be delayed as you won't see the benefit until the horse collar farms have expired and begun to reseed (Usually around early to mid castle age) and it still requires you to have the resources to research heavy plow but it would be an extremely strong bonus.

The only two civs with farming bonuses similar to this are Franks and Teutons. Again once crunching the numbers in terms of resources saved it ends up on-par with the frank bonus assuming 20 horse collar farms are seeded by your opponent before researching heavy plow. Neither of these civs is anywhere near as flexible as the Inca tech tree and therefore I think this bonus would be too much.

I want minor tweaks, not drastic changes to the economy of the civ. I don't believe the civ is in as bad of a place as some people make it out to be.

Yes I'm well aware devs don't care about my opinion but I just like to think about this sort of stuff.

Feel free to provide your opinions and constructive criticisms and thanks for taking the time to read my post.

TLDR; Arena clowns will have a new favourite civ.