Civ 7 Feedback For Devs: Pachacuti feels awful.

[OverSoul]

While I understand that Civ games will always have good leaders and some bad ones, Pachacuti feels unplayable without hitting the jackpot of mountains on a map. I wanna go in depth to why he feels terrible to play, and why he in most games feels like you're playing a leader with no abilities. Ive been a Inca Civ playier since Civ 4 and truly love the history of the Incans so seeing them in this state in the game makes me feel deep sadness.

To start off with his biggest issue that could be resolved without changing Pachacuti. His starting bias does not work at all. I've tested this with going the memento that gives scouts +3 sight on their search ability and most if not every time I played Pachacuti I was landed in tundra plains or tropical plains/vegetated with no mountains. It usually takes me 15 reloads with new map seeds to finally get my starting bias with roughly 2-3 mountain tiles nearby. However, when I play Leaders with a desert bias like Xerses or Hatshepsut (I even get her navigable rivers), the results are the opposite of what I get with Pachacuti. Most of the time getting deserts with maybe once in a blue moon that I don't get their starting bias. I do not know if Pachacuti's starting bias is bugged, but it is not reliably getting mountain tiles causing Pachacuti's abilities to be useless. This goes into my second point.

Pachacuti's 2 abilities are only tied to mountains. Thematically this makes sense. In practice it feels terrible. In games where you don't have mountains nearby to settle, or they were already settled by other civs; it makes Pachacuti feel like a hardcore challenge. I think making the second part of his leader ability to not be tied to mountains would at least allow him to have access to something in the game. It wouldn't go against the history of Pachacuti since his empire would was known for taking in smaller tribes and bringing their specialist (Goldsmiths, Ceramist, and Builders) to the capital for their empire.

To summarize I feel that the the two suggestion listed below will fix Pachacuti as a leader. Maybe they can do both (would be nice), but even doing just one of them would help out tremendously.

1. Fix Pachacuti's starting bias to work more often like over civs and their starting bias.
2. Adjust the Specialist Happiness maintenance to not be reliant on mountains. Either by removing the adjacent to mountains part of the ability, or by giving it a different condition.

To end this on a good note, thank you Firaxis Games for Civ 7. I've been enjoying the game a ton and I appreciate trying to reinvent the wheel for the franchise. It makes it feel like playing Civ 3 for the first time again.

[JRME]

I've restarted so many times with him that it's becoming a joke. Choosing Pachacuti seems to put you as far from mountains as you can be on the map.