Ideas on How to Help other AI vs Huayna Capac's Inca?

[Zoltrixer]

Hello,

I often take random civilizations for AI opponents and, whenever Huayna Capac with Inca is one of them, he is always so much above every other AI. Do you have any idea how to best help other AI deal with his existence after he already has quite the advantage (I often play maps and in ways that have me meet others quite late in the game, so I don't know about which civilizations I'm playing against for a while, long enough for Huayna Capac's Inca to dominate against everyone else)?

The solutions can be both through my civilization doing something but preferably through World Builder because I don't see myself doing anything other than just taking him out which is the main thing I want to avoid - having him as my main opponent all the time.

Thank you.

[red255]

odd. main thing about him is he has the financial trait. if he manages to get an early religion which isn't too hard with financial and starting mysticism he could push the religion and financial for a tech and other advantages yes.

so my guess is hes getting ahead of other AI because he managed to tech an early religion, spread it, and also has the financial trait.

anyways thats the core of why he's winning IMO. once you know that you can figure out how to fix it, because you are putting artibitrary restrictions on your actions.

[Zoltrixer]

Originally posted by red255:

odd. main thing about him is he has the financial trait. if he manages to get an early religion which isn't too hard with financial and starting mysticism he could push the religion and financial for a tech and other advantages yes.

so my guess is hes getting ahead of other AI because he managed to tech an early religion, spread it, and also has the financial trait.

anyways thats the core of why he's winning IMO. once you know that you can figure out how to fix it, because you are putting artibitrary restrictions on your actions.

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, I think I understand how he gets the advantage every time. I was just looking for ideas on how to make things more interesting for me and not have him as the main opponent in every game. For the current game that I have, I did it by making everyone else be constantly at war with him and removing all of his technologies, so that I could watch the revenge of the lesser AI and whether they'd be able to actually do it. Luckily, he didn't have any oil ships built, or I think he would've wiped the floor with everyone without me getting involved.

Would I be able to balance his traits in a file without making others even weaker at the same time? Maybe at least by lowering the Terrace culture or something so that he doesn't push the territory all the way to other AI's cities so easily (which I think is what makes the financial trait especially strong)?

Cheers.

[red255]

I doubt its terrace, more likely its sistine chapel.

[ghpstage]

He is an AI that comes with a bunch of idiot proof bonuses, things that AI can use. Plus his personality weightings tend to compliment them well. But personally I find him to be more upper middle of the pack (due to under expansion) than a regular trail blazer, are you playing on map types where full or semi isolation is common?

If you change a trait it will affect every leader with it, AI or human. If you want to go down that route you would need to make it a new trait which probably isn't too difficult if you started with copy-paste and changed the name.

If you look into his personality values in the leaderhead xml you can edit stuff specific to him. His favourite civic being cottages helps him, his willingness to trade definitely does, his wonderspammyness benefits from Industrious etc, the weights and flavours used in his build decisions and everything else can be found here. A few changes to those can make him weaker or stronger in whatever way you like.

The Terrace doesn't actually put out much culture, certainly not enough to press another civ. Where its strength lies is in removing the need for another source of culture for the first border pop.
The AI won't understand this, but it is possible that there is weighting towards building UBs

If you are late game and want to help other AI in a war against him then you can just arm them. Gifting a few tactical nukes to an underdog is always hilarious.

[Scathe]

consider playing custom games with both unrestricted leaders and random personalities checked. that way Huayna Capac won't even have inca most likely.

[Scathe]

another thought why huayna capac may be winning in your games and not in my games... you may be playing on a low enough difficulty level that the AI still starts with warriors for it's units instead of archers. and you may be playing marathon games where inca can take advantage of quecha being better than warriors for a longer set of turns. once you get to difficulty levels where the AI starts with archers, I'm pretty sure Inca's leader will be too stupid to quecha rush anymore, even though quecha can overpower archers sometimes.

consider picking huayna capac of inca for your own civ if you don't want to face him anymore. it is not a bad combo.

[ghpstage]

Until an AI gets access to two offensive units the AI won't go to war on its own initiative. It doesn't like to build warriors at all, I don't remember ever having seen one on Monarch and above, and only a handful below that.

[Zoltrixer]

Originally posted by Scathe:

another thought why huayna capac may be winning in your games and not in my games... you may be playing on a low enough difficulty level that the AI still starts with warriors for it's units instead of archers. and you may be playing marathon games where inca can take advantage of quecha being better than warriors for a longer set of turns. once you get to difficulty levels where the AI starts with archers, I'm pretty sure Inca's leader will be too stupid to quecha rush anymore, even though quecha can overpower archers sometimes.

consider picking huayna capac of inca for your own civ if you don't want to face him anymore. it is not a bad combo.

I do play on I think Prince and Noble difficulties with marathon, on huge maps with lots of land and some water in between to make meeting most civilizations possible only with ocean crossing units. The start is with warriors, so he may indeed be bullying other AIs for some time at the start, giving him a greater advantage together with all of the traits that are probably good for AI players.

Originally posted by ghpstage:

He is an AI that comes with a bunch of idiot proof bonuses, things that AI can use. Plus his personality weightings tend to compliment them well. But personally I find him to be more upper middle of the pack (due to under expansion) than a regular trail blazer, are you playing on map types where full or semi isolation is common?

If you change a trait it will affect every leader with it, AI or human. If you want to go down that route you would need to make it a new trait which probably isn't too difficult if you started with copy-paste and changed the name.

If you look into his personality values in the leaderhead xml you can edit stuff specific to him. His favourite civic being cottages helps him, his willingness to trade definitely does, his wonderspammyness benefits from Industrious etc, the weights and flavours used in his build decisions and everything else can be found here. A few changes to those can make him weaker or stronger in whatever way you like.

The Terrace doesn't actually put out much culture, certainly not enough to press another civ. Where its strength lies is in removing the need for another source of culture for the first border pop.
The AI won't understand this, but it is possible that there is weighting towards building UBs

If you are late game and want to help other AI in a war against him then you can just arm them. Gifting a few tactical nukes to an underdog is always hilarious.

Me and Huayna Capac were about to switch to oil ships, while the rest of the AI were having frigates, to give you an idea of the technology levels. I think he was ahead of me in technology.

Thank you for the idea of gifting units. Maybe intensely supporting his neighbors in a war against him could make things more interesting, indeed. It is not something that I usually do other than gifting workers and such.

[Zoltrixer]

Originally posted by red255:

I doubt its terrace, more likely its sistine chapel.

He did start getting some wonders after the first one or two eras in the latest game, I think including the Sistine Chapel. It might have helped him make things even more difficult for other AI. I will check when I start the game again. I have no idea for all the other games where he dominated over other AI, though.

[IdealPoint]

Bribe warmongers to go to war with him. Find Montezuma or Shaku and give them a few techs to dogpile on him, or even better someone like ragnar who's a semi competent techer and a warmonger. Or turn tech trading off. There's really no way that the AI can keep up with the player at low difficulty if you get beuracracy and run a cottage capital unless you are tiny in comparison to the AI.

[red255]

if you are going to use the worldbuilder strip away his access to marble and stone since they make the early wonders too easy. generally speaking take steps to frequently raze or espionage destroy his quarries.

[Thoth]

You can always create mod and change trait financial in to militaristic or other one.
Same with culture you can lower for some wonders and buildings also you can remove x2 bonus after 1000 years.