Inca Unit Strategy, Tips and Advice Guide (Extended version)


NOTE: this is a LONG post. Do not feel obliged to read it all.
This is purely for the sake of reference, and as a guide to Inca's units and bonuses.

Units in Inca-------------- The units we have in Inca are strong, and work well with our country bonuses. Here's a quick run-through on our units:

Archers - with artillery generally being nerfed, and Racc slower to level, the already relatively extinct Archers are an even lousier unit. Not worth having any of them.

Cannon/Catapult/Horse Archers - unless you're experienced at levelling up artillery, you should stay away from artillery altogether. If you're building a PVP army, a few artillery (cannons) may be OK, but be prepared for a lengthy levelling up process. Any normal army or especially training army should avoid entirely. I would recommend staying away from any artillery (including range-based units like Horse Archers) other than Howitzers.

Cavalerist - still a strong, underrated unit. Cavalerists don't receive any bonuses, but they're still one of the stronger units on a pound for pound basis in the game. They are also fairly strong levellers. I would recommend using cavalerists, and even a 100% cavalerist army (no healers/drummers) is a decent leveller and very solid in PVP. Cavalerists were nerfed (by 10HP) but are still solid. Because of the nerf, cavalerists are low-HP and will take a lot of injuries, so levelling may be slower-going at first.

Drummer - important to use for training. I have 4 drummers now with a jaguar-healer army. I'd recommend at least 2 drummers for training purposes. For a PVP army, drummers vary in importance.

Footmen - too low HP to contributeHalberdier - good unit to use for early levelling on the mountains through the blue ranks. Bad unit longer-term.

Jaguar Warriors - one of the better units in the game, likely the best pure melee infantry unit in the game. I would recommend using Jaguars highly; not only are they good strong units, but because they're pure melee they level themselves & your commander much faster than ranged units. Also, they match Inca's terrain bonuses well. Train in the mountains!

Musketeer - OK stop-gap unit, but not too good longer-term. They don't benefit from bonuses sufficiently to be worthwhile.

Pikemen - nerfed. Avoid them altogether right now. Lousy unit.Riflemen - solid ranged infantry. Will be slower in training than jaguars, but jaguars and riflemen complement eachother well. Jaguar/Riflemen combination is ideal for Inca, as it means you'll be strong in three terrains. Drummers and healers aren't as essential when running with riflemen.

Shamans - our native healers. Use 'em. More on this in the next section.- Recommended unitsCavalerist (useable in a training or PVP army, slow-levelling at first)DrummerHalberdier (for early levelling; get rid of them longer-term)Jaguar Warriors (our optimal units considering terrain/objectives with training)Riflemen (complements Jags well)Shamans .Only recommended artillery: Howitzers

Building a Good Army--------------------- Training Army

Training armies are fairly simple to build in Inca. Because we have a good solid pure melee unit (jaguar warriors), we're able to combine them with healers and drummers and build a very simple yet effective training army.The reason pure melee infantry units are ideal for levelling is because they do not do any damage until the third round of battle (the first melee round).

Because of this, a melee-infantry-based army will tend to go more rounds than a cavalry-based army, or ranged-unit army. The more rounds a battle goes, the more XP your units and your commander gains.Then when you add healers into the equation, which lowers your army's total damage (more healers = less fighting units), and prolongs the battle to lasting more rounds (by healing your units), you gain even *more* XP.

A good training army will look like this:2-4 drummers15-20 healersrest: Jaguar WarriorsHealers should be bought relatively early so that their healing % is up by the time you reach Major General. I had 11 healers by Major; I'll have 15 by Colonel.-

PVP armyPVP armies are also relatively simple to build in Inca. There's a few options here: cavalerists, jaguar warriors, riflemen. All three are good in PVP. Because cavalerists are so low HP, they may be more difficult to train up. But they'll be killer in PVP--especially if you avoid healers/drummers.

Generally speaking, healers will not do much good for you in PVP. So you need to find a healthy balance between a training army and PVP army. For me, I will try to make a training army to Staff General or VM, then dump my healers, and pick up a unit to complement my Jaguar Warriors.

It's also possible to run a strong PVP army with 6-8 healers, giving you a bit of a balance for training.NOTE: some artillery is good to add into the mix for a PVP army. If you're going to use artillery, though, make sure it is Howitzers. We'll have access to Howitzers sooner or later. :)-

Planning longer-term : This is the absolute key part of army-building; whether you're running a training or PVP army: plan long-term!By 'planning long-term', I mean know your soft cap wage and hard cap wage. It's important to plan when to promote your units.

Example: traditionally, Major is a tough rank to level at. So I made sure that when I levelled to Major, I promoted all my units up to vet and breezed through Major relatively easily as a result. I know Lt.Colonel, Colonel and Brigadier are very easy ranks, so I will not promote any units during those ranks.

Instead I'll go below the soft wage cap on every promotion so that I can buy more units before reaching Major General (another tough rank).

Longer-term, I will plan to reach Field Marshal, and will promote/buy units according to FM hard-wage cap.Example: last age, my objective again was to reach Field Marshal. At FM, you can have 47 elite camels before reaching hard wage cap. So I made sure to have 47-50 camels onhand at Lt.General before I started promoting any camels.

Use this page to see hard wage

http://bacict.kahosl.be/jo.deboeck/Wim/tlk/wages.php

Planning longer-term is a little tricky to do, but still a very essential part of army-building. Don't hesitate to ask questions.- Calculate your army's strength. Elite armies put forth more damage than Hero armies. Generally it is better to keep your units at elite, and have more units, than it is to promote to Hero.

You can calculate this and use the battle simulator to see. :)Using unit and country bonuses to your advantage------------------------------------------------- Where to see country bonusesClick on "Rankings", then click on "Countries", then click on any country.

You'll see what bonuses/disadvantages the nation has in every terrain.In Inca, our major advantage is Jaguar Warriors on Mountains. You should always train on Mountains with Jaguar warriors as a result. Riflemen also have an advantage in the Forest.

PVP---PVPing is always integral to a country's success. We have good units in Inca, so there's no reason why we can't be dominant in PVP. However, you need to know your army's capabilities and your enemy's capabilities, as well as factor in the terrain you're in.

Jaguars will rarely lose on Mountains, but don't bring them into the desert or plains.Start getting to know your units and their strengths/weaknesses by testing out your army in this Battle Simulator:

http://bacict.kahosl.be/jo.deboeck/Wim/tlk/attcalc.php

Also, here is a spy compiler so that when you see some PVP opportunities, you can upload your target's army into this page so you get a full-look at their compiled army's spyreport :

http://bacict.kahosl.be/jo.deboeck/Wim/tlk/spy.php

Reference sites---------------The following is a terrific site, which has just about anything you need to know

http://bacict.kahosl.be/jo.deboeck/Wim/tlk/

Another site:

http://www.onuris.net/tlk/

Usually I use that site for the 'Top Countries' listing, which is somewhat indicative of which countries are doing well in ranking. :)

Finally: Nizzle_Winters, Bigpwner and Jew were three of the top PVPers of age9. So all three of them are excellent army builders. sTz, ZenDargo, b24019 and I are all able to answer any questions regarding army-building & levelling if you have any. Feel free to send any one of us your encampment page if you want indepth advice. :)- Miscreant

Posted by Miscreant on 02-05 16:32

re
Quick addition on Building Armies:I've been speaking to Jew (kurt) the past few days about army-building and longer-term planning. What he's done is levelled up fast to General (without healers really, but with 4 drummers and lots of pure melee units--Jaguars).

Then at General, he completely rebuilt, tearing down much of his army and rebuilding with a few howitzers and a lot of jaguars, for a total of 62 units. Getting a lot of units early is very important. Now he won't buy any more units for the remainder of this age.

His current training runs will be gruesome & slow, but once he gets his units up to mst/elite (and even at vet), he'll be devastating in PVP.I've taken a slightly different approach. I levelled through the lower ranks a bit slower and developed healers, to the point now where my healers are very good.

Now my training runs are around 600-700xp per run and should get up to 1000xp per run shortly. Given the fact that I have a fair number of healers (14) and drummers (4), I don't put forth as much damage as I'd like. Which means I have a poor PVP army.

Once I reach Staff General, I'll dismiss a bunch of my elite fighting units (mostly Jaguars) and buy up jaguars at adv. rank. With my healers, I'll be able to train the jaguars fairly quickly, but won't promote them. Then I'll start dismissing healers two or three at a time, buying adv. jaguars in their place.

This way I can train up my jaguars to promotion (likely to mst) with my healers, so that when I finally dismiss all of my healers, I can mass-promote my jaguars and the borders won't be *too* difficult.These are two methods to plan your army build-up for the later stages of the game & having what should hopefully be a great PVP army. :)

Posted by Miscreant on 02-07 19:42