Counting territories is one thing, recognizing that they get the fastest coin+rum bonus AND have a continued attack path to keep growing without splitting, early - is another thing.
The two strongest sites, in my experience are Tupac and Uku Pacha with Tupac being stronger against Inca, than Uku Pacha is against Cortez.
Ranked from Worst to Best with reasoning:
4) Inca
- Its weak because the attack path is split for early bonus, OR you have to take 4 territs, and then double back to have cannon access.
- When you expand north, it comes with no great benefit because your troops are likely sitting on north to keep expanding, so you can get hit from the back, and can get bombed by cortez still.
- Cortez usually won't play north due to the awkward pathing/delay to second coin, or skipping the first one altogether to avoid splitting. So your advantage of playing north vs Cortez isn't really there, he will just play south and bomb you and stalmate unless you push into Tupac, but you can only do that once you know the player is not on Tupac.
3) Second weakest is Cortez
- but its weakness in attack path and having to split for bonus accumulation is overcome in its ability to heavily disrupt Uku Pacha and Inca with the best cannon on the map
- Cortez will basically always lose to Tupac due to delayed income and no disruption.
2) The second strongest is Uku Pacha
- because its the only place that seems to have a winning play against Tupac possibility when going second. But you still usually will have to go first to leverage it.
- It beats Inca unless on sunny, for similar reasons referenced before. Inca can only match deploy expansion by splitting, and its not as easily done in early turns as it is on Uku Pacha.
- You can also still win against Cortez, because if they don't expand, you get greater bonus. And if they do expand you can easily eat them up, because you were linearly stacking troops at your north in case you want to go cannon.
- Going second vs Uku is usually a death sentence.
1) Clear first place is Tupac
- It gets the coin+rum bonus in only 3 territs, and can easily get 3 sets without splitting attack path or having troops on the wrong side from assaults.
- Inca's natural play can't keep up, even with access to a cannon to disrupt. It wastes too many troops to bomb Tupac to expand effectively and match.
- Cortez can't do anything and has to work much harder to expand/keep up in deploy
- Uku Pacha can go head to head with Tupac and feels like a "who went first" matchup.
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Ultimately the map is designed for 1v1 which is good - I hate it though. I think poly 2 is actually the best, so you can potentially grow as fast as the tupac player by deploying both players on one other player to keep up in the early game.
I think the map is also actually best on sunny to even out the starting spots, but the gameplay is less interesting and still would rather have Tupac everygame if I had a choice.
In foggy Tupac is by far the strongest, there is no risk or deviation, you always play for bonuses to outdeploy opponents and sit if you want.
I prefer games foggy, but don't think its any good.
And to address it directly this doesn't work out the way "it being 2 territs away" sounds.
SoN!c wrote: Wed Apr 01, 2026 2:29 pm
First gold cob to be found from starting point is 3 terrs out for all starting positions. First bottle out is 2 terrs out for all forts (starting positions).
In Inca you HAVE to take 4 territs from Inca to get anything. You only have to take 3 from Tupac, and on Tupac if you fail, you just keep going the same direction because there is no need to split paths/fort across/back to the start.
In Cortez, to get your second pair, you have to double back for the bottle.
In Uku Pacha you have to take 4 territs but don't have split.
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As to how to balance - I haven't a clue - the asymmetrical nature is important to gameplay, I think. But Tupac just has everything going for it imo. You'd think maybe its diagonal opponent could beat it, but it can't unless sunny/going first.
You could consider making Inca cannon only a 3 or 2, so Tupac actually has a weakness, or add a cannon to Uku Pacha to the right that is closer and would range Tupac early. But then I'd just switch to liking Uku Pacha as the strongest. I think the biggest balance issue is Inca being so spread out in its gameplan and having to go two directions. Cortez makes up for that in a very effective cannon and the two for one slot in the south.