No Incan navy?

[BritNavFan]

I don't know. Even Wellington lived off the land to a large extent.

But, with respect to the Incas, my understanding is that they didn't live off the land, but used organized supply depots. That works fine when you're suppressing rebellions or fighting civil wars or annexing the valley over the next ridge (often by intimidation), but it wouldn't translate well to amphibious invasions. And they were also used to having numerical advantage and not used to fighting people with more than a very limited range of tactics. I don't think an attempt to invade Central America, over not just a small stretch of water but several hundred miles of coast, would have gone well, nor was there reason to try it when there was always another little statelet just over the next ridge.

 

[monsterfurby]

I'd say their naval capabilities are assumed to be part of their ability to wage a land war - after all, war canoes do you no good when you're on the high seas, especially when transporting a large number of troops and supplies. I do agree that the "tribal" group should be *able* to build a navy, although with a massive attrition value (70%+ on the high seas).

 

[Colombo]

Incas with they way of waging war (soldiers was only armed farmers living on enemy borders, not profesional soldiers) wasn't centairly able to wage naval war. But smaller kingdoms, before Incas took control over all of them, wasn't same. And in Mesoamerica, there was profesional soldiers, something like medieval lords, fighting wars.
But, saying that Incas and mesoamerican cultures would have bad naval (slider?) don't mean, they shouldn't build it at all.

 

[pdrazek@hotmail.com]

They were fishing from boats so they did have some "navy"

here you can see Incan pottery with their boats drawn:

http://www.oceansart.us/Free_Photos_Lima_Peru_Inca_Empire/Fotos_Libre_Lima_Peru_images/19.html

"Indian birch-bark canoes, to take another example, were faster and more maneuverable than any small European boat. In 1605 three laughing Indians in a canoe literally paddled circles around the lumbering dory paddled by traveler George Weymouth and seven other men. Despite official disapproval, the stunned British eagerly exchanged knives and guns for Indian canoes. Bigger European ships with sails were obviously better for long-distance travel along the shore. Indians got hold of them through trade and shipwreck, and trained themselves to be excellent sailors. By the time of the Pilgrims, a rising proportion of the shipping traffic along the New England coast was of indigenous origin and the English were fearful, Harvard historian Joyce E. Chaplin has argued, ''that Indians might get the upper hand.""

Found on:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/09/04/native_ingenuity/

 

[unmerged(25822)]

Incas with they way of waging war (soldiers was only armed farmers living on enemy borders, not profesional soldiers) wasn't centairly able to wage naval war. But smaller kingdoms, before Incas took control over all of them, wasn't same. And in Mesoamerica, there was profesional soldiers, something like medieval lords, fighting wars.
But, saying that Incas and mesoamerican cultures would have bad naval (slider?) don't mean, they shouldn't build it at all.

Ancient Greeks were farmers this is why most of the wars were short and brutal because farmers had to go back in their farms yet the did very well at sea .
If you go to wiki and read about the battle of Diu you will see that Mediterranean nations with great naval tradition like Venice , Genoa and the Ottomans (they had Greek/Ragusan crews) were defeated by Portugal because their ship technology was not good enough for the Ocean ; just consider that the Incas didn't had to built anything bigger than rafts , ever , to understand the whole thing.
Also it is not about building ships but having crews , i am into sailing and it isn't the easiest thing in the world even with a very experienced instructor , just imagine clueless Inca crews trying to manoeuvre a caravel or a dromon i bet my right leg that they wouldn't be capable to even maintain minimal speed without getting lost or crashing on something...not to start talking about anchoring .

 

[redmark]

Incas with they way of waging war (soldiers was only armed farmers living on enemy borders, not profesional soldiers) wasn't centairly able to wage naval war. But smaller kingdoms, before Incas took control over all of them, wasn't same. And in Mesoamerica, there was profesional soldiers, something like medieval lords, fighting wars.
But, saying that Incas and mesoamerican cultures would have bad naval (slider?) don't mean, they shouldn't build it at all.

Why would they build ocean-going ships, if they had no concept of anywhere to sail to?

 

[pdrazek@hotmail.com]

Also it is not about building ships but having crews , i am into sailing and it isn't the easiest thing in the world even with a very experienced instructor , just imagine clueless Inca crews trying to manoeuvre a caravel or a dromon i bet my right leg that they wouldn't be capable to even maintain minimal speed without getting lost or crashing on something...not to start talking about anchoring .

It is not true.

They did have boats not only rafts. Diaries of various explorers claim that Incas were learning fast to be sailors though it happened after 1600. See my post before.

 

[Slyspy]

I suspect that any number of boats capable of running up and down the coast would still be insufficient to transport thousands of men into unknown waters.

 

[unmerged(25822)]

It is not true.

They did have boats not only rafts. Diaries of various explorers claim that Incas were learning fast to be sailors though it happened after 1600. See my post before.

Of course they were learning but anyone can learn to manoeuvre a paddle boat with some practice , can you learn to master something like this without someone to teach you the basics?
I needed several lessons to start getting a clue on how to move a 14m sail boat ...

Also Inca had no clue about navigation , of course they were very advanced in astronomy and it would be relatively easy for them to learn how to go around but still it is not something you can consider minor

 

[jmschaub]

Wow this thread is way off topic. The fact is the Incans didn't have a "Navy". If you want them to have the unhistorical chance. Mod your game so they can. It's not that difficult to do so.

The Incans stayed inland as they feared the ocean and thought their gods were from there. Not to be confused with the Polynesians which lived in the Pacific Ocean. It seems some of you would like to make them the same people

 

[Colombo]

Ancient Greeks were farmers this is why most of the wars were short and brutal because farmers had to go back in their farms yet the did very well at sea .
If you go to wiki and read about the battle of Diu you will see that Mediterranean nations with great naval tradition like Venice , Genoa and the Ottomans (they had Greek/Ragusan crews) were defeated by Portugal because their ship technology was not good enough for the Ocean ; just consider that the Incas didn't had to built anything bigger than rafts , ever , to understand the whole thing.
Also it is not about building ships but having crews , i am into sailing and it isn't the easiest thing in the world even with a very experienced instructor , just imagine clueless Inca crews trying to manoeuvre a caravel or a dromon i bet my right leg that they wouldn't be capable to even maintain minimal speed without getting lost or crashing on something...not to start talking about anchoring .

Sorry, but I don't believe, that those Greeks soldiers you are pointing at were farmers at all. Not in golden age of Helenistic culture.

Yeah, they had rafts. And they were able to transport soldiers. How to simulate it in EU3? By disabling ANY ships for them? Those cultures are nerfed enough by animist, fast anexation and crazy tech modifier. Yeah, their technology was in stoneage. But that only mean, they didn't used so mutch metal. But other capabilities, administration, trade, politics etc. was on mutch higher level then 0 or 1 in EU3 terms.

 

[Evie HJ]

Wow this thread is way off topic. The fact is the Incans didn't have a "Navy".

Nearly every the nations in the game didn't have a navy for much of the game They just mustered whatever merchant ships were available whenever they needed boats. Most of those that grew out of it did so only a few centuries after the game started.

Why doesn't the game ban everyone from building navies until the seventeenth century?

(Answer : because the game represent civilian ships coopted into national use as a navy, even if it wasn't a navy by any definition)

BritNavFan : the question isn't "Would the Incans do this?", because the answer to that is "No". Then again, there are lots of things that the game allow the players to do that their nation would not have done IRL.

The question is, did they (and, more generally, Native Americans) have the technical ability to build boats that could carry (if grouped in sufficient numbers) large groups of people over long distance, and to that, the answer is yes.

(Regarding the coast/ocean issue, I'm still of the opinion that the best way to handle that is simply to make QFTNW hard to get without Westernization (and give them a much larger starting map, to compensate, and to make the Incans *only* aware of coastal provinces)

 

[Earl Uhtred]

EU3's representation of navies makes little sense. They cost a lot to build and nothing much to maintain. Forcelimits are so high as to be ignored by any nation with a significant number of coastal cores.

 

[unmerged(148296)]

I think some people are confused in thinking that the Incans can never build a navy, rather their naval tech is so low they never do.

 

[unmerged(170957)]

point is that the incan canoes wouldnt put up a fight to the spanish galleons

 

[jdrou]

I think some people are confused in thinking that the Incans can never build a navy, rather their naval tech is so low they never do.

Not true. Again, barring the exploit posted earlier in the thread, the Incas can never build ships regardless of their tech level unless they westernize. The real limit is their tech group not their tech level.

 

[Evie HJ]

point is that the incan canoes wouldnt put up a fight to the spanish galleons

An early-game galley would get utterly mauled by a late-game ship of the line, too. All the same, the game doesn't force all early galleys out of existence when one nation get ships of the line.

 

[Garak]

Gavin Menzies has a place right up there with Dan Brown and that Black Athena retard in the pantheon of crack pipe pseudohistorical fantasy.

To be fair, Dan Brown writes fiction and doesn't pretend otherwise. It's mostly impressionable rubes who take his notices about descriptions of art and organizations being accurate to mean that everything he writes is fact.

did either of you actualy read the book? Gavin tells about many things that are indeed evidence. He explains things left behind, things taken (pretty sure), and why the chinese themselves destroyed most of the records. Like I said, almost nobody in the world wants to honestly consider these theories, because the 'history' books would have to be rewritten. Also, nobody wants to be made fun of, they want to be liked by everyone else, so they are not going to easily stick thier neck out for an idea.

Speaking as someone who was actually trained in the field of history, trust me when I say that this is inaccurate. There is NOTHING professional historians like more than to revisit old ideas and rewrite them. That's essentially what the job consists of. If historians didn't want to have to rewrite the history books, we wouldn't see a new book about Napoleon or Caesar or the American Revolution every year. Any historian out there would absolutely love to be able to present evidence of something as mind-bogglingly revolutionary as Chinese exploration of the Americas, because it would make them famous. The fact that no credible historian has, or has even agreed that there's anything to the claim, so far as I know, is telling.

 

[Slyspy]

An early-game galley would get utterly mauled by a late-game ship of the line, too. All the same, the game doesn't force all early galleys out of existence when one nation get ships of the line.

Except in a calm or in shallow waters where the galley (or more often, galleys) could pummel the ship of the line at will.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

To be fair, Dan Brown writes fiction and doesn't pretend otherwise. It's mostly impressionable rubes who take his notices about descriptions of art and organizations being accurate to mean that everything he writes is fact.

True enough. I'm just bitter that a piece of fiction, and not a particularly well-written or entertaining one, has probably sold 100x better than any historical title in recent time. What is it about this stuff that appeals to people who'd not be seen dead with a piece of bona fide non-fiction however entertaining?

Back at the office a copy of NAM Rodger's 'The Command of the Ocean' - a fantastically written and researched piece packed to bollocks with colourful characters and wacky situations - sat on my desk while about 20 copies of that Da Vinci abomination were circulating the floor. Out of touch, no doubt.