Pachacuti does not fall terribly well on our leader tier list for Civilization 7 – in fact, he’s right at the bottom. This is mostly due to the fact that his bonuses aren’t particularly useful, and they’re rendered completely useless if you don’t get a favorable starting city. Although there are starting biases in Civ 7, the chances that you spawn in the mountains necessary to make Pachacuti playable are still not guaranteed.
Regardless of all that moaning, this guide covers some strategies to make the most out of Pachacuti if you decide to play him anyway.
This guide is based on singleplayer Civilization 7 against the AI, not multiplayer.
Pachacuti Overview
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All buildings receive +1 Food Adjacency for Mountains. |
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Specialists adjacent to Mountains pay no Happiness. |
Pachacuti relies entirely on Mountains. While you can get a starting city that will greatly benefit from free food and free specialists, there’s always the chance that you might need to reroll several times before you get a playable start.
This is the first start we got while writing this guide. Not a mountain tile in sight. Absolutely no benefit for Pachacuti whatsoever.
Pachacuti Strategy In The Antiquity Age
If you are fortunate enough to get a good mountain start as Pachacuti (or you’ve just rerolled multiple times until you get one), here’s an overview of how to make the most out of those food and specialist bonuses.
City Planning
City planning and adjacency planning is an important mechanic in Civ 7, even more so when you’re playing leaders with specific terrain bonuses to buildings.
In this example start for Pachacuti, we have access to at least some Mountain tiles. This means we will need to be careful about where we want to put our high-adjacency buildings (mostly science and culture buildings) near those mountains to receive the free specialist buff later on.
Scouting is very important on Pachacuti (like it is for most leaders), because you want to get early Discoveries for Science and you want to find some good spots for your future settlements. More mountains the better, of course. We recommend producing two or three Scouts at the start of the game.
Tech And Civics
With the right start with Pachacuti, you’re likely going to be surrounded with rough terrain, which means you want to pick Pottery first to boost the production on your mine tiles.
Pantheon
The best Pantheon for a Pachacuti start is Stone Circles as this will provide further boosts to your production on Mines, Quarries, and Clay Pits. Production is important to be able to produce the buildings you need quickly in your capital.
Best Civilization For Pachacuti
Because Pachacuti doesn’t have any particular bonuses that push him in a certain direction, your choice of civilization is very flexible.
The game suggests the Mississippians, and we recommend them as a good first choice for Pachacuti – they get some nice gold adjacency from Resources and a powerful Antiquity Age unit, the Burning Arrow.
The Mississippians lean into an Economic victory in the Antiquity Age, establishing trade routes and hoarding resources. Your land is likely to be fairly defensible if you get a favorable start as Pachacuti, and the Burning Arrows will protect you from invaders.
