Machu Picchu



Cost: 2/3/4

+1 blue token

Your best Age A or Age I farm and your best Age A and Age I mine produce one extra blue token.

Machu Picchu in History
Deep within the Andean mountain range, North-West of Cuzco, Peru, up near the highest peaks, lies a true marvel of engineering. Built on one of the most inaccessible spots in the area, Machu Picchu is a glorious city, remnant of a magnificent empire. The many palaces, terraces and aqueducts were created by a people that didn’t use steel or iron tools, nor mortar. The neatly-stacked, finely worked stones hold together by the measure of expert workmanship that went into their design.

The purpose of this abandoned city is unknown. It was most probably used for ceremonial purposes – the buildings align with various astronomical events. It could also have served as a military stronghold because of its location, or as a luxurious retreat for the Incan nobility, or perhaps a combination of the three. Whatever the purpose of the sky-city, it was found abandoned when Europeans first stumbled upon it in 1911. Thankfully, the city avoided the greedy eyes of the conquistadors, and it was inducted into the UNESCO world heritage centre with most of its cultural riches intact.

Designer's Note
Machu Picchu’s ability represents the prosperity of the Incan society in general. And the fact it is limited to Age A or I mines and farms expresses the rather primitive foundations of the Incan Empire. But do not let that fool you, Machu Picchu is a strong economic wonder – Incas were able to build a truly impressive imperium, despite not possessing knowledge of the wheel or writing.

In the game, its strength of course depends on whether you manage to grab Iron, or Irrigation, or both. If it doubles your Age A stuff, it presents an interesting decision – should you upgrade your last primitive farm or mine it all the way to Age II to increase its production just by 1? Ravages of time may help you with this dilemma, as Machu Picchu loses its meaning during the game. If you let it crumble, it will be a good tourist location, like in real world.

Interesting fact: Originally, we were considering to include some native American leader, like Montezuma II. There is always a catch with these, though – he feels like an Ancient leader, but he was born later than, say, Columbus. We put him to Age I, but reflected that by the fact that he had extra resources for building Age A stuff. Supported with the fact he had some advantage in terms of population, it was an interesting strategy option early in Age I, but when he appeared too late, his use was very limited. So in the end, he was replaced by more versatile leaders, and Machu Picchu was chosen to represent the native South American culture.

When trying to come with the Machu Picchu ability, we realized that it almost exactly fits to Wieliczka Salt Mines, a wonder from the Polish expansion of the first version of the game. We decided to try how this ability works in The New Story, and we immediately started to like it. At one moment, I was thinking about keeping it as Wieliczka Salt Mines – I was in Poland with my wife and kids, we visited those salt mines, and it was a great experience. However, Montezuma was gone at that time, Redeemer of Rio de Janeiro didn’t make it to the final pick, too, and it just felt wrong to ignore a whole continent. Polish players have Marie Curie in the game :)