Huayana Capac doesn't die of disease

Suppose Huayana Capac had survived or managed to avoid contracting the fever that killed him IOTL. This butterflies away the succession war after his death and thus leaves a much stronger Inca state to combat Pizarro and his band of conquistadors. Would the Inca be able to survive as an independent entity? How could they remain that way?
 
Diseases would still cause much damage for Inca Empire so it would be still pretty weak. But now Incas might be able to beat first Spanish invasion when they are more unified and there is more Inca warriors than Spaniards. But them should then adapt European weapons and tactics. Next time will be much harder. Incas might survive but it is too pretty possible that they can just delay their destruction.
 
Diseases would still cause much damage for Inca Empire so it would be still pretty weak. But now Incas might be able to beat first Spanish invasion when they are more unified and there is more Inca warriors than Spaniards. But them should then adapt European weapons and tactics. Next time will be much harder. Incas might survive but it is too pretty possible that they can just delay their destruction.
To be fair the Inca did manage to develop several effective counters to European arms and advantages, they just didn't have time to fully develop them or developed them too late.
 

guinazacity

Banned
To be fair the Inca did manage to develop several effective counters to European arms and advantages, they just didn't have time to fully develop them or developed them too late.

Yeah. i think that if they have a surviving central government they can manage to survive. hard but possible.
 
To be fair the Inca did manage to develop several effective counters to European arms and advantages, they just didn't have time to fully develop them or developed them too late.

Can you elaborate I'm interested in these effective counters to European advantages. What were these exactly?
 
Can you elaborate I'm interested in these effective counters to European advantages. What were these exactly?

For one thing, terrain favored the Inca in every way. Horses and cannon were rendered useless in the Andes and most cities were built among or on top of mountains, so taking them could prove difficult.

The main thing that destroyed the Inca was political instability. Pizarro took advantage of the civil war and anti-Inca sentiments among more recently conquered areas, and brought the empire crashing down. Even after losing the leadership and half of the population, the Inca put up a spirited resistance for several decades, and almost killed Pizarro on multiple occasions. By having a unified empire, the Spanish won't stand a chance against the Inca.
 
The Inca had the advantage of an exceptionally defensible core territory, and a very large power base.

Further, the Incas were a very new power, at the contact with the conquistadors there may still have been old people who remembered the days before they were an empire. As such, I think they would have been more flexible about new things and less calcified about their own way of doing stuff.

As have been pointed out previously, the authority of the Inca himself rested on his claim to divine heritage, which would have been a problem in relations with the Iberians. If they did survive, probably get along well with his "cousin" in Japan though.

The Incas did not have as much hate from their subjugated people as the Aztecs, but I wouldn't say they were loved. I expect they would have needed to pull back to their core territories after the disease shocks. If they expended too many resources on hanging on grimly to stuff they couldn't afford to, I can still see them fall.
 
Can you elaborate I'm interested in these effective counters to European advantages. What were these exactly?

I had vague memories, so tried googling. Most of the results were for Civ and Age of Empires and other computer games.

Still. I found 2 tactics that they seem to have used. 1) the roads were built for humans and llamas. Horses found them occasionally steep enough that riders had to get off and lead them. At those points, ambushes were pretty effective. 2) bolas. Entangle the legs of the cavalry horses, causing them to fall down. This makes the horse easy prey for usual weapons. If the defenders are lucky the Spaniard is hurt by the fall and/or partly pinned by his horse, which makes him easier prey, too.

The Aztecs in Tenochtitlan, iirc, had a technique where warriors with loops (at the end of sticks, not really lassos) would rush up, snare a rider, and pull him off the horse. Don't know if the Inca ever tried that. This works best, of course, in a confined space - e.g. city streets.
 
I had vague memories, so tried googling. Most of the results were for Civ and Age of Empires and other computer games.

Still. I found 2 tactics that they seem to have used. 1) the roads were built for humans and llamas. Horses found them occasionally steep enough that riders had to get off and lead them. At those points, ambushes were pretty effective. 2) bolas. Entangle the legs of the cavalry horses, causing them to fall down. This makes the horse easy prey for usual weapons. If the defenders are lucky the Spaniard is hurt by the fall and/or partly pinned by his horse, which makes him easier prey, too.

The Aztecs in Tenochtitlan, iirc, had a technique where warriors with loops (at the end of sticks, not really lassos) would rush up, snare a rider, and pull him off the horse. Don't know if the Inca ever tried that. This works best, of course, in a confined space - e.g. city streets.
They also had woven armor which, if I remember correctly, worked just as well as Spanish plate armor and allowed for far more flexibility. In fact, many Spaniards adopted the native armor during the conquest.

One of the biggest advantages the Inca had (or would have had), I think, was their highly centralized government. It gives them a distinct advantage over polities like the Triple Alliance in terms of the mobilization of resources. Dissent among the Inca's subjects was less of a problem than it was for the Aztecs too, due to the Incan programs of forced resettlement of conquered peoples.

The Inca also had a highly developed metallurgy, though they prized soft and shiny metals over the harder ones such as iron. Assuming they beat the Spaniards and capture them, how likely is it that they can convince some of the Spaniards to work for the Inca government and teach them European metallurgy techniques, how to make firearms, and how to deal with domesticated European animals to supplement their well-developed native arts?
 
Assuming they beat the Spaniards and capture them, how likely is it that they can convince some of the Spaniards to work for the Inca government and teach them European metallurgy techniques, how to make firearms, and how to deal with domesticated European animals to supplement their well-developed native arts?

I think the bigger question would be how many captured Spaniards would have that knowledge and be open to persuasion or pressure. The Inca had no problem integrating conquered peoples and their ideas into the empire and if they can make any useful Spaniards cooperate they'd probably have no issue integrating such ideas into their empire. One thing that will also help them, assuming they survive and any of Spain's enemies make contact with the Inca, is the enormous amount of precious metals in the empire's territory. That will give them a lot of purchasing power and capacity to import goods from China, India, and Spain's European rivals making it much easier to catch up.
 
I'd expect someone to have at least a passing knowledge of black smithing, though I suppose guns and powder are less likely.
 
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