Natives Reforming Government Quickly

The GOAT 1988 said:

I wish I had a pic to show, but I noticed that NA natives reform their government within a few years of me plopping down beside them. In fact, quite quickly. I colonized NA with Connacht starting in the late 1480s and then moved my capital. I noticed that the natives were reforming their govt before 1500! i noticed this in past games and decided to colonize right next to natives so that if they did reform early, they only got between 5-7 MIL level. but that seems way too early since they should have to unlock all the native ideas. any else notice this or am i off base?

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You only need 2500 points/category to finish native ideas. If you have no advisors at all and average monarch point income of 3, it will take just under 35 years to complete all the native ideas. By 1490 even somewhat unlucky tribes will have completed the ideas, unless they spend a ton of points on something else but don't improve their income to afford advisors in the process. Completing them by 1500 is pretty trivial as a human even if you conquer everything in the eastern half of NA and culture convert it lol. For AIs that mostly do nothing, you'd expect virtually every tribe to be capable of reforming before 1500, as they'll largely do nothing and accrue points.

I guess if you get there ahistorically early you should expect ahistorical results . Certainly the cost of the ideas lines up with your story (and my own experience playing natives, though AI is significantly slower to show up).

The GOAT 1988 said:

ok, thanks for the insight. some nations that did it were one province and other multi province, but the way you explained it makes it sense. they shouldnt be able to westernize though right? given the tech gap shrinks

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You can't westernize immediately after reforming as a native because you're not enough techs behind, but as soon as the European takes a few techs you can do so.

TheMeInTeam said:

You can't westernize immediately after reforming as a native because you're not enough techs behind, but as soon as the European takes a few techs you can do so.

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Note though, that in most cases you'll be delayed by the European forming a colonial nation that promptly stagnates tech to fill in idea groups. If you're playing a native you ideally want to keep the Euros from forming any CNs for a couple of reasons:

1) aforementioned lack of tech advance delays your westernizing
2) a powerful CN is much more dangerous because it won't need to use transports and land troops which the ai is horrible at

brifbates said:

Note though, that in most cases you'll be delayed by the European forming a colonial nation that promptly stagnates tech to fill in idea groups. If you're playing a native you ideally want to keep the Euros from forming any CNs for a couple of reasons:

1) aforementioned lack of tech advance delays your westernizing
2) a powerful CN is much more dangerous because it won't need to use transports and land troops which the ai is horrible at

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In his case, he IS the European . That said, you're right of course, a CN can delay it, but you can usually bypass this simply by dropping a colony in the Caribbean which is usually contested by several nations, not all of which will have CNs there yet. If you're REALLY feeling saucy, you can attack someone for their core too, or go beat on Mali, but usually that isn't necessary. In my Cherokee game I had the entire 13 colony region locked down before a single CN formed in Canada, and simply snagged a province off England while it was at war elsewhere to reform. They didn't have a CN before taking a couple techs --> westernize.

Keep in mind that a reformed native can in many cases field DIP 9 ships, and afford a ton of heavies. You can win wars vs AI Europeans outright pretty easily, even more so than Aztec which can do it even with early carracks by moving trade collection into Caribbean for $$$.

When I began westernization with Cherokee, I had 40 heavies. Next highest was England, with 8. Even if France *didn't* make me their protectorate (lol), there's not a nation in the world that could have gotten past that for a very long time.