Age of Discovery - New World/Africa Improvement Mod.

[Evie HJ]

It depends. If it's the Iroquois doing it, blobbing is not altogether inaccurate; they certainly tried to blob, and managed to get most every other nations to vacate a huge area (from lake Champlain to lake Michigan and from the Georgian bay of lake superior to the Ohio) which they used as their hunting grounds.

It's a little hard to represent that, but a huge core-less blob with massive overextension penalties wouldn't be far off the mark to me. Corelessness limit the uses and value of those territories (most notably, limited ability to recruit troop) while overextension limit the staggering difficulties of trying to keep those territories as a hunting ground.

Then presumably they'd lose some of those territories back to revolts and forced release in the last few years of the Beaver Wars.

 

[Evie HJ]

So I've been doing some prototype and early test work in EU3 after someone mentioned that the files were not that different. I figure I should be able to import a fair deal of this and otherwise that I have the research already done.

 

[unmerged(612669)]

It depends. If it's the Iroquois doing it, blobbing is not altogether inaccurate; they certainly tried to blob, and managed to get most every other nations to vacate a huge area (from lake Champlain to lake Michigan and from the Georgian bay of lake superior to the Ohio) which they used as their hunting grounds.

It's a little hard to represent that, but a huge core-less blob with massive overextension penalties wouldn't be far off the mark to me. Corelessness limit the uses and value of those territories (most notably, limited ability to recruit troop) while overextension limit the staggering difficulties of trying to keep those territories as a hunting ground.

Then presumably they'd lose some of those territories back to revolts and forced release in the last few years of the Beaver Wars.

But could they be called a blob when they were multiple tribes?

I have some ideas for how to give something fun to do provided enough of the tribes are involved; decisions.

Decisions could take over from technology as a way for natives to advance or stagnate before Europeans arrive. The better handled the monarch points with which decisions are made the stronger the pre-westernized soldiers. They will always be inferior but significantly closer to parity with the right martial decisions then without, significantly higher in number with the right economic decisions etc. Of course it won't be a substitute for technology, but it would allow some neglect to technology that would hurt a player without dooming the player.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

I'm afraid you might run into a rather serious issue with ideas and NIs. Specifically that the Native Americans aren't going to have any ideas by the time the Europeans show up. You need to have level 4 administration tech to get your first idea tree at all, native americans start at 0 tech, and Europeans will probably have about tech 7 when they come to conquer them. How do you manage the tech difference necessary, while still letting the natives actually get their NIs ideas, and other things that would actually make them interesting to play as?

 

[Evie HJ]

Yeah, I saw that in one of the videos, which is why I stopped designing NIs for the time being. Paradox really dropped the ball on this one.

I can't really think of a way for the Natives to get any more than maybe their first two NIs before conquest. So I'm going to turn away from focusing on NIs, and instead put my focus squarely on national traditions, national decisions and DHEs.

But could they be called a blob when they were multiple tribes?

If those multiple tribes had a reasonable degree of unity (ie, they did not fight one another and recognized each other as part of some sort of political entity), I don't see why not.

 

[TheFreak_97]

It looks like a nice idea, I always liked playing African/American nations in EU3, even if they had their limitations.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Actually, have you considered a post-contact tech group or something like that? Something so that while early on their tech is horribly gimped, after they make contact with Europeans, they do have semi-decent tech up?

 

[Evie HJ]

It's one possibility, but even then their national ideas will represent a specific situation (post-contact evolution) and be perfectly useless pre-contact.

 

[unmerged(612669)]

It's one possibility, but even then their national ideas will represent a specific situation (post-contact evolution) and be perfectly useless pre-contact.

It also depends on how many natives are you making unique? If all of them then each one could get short term vital benefits for but have to revoke in order to get the post contact national ideas? I.E. Benin would have to have an open mindedness decision revoked in order to get their slave trade National Idea?

 

[jye42]

The trouble I forsee with this mod. Assuming certain similarities between EU3 & EU4.

The reason there are many 'empty' provinces in EU is for colonists to do their thing. If a nation is present you can't use colonists to colonise.

The trouble is that there are two very different colonisation experiences which occoured.

Spain conquered the aztecs. One nation conquering another and annexing it's territory works in the case. So thats fine. But the Aztecs had infrastructure and a standing army. No problem in mesoamerica and Inca these areas should be conquered with a CB and annexed.

However, England & France landed settlers and built settlements somtimes with, sometimes without permission of the local natives. But sharing the land was not seen as a problem at first and the Tribal nations had no standing armies to speak of. Soldiers supressed the local tribes while colonists settled, but it was very gradual and there was no grand conquest and anexation like with Spain conquering the Aztecs.

My sugestion is this.. in EU3 Horde nations could be occupied and colonised while the nation was still present and you couldent annex land except through this method. This would be the best way of representing colonisation of tribal nations.

Allow Western nations to occupy territory of 'tribal' nations without war or open boarders. Any territory occupied by at least 1 regiment may be colonised to replace the owner of the province with that of the colonial power. The nation which owns the province being occupied and colonised may send soldiers to 'kick out' the western army. if successful, colonisation imediatly fails.
In addition, since westerners didn't recognise the nationhood of tribes do not allow war to be declared against tribal nations at all until they become westernised. No colonist ever offered a formal delaraction of war to a tribe then asked them to sign over their land in a formal annexation treaty. They just encroached and took it.

This method would force colonisation to be gradual because if the cherokee unified most of north america, westerners could still only colonise a few territores at a time rather than annex large amounts of land

 

[benice1234]

Yeah, I agree that the horde system represents colonization very well.

 

[Evie HJ]

No colonist ever offered a formal delaraction of war to a tribe then asked them to sign over their land in a formal annexation treaty.

Uh...yes, they did?

Lord Dunmore's War between the colonies and the Shawnee was begun by a formal declaration of war from the colonials, and ended at the Treaty of Camp Charlotte where the natives ceded lands. That's exactly what you just said never happened.

While formal declaratiosn of war per se were beyond that one pretty rare, several other Native-European wars started as a result of an ultimatum of some sort being rejected (usually "Hand over the people who shot our people, so we may judge them, OR ELSE..."), and a large number more started with the Natives striking first (so the colonists did not declare war...because they weren't the ones starting it). A few started by the colonists allying with one tribe in a pre-existing inter-tribe war.

The overhwelming majority of those wars ended in a treaty between the colonists and the natives that often did involve some land cessions. There are entire libraries worth of Native/Colonial treaties in North American history.

That's how the overwhelming majority of territory in North America ended up changing hand, with settlers, by and large, moving in afterward, after the natives had vacated the territory (either to avoid living under European rule, or because they were forced at gunpoint. Now there were "rogue" settlements in Native territory, yes, and sometime the existence of those settlement was a cause for war, but "Soldiers move in, occupy territory, colonists move in, and nobody asks the natives anything" is a pretty poor model for what actually happened.

Plus, the horde model is reliant on the hordes being always at war with colonists, which both has disastrous game results (the AI constantly failed to colonize, because the instant their colony was founded, the neighboring natives jumped into it, seized it, and then the war automatically ended as they weren't neighbors anymore), and was completely unrealistic by removing native/european diplomacy altogether (so the French web of Native alliance became the french web of natives who are getting beat up by the French).

 

[benice1234]

snip

I particularly think of Georgia, where citizens attacked natives, slowly taking all the land to the Mississippi.

 

[Evie HJ]

...good God where do you guys get your history books, and what were their writers on when they wrote them?

There were certainly incidents of Native/Settlers violence in Georgia (and elsewhere), and incidents of settlers settling in Native territory without permission. But by and large, the role of the Settlers was that they pressured their government in removing the Natives (the infamous Trail of Tears).

This, incidentally, happened outside the Europa timeline, and just around the start of Victoria.

 

[benice1234]

...good God where do you guys get your history book, and what were their writers on when they wrote them?

'Merica.

To be more clear, I get history books from 'Merica, and their writers were on 'Merica when they wrote em.

 

[Evie HJ]

Yeah, uh, that...really isn't a very good depictino of how it happened even in Georgia. Which is probably the State where that kind of thing is least far from the truth.

There was encroachment, sure, but ultimately, it took Federal-fought wars and treaties (the Red Stick War) a very deliberate Federal effort at removing the Natives (the Indian Removal Act and Trail of Tears) to get the overwhelming majority of lands between Georgia and the Mississippi.

Encroachment played a role in natives loss of land, but it was by and large a peripheral and minimal role. Land cessions by force and by the threat of force, followed by large-scale settlement (after the cession, not before) was the norm for taking over Native lands in North America throughout the EU era.

Anyway. As I said, using the Hordes mechanism from EU III for Natives was tried, and it really didn't work well.

 

[jye42]

In my experience in EU3, colonisation was only to fast because I could annex large slabs of territory from natives in single wars.
My sugestion was born from that problem. In addition, I felt that since almost all availble land would be occupied by native nations that colonists would become slightly redundant. Furtheremore, although as you say treaties were occasionally made I don't think that accuratly represents the overall colonial experience. Nonetheless, It's your mod, do what you like it was a friendly sugestion and tearing it down with personal attacks making implications of stupidity and ignorance are hardly the path towards constructive critisism and assistance from the community.

 

[benice1234]

Anyway. As I said, using the Hordes mechanism from EU III for Natives was tried, and it really didn't work well.

Ah, okay.

PS, that's not how it's taught, it's just in the middle of the night and I've already taken my medication and I'm hardly awake.

 

[Evie HJ]

In my experience in EU3, colonisation was only to fast because I could annex large slabs of territory from natives in single wars.
My sugestion was born from that problem. In addition, I felt that since almost all availble land would be occupied by native nations that colonists would become slightly redundant. Furtheremore, although as you say treaties were occasionally made I don't think that accuratly represents the overall colonial experience. Nonetheless, It's your mod, do what you like it was a friendly sugestion and tearing it down with personal attacks making implications of stupidity and ignorance are hardly the path towards constructive critisism and assistance from the community.

I didn't say treaties were occasionally made. I said treaties were pretty much norm for taking over Native lands. We're not talking occasional here.

I'm sorry if I came off harsh, but that perception of Native American/colonial history is an unfortunate creation of unscrupulous and idiotic historians (that popular history went on to embrace) that really gets on my nerves.

As to the fundamental problem you're looking at: it's a problem, yes...to an extent.

The thing is, what you describe - a colonial nation acquiring vast stretches of the Americas between the East Coast and the Mississippi in one or a handful of treaties with the natives - DID happen. Over the late eighteenth century, the various Native tribes of that region one by one placed themselves under American rules. After that, both internationally (since the Treaty of Versailles) and internally (because the Natives recognized Washington's overlordship), those regions were part of the United States. THAT is a firmly established fact.

What happened later - Trail of Tears, encroachment and the rest - was about removing the Natives (wrong-culture, often wrong-religion provinces) so white settlers (Right-culture, right-religion) could move in. THAT is what the encroachment and Trail of Tears were about. It wasn't about which country held the land. That had been dealt with many years before.

The problem in EU3 isn't that this kind of things happen: it's that 1)it happens two centuries early, all the time, and 2)Instead of having to remove the natives and resettle the area to make it right-culture, right-religion, you just need to send a missionary.

The second part is easily dealt with in EU3 (turn off the auto-annex feature, which is a good idea anyway). The first part is harder, but weakening certain casus belli goes a long way.

 

[Belissarius]

/snip
All Native Americans (NOT Mesoamerican or Andean) will have the "higher core price" tradition the Barbary Pirates also have, to represent the higher difficulties in developing those lands. The price may end up being even higher than it is for Barbary pirates, along with some other bonus.

Iroquois
Tradition*: +200% Cost of coring their territory, +1 Diplomat

/snip.

Should it really be 3 times more difficult for European nations to claim a core on Iroquois provinces compared to France or England?