Natives and lack of ships need a re-think, I think

[Apollyonna]

There are several reports on the interwebz of Tainos (indigenous to the Caribbean Islands), Mayans and even the Heiltsuk Nation (British Columbia, Canada) of having had at the very least basic seafaring 'crafts'

I get that they didn't have cannons and so, the ships available in EU4 obviously were not available to these natives. However, they did travel over water. In the case of the Tainos, all over the Caribbean and in the case of the Heiltsuk Nation (British Columbia, Canada), it is now believed there forefathers were capable of traveling by boats (which is now an alternative theory of how their ancestors may have arrived in the Americas, rather than by land-bridge somewhere in Alaska).

Mayans also apparently had seafaring canoes.

As of yet, there have been no discoveries of an intact ancient Maya canoe, however artistic representations from prehistory as well as descriptions from Christopher Columbus' son, Ferdinand, provide rich details about what these vessels were like. Ferdinand tells of an encounter with a Maya Canoe in the Bay of Honduras near the Bay Islands during Columbus' fourth voyage in 1506. Bartolomé de las Casas describes the encounter:

"There arrived a canoe full of Indians, as long as a galley and eight feet wide. It was loaded with merchandise from the west, almost certainly from the land of Yucatan, for that was near there [the Bay Islands], a matter of thirty leagues or a little more. There was in the middle of the canoe a shelter [toldo] of palm matting, which they call petates in New Spain. Inside and under this were their women and children, possessions, and merchandise, so that neither rain nor sea water could wet anything. . . There were in the canoe up to twenty-five men."[9]

So why not finally add native canoes in the game, with which a player can transport troops to islands to be colonized for example ?

 

[blackchoas]

Natives on transports only would make sense

although honestly I think the Naval Systems need an entire rethink anyway

but this is a reasonable patch to deal with a minor Native American issue but that also means even if paradox agreed with it, they likely wouldn't prioritize doing it, since really this only effects when a player chooses to play in Mesoamerica and that's about it, maybe if your a Native North American in Florida

 

[Apollyonna]

I respect people disagreeing with this but would really like to know why.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Natives on transports only would make sense

although honestly I think the Naval Systems need an entire rethink anyway

but this is a reasonable patch to deal with a minor Native American issue but that also means even if paradox agreed with it, they likely wouldn't prioritize doing it, since really this only effects when a player chooses to play in Mesoamerica and that's about it, maybe if your a Native North American in Florida

Stopping the special/inane rule blocking natives from colonizing using colonial range for colonies would be a start, and would not take much work . That + letting them see the Caribbean at game start would completely alter the broken nature of new world "gameplay" (where you spend half of it doing nothing).

 

[FleetingRain]

If I could I'd just give natives a +1000% ship cost and -100% sailors.