On the hand, how its "depicted" (giant confederation of unified natives who repeatedly coalition war/"drive back the invaders" your colonial nation every time the truce timer is up) is not accurate, it was too passive to colonize north america before. Whats more unusual is how easy it to conquer and administer Mexico and Peru. Cortez conquered them quickly, but they were quite restive, and there was continued hostilities/pacification campaigns for another 40-100 years iirc.
I think its mostly an improvement; I really enjoy the ability to get serious military benefits from my colonies, and benefits much earlier than in the old system. Old colonies were entirely passive before tech 14, and then you would dump planations on them, stop subsidizing them, mostly forget about them except as just another source of income.
