Petition to make New World nations actually playable.

[kal56]

Like I said, you're projecting a picture of Native Americans as simpletons with no technological advancements. Europe, at least at this point, was no more advanced than just about any other part of the world. If you take away shipbuilding and metallurgy, two fields where Native Americans had little interest, there's just about nothing that the Europeans were indisputably more advanced at.

I actually take exception to this at no point have I called or implied that the Americans were simpletons, the technological advancement of a society is not an indicator of the inherent intelligence of it's members. The fact of the matter is that at this point in time (1492) the European countries were more advanced in a number of critical fields such as writing, metallurgy and siege craft that gave a them a decisive advantage over the American nations when it came to warfare.

It's not a weak argument. It's an observation made by many modern historians and even by the people who were involved in these events.

Yes explaining something away as luck is a poor argument it's also lazy reasoning. Luck plays a role in all human endeavor, you can't simply chock things up to luck and expect people to be satisfied with the explanation. Luck caused the Aztecs to initially welcome Cortes it didn't cause the Aztec tributary states to join Cortes, that was caused by demonstrations of Spanish military power and weakness in the tributary system. Also to your point that the Spanish probably wouldn't have come back soon, reports of the gold that Aztecs had are what brought Cortes, if he had failed but come close it's almost certain others would have followed especially considering how much the Spanish throne needed money to finance it's wars in Europe.

As a side note Pizarro did read and use reports by Cortes and admitted that his capture of Atahualpa was inspired by Cortes taking Moctezuma prisoner.

 

[adam_grif]

The diseases that hit the Native Americans were bad. There's no denying that, but ultimately the terrible rates of 95% are averages from over 300 years. The diseases initially wiped out around 40-60% of the Natives that were exposed. That sounds bad, but many areas of Europe had faced a similar rate in the 14th century and Europe didn't collapse into nothingness. So we can't view the diseases as handing the Americas over to the Europeans the instant they show up.

I'm not sure how you could downplay this. Smallpox killed ~200,000 in the period between it's introduction to Mexico in 1520 to it's successful conquest in 1521, but if you imagine that Cortez gets defeated (or somebody else shows up instead), the diseases are still going to ravage native populations in this time period. Virgin soil epidemic after virgin soil epidemic are an inevitable consequence of European Contact, even if outright conquest gets delayed. It's incredibly unlikely that nobody from Europe would have conquered the Mexicans over say, the next hundred years, even without Cortez. The specifics are down to luck, but the advantages enjoyed by the Europeans in this period make it as close to inevitable as you get in historical counterfactuals.

 

[Sun_Wu]

I would at this point in time, like to point out that the No trail of tears achievement in EU3 is staggeringly easy if you just abuse how dumb the AI is. Personally once I discovered it's weakness and used it to ruin their chances of colonizing NA while westernizing, I was able to create a massive westernized NA colonial nation that made every single European power look feeble.

My point here is, the AI doesn't stand a chance vs European powers, but you as the player do. Let's just be honest, unless the AI is programmed to westernize asap it will die and anything else would be silly. I'm not saying it should be no effort, it should be costly and so forth but it isn't the individual arms that make it hard.

What makes it hard is the cost and attrition of sending troops and if you are defeated by the natives then it should be through vastly superiour numbers. That will make it as it was.

The player character will still be able to exploit AI weaknesses and pre-knowledge of history (remember, they didn't know about Europe, you do! You will spend hundreds of years preparing for this EXACT scenario).

So you can make yourself an american superpower as a native power...if you're a masochist, sure, it'll be possible. But the natives are not going to defeat European powers, oh they might push back a stupid and poorly planned force, but they're not going to be in this for the long haul.

Look at China in EU3, big, mighty, organiced and yet...I don't know about you guys, but I've amused myself plenty of times slaughtering hundreds of thousands of their poorly equipped troops with my colonial forces. Which may sound imbalanced but does tend to mirror reality as well.

The american powers have nothing on china, china blows them out of the water, yet china itself in EU3 must see itself a victim to European aggression.

Let's just face it guys, for the last thousand years we (the Europeans and those of European ancestry among us, yes Americans you count as well, you're a colony not a real country) were damn good at butchering, conquering and submitting our fellow human beings.

There were a lot of things we failed miserably at but during the period of this game Europe was a steamroller of total helldeath and if this game is to remain even remotely accurate then it just will not be balanced across the globe.

The only realistic challenger to Europe in this period were the Muslims in the middle east, north africa and Turkey. Any other nations had the single advantage of geography, which can indeed be a powerful ally but isn't going to cut it when the troops are finally lined up.

The only problem is that that wouldn't happen in EU IV's timeline because Qing's forces would still be decent enough. There actually is another problem and that is if the Ming survived they would have been much tougher because they were largely infantry whereas Qing where cavalry based.

 

[Easy Max]

Like I said, you're projecting a picture of Native Americans as simpletons with no technological advancements. Europe, at least at this point, was no more advanced than just about any other part of the world. If you take away shipbuilding and metallurgy, two fields where Native Americans had little interest, there's just about nothing that the Europeans were indisputably more advanced at.

This I obviously agree with, but I feel like trying to paint a picture of stone age Natives will only result in something similar to what we have now. It's only once we get a decent understanding of the historical situation that we can begin to add something remotely accurate to the game.

I'm afraid this is a rather inaccurate estimation of their society as well. Dont get me wrong, we're not talking about your run-of-the-mill stone-age societies here, but it isnt exactly fair to say that the Aztecs were only a century or two behind the Spanish in the 16th century. You're ignoring things that are harder to quantify: like Military Theory, Logistics, Mathematics, Centralization of Authority, Cartography, Currency, even semi-modern ideas of an economy, etc. You also write off Metallurgy and Shipwright as something they were "uninterested" in, which implies that if the Aztecs could be bothered to have done so, they *could* have have been running around with Iron Armor/Swords and building Galleons. It's not much different than suggesting that the only reason Somalia doesnt have nuclear weaponry is because they're "Uninterested" in developing it.

Also, your comments on the likelihood (or lack thereof) of continuing Spanish involvement should Cortes have failed is at best a projection and at worst simple conjecture. The veritable "landgrab" of the next 100 years in North America show us that even a setback like Cortes being thrown back into the Gulf of Mexico wouldnt necessarily have sent the Europeans running back with their tails between their legs. I cant think of any major European Trends from the 16th century until the 19th century that imply that Europe would've left an opportunity such as the New World go unexploited. Maybe if they'd resisted effectively all the way to the Anti-colonial sentiments of the 1960's... ; )



I'm not convinced that the Meso-American societies were at all realistically portrayed in EU III, but I also believe that the OP's position is equally (if not more) erroneous.

 

[takedown47]

i hope they don't try and the game mechanics universalized, so what the technology system for europeans is the same as for aztecs, some african tribe or imperial china. every culture should be certainly be balanced so as not to be too sino-centric, afro-centric or euro-centric, but at least make a distinction between the dynamics of siam and france. one example is a unique aztec sacrifice system that grants specific morale bonuses for troops as a country modifier. only if they are pagan, however. If tthey become catholic or protestant or buddhist, whatever, i suppose take away the ability to sacrifice.

 

[Fawr]

I honestly think this could be resolved simply with a new tech system. Seeing as this is not necessarily a problem of the natives not being able to assemble a army but the problem that they get hit with tech debuffs. I would be fine with them starting out with 0 in all tech areas but that with 10% tech speed and a slow modifier at level 4 is what makes it so very difficult.

I'm strongly in favour of illiterate countries getting serious tech penalties. 10% is very generous for a civilisation which is a few thousand years behind the ball in terms of spreading and storing knowledge.

 

[ANO1453]

As for the "If Cortez had failed, nobody would return there for years", it looks absolutely unrealistic. As soon as word of the gold and riches of the Aztecs reached Europe (and it would), one would have not only Spain, but also England, France and any other naval capable European country sending their armies there and they wouldn't rest until everything of worth was sacked and conquered.
As for they built their houses in stone while the Europeans made them out of wood, Aztecs homes were made of adobe bricks (with some stone for foundations) and straw roofs. Rich Aztec houses would have more stone. Just like in Europe wealthy houses would be made of stone while the common houses would be made of whatever there was available (which, in many cases, was stone).

 

[Dafool]

I actually take exception to this at no point have I called or implied that the Americans were simpletons, the technological advancement of a society is not an indicator of the inherent intelligence of it's members. The fact of the matter is that at this point in time (1492) the European countries were more advanced in a number of critical fields such as writing, metallurgy and siege craft that gave a them a decisive advantage over the American nations when it came to warfare.



Yes explaining something away as luck is a poor argument it's also lazy reasoning. Luck plays a role in all human endeavor, you can't simply chock things up to luck and expect people to be satisfied with the explanation. Luck caused the Aztecs to initially welcome Cortes it didn't cause the Aztec tributary states to join Cortes, that was caused by demonstrations of Spanish military power and weakness in the tributary system. Also to your point that the Spanish probably wouldn't have come back soon, reports of the gold that Aztecs had are what brought Cortes, if he had failed but come close it's almost certain others would have followed especially considering how much the Spanish throne needed money to finance it's wars in Europe.

As a side note Pizarro did read and use reports by Cortes and admitted that his capture of Atahualpa was inspired by Cortes taking Moctezuma prisoner.

It's luck because it was largely based on timing and factors of which the Spanish had little to no control over. I'm not referring to luck in the sense of the Spanish flipped a coin and won, but they were ultimately in the right place and the right time, and that made all the difference.

I'm afraid this is a rather inaccurate estimation of their society as well. Dont get me wrong, we're not talking about your run-of-the-mill stone-age societies here, but it isnt exactly fair to say that the Aztecs were only a century or two behind the Spanish in the 16th century. You're ignoring things that are harder to quantify: like Military Theory, Logistics, Mathematics, Centralization of Authority, Cartography, Currency, even semi-modern ideas of an economy, etc. You also write off Metallurgy and Shipwright as something they were "uninterested" in, which implies that if the Aztecs could be bothered to have done so, they *could* have have been running around with Iron Armor/Swords and building Galleons. It's not much different than suggesting that the only reason Somalia doesnt have nuclear weaponry is because they're "Uninterested" in developing it.

Also, your comments on the likelihood (or lack thereof) of continuing Spanish involvement should Cortes have failed is at best a projection and at worst simple conjecture. The veritable "landgrab" of the next 100 years in North America show us that even a setback like Cortes being thrown back into the Gulf of Mexico wouldnt necessarily have sent the Europeans running back with their tails between their legs. I cant think of any major European Trends from the 16th century until the 19th century that imply that Europe would've left an opportunity such as the New World go unexploited. Maybe if they'd resisted effectively all the way to the Anti-colonial sentiments of the 1960's... ; )



I'm not convinced that the Meso-American societies were at all realistically portrayed in EU III, but I also believe that the OP's position is equally (if not more) erroneous.

Metallurgy isn't important to a culture with ritual warfare that requires little actual killing. The Aztecs and the Incas had a complex economy that were just as advanced as any in the Old World. Ship building isn't important to a group of people when they can't easily reach other large groups of people via ships. You can't set a technological scale fitted for one area and then use it on a completely separate area. And your comments on the "land grab" of the New World are nonsensical. That "land grab" was largely started by these conquests. Without that contingency, I highly doubt the Spanish would have been able to claim the colonial empire that they did.

As for the "If Cortez had failed, nobody would return there for years", it looks absolutely unrealistic. As soon as word of the gold and riches of the Aztecs reached Europe (and it would), one would have not only Spain, but also England, France and any other naval capable European country sending their armies there and they wouldn't rest until everything of worth was sacked and conquered.
As for they built their houses in stone while the Europeans made them out of wood, Aztecs homes were made of adobe bricks (with some stone for foundations) and straw roofs. Rich Aztec houses would have more stone. Just like in Europe wealthy houses would be made of stone while the common houses would be made of whatever there was available (which, in many cases, was stone).

Neither France nor England could have been in Mexico anywhere close to that time. The Spanish didn't know of the Aztecs. So who is magically going to fly across the Atlantic and inform the Spanish of the Aztec riches once Cortes and his men die in Mexico? The Age of Discovery happened in an era when news and information traveled fairly slowly. Imagining the Spanish showing up again a month or even a year later is a fantasy at best.

 

[Grubnessul]

But five, ten or even tweny years is not. The point is not that Europeans were lining up to conquer them, but that the Aztecs had a military tradition and structure of their empire which was easily challenged by the Europeans. Cortez could have been killed by a stray arrow or eaten some bad berries, but he was not one of his kind and driven by greed and armed with superior weapon technology. The Aztecs would not reform their entire society to face another European onslaught. Even if they had knowledge of Europe, they could never have build up an infrastructure to produce metal weapons or even reformed their empire without throwing it into full scale civil war. I see no way the Meso-Americans could have survived except a full total destruction of every Atlantic seafaring capability for the coming 500 years.

 

[WeissRaben]

Logistics, guys. Logistics. The Armada almost bankrupted Spain, and it had the gold of the Americas and the travel was short. There is no way in hell anyone could send more than 2000 soldiers over an OCEAN without bankrupting himself - and in game terms, bankrupting himself several times. And, as was said, the whole expedition gone would not have been something trivial: such a travel was EXPENSIVE. Spain just lost a ship and trained men and cannons for nobody knows what. OF COURSE they will ignore further expeditions! They will concentrate on the fledgeling colonies in the Caribbeans, and after some decades (two? Three? Four? Don't know) they will come back. What will they find? No idea. But, if the epidemics calmed down, whoever comes with another expedition will find himself worse off. Because the peoples of Mexico now know what to do, and it is not to welcome the Spanish.

 

[Grubnessul]

Because the peoples of Mexico now know what to do, and it is not to welcome the Spanish.

The Aztecs maybe not, the tribes they conquered would still probably be happy to rebel with Spanish backup.

Also, the Armada was over 130 ships and sustained a loss of 20.000 men, plus an additional 30.000 men waiting in the Netherlands to be shipped across (numbers from wikipedia). With developed Caribbean colonies sending more than 2000 men should be possible. Also, 2000 men armed with muskets (remember you said 20-40 years later, so some improvements in weapons technology on the European side) would be quite devastating to the Aztecs.

 

[WeissRaben]

The Aztecs maybe not, the tribes they conquered would still probably be happy to rebel with Spanish backup.

Also, the Armada was over 130 ships and sustained a loss of 20.000 men, plus an additional 30.000 men waiting in the Netherlands to be shipped across (numbers from wikipedia). With developed Caribbean colonies sending more than 2000 men should be possible. Also, 2000 men armed with muskets (remember you said 20-40 years later, so some improvements in weapons technology on the European side) would be quite devastating to the Aztecs.

Mmmmh. The Spanish did bring death over the nation for everyone - after the Aztec Menace is gone, people will ask WHY. I don't know, I don't see another landing ending well. On the Caribbean: there, you are right. But there is MUCH way to go to make them viable. Of course, they could become better than OTL, with further concentration on them. All in all, the Aztecs WILL be conquered. Only, it will be much costlier and bloodier on the Spanish side.

 

[Grubnessul]

Tribes don't unite that efficient against an invader, look at the Roman successes in Gaul or Britannia. I do agree it might have become harder on the Spanish side, depending on how fast military technology would develop for them.

 

[JimmyCos]

The mapuche at the south of Chile won against the spaniards. And they were really "barbarians", people without clothes, only little huts and some neolitical techs.

 

[ANO1453]

The mapuche at the south of Chile won against the spaniards. And they were really "barbarians", people without clothes, only little huts and some neolitical techs.

Mountainous region?

 

[Ichabod]

Metallurgy isn't important to a culture with ritual warfare that requires little actual killing. The Aztecs and the Incas had a complex economy that were just as advanced as any in the Old World.

Did the Americans have banking systems? It's not a sarcastic question - I can't remember ever reading anything describing them, but I have to admit that early American advanced economics is a bit beyond my knowledge. If they did, I'd be interested to know about it. If they didn't I don't see how their economy could be anywhere near as complex as European and Asian economies.

(Oh and the comment on metallurgy doesn't seem to make any sense, for reasons that I hope are apparent to more than just me.)

 

[Grubnessul]

The mapuche at the south of Chile won against the spaniards. And they were really "barbarians", people without clothes, only little huts and some neolitical techs.

How often and how many casualties on both sides?

 

[Straigthtsilver]

The mapuche at the south of Chile won against the spaniards. And they were really "barbarians", people without clothes, only little huts and some neolitical techs.

They definitely gave the Spaniards more trouble than any other native group, but the problem is that they didn't really 'win' a war in the sense of EUIV. The Spanish continued to technically rule over them, they just found settlement and taxation to be very difficult. This looks like something more fitting for a very severe provincial modifier and occasional rebellion than a surviving native state.

 

[illapa]

I've seen many people ask the simple question of why should we bother. I'll illustrate what actually happened vs how it goes in game.

How it actually happened.

The Aztecs had run a fairly tyrannical hegemony over many smaller city states. It was more of 1 city state holding a bunch of smaller ones as vassals. The Aztecs themselves were an alliance of 3 cities. Aztecs would conduct wars and raids on their vassals for sacrificial captives and tribute. This was of course incredibly unpopular.

This set the stage for a band of ~600 Spanish led by Cortez land in Mexico, defeat/scare smaller coastal tribes with horses, steel, and loud but not as useful guns. He gains tribal allies until he finally allies with the Tlaxcala, a large city state which hated the Aztecs. He then marches towards the capital in search of gold gathering more and more of the Aztec's pissed off tributary vassals and when he gets there he takes the emperor hostage, extorts them for money. Then he is DEFEATED and thrown out of the city by the Aztec army. Aztecs are then hit by the plagues of the Europeans. This decimates 3/4 of the population and when the Spanish return with their native allies they siege the city and conquer the empire.

What happens in game:

Aztecs (if you start out with the start date where the Aztecs have colonized north) attack and conquer Zapotec and Maya. No consideration in game is given for the many city states. Instead everyone is just represented as 3 large tribal democracies (Aztec Zapotec Maya). Say you as the Aztecs conquer the other 2. You now sit on a rich empire with an army of 20k soldiers (probably barely 1/10 of what you would have historically had). Now the Spanish arrive and immediately declare war. They land with 15,000 soldiers, attack, crush, and annihilate your entire army in 1 battle. Say you managed to defend and barely win because you defended a province that is mountain/river and got epic defense bonuses. Spain now lands another 15k soldiers, steamrolls, sieges everything, and annexes you.

Anyone can see that the historical situation was NOT set in stone. Had either Cortez or the master ship maker been killed in the battle where they were thrown out of Tenochtitlan (Aztec Capital) as many Spanish were the later siege would have been impossible. Montezuma could have just had him annihilated instead of greeting him and bringing him into the city. The Aztecs could have just not gone as crazy with the tribute and sacrifice and therefore not have had pissed off tributary states. Or the Tlaxcalans could have just killed them instead of allying with them.

In game it is inevitable. Spanish land with 25x as many troops as they historically did, with another 25x on the way, and are so advanced in tech they might as well be given a Star Destroyer, light sabers, and tactical nukes to fight the Aztecs.

This is the crux of the issue. EU3 is a beautiful game that allows for anything to be possible and many historical scenarios. In this situation though what glows as brilliant design in much of the rest of the world is just sadly lacking.

 

[beegee84]

i actually think they should fall quicker perhaps the first europeon to discover them with an army n a boat automatically gets all there lands without a war