Unsurprisingly, Conquest of Paradise has made playing as a Native American tribe a whole lot more interesting-and powerful. I imagine people have a lot of questions about some of the nuances of the mechanics, so here I'll endeavor to explain things a bit more.
First up, the government. Native american government brings a massive 33% stab cost reduction *and* -50% unit maintenance, but with a huge cost-you can't fabricate claims. OPM tribals get a humiliate CB against any other OPM, which has a show strength demand that gives 20 of each monarch power. However, you cannot annex territory via humiliate cb; only vassalize. It's worth noting that diploannexing is also much harder on OPM tribals since they will likely migrate before it's finished, which resets the time.
Next up, we have the native american ideas. These are accessed on the far right menu (instead of subject nations), and are 3 groups of 5 ideas each. They all cost 500 points a piece, and can be taken in any order. Once you've filled them completely and have a core next to a westernized core, you can reform your government. More on that later. The best of these ideas is the diplo one that gives a colonist-obviously supremely important for gaining control of the coastline quickly!
Native americans have a unique set of buildings. They only cost 10 a piece and give some very nice benefits. The best of these is the Communal Campfire, which gives a whopping -50% cost to advisors. The longhouse is the temple equivalent, and also obviously worth purchasing. You cannot build regular buildings (like earth rampart) until you've reformed the government. All Native American buildings are destroyed when the government is reformed.
OPMs can migrate once every five years (faster with a diplo idea). Migrating gives you 20 of each monarch power, destroys all buildings, and resets your merchant. Migrating a couple times to a valuable province is quite nice, but it also serves another helpful function-migrating into a territory assimilates the natives of that territory, which increases its base tax. Migrating out of that territory recreates the natives, but the base tax remains. As a result, you should notice somewhat higher base tax rates in migrated territories.
Wars are a little different since fabricating is not possible. The two main ways to get a CB to actually take territory are to set a nation as a rival and to try to get a trade dispute. Setting a rival will often unlock missions to take territory, which provides a conquest CB and a claim. Make people angry to get them to embargo for a trade dispute CB. When both of those fail, you can always bust of wars of aggression, which are actually much easier as a native american. The 33% reduced stab from govt type+another 20% from native admin ideas makes a -2 stab hit pretty manageable, all things considered. War itself is actually decently interesting, as most nations field very large armies due to the low unit maintenance and a unique building that gives +10 force limit. On the other hand, supply limits are often quite low and manpower is very limited. You'll still absolutely want to play the diplomacy game for allies.
As I mentioned earlier, once you've filled the Native American ideas and have a border with a western nation you can reform the govermnent. This does 3 major things: changes you to a fuedal monarchy (with 0 legitimacy), removes all Native American buildings and ideas, and gives you tech equal to just a little bit behind who you westernized off (more info as to the specifics of techs gained would be appreciated). In my example, I gained 23 techs up to 9-9-9 off a 10-10-11 portugese colonial nation. You do NOT lose any monarch power, and your tech group remains unchanged. As you can see, it's a *massive* amount of techs gained. I would personally suggest waiting to reform until you can expect to get at least 10 in admin tech so that you can take one of each idea group. Make sure you take a colonist idea, by the way, so you can continue filling out your territory. That way you can dump your excess monarch points (which you should absolutely be stockpiling) into idea groups right away. I would also suggest reforming with an older leader if possible; that way when he dies you'll get at least some legitimacy. You'd obviously run the risk of a long regency council if you got a young heir before your ruler died, but you'll be able to finish up any lingering nations very quickly once you reform due to the massive tech boon.
Westernizing works in much the same way, but it's a bit rougher as a native american now. You have the -2 RR from ideas and divination which are certainly helpful, +5 rr from westernizing, 0 religious unity from converting, and tons of +rr from low legitimacy gave me an average of 8% RR in each province. Furthermore, you cannot ever negotiate with reactionaries since that will cancel westernizing, and you also can't negotiate with religious rebels. Additionally, whenever a reactionary rebel takes a territory you lose 120 points towards westernizing. My strategy to get through this was decent size mercenary armies-two stacks of 15 mercs each and a warchest of 3500 got me through the revolts.
All in all, I'm a big fan of the changes. Native Americans are much more enjoyable to play now, and they are realistically competitive towards western powers much quicker (especially with colonial nations running around). The music for them is also great, and definitely worth buying. I'd heartily recommend playing your favorite tribe at least once.
First up, the government. Native american government brings a massive 33% stab cost reduction *and* -50% unit maintenance, but with a huge cost-you can't fabricate claims. OPM tribals get a humiliate CB against any other OPM, which has a show strength demand that gives 20 of each monarch power. However, you cannot annex territory via humiliate cb; only vassalize. It's worth noting that diploannexing is also much harder on OPM tribals since they will likely migrate before it's finished, which resets the time.
Next up, we have the native american ideas. These are accessed on the far right menu (instead of subject nations), and are 3 groups of 5 ideas each. They all cost 500 points a piece, and can be taken in any order. Once you've filled them completely and have a core next to a westernized core, you can reform your government. More on that later. The best of these ideas is the diplo one that gives a colonist-obviously supremely important for gaining control of the coastline quickly!
Native americans have a unique set of buildings. They only cost 10 a piece and give some very nice benefits. The best of these is the Communal Campfire, which gives a whopping -50% cost to advisors. The longhouse is the temple equivalent, and also obviously worth purchasing. You cannot build regular buildings (like earth rampart) until you've reformed the government. All Native American buildings are destroyed when the government is reformed.
OPMs can migrate once every five years (faster with a diplo idea). Migrating gives you 20 of each monarch power, destroys all buildings, and resets your merchant. Migrating a couple times to a valuable province is quite nice, but it also serves another helpful function-migrating into a territory assimilates the natives of that territory, which increases its base tax. Migrating out of that territory recreates the natives, but the base tax remains. As a result, you should notice somewhat higher base tax rates in migrated territories.
Wars are a little different since fabricating is not possible. The two main ways to get a CB to actually take territory are to set a nation as a rival and to try to get a trade dispute. Setting a rival will often unlock missions to take territory, which provides a conquest CB and a claim. Make people angry to get them to embargo for a trade dispute CB. When both of those fail, you can always bust of wars of aggression, which are actually much easier as a native american. The 33% reduced stab from govt type+another 20% from native admin ideas makes a -2 stab hit pretty manageable, all things considered. War itself is actually decently interesting, as most nations field very large armies due to the low unit maintenance and a unique building that gives +10 force limit. On the other hand, supply limits are often quite low and manpower is very limited. You'll still absolutely want to play the diplomacy game for allies.
As I mentioned earlier, once you've filled the Native American ideas and have a border with a western nation you can reform the govermnent. This does 3 major things: changes you to a fuedal monarchy (with 0 legitimacy), removes all Native American buildings and ideas, and gives you tech equal to just a little bit behind who you westernized off (more info as to the specifics of techs gained would be appreciated). In my example, I gained 23 techs up to 9-9-9 off a 10-10-11 portugese colonial nation. You do NOT lose any monarch power, and your tech group remains unchanged. As you can see, it's a *massive* amount of techs gained. I would personally suggest waiting to reform until you can expect to get at least 10 in admin tech so that you can take one of each idea group. Make sure you take a colonist idea, by the way, so you can continue filling out your territory. That way you can dump your excess monarch points (which you should absolutely be stockpiling) into idea groups right away. I would also suggest reforming with an older leader if possible; that way when he dies you'll get at least some legitimacy. You'd obviously run the risk of a long regency council if you got a young heir before your ruler died, but you'll be able to finish up any lingering nations very quickly once you reform due to the massive tech boon.
Westernizing works in much the same way, but it's a bit rougher as a native american now. You have the -2 RR from ideas and divination which are certainly helpful, +5 rr from westernizing, 0 religious unity from converting, and tons of +rr from low legitimacy gave me an average of 8% RR in each province. Furthermore, you cannot ever negotiate with reactionaries since that will cancel westernizing, and you also can't negotiate with religious rebels. Additionally, whenever a reactionary rebel takes a territory you lose 120 points towards westernizing. My strategy to get through this was decent size mercenary armies-two stacks of 15 mercs each and a warchest of 3500 got me through the revolts.
All in all, I'm a big fan of the changes. Native Americans are much more enjoyable to play now, and they are realistically competitive towards western powers much quicker (especially with colonial nations running around). The music for them is also great, and definitely worth buying. I'd heartily recommend playing your favorite tribe at least once.
