Thanks Pan....and for the record (even tho it prolly comes as no surprise), I agree!And thank you, Bastian, for running your tests with the, and concluding that *even on the easiest settings,* it's impossible to play them! Good work!
-=Vel=-
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Thanks Pan....and for the record (even tho it prolly comes as no surprise), I agree!And thank you, Bastian, for running your tests with the, and concluding that *even on the easiest settings,* it's impossible to play them! Good work!
-=Vel=-
Without writing and currency it would be awfully hard for them to have what I would consider a state structure. I question the extent of the trade networks prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Clearly they existed but it's awfully hard to quantify that. On the other hand there is no doubt that by the mid-17th century there were extensive trade routes betwen the various native tribes.
So fine, they had mechanisms for war and peace, they had long range trade routes, they had institutions to resolve disputes and dispense justice, but none of those things qualify them as a state. As to the Aztecs - clearly it was an awfully impressive civilization, but it was very young, and not very advanced. They weren't on a par with the civilization of Hammurabi, let alone their contemporaries in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
I find the idea that North American natives were as developed as Russia rather absurd. They used slash and burn agriculture, supplemented by hunting/gathering. They used barter. They had no writing, and as such suffered all the disadvantages that entails. The levels of specialization (in terms of work) were pretty minimal. Sure I'd rather live that way than as a serf in Russia, but that doesn't mean they were as advanced.
The case for their being in the game is marginal. However, if they are in the game they need to be playable, and as such you shouldn't have to make the choice on day 1 to either have cash and a military for the next 50 years or to some day be able to build tax collectors. I like the idea of 25% tax without tax collectors.
So fine, they had mechanisms for war and peace, they had long range trade routes, they had institutions to resolve disputes and dispense justice, but none of those things qualify them as a state. As to the Aztecs - clearly it was an awfully impressive civilization, but it was very young, and not very advanced. They weren't on a par with the civilization of Hammurabi, let alone their contemporaries in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
I find the idea that North American natives were as developed as Russia rather absurd. They used slash and burn agriculture, supplemented by hunting/gathering. They used barter. They had no writing, and as such suffered all the disadvantages that entails. The levels of specialization (in terms of work) were pretty minimal. Sure I'd rather live that way than as a serf in Russia, but that doesn't mean they were as advanced.
The case for their being in the game is marginal. However, if they are in the game they need to be playable, and as such you shouldn't have to make the choice on day 1 to either have cash and a military for the next 50 years or to some day be able to build tax collectors. I like the idea of 25% tax without tax collectors.
Ahhh, and if anybody wants to hear the rest of the story outlined above:
...the French government in Quebec act almost as a neutral in the Huron's increasingly serious war with the Iroquois. The tide began to turn after the Seneca inflicted a major defeat on the Huron in the spring of 1635.
The Iroquois first isolated the Huron by attacking their allies. Separate Iroquois offensives during 1636 and 1637 drove the Algonkin deep into the upper Ottawa Valley and forced the Montagnais to retreat east towards Quebec. The first victim of the Beaver Wars was the Wenro. Deserted by their Erie and Neutral allies, they were overrun by the Iroquois in 1639. Abandoning their villages, they fled north across the Niagara River into Ontario, where eventually 600 of them found refuge among the Huron.
A major escalation in the level of violence occurred in 1640. Latecomers to the fur trade, British traders from New England attempted to break the Dutch trade monopoly with the Mohawk by offering firearms. To counter this, the Dutch began to supply guns and ammunition to the Iroquois in unlimited quantities. Suddenly much better armed than anyone else (including the French), the Iroquois offensive increased dramatically. The French issued more guns to their allies, but these were generally inferior to Dutch weapons, and at first, given only to Christian converts. The Algonkin and Montagnais were driven completely from the upper St. Lawrence Valley during 1641 by the Mohawk and Oneida, while in the west the Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga concentrated their attacks on the Huron.
With the founding of Montreal at the mouth of the Ottawa River in 1642, the French attempted to move their fur trade closer to the Huron villages but soon found themselves exposed and under attack in this new location. Iroquois war parties moved north into the Ottawa Valley during 1642 and 1643 and attacked Huron canoes carrying furs to Montreal. In the process, the Atonontrataronon (an Algonkin tribe) was forced to abandon the valley and flee west to the Huron. During 1644, the Iroquois captured three large Huron canoe flotillas enroute to Montreal and brought the French fur trade to a complete halt. The French had little choice but to seek peace if they wanted to continue trade, and the Iroquois, who had suffered losses to war and epidemic similar to the Huron, were also willing so they could gain the release of their warriors being held prisoner by the French. A peace treaty signed in 1645 had no lasting effect because it ignored the main problem. The Iroquois expected a resumption of their fur trade with the Huron, but this did not happen. Instead, the Huron continued to trade all their fur to the French.
After two years of trying to resolve this through diplomacy, the Iroquois resorted to total war. While the French remained neutral and tried to abide by the peace treaty, the Iroquois destroyed in 1647 the Arendaronon villages. Very few furs from Huronia reached Montreal that year. In 1648 a 250-man Huron canoe flotilla fought its way past the Iroquois blockade and reached Quebec. During their absence, the Iroquois struck deep into Huronia in July destroying the mission-village at St. Joseph and killing the Jesuit priest. The final blow came in March, 1649. In coordinated winter attacks, 2,000 Mohawk and Seneca warriors slipped silently across the snow and in two hours destroyed the mission-villages of St. Ignace and St. Louis. Hundreds of Huron were killed or captured, while two more Jesuits were tortured to death. In the aftermath, Huron resistance abruptly collapsed. Abandoning their capital at Ossossane, most of them fled.
Only the main Jesuit mission at Ste. Marie remained, and it braced for an attack which never came. Isolated, it was abandoned in May, and its Jesuit, French, and Huron residents made their way by canoe to Christian Island in Georgian Bay. Other Huron joined them, swelling the island's population to over 6,000. During a terrible winter of 1649-50, thousands starved, and in June, the French and Jesuits, accompanied by several hundred of their Huron converts, left for New France. About 300 of these settled just north of Quebec at Ancienne and Jeune Lorette. They were joined by another group from Trois Rivieres in 1654 and have lived there (Wendake) ever since. Through the years afterwards, the Lorette Huron remained loyal French allies and are the only Huron group to have survived the dispersal intact. The other Huron scattered, but the Iroquois were not content to let them go. Down to less than a thousand warriors after their victory, the Iroquois decided to replenish their population by absorbing all of the other Iroquian-speaking tribes.
Some Huron surrendered immediately and, along with the Huron already captured, were adopted, but the Iroquois tracked down the others. The Attignawantan Huron had fled west in 1649 and found a refuge with the Tionontati only to have the Iroquois attack both of them. In December the Iroquois overran the main Tionontati village, killing two more Jesuit missionaries. Only a thousand of the Attignawantan and Tionontati _ who afterwards would merge to form the Wyandot _ escaped the onslaught by retreating far to the north where they spent the winter of 1649-50 on Mackinac Island near Sault Ste. Marie (upper Michigan). By 1651 constant threat of attack by the Iroquois forced them even farther west, and they moved to an island in Green Bay (Wisconsin) with the Ottawa (who were also fleeing the Iroquois).
The Tahontaenrat, meanwhile, had retreated into the Neutrals homeland - who true to their name had remained neutral through all of this - and, from here, continued to make war upon the Iroquois. Blaming the Neutrals for permitting this, the Seneca attacked and defeated them in 1651. A few Neutrals and Huron escaped to the west to join their relatives at Green Bay. Most, however, including the Tahontaenrat, surrendered enmass. The Tahontaenrat were adopted by the Seneca, while the captured Arendahronon went to the Onondaga, and the balance of the Attignawantan became part of the Mohawk. However, large groups were able to elude capture and fled south to the Erie, who accepted them, but in a status of servitude which was not much of an improvement over what the Iroquois were offering.
In the east, the Mohawk and Oneida were still engaged in their war with the Susquehannock and had found them a tough foe. In the west, only the Erie remained and were stubbornly refusing Iroquois demands to surrender the Neutrals and Huron they had living with them. The situation steadily worsened, but before starting a war with the Erie in 1653, the western Iroquois (Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga) first took the precaution of signing a truce with the French. With less than 300 of them in all of North America at this time, the French were hardly a military threat to the Iroquois, but the agreement assured the Iroquois that the French would not provide arms to the Erie. It also allowed French Jesuits to establish missions in the Iroquois villages for Huron converts adopted by the League. The advantage for the Iroquois was that it lessened the chance their adopted Huron would revolt during a war against their kinsmen who had joined the Erie.
After the destruction of Huronia in 1649, the French had been powerless and were forced to remain neutral while the Iroquois swallowed one tribe after another. All that remained of their former allies (other than the small group of Huron at Lorette) were the Wyandot and Ottawa far to the west. Rather than confront the Iroquois along the Ottawa River themselves, the French encouraged their former trading partners to come to Montreal to trade. Because they had grown dependent on French trade good, the Wyandot and Ottawa, in spite of all they had endured, accepted. Reinforced by Ojibwe warriors and travelling together in large canoe flotillas to break the Iroquois blockade, the Wyandot and Ottawa brought furs to Montreal, although not in the previous amounts. This continuing trade was a source of considerable annoyance to the Iroquois, and after their war with the Erie ended, they no longer had any reason to appease the French.
The fragile peace between the French and Iroquois ended with the murder of a Jesuit ambassador in 1658 and the expulsion of the missionaries from the Iroquois villages. As war resumed along the St. Lawrence between the French and the Iroquois, there was also no reason for the French to avoid travel to the Great Lakes, and two French fur traders, Pierre Radisson and Médart Chouart des Groseilliers, accompanied by the old Jesuit Réné Ménard, took this opportunity to ignore the travel ban imposed by the government of Quebec and joined a party of Wyandot and Ottawa on their return journey. Following the Ottawa to their village of Chequamegon (Ashland, Wisconsin) on the south shore of Lake Superior, they spent the winter and became the first Europeans to see this largest of the Great Lakes. Father Ménard wandered off into the woods and apparently was killed by the Dakota (Eastern Sioux). However, they reached the Dakota villages at the western end of Lake Superior the following spring and managed to trade. When they returned to Quebec, Radisson and Groseilliers were promptly arrested and had their furs confiscated for ignoring the travel ban.
The arrest discouraged others, but the Wyandot and Ottawa continued forcing their way to Montreal. There was a massive battle along the Ottawa River in 1659. but the Iroquois could not stop the heavily-armed convoys and decided instead to go after their source. The Beaver Wars had forced thousands of Algonquin to abandon lower Michigan and the Ohio Valley. Most had retreated west and resettled in northern Wisconsin. The sudden increase in the native population west of Lake Michigan over-stressed the available resources, especially the beaver needed for trade with the French. Facing starvation, the refugee tribes were disorganized and fighting among themselves. In the midst of this chaos, the Wyandot and Ottawa acted as middlemen collecting furs from the rival tribes and then organizing the canoe fleets to take it to Montreal. After the Iroquois decided to go after the source of the fur reaching the French, their war parties made the long journey to Wisconsin and began attacking, not only the Wyandot and Ottawa villages, but also those of the refugee tribes supplying them with fur.....
****
Side note about the Power of the Iroquois:
At the time, Ohio was empty ..no one lived there, and because of this, it was especially attractive, not only for its rich farmland, but hunting since there had been virtually no human habitation for the previous 50 years. The Iroquois claimed it by right of their conquest of the Erie,Shawnee, Kickapoo, and several tribes whose names have been lost because they disappeared during the Beaver Wars before European contact. The League also claimed Kentucky and the entire Ohio Valley west to the Illinois River for the same reason.
-=Vel=-
...the French government in Quebec act almost as a neutral in the Huron's increasingly serious war with the Iroquois. The tide began to turn after the Seneca inflicted a major defeat on the Huron in the spring of 1635.
The Iroquois first isolated the Huron by attacking their allies. Separate Iroquois offensives during 1636 and 1637 drove the Algonkin deep into the upper Ottawa Valley and forced the Montagnais to retreat east towards Quebec. The first victim of the Beaver Wars was the Wenro. Deserted by their Erie and Neutral allies, they were overrun by the Iroquois in 1639. Abandoning their villages, they fled north across the Niagara River into Ontario, where eventually 600 of them found refuge among the Huron.
A major escalation in the level of violence occurred in 1640. Latecomers to the fur trade, British traders from New England attempted to break the Dutch trade monopoly with the Mohawk by offering firearms. To counter this, the Dutch began to supply guns and ammunition to the Iroquois in unlimited quantities. Suddenly much better armed than anyone else (including the French), the Iroquois offensive increased dramatically. The French issued more guns to their allies, but these were generally inferior to Dutch weapons, and at first, given only to Christian converts. The Algonkin and Montagnais were driven completely from the upper St. Lawrence Valley during 1641 by the Mohawk and Oneida, while in the west the Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga concentrated their attacks on the Huron.
With the founding of Montreal at the mouth of the Ottawa River in 1642, the French attempted to move their fur trade closer to the Huron villages but soon found themselves exposed and under attack in this new location. Iroquois war parties moved north into the Ottawa Valley during 1642 and 1643 and attacked Huron canoes carrying furs to Montreal. In the process, the Atonontrataronon (an Algonkin tribe) was forced to abandon the valley and flee west to the Huron. During 1644, the Iroquois captured three large Huron canoe flotillas enroute to Montreal and brought the French fur trade to a complete halt. The French had little choice but to seek peace if they wanted to continue trade, and the Iroquois, who had suffered losses to war and epidemic similar to the Huron, were also willing so they could gain the release of their warriors being held prisoner by the French. A peace treaty signed in 1645 had no lasting effect because it ignored the main problem. The Iroquois expected a resumption of their fur trade with the Huron, but this did not happen. Instead, the Huron continued to trade all their fur to the French.
After two years of trying to resolve this through diplomacy, the Iroquois resorted to total war. While the French remained neutral and tried to abide by the peace treaty, the Iroquois destroyed in 1647 the Arendaronon villages. Very few furs from Huronia reached Montreal that year. In 1648 a 250-man Huron canoe flotilla fought its way past the Iroquois blockade and reached Quebec. During their absence, the Iroquois struck deep into Huronia in July destroying the mission-village at St. Joseph and killing the Jesuit priest. The final blow came in March, 1649. In coordinated winter attacks, 2,000 Mohawk and Seneca warriors slipped silently across the snow and in two hours destroyed the mission-villages of St. Ignace and St. Louis. Hundreds of Huron were killed or captured, while two more Jesuits were tortured to death. In the aftermath, Huron resistance abruptly collapsed. Abandoning their capital at Ossossane, most of them fled.
Only the main Jesuit mission at Ste. Marie remained, and it braced for an attack which never came. Isolated, it was abandoned in May, and its Jesuit, French, and Huron residents made their way by canoe to Christian Island in Georgian Bay. Other Huron joined them, swelling the island's population to over 6,000. During a terrible winter of 1649-50, thousands starved, and in June, the French and Jesuits, accompanied by several hundred of their Huron converts, left for New France. About 300 of these settled just north of Quebec at Ancienne and Jeune Lorette. They were joined by another group from Trois Rivieres in 1654 and have lived there (Wendake) ever since. Through the years afterwards, the Lorette Huron remained loyal French allies and are the only Huron group to have survived the dispersal intact. The other Huron scattered, but the Iroquois were not content to let them go. Down to less than a thousand warriors after their victory, the Iroquois decided to replenish their population by absorbing all of the other Iroquian-speaking tribes.
Some Huron surrendered immediately and, along with the Huron already captured, were adopted, but the Iroquois tracked down the others. The Attignawantan Huron had fled west in 1649 and found a refuge with the Tionontati only to have the Iroquois attack both of them. In December the Iroquois overran the main Tionontati village, killing two more Jesuit missionaries. Only a thousand of the Attignawantan and Tionontati _ who afterwards would merge to form the Wyandot _ escaped the onslaught by retreating far to the north where they spent the winter of 1649-50 on Mackinac Island near Sault Ste. Marie (upper Michigan). By 1651 constant threat of attack by the Iroquois forced them even farther west, and they moved to an island in Green Bay (Wisconsin) with the Ottawa (who were also fleeing the Iroquois).
The Tahontaenrat, meanwhile, had retreated into the Neutrals homeland - who true to their name had remained neutral through all of this - and, from here, continued to make war upon the Iroquois. Blaming the Neutrals for permitting this, the Seneca attacked and defeated them in 1651. A few Neutrals and Huron escaped to the west to join their relatives at Green Bay. Most, however, including the Tahontaenrat, surrendered enmass. The Tahontaenrat were adopted by the Seneca, while the captured Arendahronon went to the Onondaga, and the balance of the Attignawantan became part of the Mohawk. However, large groups were able to elude capture and fled south to the Erie, who accepted them, but in a status of servitude which was not much of an improvement over what the Iroquois were offering.
In the east, the Mohawk and Oneida were still engaged in their war with the Susquehannock and had found them a tough foe. In the west, only the Erie remained and were stubbornly refusing Iroquois demands to surrender the Neutrals and Huron they had living with them. The situation steadily worsened, but before starting a war with the Erie in 1653, the western Iroquois (Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga) first took the precaution of signing a truce with the French. With less than 300 of them in all of North America at this time, the French were hardly a military threat to the Iroquois, but the agreement assured the Iroquois that the French would not provide arms to the Erie. It also allowed French Jesuits to establish missions in the Iroquois villages for Huron converts adopted by the League. The advantage for the Iroquois was that it lessened the chance their adopted Huron would revolt during a war against their kinsmen who had joined the Erie.
After the destruction of Huronia in 1649, the French had been powerless and were forced to remain neutral while the Iroquois swallowed one tribe after another. All that remained of their former allies (other than the small group of Huron at Lorette) were the Wyandot and Ottawa far to the west. Rather than confront the Iroquois along the Ottawa River themselves, the French encouraged their former trading partners to come to Montreal to trade. Because they had grown dependent on French trade good, the Wyandot and Ottawa, in spite of all they had endured, accepted. Reinforced by Ojibwe warriors and travelling together in large canoe flotillas to break the Iroquois blockade, the Wyandot and Ottawa brought furs to Montreal, although not in the previous amounts. This continuing trade was a source of considerable annoyance to the Iroquois, and after their war with the Erie ended, they no longer had any reason to appease the French.
The fragile peace between the French and Iroquois ended with the murder of a Jesuit ambassador in 1658 and the expulsion of the missionaries from the Iroquois villages. As war resumed along the St. Lawrence between the French and the Iroquois, there was also no reason for the French to avoid travel to the Great Lakes, and two French fur traders, Pierre Radisson and Médart Chouart des Groseilliers, accompanied by the old Jesuit Réné Ménard, took this opportunity to ignore the travel ban imposed by the government of Quebec and joined a party of Wyandot and Ottawa on their return journey. Following the Ottawa to their village of Chequamegon (Ashland, Wisconsin) on the south shore of Lake Superior, they spent the winter and became the first Europeans to see this largest of the Great Lakes. Father Ménard wandered off into the woods and apparently was killed by the Dakota (Eastern Sioux). However, they reached the Dakota villages at the western end of Lake Superior the following spring and managed to trade. When they returned to Quebec, Radisson and Groseilliers were promptly arrested and had their furs confiscated for ignoring the travel ban.
The arrest discouraged others, but the Wyandot and Ottawa continued forcing their way to Montreal. There was a massive battle along the Ottawa River in 1659. but the Iroquois could not stop the heavily-armed convoys and decided instead to go after their source. The Beaver Wars had forced thousands of Algonquin to abandon lower Michigan and the Ohio Valley. Most had retreated west and resettled in northern Wisconsin. The sudden increase in the native population west of Lake Michigan over-stressed the available resources, especially the beaver needed for trade with the French. Facing starvation, the refugee tribes were disorganized and fighting among themselves. In the midst of this chaos, the Wyandot and Ottawa acted as middlemen collecting furs from the rival tribes and then organizing the canoe fleets to take it to Montreal. After the Iroquois decided to go after the source of the fur reaching the French, their war parties made the long journey to Wisconsin and began attacking, not only the Wyandot and Ottawa villages, but also those of the refugee tribes supplying them with fur.....
****
Side note about the Power of the Iroquois:
At the time, Ohio was empty ..no one lived there, and because of this, it was especially attractive, not only for its rich farmland, but hunting since there had been virtually no human habitation for the previous 50 years. The Iroquois claimed it by right of their conquest of the Erie,Shawnee, Kickapoo, and several tribes whose names have been lost because they disappeared during the Beaver Wars before European contact. The League also claimed Kentucky and the entire Ohio Valley west to the Illinois River for the same reason.
-=Vel=-
more OT
It's not clear that all the Ohio valley stuff really happened. The British used it as the basis for their claim to the Ohio valley in the mid 18th century, and it's likely they added it to the Iroquois Empire for just that reason. (This is based on an treaty they had with the Iroquois who were of course still around).
It's not clear that all the Ohio valley stuff really happened. The British used it as the basis for their claim to the Ohio valley in the mid 18th century, and it's likely they added it to the Iroquois Empire for just that reason. (This is based on an treaty they had with the Iroquois who were of course still around).
::nodding:: Right....I included it though, to demonstrate that clearly the tribes were active diplomatically. MUCH more active than, say, your average EU2 player running with the latest beta, who can't scrape enough ducats together to send a letter of introduction, much less do any serious negotiating....
-=Vel=-
-=Vel=-
I noticed a suggestion above on removing of NA Fortresses, a suggestion that comes up every once in awhile.
Whilst the mental image of a "Indian Castle" with walls, moats, cannon batteries etc seems odd, the effect of NA fortifications within the game is worth keeping.
A province without fortifications comes under absolute control of the invader the very day they enter the province (or a day after, if there was a NA army defending the place.) That is really too quick to attain complete control of a whole province.
However, with a Level 1 or 2 fortification, an army does have to spend a few months to gain control of the province. I think this is a reasonable abstraction; of course, in real life, the invaders wouldn't have spent the time building siegeworks, but they would have had to spend some time tramping about the province smashing villages, locating and destroying food supplies, etc.
The example I had in mind was in 1779, when Washington sent Generals Sullivan and Clinton with several thousand troops to the Six Nations of the Iroquois, with written orders that their land was to be "not merely overrun but destroyed." This they did from mid-summer to October, burning 40 towns and destroying 160,000 bushels of corn.
So, though the Indians didn't have "fortresses" as such in game turns, requiring an invader to spend a few months subduing an NA province is entirely reasonable. After all, they never get beyond level 1 or 2 anyway.
Actually, nearly all "fortresses" in EU2 are abstractions; in many of the more densely populated provinces in Europe and elsewhere, each "fortress" represents several fortified towns and positions, not just one. The important thing is giving reasonable results.
Cheers,
Stilicho
Whilst the mental image of a "Indian Castle" with walls, moats, cannon batteries etc seems odd, the effect of NA fortifications within the game is worth keeping.
A province without fortifications comes under absolute control of the invader the very day they enter the province (or a day after, if there was a NA army defending the place.) That is really too quick to attain complete control of a whole province.
However, with a Level 1 or 2 fortification, an army does have to spend a few months to gain control of the province. I think this is a reasonable abstraction; of course, in real life, the invaders wouldn't have spent the time building siegeworks, but they would have had to spend some time tramping about the province smashing villages, locating and destroying food supplies, etc.
The example I had in mind was in 1779, when Washington sent Generals Sullivan and Clinton with several thousand troops to the Six Nations of the Iroquois, with written orders that their land was to be "not merely overrun but destroyed." This they did from mid-summer to October, burning 40 towns and destroying 160,000 bushels of corn.
So, though the Indians didn't have "fortresses" as such in game turns, requiring an invader to spend a few months subduing an NA province is entirely reasonable. After all, they never get beyond level 1 or 2 anyway.
Actually, nearly all "fortresses" in EU2 are abstractions; in many of the more densely populated provinces in Europe and elsewhere, each "fortress" represents several fortified towns and positions, not just one. The important thing is giving reasonable results.
Cheers,
Stilicho
well, we aint talking about month.
Take a look in my Iroquois GC.
If you take maximal troops (10-15K per sieged region), you need 1 year per nation. Any idea how to afford 30-40K troops as Iroquois? You can't, as you run out of cash fast. You will be bancruppt by the time you incorporate the 3rd tribe.
If you take minimal troops (7-10K alltogether), you need 4 years per nation. So once you finished off the Lenape and the Hurons, you have no chance to tackle the prepared Shwanees.
I'll today try a 3rd and last time to unite the NA tribes and keep the europeans out of NA. But the chances are dim. And thats simply ahistorically.
Take a look in my Iroquois GC.
If you take maximal troops (10-15K per sieged region), you need 1 year per nation. Any idea how to afford 30-40K troops as Iroquois? You can't, as you run out of cash fast. You will be bancruppt by the time you incorporate the 3rd tribe.
If you take minimal troops (7-10K alltogether), you need 4 years per nation. So once you finished off the Lenape and the Hurons, you have no chance to tackle the prepared Shwanees.
I'll today try a 3rd and last time to unite the NA tribes and keep the europeans out of NA. But the chances are dim. And thats simply ahistorically.
If players wish to play an exotic nation, good luck have fun. But why then complain that the nation is difficult, or impossible to play?
The Indian tribes should be difficult, if not impossible. If that's not your cup of tea play another nation.
The Indian tribes should be difficult, if not impossible. If that's not your cup of tea play another nation.
No level 2 forts!
The greatest problem in America is attrition, greater forts would only make it worse... However, I can accept minimal fortifcations...
But no level 2 forts! (It can take years to siege them, if attrition hasn't killed you by then)
Also, I think it's too easy to conquer pagans as a European power, even in the 16th century. Just get your land tech up to 14 or so to have enormous morale and fire phase advantages, send in about 20k troops, and you can easily get a 100% war score. No having to worry about losing battles or the war not going so well, or the war exhaustion you might get in a 6 month war.
Because they might cause unhistoricity in the colonization of the europeans... England or the Netherlands should conquer Manhattan (even though it does no longer contain a CoT)...
I've seen the French and English AI had huge problems with the Creek and Cherokee...
You'll loose a lot of men due to the attrition, especially right after when you've defeated the native 30k army... Attrition is up to 20-30...
There should be events that represents european giving arms to the natives... (huge boost to land tech -> 9)...
Well, now a more friendly answer to this:
"our american history teacher told us red indians have been barbarians" guy.
Lets start with "they eat children":
Yeah, I like this sentence. Its perfect to push your population into a war: "the enemy eats humans/children".
It worked for the israelites vs. the kanaanites, for the greek vs. the persians, christians vs. muslims, germans vs. russians and so on.
One of the first stories told by the arawaks to Christobal Colon was: "the caribbeas (our enemies) eat humans. Hence our term cannibal comes from this very stories.
So which american native nations did eat human flesh?
Aztecs: yeh, they might have had ritual human sacrifice, and even ritualistic cannibalism. Though only the highest priests where allowed to take part in the meal of their bloody gods. Oh, and usually the heart was the only organ eaten.
Other south american cultures: followed a similar path if they used cannibalism at all. Only the Kazique, and maybe as an honor some warriors, where allowed to eat the heart of a fallen enemy. Oh, and only the most worthy enemies where honored by "incorporating" them into the spiritual power of such tribes. So keep an eye on your valuable conquistadors.
To put it plainly: even for a major culture as the Aztecs, the ritual meal of a human heart was an event that took place only every few years or even decades.
Oh, and interesstingly, all stories we know away from this very specific ritualistic cannibalism, where told by europeans with an heavy interest in blaming the NA natives for everything.
The spanish royal decree allowed slavery only for cannibals. Interesstingly many Arawak islands very soon transformed into cannibal islands.
Every single description is usually second hand: explorers or missionaries moving in a region where the natives *just* stopped to practice cannibalism, or more often, where the enemies *still* practice cannibalism.
As a conclusion: in the long history of the american cultures we find hints for only a few cultures using cannibalism. How many european ship crews had to ressort to this "last chance"?
"our american history teacher told us red indians have been barbarians" guy.
Lets start with "they eat children":
Yeah, I like this sentence. Its perfect to push your population into a war: "the enemy eats humans/children".
It worked for the israelites vs. the kanaanites, for the greek vs. the persians, christians vs. muslims, germans vs. russians and so on.
One of the first stories told by the arawaks to Christobal Colon was: "the caribbeas (our enemies) eat humans. Hence our term cannibal comes from this very stories.
So which american native nations did eat human flesh?
Aztecs: yeh, they might have had ritual human sacrifice, and even ritualistic cannibalism. Though only the highest priests where allowed to take part in the meal of their bloody gods. Oh, and usually the heart was the only organ eaten.
Other south american cultures: followed a similar path if they used cannibalism at all. Only the Kazique, and maybe as an honor some warriors, where allowed to eat the heart of a fallen enemy. Oh, and only the most worthy enemies where honored by "incorporating" them into the spiritual power of such tribes. So keep an eye on your valuable conquistadors.
To put it plainly: even for a major culture as the Aztecs, the ritual meal of a human heart was an event that took place only every few years or even decades.
Oh, and interesstingly, all stories we know away from this very specific ritualistic cannibalism, where told by europeans with an heavy interest in blaming the NA natives for everything.
The spanish royal decree allowed slavery only for cannibals. Interesstingly many Arawak islands very soon transformed into cannibal islands.
Every single description is usually second hand: explorers or missionaries moving in a region where the natives *just* stopped to practice cannibalism, or more often, where the enemies *still* practice cannibalism.
As a conclusion: in the long history of the american cultures we find hints for only a few cultures using cannibalism. How many european ship crews had to ressort to this "last chance"?
I wonder if we are about to witness a strategy thread evolve naturally into a discussion on cannibalism? I never thought I'd see the day.
Now about low technology:
Infrastructure:
One good sign of infrastructure is road construction. So who did build good roads?
Romans: their roads where solid enough to still be used in the time this game plays in. Actually the european cultures haven't build anything close to this after the fall of the roman empire. The first road net which had an improved quality compared with the roman roads where build between 1933 and 1945 by A. Speer, the german autobahnen. So more then 1.500 years the europeans made virtually NO advancement in this area.
All other cultures followed this example after the 2nd WW.
Now take a look to Peru: you will find a huge net of nicely build ancient roads, of the same quality as the roman roads. Oh, did I mention that they where build in alpine territory? Even the roman legions had problems to build via under such conditions.
Sciences:
Our archeologists had till the beginning of the 20th centuries huge problems to understand the south-american calender. Why? Well, inferior mathematics and astronomy. The maya calender is more accurate then our current calendar system.
Society:
Take a close look at the Iroquois, the Hurons and some other NA-tribes. Their society was better organized, using oral tradition, then ANY european nation prior to the national unifications (15th century for France, 19th century for Germany).
Why do you think the US was able to develop a functioning democracy (well it worked at least at that time)? They wrote down the native federations oral tradition, added some greek and renaissance italian philosophy, and called it constitution.
Whoever calls the american natives "barbarians", underdeveloped or backwards has no idea what he's talking about.
Btw: history isn't written by the victors. Its written by the victors children and grandchildren.
And which grandchildren will write down sentences like this:
"well, we didn't understand how they managed to feed such a population, but once we where done, they didn't have to feed any population anymore" or "their squaws are good to rape".
Infrastructure:
One good sign of infrastructure is road construction. So who did build good roads?
Romans: their roads where solid enough to still be used in the time this game plays in. Actually the european cultures haven't build anything close to this after the fall of the roman empire. The first road net which had an improved quality compared with the roman roads where build between 1933 and 1945 by A. Speer, the german autobahnen. So more then 1.500 years the europeans made virtually NO advancement in this area.
All other cultures followed this example after the 2nd WW.
Now take a look to Peru: you will find a huge net of nicely build ancient roads, of the same quality as the roman roads. Oh, did I mention that they where build in alpine territory? Even the roman legions had problems to build via under such conditions.
Sciences:
Our archeologists had till the beginning of the 20th centuries huge problems to understand the south-american calender. Why? Well, inferior mathematics and astronomy. The maya calender is more accurate then our current calendar system.
Society:
Take a close look at the Iroquois, the Hurons and some other NA-tribes. Their society was better organized, using oral tradition, then ANY european nation prior to the national unifications (15th century for France, 19th century for Germany).
Why do you think the US was able to develop a functioning democracy (well it worked at least at that time)? They wrote down the native federations oral tradition, added some greek and renaissance italian philosophy, and called it constitution.
Whoever calls the american natives "barbarians", underdeveloped or backwards has no idea what he's talking about.
Btw: history isn't written by the victors. Its written by the victors children and grandchildren.
And which grandchildren will write down sentences like this:
"well, we didn't understand how they managed to feed such a population, but once we where done, they didn't have to feed any population anymore" or "their squaws are good to rape".
Medicine Man, its not cannibalism, its eurocentric racism.
I liked the way EU2 was when I bought it. It was more easy playing a european nation, but it was possible to play others as well. This "what would be" was very interessting.
But now EU2 is turning into a "historical simulation". No "what would be", but "follow the historical path". Thats simply boring.
I liked the way EU2 was when I bought it. It was more easy playing a european nation, but it was possible to play others as well. This "what would be" was very interessting.
But now EU2 is turning into a "historical simulation". No "what would be", but "follow the historical path". Thats simply boring.
"I've seen the French and English AI had huge problems with the Creek and Cherokee."
That's because they're not smart enough to ferry enough troops across the Atlantic or assault the fortresses. The problem is with the AI, not the game balance.
"You'll loose a lot of men due to the attrition, especially right after when you've defeated the native 30k army"
So you occasionally take a month of 12% attrition or whatever before you take the fortress in the assault. That's not much of a deterrent, and it's not you're going to spend several months at the same province waiting for the attrition to add up.
"One good sign of infrastructure is road construction. So who did build good roads?"
Maybe the natives were all using helicopters for transportation and had no need for roads.
"The maya calender is more accurate then our current calendar system."
The Mayan calendar also had 260 days in a year under one system, and changed both the month and day number each day, making it a mess to use.
That's because they're not smart enough to ferry enough troops across the Atlantic or assault the fortresses. The problem is with the AI, not the game balance.
"You'll loose a lot of men due to the attrition, especially right after when you've defeated the native 30k army"
So you occasionally take a month of 12% attrition or whatever before you take the fortress in the assault. That's not much of a deterrent, and it's not you're going to spend several months at the same province waiting for the attrition to add up.
"One good sign of infrastructure is road construction. So who did build good roads?"
Maybe the natives were all using helicopters for transportation and had no need for roads.
"The maya calender is more accurate then our current calendar system."
The Mayan calendar also had 260 days in a year under one system, and changed both the month and day number each day, making it a mess to use.
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