Westernization as a Native American

[Knut Skallagrim]

Ok yesterday i made my very first playthrough with iroquois to have a bit of fun with native americans. The new native tribe system is cool but imo has some weird questions:

- Native ideas, bonus are strong but are they meant to be chosen randomly? I.e. They have no order of unlock, so i can choose the last one before i can choose the first, wad or bug?

- NA can unlock colonists. It's funny because in a playthrough between 1444 and 1610 i was the only one laying colonists, no other nation was doing it so as a Human is easy to blob out on north america.
I've seen that AI tends to migrate a lot, then stabilize somewhere and from that do NOTHING at all. No expansion, just wait there until you will be conquered.

To sum it up an human north american tribe will end like this: owning everything from acadia to pensacola/mobile, waiting at least 100 years with all the other NA tribes ready to hit the button "change government", when you see portuguese/english YOU rush to them (completely ahistorical), lay a colony, core it, change government and woho you have their tech-2 levels so in mine portugal was 14/14/14 (actually he was the only one so high) so i ended up 12/12/12, had to wait 30 years for them to tech up, hit westernization, wait 15 more years, change to catholic, LOSE 4 hrs of gameplay because of a religion changing which set up your religious unity to 0 and will kick your westernized butt off of game, sleep on it and come here to say

HOW IN HELL DO YOU THINK I SHOULD HAVE CHANGED RELIGION WITHOUT EVEN CONVERTING A BUNCH OF PROVINCES in that event???


And second, WHY my westernization attempt must be ruined by a choice of religion? After hitting catholic YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF WHAT HAPPENED XD 80k Reactionaries moved everywhere in north america and pillaged, sieged everything draining my almost completed westernization...
Losing westernization at 94% of time done, after a long route (200 years LOL), just because you switched to catholic and hear this: YOU CANNOT GO BACK there are no rebels which will save you, you are catholic and already doomed in hell as you are born, taxes are 3 ducats instead of 24-25, trade 1.5 instead of 33 xD, you like to be catholic? Then welcome in hell!!!

GG, was fun till it lasted, this is a thread more about me wondering why perfect playthrough are often ruined by just one choice, that's not butterfly effect that's the red button of the english chancellor of aliG, delete world xD

And, in the end, to suggest one thing: could you please put in the event, if you are an american tribe just worshipping a piece of wood, or even aztecs since they insta converted to catholicism (at least moctezuma II did), that a bunch of provinces insta convert after that? Or is even this working as designed, breaking off the westernization if you choose christianity?
On the positive note, i just think that a pure North American tribes multiplayer will be awesome, the migration mechanic just gives you the freedom of saying to others "ok this is your expansion place? i'll go somewhere else.." pure fun.
Federations are awesome, too.

you know i won't be able to try this anymore in some months right? q_q

 

[Helkoi]

Well as far i remember you can avoid being catholic ^^
But you can quickly get 3 missionaries if the reform has already begun. And by converting you are also getting 5 papal influence per province, so a neat advantage to rush the curia (if you convert)
You can stay totemist, i should totally try that one next time.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

- I THINK native ideas are intended to be picked in any order, offering a tradeoff of what you want to pursue (IE just the -100% --> tech, all of it, what order)

- AI nations do expand, but they wait a long time and do it slowly. In practice this one somewhat-gimped colonist allows the human player to trash the entire continent, but IMO that's a good thing lol.

- Religious conversion mid-westernization is a major undertaking. With such low unity, the revolts are going to be very painful. The only working solutions I can imagine for an enormous empire would be to a) avoid converting or b) have maxed religious ideas + enough cashflow to merc your way through the rebellions.

IMO you can wait to westernize without much penalty. You can even let the Euros tech up more before reforming, instead staying backwards but using the native buildings to pile gobs of cash. Because native buildings disappear but you effectively get the western AIs tech rate once you reform, it's better to just spam the buildings. Heck, even after you reform, spam the regular buildings so you fall behind more quickly to westernize. Here are some idea groups to consider:

- Administrative: Mercs are really good, and controlling all more most of NA, you can set up quite the income for them. Relying on mercs more means that you can shoulder through revolts more readily, as manpower isn't an issue...though you can still use SOME non-mercs w/o too much trouble.

- Religious: If you want to convert, convert quickly.

- Diplomatic: Between the reputation and extra diplomat, as well as other nice boosts, this is useful in any game

- Exploration or Expansion: Expansion is better late-game, giving you CBs on vulnerable nations in Asia and more rep, but exploration lets you meet people more quickly. Either get exploration @ admin 4, or just take expansion later and rely on your tribal colonist.

- Offensive: Forced march is good. When Euros are trying to beat on you, sending mercs on forced march to insta-assault recently occupied provinces is even better. Leader shock and fire + manpower rounds out an excellent idea group.

- Defensive or Quality: Probably quality, helps a little everywhere including the heavies in the navy.

I am seriously mulling not westernizing, and using the one-time reform boost to pole-vault past Asia and then roll them with the starting tech group + artillery. Expansion's CB wouldn't work at first, but canceled loans/colonial conquest/missions could fill in until later.

If you do westernize, however, you really want solid stacks with near-max combat width, artillery, and good morale. Even still, it might be easier to avoid converting until before or after westernizing...IE try to get a Christian province before and accept their demands, or just skip it...totemism isn't that bad with religious unity.

 

[grisamentum]

Nah, you shouldn't really spam native buildings, ever. The proper way to do the whole thing is:

pre-reform:

1. tech to 4/1/2, maybe 4/2/2 so you can gather all the trade with your home barque fleet.
2. at admin tech 4, take plutocratic ideas.
3. save up to max monarch points in admin and diplo while filling out Plutocratic.

at max monarch points, reform. you should immediately hit admin tech 10 or close.

1. take 2 new idea groups (an admin and diplo, probably religious and exploration)
2. spend all your points, which should nearly max out those groups
3. save up to 1400 or so in each group, dont buy any new techs.

once you are at stabiliy +3, have ~1400 in each group and are 8 techs behind, westernize. as soon you press westernize, buy techs because you'll get dropped back to 999 at the end of the month.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What does it matter if you wait and get pushed up in tech further? The AI is effectively feeding you gobs of monarch points the longer you wait to reform.

I agree that one should take advantage of the opportunity for plutocratic though; I forgot about that above.

 

[grisamentum]

What does it matter if you wait and get pushed up in tech further? The AI is effectively feeding you gobs of monarch points the longer you wait to reform.

I agree that one should take advantage of the opportunity for plutocratic though; I forgot about that above.

Because ultimately you are going to hit monarch point cap and it won't be efficient to wait anymore; you'll just be teching yourself at 150% penalty when you could just outrun the AI at Western tech speed with absurd National Ideas that most of the tribes have. Like Cherokee have -10% idea cost and -10% tech cost for their finisher. And since you get Plutocratic, while most AI don't have it, you have another advantage.

You also want to be at Admin tech 10 sooner rather than later for more ideas. The sooner you have Exploration for the extra colonist, the sooner you can finish colonizing North America. And more ideas also means more National Ideas sooner.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes, you will eventually hit the MP cap, however you can sink quite a lot into ideas before then, especially if you reform into admin 13+.

I think the theoretical best sequence would be: Reform ---> gain a lot of techs ---> spam ideas while waiting to westernize ---> westernize.

The native buildings are, however, incredibly cost efficient and IMO worth it. Even if you grab 50 provinces before reforming it's still ~ 1 western tech off later, with the return of a lot more everything sooner in the game. I'll take that tradeoff.

 

[peterlj]

Im in exactly the same situation as Knut Skallagrim Westernized but i got protestantism instead. picks up defender of the faith for the extra missionary. until now. i've lost 6k gold, all my manpower and rebels rampaging through the country like maniacs. challenging to say the least. but to top that of with a meteor or similar event that puts you down to -2 stab and zero possibility to raise it before westernization is complete. at least put in some event to trade of some progress to give positive stability or some other mecanic that makes it possible to raise it a bit.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Im in exactly the same situation as Knut Skallagrim Westernized but i got protestantism instead. picks up defender of the faith for the extra missionary. until now. i've lost 6k gold, all my manpower and rebels rampaging through the country like maniacs. challenging to say the least. but to top that of with a meteor or similar event that puts you down to -2 stab and zero possibility to raise it before westernization is complete. at least put in some event to trade of some progress to give positive stability or some other mecanic that makes it possible to raise it a bit.

Just do it before or after westernizing. All you need is 1 province with the religion you want. Send a missionary to it to try to convert it with 0% maintenance, get an uprising, and deliberately ignore it as it sweeps across your nation converting all of your provinces. You can then either accept the demands or let them keep going, getting religious conversions for a temporary demerit.

I tried this with a Sunni Kashmir as the Monghol Khanate. Once the rebels get going, it's like a flash fire. I had 20+ provinces and when the rebels finally stopped, I had 4 non-Sunni provinces.

IMO such is something one could do after reforming while waiting to westernize haha.

 

[Jorlem]

If you can, try to have a Theologian adviser while Westernizing. I did, and I think I only had one non-event based revolt while I was Westernizing as the Cherokee, even after I took the 'convert to Protestantism' event. -3 Revolt Risk is very useful.

 

[unmerged(804580)]

Go for +3 stability with your stored MP, and embrace counter-reformation and all missionary strength related decisions immediately if you're going to convert, which would mean you'd not want to start the process until the Reformation begins. You lose a bit on tech with counter-reformation, but it's either you convert your people or collapse. And it actually helps more if you didn't expand too much... you're likely to have too many wrong-cultured provinces, spawning nationalists along with zealots and reactionaries and what not. Though it's kind of situational to say how much is too much. I didn't convert cultures in my own blind first try campaign as Potawatomi but I think I will the next time. You catch up in tech upon reforming government anyways.

On a bright side, if you decide to convert and embrace counter-reformation, every province you convert adds to the papal influence, meaning it's pretty easy to steal Curia very early on. I did it even before finishing Westernization.



Alternatively, if you choose to remain pagan, Westernization is a cakewalk. The paganism itself and the decisions give you reduced stability cost and revolt risk. I Westernized as Animist Inca and had -0.xx global revot risk even during Westernization, but... "Colonial Conquest" CB is what you pay for easy Westernization. Two holy wars from Castilian and Portuguese colonial nations, two colonial conquests from Portugal... I give up. I'll try again but I'll convert this time.

Just a question. Is it more viable as a totemist to remain as totemist?

 

[Kaelic]

If you skipped converting religion, you'd be constantly free CB invaded by all the Western powers, and when they take land off you it will free convert to Catholic making it impossible to take back. Also all the land they take off you has no revolt risk. No response from Paradox on how retarded this is and why they missed it.

 

[aragonFTW]

Native Americans have longer but ultimately less painful westernizations, certainly than Africans. Just grab religious ideas first to stock up on missionaries, and hit Westernize when you have +3 stab and ability to go straight back up after (at least 500 adm stocked up). I don't recognize your portrait of hell from any of my games, the worst reactionaries got was taking Massachussetts for 2 months. Each province took 7 or 8 months to convert from Totemism to catholic. With 3 missionaries, I radiated out from where my armies were to start, 70 provinces done in 16 years. Westernization took 26 years as I had fairly average monarchs.

Totally with you on the boring AI tribes though.

 

[peterlj]

The main problem isnt switch of religion.. gives very little revoltrisk compared to the 5 from westernization, 3 from 0 legimiticy and another 4 from -2 stab. I hadnt a single religious rebellion since i converted. 93% revoltrisk for revolutionaries, 73% noble and top it of with 5 different nationalist rebels and no one gives a rats ass about religion :laugh:

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Just a question. Is it more viable as a totemist to remain as totemist?

You still get the Euro powers hitting you. If you can put up with that, then yes.

Still, I think fleecing a colony for a religious uprising might be the easiest approach.

The main problem isnt switch of religion.. gives very little revoltrisk compared to the 5 from westernization, 3 from 0 legimiticy and another 4 from -2 stab. I hadnt a single religious rebellion since i converted. 93% revoltrisk for revolutionaries, 73% noble and top it of with 5 different nationalist rebels and no one gives a rats ass about religion

Lacking religious unity will contribute to all revolt risk.

 

[Xara]

-Spend your spare points to culture convert provinces you conquered. You do not want the extra revolt chance on them. I mean it. Even if they are accepted. Convert everything you own to your base culture.
-You need to take Plutocratic at A4. It's -1 global RR as well as -2 RR on heathen provinces
-You need to westernize off a Catholic nation. Embracing the counter-reformation is extra miss strength and double the missionaries
-You need Religious idea set after you reform gov't. More miss strength, another missionary. Ideally you will have something like 12-16% miss strength after enacting all possible decisions. Remember that your problem is heathens, not heretics - every -1 heretic tolerance +1 miss strength can only help you.
-Your single colonist is fine for expanding to take the important areas (new england coast). Worry about exploration colonizing later. The bigger you get, the longer you risk bad bad things happening, and the longer it takes to get unity back
-Use your missionaries on the HARDEST, LONGEST provinces to convert. When you have that much missionary strength, a 1 base tax province will take like 5 months while a 10 base tax provinces takes 10-12. It takes twice as long, but is worth ten times the unity.
-Don't expand across colonial region borders or the AI that shows up is likely to kick your ass to take those areas. England will DOW you over Micmac if you go past Abnaki, for example
-Do not let ANY other native AI exist that sits one or two provinces in from the coast. If Portugal decides to colonize next to them and you also aren't next to them, you are quickly going to have a reformed hostile native AI with 6+ tech levels on you militarily
-Save up a lot of money. Don't build native military crap. The things that boost income are fine since they will pay themselves off. After reforming, get courthouses and the like up with your spare admin points
-Get to +3 stability before westernizing (easy since you can afford +3 advisors) and get to +3 again after you do it.
-Don't be afraid to spend mil points on stomping the hardest provinces into submission. They will buy you the extra months it will take and possibly save your game from destruction.

Things that are incredibly helpful but you can't really control
-a +3 theologian, for the extra -RR and De Heretico Comborundo
-Getting an heir and having your king die for a big legitimacy boost (might be worth holding off on westernization just for this). That's from like -2 tolerance to +2 tolerance of heathens if you go from 0 to 100 legitimacy upon death
-Leader with great stats



I've done this as Cherokee without having really thought through the above (especially the Plutocracy part, which others recommended) and like you, I got totally butt-blasted by rebels to the point that I threw out that campaign in severe frustration. Done it again taking most of these things in mind and survived it as Iroquois while only having a few revolts.


also, general advice:
-don't spend any points in the military native set except for the -100% discount. Ranking up a mil tech is massively more valuable than anything else there. Finish that set when the Europeans are getting close.
-Same thing for diplo apart from taking the colonist
-Admin set has useful stuff, no real rush to get to A4