Hello! This is my first post! I made this thread to discuss the UU for the Native Americans, or the Dog Soldier more specifically.

Although it's a useful unit, I find that it should be buffed or replaced. By the time I have Metal Casting, I've already made better units, and I find myself up against archers more than melee units.

I think a far more useful unit would be a replacement for the horse archer or cavalry that has a bonus against cavalry or gunpowder units.


The Native Americans held out for a long time. They actually won a few key battles, but ultimatly were defeated. In an example: "The Battle of Little Bighorn", they wiped out most of Custer's forces with one quick charge.

So a unit with 13 strength, + 25% to 100% against cavalry? and a decent movement would be pretty cool!

It would help you out if your opponent had superior tech to your own, and could do fine against any inferior units as well.

Another cool unit could be "Coup counters", which can't attack, but for whatever unit stack it's in it increases the combat experience of every unit in the stack by +100%. You can not put more than one in each stack.

What do you guys think?

I'm not sold on it.

By the time you have Metal Casting, though? The Dog Soldier is enabled by Bronze Working, which is available earlier. If you go straight for Mining -> Bronze Working, they are devastating early game. Also, they don't have a resource requirement.

It's a hard thing to give the Natives a mounted UU, because for the large part of American history, there were not any horses in North America.

:blush: sorry, I ment bronze working.


I get what your saying, but if you can find a source of horses, you can find a source of horses.

For a long time america didn't have the ability to use computers-only in the last 10 years or so. Should we take out computers and the internet? In the 1800's we didn't have future tech, yet most people get there by then!

And they don't have to be mounted, but I would still like to see a better UU for the Native Americans! Give me a better idea for one!

"I think a far more useful unit would be a replacement for the horse archer "

or an archer - some of the choices are truly bizarre- a perfect opportunity to have a feathered apache on a horse with a bow- instead...an axeman.

Vikings? No longboat? strange stuff.

:blush: sorry, I ment bronze working.


I get what your saying, but if you can find a source of horses, you can find a source of horses.

For a long time america didn't have the ability to use computers-only in the last 10 years or so. Should we take out computers and the internet? In the 1800's we didn't have future tech, yet most people get there by then!

And they don't have to be mounted, but I would still like to see a better UU for the Native Americans! Give me a better idea for one!

The United States has only existed in its modern form since 1789 (and independently since 1776), so it's a better argument for the USA to have modern UUs and UBs. Also, I'm not talking about the tech tree in general, as you seem to imply, but rather about the UU for a particular civ. This is highly dependent on the history of that particular "civilization" (I'll save my whining about the great Native American lumping for another thread), not on whether or not you can find a source of horses in your particular game.

I think the Dog Soldier is a decent UU when used properly. You aren't going to do the traditional "ax rush" with them--they don't have the strength to kill fortified archers, and you will take far greater casualties. Instead, they are strong as field counter-unit, and along with catapults can be devastating. Try to use them to fight enemy stacks outside of cities.

In that sense, they are kind of like the Numidian Cavalry--you sacrifice raw strength for other abilities.

Instead of Knight, the Native American's should get a horse archer with blitz to reflect the high rate of fire, and keep it once upgraded to Cavalry.