Hi Ray,
Thanks for your feedback, its always good to have another pair of eyes go over your ideas to see what sounds good, bad, superfluous, ridiculous etc.
Before I start, let me say, I should have sent an attachment of the ethnographical cultural map I was working from and to which some of my comments were based. If I'd done that some of my comments may of made more sense. Sorry.
Geographical Regions
I absolutely agree that we should have just three regions, North America, Central America/Caribbean & South America. When I mentioned other areas like Plateau, Northeast woodlands, Plains, Amazonian etc, I was merely referencing cultural areas. So for example when I suggested combining Artic and Subartic for the Inuit, I was advocating that we simply combine those cultural areas so the Inuit could inhabit both, not create a new geographical region or rename what we already have. Sorry again for the confusion.
Changing Shuar and Teheulche
If they already exist as they are, and do not need any changes, I can happily live with their current names. I am not sure too many people are going to scruntinize the name of a tribe, as long as that tribe exists/existed.
Leaderhead for Inuit
I like it.
Number of native civs
I did not even think about how this might affect the algorithms. Gameplay absolutely has to be the first priority.
Adding Further native civs
I'm all for it, but like you said we should probably concentrate initially on the first 4 we have chosen. As to my prefered varient for distribution for any future tribes, I'd also have to go with 1 North/ 1 Central / 1 South.
In terms of favorite tribes, are we basing our choices on tribes most players would of heard of/be somewhat familiar with? If so we might struggle with Central American and South America tribes, as they are well less known as their North American counterparts. But my favorite choices would be:
North America
Algonquian. They are on the east coast and they are more pertinent to the time period of the game, than western tribes.
Central America/Caribbean
I guess it would depend on the map size. For larger maps I'd go with the Caribs, to make the Caribbean area more fun. On a smaller map maybe a tribe south of the Aztec/Maya/Zapoltec region, something like the Guaymi or Miskito.
South America
This is a tough one. We have the Inca along the Andes, the Tehuelche and Guarani are in the southern part of the continent and the Tupi and Shuar are in the Amazon area. Maybe a tribe that is centrally located, something in the Bolivian region perhaps? I'd have to look into it a bit more.