What Native American tribe do you expect/want?

[Merciorum]

I'm indifferent to Native American civs. They'd be relegated to early game UBs and UUs (Which we have a lot of already) and none of the north American natives have ever impressed me historically. They commanded tiny populations, were technologically hopeless, and their greatest achievements range from "Briefly prolonged sovereignty" (Sioux) to "Building on a cliff face" (Pueblo).

I think that both in terms of theme and gameplay, the Iroquois cover everything the north American natives have to offer.

Look at the Cherokee, specifically from about 1800 to 1904 .

Pueblo were pretty amazing, too. The ability of the Sioux to keep their sovereignty for so long, as well as winning a war against the might of the United States, surely qualifies them for greatness.

Eurocentrism is annoying.

 

[True_Candyman]

They commanded tiny populations, were technologically hopeless, and their greatest achievements range from "Briefly prolonged sovereignty" (Sioux) to "Building on a cliff face" (Pueblo)..

Literally everything you've said there is factually wrong. It astounds me how much people will throw around these kind of arguments without actually having any understanding of the topic! I suggest you read through this thread for a better understanding.

Cahokia was at its height amongst the most highly populated cities on earth. The Pueblo used advanced irrigation techniques to fertilise arid land. There was intercontinental trade passing over seas, mountain ranges and through jungles, even reaching polynesia which required some insane navigation and sailing techniques.

 

[Gucumatz]

I'm indifferent to Native American civs. They'd be relegated to early game UBs and UUs (Which we have a lot of already) and none of the north American natives have ever impressed me historically. They commanded tiny populations, were technologically hopeless, and their greatest achievements range from "Briefly prolonged sovereignty" (Sioux) to "Building on a cliff face" (Pueblo).

I think that both in terms of theme and gameplay, the Iroquois cover everything the north American natives have to offer.

What can you expect from the people who took another 1,500 years to even consider the #0 as a legitimate number for mathematics . Appears people are constantly confused with population, I won't get into a large spiel here but a few small things...
===============================

Native Civilizations often exceeded the populations of European civs by large amounts. Europeans were largely unclean, carried disease constantly, had malnourished peasants, an average life expectancy of about 32 until the late 1800s. Compare that to the largest Native Civilizations who invented soaps, antibacterial medicines, reaching populations in the tens of thousands per city when Europeans would only have a few thousand per city

Some of the largest metropolises in the world were native. The city of El Mirador is larger than Los Angeles even is today and it existed in 1,000 B.C.E. to 100 A.D. - And thats only considering the stone foundations of the city, not even the wooden houses of the peasants that have since long decayed.

We have cities like Teotihuacan, Tiwanaku, El Mirador, Tikal, etc. When the Spanish arrived in Mesoamerica - they couldn't believe that they saw a city at every hill and river, or what looked to be a massive city to them in their accounts. A decent size although limited city like Tenochtitlan impressed them so much that they thought they were walking in a dream and couldn't imagine Spain like that - much less Europe
--------

Edit: Hum stupid smiley at top of post won't come off, any idea guys why the hell sometimes a random thing like that will appear when you don't place it?

 

[Leugi]

Also, assuming they'd only get early game Uniques is wrong too. Most Native American tribes that subsisted after the colony also adopted Horses, Muskets and everything else... The Sioux are a good example of a Native American Civ that could get Middle Game (Renassaince and post) units.

 

[Gucumatz]

Frankly later era units are more boring when it comes to combat... particularly in MP its why I enjoy I think civs like Assyria, England, Byzantine more. But yea, gunpowder and cavalry units are fairly abound in the Americas. Its more so the developers choose to use more ancient/classical units for Native Civs but they certainly aren't limited to.

For existing civs like the Inca and Maya there are gunpowder units available too from history. For the Maya we have units like the Cruzobs that actually were able to liberate dozens of holy cities in the late 1800s from the Mexicans and British, doing so much damage to the Mexican army that the majority of the Mexican army was almost destroyed in combat several times. The Cruzobs surrounded the Mexicans in the town of Merida and the Mexicans were about to cede the Yucatan back to the new-Pan Maya kingdom that the Cruzobs formed, but it began to rain and the soldiers took it as a sign from the gods to plant their harvests. Instead of having a Maya Yucatan state, we lost the last Maya kingdom in the early 1900s... but I digress

Similar histories of gunpowder use exist elsewhere like for the Inca. Point is - Gunpowder and Cavalry units are fair game for native civs, its just developers have chosen not to in the past

 

[Louis XXIV]

^ The trend against giving Native Americans gunpowder bugs me. The Iroquois won the Beaver Wars because of their firearm superiority. The Wampanoag gave New England settlers such difficulty in King Phillip's War because they manufactured their own firearms. The Sioux at Little Big Horn used the same guns as General Custer's men. Certainly, they also mixed them with other weapons so it's not wrong to give them these weapons, but it's unnecessarily limiting. It's different from the Aztec, Maya, and Inca whose height was pre-Columbian.

Even though they are eliminated already, I would like the Comanche, the strongest "resistors" of the European invasion.

Interestingly, if reports of the Shoshone are correct, there's no reason they couldn't have a Comanche Raider as some kind of unique unit.

The Shoshone to me were a nomadic, horse-raiding people. Their possessions were simple and the only real status they had was in horses (usually taken from other tribes). To me, their mobile, raider lifestyle fits well as barbarians. But, if they count as a regular civ, I do hope that they are the "hypercube" civ. They'd have to play quite different to be truly represented the way they were. Then again, Civ is a what-if, so there's no reason they couldn't be a sedentary civilization just like all the others.

 

[Loaf Warden]

I'm rather interested in the leader welcome text...

Welcome, lovely Sacagawea! May the spirits guide and protect you. You were won by a Frenchman as a gambling prize and then accompanied Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition, acting as a guide and interpreter. Then you died a short time later. You were never in any sense a ruler, but people know your name, and your face is on an unpopular dollar coin.

Oh, great Sacagawea. Can you once again show the white people where they're going to be living? Can you help them build a civilization that will stand the test of time?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Welcome, lovely Sacagawea! May the spirits guide and protect you. You were won by a Frenchman as a gambling prize and then accompanied Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition, acting as a guide and interpreter. Then you died a short time later. You were never in any sense a ruler, but people know your name, and your face is on an unpopular dollar coin.

Oh, great Sacagawea. Can you once again show the white people where they're going to be living? Can you help them build a civilization that will stand the test of time?

 

[Danthor]

Other - Olmecs
or
Other - Mapuche
or
Other - none

 

[ImperialChaos]

Welcome, lovely Sacagawea! May the spirits guide and protect you. You were won by a Frenchman as a gambling prize and then accompanied Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition, acting as a guide and interpreter. Then you died a short time later. You were never in any sense a ruler, but people know your name, and your face is on an unpopular dollar coin.

Oh, great Sacagawea. Can you once again show the white people where they're going to be living? Can you help them build a civilization that will stand the test of time?

Yeah, those are really her only achievements. She was also the sister of a Shoshone chief; beside that her only credit is for helping another nation. She did nothing for the Shoshone beside leaving them some sort of legacy within the United States' early history of Lewis and Clarke's expedition. Also:

The National American Woman Suffrage Association of the early twentieth century adopted her as a symbol of women's worth and independence, erecting several statues and plaques in her memory, and doing much to spread the story of her accomplishments.

 

[TimeWeaver]

Yeah, those are really her only achievements. She was also the sister of a Shoshone chief; beside that her only credit is for helping another nation. She did nothing for the Shoshone beside leaving them some sort of legacy within the United States' early history of Lewis and Clarke's expedition.

Isn't her early death a hotly debated issue? I also have the feeling that her actions were guided by self-preservation and curiosity, a pretty powerful mix for a game of civ. At the very least, she would have been a better hands-on-survival leader than most beards in the game, as well as half-naked Ghandi and many of those noble women dressed in three tonnes of insanely expensive cloth.

 

[ImperialChaos]

Isn't her early death a hotly debated issue? I also have the feeling that her actions were guided by self-preservation and curiosity, a pretty powerful mix for a game of civ. At the very least, she would have been a better hands-on-survival leader than most beards in the game, as well as half-naked Ghandi and many of those noble women dressed in three tonnes of insanely expensive cloth.

Not sure about her death. While she may have noble attributes I do not think of her as a leader. A leader is someone who had people rally behind them, who passed important laws and had tremendous political or military influence, were extremely important in the founding of the Civilization, etc. Sacajawea was no doubt a noble woman but she was never a leader. It definitely varies among people, but that's how I define it.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Isn't her early death a hotly debated issue? I also have the feeling that her actions were guided by self-preservation and curiosity, a pretty powerful mix for a game of civ. At the very least, she would have been a better hands-on-survival leader than most beards in the game, as well as half-naked Ghandi and many of those noble women dressed in three tonnes of insanely expensive cloth.

She did have some nerve. She jumped out of a boat to save the Corps' journals, and she argued with the leaders until they let her go see a giant fish that washed up on the beach (dead whale). They also let her have the right to vote on Corps matters. And she gave birth while on the journey, so you know she was tough. But I don't think she was motivated by anything other than the fact that she was hired (and really it was her husband who was hired, she was just one of his wives, basically his property) to do a job.

With regards to her death, some say she died in what is now Wyoming a few years after the Expedition. Others say she ran off to live with the Comanche and died quite a while later. Either way, her life afterwards had little to do with her original people or an ongoing important role in a community.

 

[Snonolio]

I, for one think that the Shoshone connection to the Comanche gives them a lot of potential. As for Sacagawea, her translation skills were a huge factor in getting Lewis and Clark to their destination safely. If the UA is related to her, perhaps this means some kind of diplomatic boost?

As for other NA tribes, people tend to overlook their many contributions in world history. Look at the foods eaten everywhere around the world that were first cultivated by the peoples of the Americas. Tomatoes, manioc, potatoes, and corn have made incalculable impacts on world history. Corn, for example is the result of incredibly sophisticated genetic engineering that modern scientists are still struggling to understand. This was done by the people of Mexico thousands of years ago.

 

[cybrxkhan]

^ The trend against giving Native Americans gunpowder bugs me. The Iroquois won the Beaver Wars because of their firearm superiority. The Wampanoag gave New England settlers such difficulty in King Phillip's War because they manufactured their own firearms. The Sioux at Little Big Horn used the same guns as General Custer's men. Certainly, they also mixed them with other weapons so it's not wrong to give them these weapons, but it's unnecessarily limiting. It's different from the Aztec, Maya, and Inca whose height was pre-Columbian.

Guess it also sort of plays into the stereotype of native Americans as tree-hugging folks who keep to their traditions and don't like technology or don't like a more "complex" way of life because it is eviilllllll. I mean, I'm pretty sure Gucumatz isn't one with nature and doesn't care at all about the Colors of the Wind, right? (Well, maybe Gucumatz does... )

 

[Gucumatz]

Sadly raised as urban as you can get . My grandfather (who is still alive) was a farmer though and he actually still follows some of the old ways. I have even gotten some local treatments from sun counters/priests though when I have been in Guatemala -but I am about as "Pocahontas" or "Apocalypto" as a cowboy on the moon

Just like I am sure you as a Vietnamese you are exactly like the people in Apocalypse now

 

[cybrxkhan]

Sadly raised as urban as you can get . My grandfather (who is still alive) was a farmer though and he actually still follows some of the old ways. I have even gotten some local treatments from sun counters/priests though when I have been in Guatemala -but I am about as "Pocahontas" or "Apocalypto" as a cowboy on the moon

Just like I am sure you as a Vietnamese you are exactly like the people in Apocalypse now

If I hear one of those conical hats and the right clothes, I do look like a stereotypical VIET Cong given that I'm pretty scrawny and sort of have this serious look on my face all the time; except, of course, I'm 6'1" which is a monstrous size for most Asians, let alone most Vietnamese and most Vietnamese during the era of the Vietnam War. Probably be hard to be a stereotypical guerilla fighter if you're 6'1". Actually, I imagine it'd be impossible to travel those underground tunnel systems the VIet Cong built without hitting your head all the time.

 

[Pikachao]

Sadly raised as urban as you can get . My grandfather (who is still alive) was a farmer though and he actually still follows some of the old ways. I have even gotten some local treatments from sun counters/priests though when I have been in Guatemala -but I am about as "Pocahontas" or "Apocalypto" as a cowboy on the moon

Just like I am sure you as a Vietnamese you are exactly like the people in Apocalypse now

Are you telling me you haven't sacrificed someone to Huitzilopochtli? you're missing out, it's a thrill (I, however, am as stereotypically "Big Bang Theory" white as a cowboy in a western.)

people don't like the idea of more cavalry UU but I'd love to see them use a gunpowder horseback unit for the maybe-in Shoshone. My favorite UU when I played civ 3 was always the Iroquois Mounted warrior (ignoring the whole wrong tribe thing) so I wouldn't mind seeing that come back up. gunpowder was a big deal for native americans, so it'd be nice to see that actually shown (I am guessing that Shoshone might be the one civ with two UU if they're in.)

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The more I think about it, the more I like the Shoshone blob (including Utes, Piutes, and Comanche) idea rather than a specific Shoshone civ.

Leader: Ouray/Chipeta/Washakie
UA: Nomadic Life: Population can be transferred from one city to another

UU: Shoshone Guide: replaces scout, starts with Survivalism I; receives culture when discovering city-states

UU: Comanche Raider: replaces cavalry, can evade melee and pillage improvements at no movement cost

 

[True_Candyman]

UA: Nomadic Life: Population can be transferred from one city to another

That is the most obscene thing i've ever seen. Please cover it up or put it away