Anyone leave natives *off?*

[VladTepes]

I started a game with 2 other european powers and chose 2 native tribes (Apaches and Cherokee). I thought I had picked a sweet spot - was near cotton and tobacco and no native claims adjacent. Then 10 turns later, the Apaches plunk down a teepee three squares away and claim the tobacco!!! Does anyone simply choose *not* to have natives???

 

[maverique]

No, they're just very useful and needed in the beginning. How do you expect to get all the specialized gatherers you need if you don't have natives in the beginning? you won't have the money to buy them from Europe. So yeah, you *need* natives.

 

[nbcman]

And you can't get the specialized gatherers in Europe; you have to visit the natives to get those specialities.

 

[maverique]

Actually I might be wrong, and I probably am, but the few gatherers I can't seem to find the natives training in are like lumberjacks, but I'm a newbie here and I'm probably mistaken.

 

[Steenberger]

Depending on the map, you can be unfornate that not all gatherers of raw materials are available from the native tribes. It seems to me that that this is randomly genrated for each new game, even on scenarios.

 

[nbcman]

@maverique

You are right. There are some gatherers that you can get in Europe like lumberjacks and ore miners. But you cant get gatherers like tobacco planters and sugar planters in Europe.

 

[Infantry#14]

You need natives to trade gold for guns/horses. You can then invest the gold in other area.

 

[Refar]

On a map where you can't get some specialised gatherers at all (No Sugar & Fur seem to be quite common), using untrained Converts for this job is still the best (they get +1)... So you still want some natives.

 

[Desert-Fox]

I think that you can't get lumberjack from natives, I've never seen this, but I've seen fur trader a lot who is not gatherer but manufacturer instead.

 

[Refar]

Fur Trader and Lumberjack you can get from Europe (sure... cost money). The really important ones are Trapper / Sugar Planter - these you can't get other than from natives. And they are unfortunately pretty rare on many maps.

 

[tour86rocker]

And you can't get the specialized gatherers in Europe; you have to visit the natives to get those specialities.

Yeah, and unlike Col1, our Free Colonists never learn these trade by simply practicing them. Does anybody remember that? It was nice, but never unbalanced. It only happened once in a while.

 

[tour86rocker]

I think that you can't get lumberjack from natives, I've never seen this, but I've seen fur trader a lot who is not gatherer but manufacturer instead.

The trader has always been the manufacturer; it's the trapper who gathers. Has anyone else noticed a trend where Indians tend to hold furs as next to valueless? I don't tend to do much coat manufacturing, but maybe I should b/c I've noticed many natives selling furs for less than 2 gold apiece.

 

[nbcman]

@tour86rocker

I have noticed that tundra area natives sell furs for 1.5 gold per unit. But in other native areas (even of the same tribe as the tundra natives) the furs sell for 3-6 gold per unit.

 

[JanissaryRush]

The Natives are such a key part to the colonization experience. I could see leaving the Europeans off as their just such wimps and don't give the feel of fierce competitors. Their just pushovers that I can conquer at anytime, not actual competition.

 

[Refar]

^^ Well the natives don't exactly make me tremble of fear either.

But i too think they are important for the right atmosphere.
I wish we could do all the fun stuff with them, that got omited form the gam due to political correctness.

 

[Aythanaeus]

Once upon a time...

I played a custom scenario of the western hemisphere with all eight european civilizations and there was actually only one native civ in all of north america. Just one. They had a boat load of cities man! And even more units!

Needless to say they were rather disgruntled with my repossessing the better part of the American east coast. I had 6 colonies with a single cannon and soldier in each. Apparently Mangas Colorado doesn't like his land getting jacked and decided that he and about a million and a half of his closest buddies would "ask" for it back!

I lost all but my last city which had a fortress, 2 fully upgraded cannons, and 3 veteran soldiers each attached to a great general by the end of his first wave.

I lost it all after his second wave.

Lessons to be learned:

1) Having less indian civs may only mean there are more of one tribe as opposed to a few in many.

2) Don't push injuns 'round if ya dun gots tha bullets ta kill em all.

3) Don't bring a knife to a gun fight. (Seriously... my kill ratio was insane... I had a 'nam flashback and I wasn't even there!)

 

[Dupleix]

Aythanaeus, you have 8 european civs ? I have only 4 (English, French, Spanish, Dutch).

 

[Refar]

You can put each one in twice with different leaders...

 

[Aythanaeus]

yea don't you? I also have Portugal, Russia, Scotland, and Prussia!

Ha! Kidding of course. Yea in custom games you can purposefully choose your opponents and so I was sure to choose both leaders from each available colony. The game was actually not very fun. We were all so close together that my original soldier took or razed five cities that kept popping up. I think I knocked out 2 ai from the game in the first 20 turns. I live, I learn!

 

[SerriaFox]

removing the Indians might not be a bad idea from the modding perspective, you might one to do something else with the game. Of course it would not longer be a strict colonization about the Americas any more.