I have a question about the diplomacy and combat for the native tribes. Playing as William Penn (tolerant), I did not intentionally steal a single acre of native land -- I mostly settled 3 hexes away from native villages, and if I had to take over a square or two of native territory, then I paid the full amount of gold that the natives asked for it. I never attacked any natives or their villages, nor did I attempt to establish any missions there. I did steal all of their treasure and burial grounds in the mid 1500s, but they did not seem to notice or care; they all still said they were 'pleased' or 'cautious' even after I looted everything.
Anyway, it's now year 1625 or so, and one of the tribes living near me suddenly declared war on me (no warning or demands of any kind) and starts attacking my settlements with Braves. The Braves don't have access to guns or horses, but they still seem to be vastly more powerful than my troops. Per the recommendation in the manual, I have a cannon garrison in most of my settlements for defense, plus whatever the French-sounding weakest level of fort is. That gives me 2 strength for the garrison + 50% for settlement defense + 30% for the fort = about 3.9 strength. Even though the braves only have a strength of 2 when attacking settlements, they can still surround any one of my settlements and burn it to the ground, because one garrison can't stand up to repeated attacks by 4-5 braves. Meanwhile, I can't really counter-attack the braves in any meaningful way, because they get anywhere from +70% to +120% attack and defense in their preferred terrain, which is, you know, the terrain that's most common in their region. Right, like they get these bonuses in "forest or hills" in a countryside that's basically nothing but hills and forest. So in the countryside, the braves are fighting at about 4 strength, and I don't have anything that can beat that -- the cannon attacks at 3, the musketeers attack at 3, the dragoons attack at 3, and even the curisasiers only attack at 4, and they are slow enough that they will get surrounded and overwhelmed just like the garrisons do. If I manage to get a training bonus on one of my units, it only gives them about +20% -- still not enough to really make a difference.
Now, I do have a small professional army with 5 cannons and 3 veteran soldiers that I invested in for fighting a European rival...but I've only got that one professional army. I can't have it simultaneously positioned to defend all 20 of my settlements, and it can't move across my republic fast enough to do anything about surprise attacks from the natives, even with roads and ships to speed their delivery. By the time it arrives, I've already lost 3-4 settlements.
So basically the problem I'm having is that I can't predict when or where the natives will attack, but I also can't afford to keep enough of a real army on hand to defend all of my settlements. It feels like I'm just randomly losing settlements because the game said so; I don't feel any sense of control or choice in the matter. I can buy one garrison cannon for each settlement, but one garrison cannon can't attack the natives and will inevitably be overwhelmed by the braves before reinforcements can arrive. I can't afford to buy significant numbers of guns at $1700 per cargo, nor can I buy significant numbers of veteran soldiers at $2000 per soldier, nor can I buy 2+ garrison cannons for each settlement at about $1500 per pair. I just don't have that kind of money, because the TAC limitations on what terrain can produce means that I'm only generating maybe $100 per settlement per turn, even after building farms and lodges and mines and investing in some expert craftsmen. I expect I will eventually start earning a little more money once I get some manufacturing going, but it's only 1625 -- it's not realistic to have a full industrial economy going yet. I'm playing on Explorer, or whatever the mode is that's one step easier than the middle difficulty of Conquistador. I'm sure I made a few mistakes along the way, but I'm not new to Civilization and I don't think my play is atrociously bad.
What am I missing here? What kinds of strategies are available if you want to keep peaceful relations with the natives rather than just conquering them all at the first opportunity?
