So you MUST attack the natives...

[radmod]

Even though I tend to point right of center politically, I consider one of the greatest evils of mankind was the thorough exploitation of Native Americans. In fact, I threw away the original colonization game because you were forced to fight the natives. (For example, I played a game where ALL I did was appease the natives and they still attacked me).

I had hoped the new one was better. Yet I went from being +8 and -6 with Montezuma (Pleased) to him declaring war on me (it jumped to -11 and -3 for war). So I take it it is impossible in this game to live at peace with the natives? That eventually you must fight them? BTW, I wasn't even building culture (except initially to get Minuit) and that I just recently got an Elder Statesman for free and was using him.

Is there any way, beyond perhaps insuring there is only a single settlement near each differing tribe to insure peace with the natives? And, yes, I've taken every "friendly relation" FF and given gifts to Montezuma.

Or is the game worthless in this regard?

 

[Wheldrake]

I find that with Champlain (French) as a leader, I am often able to avoid fighting the natives - ever. But there are some precautions to take:
- never build a city without paying for it.
- give the nearest native a gift of 200 or 300 gold from time to time.
- occasionally take a FF that improves your relations.
- accept when the natives offer to disband a city. Curiously, this appears to improve relations.
- check your relations with that nearby native tribe from time to time, and try to be sure the negative mods (like for attacking a competing euro civ the tribe was friends with) are balanced by positive mods.
- be sure to keep one or two soldiers garrisoned in all your cities. Natives seem to attack more frequently when some of your cities are undefended.
- don't capture enemy cities that have territory overlapping with that of native villages, just burn them to the ground. Taking over enemy cities seems to really anger the natives, since it treats it as if you'd stolen the territory without paying for it.

That should about cover it. Sometimes they'll attack anyway, but in many games I've been able to avoid conflict with natives entirely.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

 

[Dumanios]

Col Montezuma is the same as Montezuma,he'll attack you eventually.

 

[Greybriar]

I never *had* to attack the natives in the original Colonization. Nor have I yet *had* to attack the natives in this latest version. But then I nearly always play as the French.

 

[radmod]

I never *had* to attack the natives in the original Colonization.

Of course, when I say 'attack' I mean 'fight'. They always attack me. Perhaps you're just a better player, because in the original Col they would attack me even in the game where I did nothing (according to the Civilopedia) that would annoy them, gave them tons of gifts and took only leaders who helped relations.

- never build a city without paying for it.
Ok, never needed to - I was very careful to take spots that wouldn't cause that

- give the nearest native a gift of 200 or 300 gold from time to time.
I'm sure I didn't do that frequently enough - I only gave about 900 total.

- occasionally take a FF that improves your relations.
Every one that was available (except I am playing the English Adams - my original choice and didn't want to change since I'm still playtesting)

- accept when the natives offer to disband a city. Curiously, this appears to improve relations.
Now that IS very interesting. I was offered a settlement, but I didn't take it since in one previous game MonteZ claimed I stole land from him (I never did) so I presumed it was the settlement. It makes sense, since, IIRC, in the original Col native feelings were affected by your population relative to the distance to the natives. So if my big capital city is near a village it really annoys them, but if the settlement gets 'absorbed' by my city then my big city becomes farther away from them.

- check your relations with that nearby native tribe from time to time, and try to be sure the negative mods (like for attacking a competing euro civ the tribe was friends with) are balanced by positive mods.
Excepting gifts and the French, does anyone know how to even get positives initially (since FFs are far away)?

- be sure to keep one or two soldiers garrisoned in all your cities. Natives seem to attack more frequently when some of your cities are undefended.
Hmm, also very interesting. I was presuming that would annoy them. In the original Col, it was said that building stockades and forts would piss them off.

- don't capture enemy cities that have territory overlapping with that of native villages, just burn them to the ground. Taking over enemy cities seems to really anger the natives, since it treats it as if you'd stolen the territory without paying for it.
Haven't fought anyone so that's not a problem. In fact, one of the things I definitely do is arm natives near other (jerk) Europeans.

 

[Dale]

Using Jesuits to establish missions, and then making use of converts is a good way to get on the good side of nearby Indians.

I find though, that the best way to avoid Indians attacking me, is to make sure they hate other nations more. Bribing is the best solution here. I usually dedicate 10% of my trade takings to this.

 

[radmod]

Alright, then I have a few questions if somebody would enlighten me.

Is native feeling still affected by pop size and distance from/to city as in the original?
What about stockades and forts, do they have any effect?
What is the affect of culture? (I was hoping that my relative lack of culture, until recently, meant that would help keep them happy)
What if you trade/gift them items they specifically ask for - any 'feeling' affect vs. ones they don't ask for?
Do missions and/or "living with the natives" produce any effect?

Note: One thing I just discovered was that their money apparently isn't set. That is, I took guns and horses to a native village. In one trade, I traded both and they gave me all their 1500 gold. As a test, I went back a turn, and in the same diplomatic phase I traded them just the guns for 1000 (leaving them with 500). Then when I did the next trade (still same phase), I discovered that instead of the 500 they should've had left over, they had 1200 gold and they gave me over 600 for the horses.

Finally, my beef: I really object to the idea that a native leader can be "pleased" with me and then suddenly switch to war when I do nothing to piss him off. From a programmer's POV, I am presuming that native feeling is cumulative, that is if you are at -3 for 10 turns your total is -30 overall. Then when you reach a certain point, say -200, war is automatic, OR there is a random chance per turn beyond that number and based on how far beyond that number you are that war will occur. Likewise, the current feeling seems to be based entirely on recent actions, not overall. For example, within 10 turns or so, I got both Williams and Pocahontas and MonteZ went from Annoyed to Pleased. That just seems wrong to me.

 

[radmod]

I usually dedicate 10% of my trade takings to this.

Yeah, I was thinking of using the 10% rule but I just started too late for this game.

Another question I forgot to mention was: I seem to recall in other Civ games that keeping a good feeling with your opponents resulted in even better feelings, that is, for example, if you have a +1 for peace and you keep them happy, then it would eventually change to a +2 for peace. Anyone know if Col does the same?

 

[radmod]

then making use of converts

Care to explain that? Right now, when I get a convert I usually train them in the village (vanilla) so I don't have to do all that walking. Quite frankly I usually do well enough that anybody but a specialist is a hindrance and, mathematically, it's usually worth the time to train somebody than to use them right off the bat (e.g. even if it takes 20 turns to train a Fisherman and get him to a city, in the long run it's worth it).

 

[Wheldrake]

- accept when the natives offer to disband a city. Curiously, this appears to improve relations.
Now that IS very interesting. I was offered a settlement, but I didn't take it since in one previous game MonteZ claimed I stole land from him (I never did) so I presumed it was the settlement. It makes sense, since, IIRC, in the original Col native feelings were affected by your population relative to the distance to the natives. So if my big capital city is near a village it really annoys them, but if the settlement gets 'absorbed' by my city then my big city becomes farther away from them.

This looks like a really major point. In the game I'm playing right now (AoD2v1.09/Champlain/Patriot/huge faireweather map) I saw a -3 negative relations modifier disappear when Montezuma offered to abandon the nearest city, and I accepted. That is the single largest bonus of all the actions I could take to avoid conflict.

I also noticed that Montezuma was at war with the Portuguese... so even though I had no military units anywhere near the Portos, I declared war with thelm, simply to curry favor with the natives.

Note that generating culture expnds your boundaries, meaning that the natives will consider those new territories like *stealing* their land, if those squares were part of their territory.

Forts and stockades... I've no idea if those actually influence anything. I think not, since after accepting the FF that gives free stockades in all my cities, my relations with Montezuma were the same.

Best advice though is to keep at least 1-2 soldiers (not dragoons, soldiers) garrisoned in every city, as soon as possible. This seems to discourage the natives from attacking, and even if they do decide to declare war, you have a far better chance of surviving with most or all of your empire intact.

Also: forget vanilla. Play using the AoD2 mod, it's far, far, far superior to playing with vanilla, even with the recent patch.

Cheers, --- Wheldrake

 

[radmod]

Well, I took everybody's advice as to accepting a Settlement and went back to when it was offered.
End Result:
+1 for years of Peace
+3 from FFs
-6 for "way of life"

Taking the settlement completely wiped out the -6! (And to top it off, I got Pocahontas next turn giving me +7 overall AND Montezuma gave me some ore for being Pleased)

 

[Molybdeus]

You can get on the good side of the natives by trading them guns and bribing them to go to war with a rival colony. That will usually win you an ally for the rest of the game.

However it's important to note that views of Native Americans have always been either black or white. Once they were portrayed as sub-human and all of their good qualities ignored. Today they are portrayed in an equally unrealistic manner; that of the simple and good noble savage who lived in harmony with nature. The reality is that some tribes also massacred defenseless white settlers and intentionally started forest fires. Additionally, not all tribes and settlers hated each other. I'm partially descended from the Ojibwe tribe which got on reasonably well with the white settlers, and were actually protected by the settlers against government betrayal of a treaty at one point.

Just treat the natives as you would any other civ. It's no more or less ethical to kill Native Americans than it is to kill Russians or Chinese in Civ4.

 

[Esckey]

Natives don't like most terran improvments. I think they only accept roads, and really dispise clear cutting. Base this on reloading a game from the beginning and not using terran improvments the local natives didn't attack me till later on and that time it was for a good cause.


But keep in mind this(the whole going from +10 to total war in one turn for absolutly no reason) is a problem with all the Civilization games

 

[radmod]

But keep in mind this(the whole going from +10 to total war in one turn for absolutly no reason) is a problem with all the Civilization games

Amen, brother!

I especially remember in the old days where that would happen or where the pedia said that you couldn't enter opposing territory without declaring war but they did it all the time (especially before they attacked you). I especially loved the old your battleship gets killed by a sailboat!

 

[popejubal]

Using Jesuits to establish missions, and then making use of converts is a good way to get on the good side of nearby Indians.

I find though, that the best way to avoid Indians attacking me, is to make sure they hate other nations more. Bribing is the best solution here. I usually dedicate 10% of my trade takings to this.

That's hysterical. Your missionaries are devoted to Christ, but your tithes go to Mars!

That is an excellent strategy, though. In Civ IV too, the best way to keep a warmonger off your back is to make sure he's busy with a more appealing target.

 

[popejubal]

But keep in mind this(the whole going from +10 to total war in one turn for absolutly no reason) is a problem with all the Civilization games

I disagree that this is a problem. That's mostly because I don't see countries as going to war only for reasons of animosity. Think about why you are going to war in any strategy game. Do you really hate John Adams? Or are you trying to eliminate a rival and gain some promising territory that you can use to further your own goals?

If Monty likes you fairly well, but you don't have any guns in your settlements and you have no soldiers stationed anywhere, you've just made yourself a very attractive target. He still likes your people, but he'd like them better if they were his people instead.

If you keep in mind that you need to balance strength and diplomacy, then you'll be fine. If you trade guns, tools and horses to tribes that are not your immediate neighbors, then you can even get a strong advantage from this by waiting for the locals to attack you and then taking their land as well as gaining valuable experience for both more highly trained troops and Great General points.

 

[Esckey]

Yea if you do a good job you can avoid it, but some times (like in my last Civ4 game) you can be best friends for life, support all war efforts, provide men, money, goods, retake their cities and give them to them, and once you've finnally defeated the aggrressor your best friend declares war on you the very next turn.

Sometimes the AI is just out to get you and there isn't anything you can do to prevent that.

 

[Arralen]

Forts and stockades... I've no idea if those actually influence anything.

In the original game, it's the armed units which really piss of the natives, not the buildings. Yet, you have to equip some soldiers unless you have Paul Revere which lets your working colonists pick up rifles to defend the colony, because the natives sometimes just "go wild" and come over to raid you, only to cool down some turns later. (which is not that unrealistic and somewhat historically founded).

Btw., I never attack the natives on my own, and very seldomly have to fight them off. Most things have been mentioned, but I think I should stress that trading, but without haggling, with them does help quite a bit, too. Oh, just do not sell them worthless trade goods for premium prices all too often .. at some point they seem to notice that glass trinkets aren't that valuable ...

 

[PrinzMyshkin]

Never attack them when I play vs AI, but I trade with them a lot. Must attack for early XP vs humans.

 

[EricTred]

I never *had* to attack the natives in the original Colonization. Nor have I yet *had* to attack the natives in this latest version. But then I nearly always play as the French.

Why would you EVER play the French, they cant win wars by themselfs?

Like General Patton once said " I'd rather have a german division in front of me than a French one behind me"