What is the deal with Chief Powhatan

[Bigfoot3814]

Maybe I'm missing something totally obvious somewhere, but I really can't figure it out. Having Chief Powhatan in your congress means +50% attack for converted natives. But converted natives have an attack power of 0. They also can't be made into soldiers. If they could be, this guy would be a powerful congress member, but I don't get it. Can someone please explain to me?

 

[craigdh]

From what I can tell, it's a garbage FF. I've never not skipped him.

 

[dalgo]

I have never used Chief Powhatan either but in theory he could be of some use. Although a converted native cannot attack he does have 2 so + 50% makes 3 and he can defend. If you place him on a hill or in a forest he gets a defensive bonus and if you fortify him he gets that 25% bonus as well. That might be enough to injure enemy attackers or at least slow them down.

As I say I have not tried this.

Edit: Come to think of it, the Constitution Freedom 'Right to Bear Arms' (+1 to colonists) probably applies here too.

 

[Bigfoot3814]

I have never used Chief Powhatan either but in theory he could be of some use. Although a converted native cannot attack he does have 2 so + 50% makes 3 and he can defend. If you place him on a hill or in a forest he gets a defensive bonus and if you fortify him he gets that 25% bonus as well. That might be enough to injure enemy attackers or at least slow them down.

Are you sure? The Civopedia says they have a strength of 0.

 

[dalgo]

Are you sure? The Civopedia says they have a strength of 0.

It also says a veteran soldier has a strength of 0 too, but that is the unit definition, not the profession. The Civopedia is confusing but if you look at an actual convert you will see he does indeed have a strength of two. I also tested 'right to bear arms' and it does increase his strength to three so with Chief Powhatan he would presumably have strength four.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

It also says a veteran soldier has a strength of 0 too, but that is the unit definition, not the profession. The Civopedia is confusing but if you look at an actual convert you will see he does indeed have a strength of two. I also tested 'right to bear arms' and it does increase his strength to three so with Chief Powhatan he would presumably have strength four.

I will understand you if you think that I only complain about Civ II, but I do think the Colonizopedia is quite bad. It needs a thorough overhaul in all respects, from the way information is given to the "history" of the various colonizing powers. The former is very badly organised. The latter looks rather as if Firaxis retained someone from Bovine College, Hicksville, Alabama to write them. The French, it seems, were basically a bunch of sneering snobs who, however, possessed a certain ability to bamboozle the natives. The English, according to the Firaxis genius, sucked throughout history until Margaret Thatcher "saved" them from "socialism". As for the dutch, the genius seems quite at sea what to say about them except that they were not quite a kigndom and that they were good with money. Oh yes, and they were Protestants.

 

[Bigfoot3814]

It also says a veteran soldier has a strength of 0 too, but that is the unit definition, not the profession. The Civopedia is confusing but if you look at an actual convert you will see he does indeed have a strength of two. I also tested 'right to bear arms' and it does increase his strength to three so with Chief Powhatan he would presumably have strength four.

Aha! I was indeed mistaken about their strength value. Thanks. The Civopedia doesn't make that very clear.

You still can't give them guns though, so I guess you're just stuck using them without weapons. 4 isn't terrible though. If you had a lot you could do some damage with them.

 

[dalgo]

I doubt that you would actually plan it as a strategy but if you ran a lot of missions and weren't able to train all your converts then you could scatter them along the coast to make it a bit harder for the invading troops. However being colonists there would be little point in stacking them together as once one was killed the rest would be captured.

 

[Dale]

CN's will "take up arms" if fortified in a colony with spare guns. They use their strength then.

 

[Antilogic]

CN's will "take up arms" if fortified in a colony with spare guns. They use their strength then.

Will they actually arm themselves with guns? This has "code oversight" written all over it (if they can).

 

[Trachmyr]

I didn't think that CN could take up guns to auto defend a colony... if so, that give Powhatan some use in vanilla.

Personally, I use him a lot as my own XML mods allow CN to be armed and make other combat changes:

Veterns, Regulars, Artillary, Armed Braves, Armed Mounted Braves get +1 Strength. Scouts get a good bonus to withdraw chance, Converted Natives get +25% terrain/feature defense & attack, Petty Criminals start off with that pillage improvement promotion and Cannon can fortify (and be transported by Caravan). This allows for more "variety" to combat than vanilla or what's in most mods.

 

[Karstedt]

I've used the big chief to my advantage several times. I never paid attention to the +1 from right to bear arms stacking though. But if you are playing with a lot of CN's they will easily go 1 for 1 with any attacker. I ran into the stacking problem the first time I did it, and that does suck. But I've sent my army of natives out as pickets to absorb attackers to great effect. However, this would never work against a human because they would just avoid attacking them. But the stupid AI will often lose 2 units to each of my knife wielding natives. With a defense bonus of 25% for fortifying, and 25%-75% for terrain, they are typically ST 4.5-6. Pretty good for a throwaway picket that requires no resources.

 

[Apocalypto]

Actually, on the harder difficulty levels, why would you want every FF to be great? Think about it. On hard levels, it's nearly impossible to get all of them. In other words, it's great to have some "less useful ones" to sacrifice to the AI. Chief Pow falls into that category, for me at least.