Add native Ambassy card for specific factions

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

Hello guys,

Those past few days i have been trying quite a lot of things with Natives, and sadly it’s very hard to almost impossible to have natives centered strategies outside of one civ : the Incas.

The main reasons being that most map will provide one tribe to ally with, leaving you without a native composition to go for / invest into. Incas on the other end can ship the native ambassy, and ally with 3 tribes in the process (mapuche, zapotecs and caraibs).

This allow them to both recruit a complete roaster of unit, but also to use card like native treaties more effectively. If you are looking for a run down of that inca strategy btw, here it is : FUN : Incas Natives rush ! - No Idle TC - Age of Empire 3 DE

I would love to see such card being implemented on other factions that are supposed to have strong connections with natives.

I’m mainly thinking about 3 factions here : France, Haudenosaunee, and China. All 3 have cards that heavily buff said natives, and thus could be inclined to ally with them. I would also love to see this addition on Spain and Portugal, mainly to synergise with Mexico and Brazil revolts.

We could for example have France allying with Huron (they already have shipments for them), Cherokee and Comanche.
Haude with Cree, Cherokee and Huron (once again, as their shipments suppose a link already) even if i think replacing Cherokee for Cheyenne and Huron for Nookta would be more interesting.
China with Zen, Shaolin and Udasi.
Spain Mayas, Seminole, Apache.
Portugal Tupis, Sufis, Sohei.

Without being gamebreaking, this could be an easy to implement feature that opens up some fun strategies centered around natives and adds some variety!

What’s your opinion on this idea?

2

I think it would kinda take away some uniqueness of the Inca if too many civilisations would have it but I could see that for some.
The game could definitely need some more verity for minor civilisations and this could be a nice way of shining a light on them.
Some natives really need their special upgrade like the Rattan Shields get a 50% attack upgrade. So they just might be useless without.
Maybe less allies but also ship a monastery wagon.

3

I agree it would take away a bit of uniqueness from incas, but at the same time a core mechanic of the game shouldn’t be exclusive to one faction. I think adding it to only a few factions is striking a middle ground :slight_smile:

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4

The inca mechanic should indeed be imported to other natives, as they lack Mercenaries, and this could be a good alternative.

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5

They also leak Wood and Natives cost additional Wood.

6

Then you have a problem with the original Inca card as a viable strategy, not addressing what OP is suggesting…Going for this strat is always optional.

I agree with the proposal, I think that the way Devs implemented this to Incas was brilliant and should be expanded to the civs you mentioned that historically had similar dynamics with natives. Natives cards almost exclusively see use on treaty, but not much on supremacy and this could definitively fix it.

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7

We already have a tread ongoing about potential Native Tradepost buffs.
The problem is that getting more XP (and later resources) is more helpful than what the natives offer.

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In fact, about two months ago I discovered that Inca strategy and I was perfecting it, if you send yourself a shipment, which now I don’t remember its name well, it gives you a drip of 0.6 exp / s for each tambo, it’s like building 1 churches European for every tambo, so it pays off pretty well.

1 Like