Overview
So the TLDR of this concept is to:
- Create a baseline foundation for Tortuamerican civs, in order to be more faithful to the cultural divides between Tortuamerica and Mesoamerica
- Adjust the Lakota and Haudenosaunee to share a basic roster of units and buildings
- Introduce the Iron Confederacy and the Comanche as two new civilizations
Shared Foundation
The four of these civs would share a basic selection of buildings;
- Warhut (unchanged)
- Corral (unchanged)
- Dock (unchanged)
- Town Center (minus the Haudenosaunee)
- Three Sisterās Garden (a farm for 10 that can swap between wood and food)
- Trade House (shared by all, but each has their own unique take on the Trade House)
- This is how the Native gain access to Mercenaries
- Community Plaza (reworked)
- I will go into depth on the rework of the Community Plaza further down, when I explain the general military of the nations, which is where this will become relevant.
- Native Embassy
- Walls
- For the Haudenosaunee and Iron Confederacy; the Lakota and Comanche cannot build walls
The four of these civs would share a basic selection of units;
- Bare Bowman
- Bare Spearman
- Green Lancer (lancer cavalry)
- Green Mounted Bow
- Villager (except for the Lakota)
- Medicine Healer (a model of both male and female versions of this would be ideal)
- Starting Hero
- Green Spear
- Alarm unit
- Green Bow
- Alarm unit
Beyond this, most things for each civ would become fairly unique.
the Lakota
Because this one is dear to me (and the most complex) Iām starting here.
Unique Buildings
The Lakota economy is, by far, the most complicated of the four Nations for two simple facts: First off, we are the only civ that canāt mine in the game. The Haudenosaunee, Iron Confederacy, and Comanche are all capable of mining - hell, the Comanche are gonna be all over that sh!t with their gold-heavy military. Secondly, the Lakota canāt use the Three Sisterās Garden without first sending a card, a trait they share with the Comanche. The Iron Confederacy and the Haudenosaunee are both capable of using it from the beginning.
- Trade House
- The Lakota put their Trade House on mines for optimal usage, gaining a % off coin cost to techs in the Trade house when it is on a mine. Within a radius of the Trade houseā¦
- Buffalo Pound
- The Buffalo Pound enables the Lakota to hunt endlessly throughout the gameā¦ at a cost. The only manner in which the Lakota can collect coin is by hunting, during which Khuwa will convert a portion of the food they collect into gold (or theyāll generate a small trickle of gold, whichever the gameās engine can do), but it will be small and nearly unnoticeable. Only be collecting near a Trade House will this gold income become substantial enough to be viable. Both the Buffalo Pound and the Trade House start with a build limit of 1 in Age 1 and gain +1 build limit with each age up.
- Tipi
- The Tipi has a small economic aura to nearby Khuwa, to increase yield amounts from natural resources, as well as increase the damage and health of Khuwa. It is purely an economic building, and no longer pertains to the Lakotaās military.
So, while the Lakota economy may be more complicated than the rest of the three nations, it is also the simplest - Your goal as the Lakota is to hunt everything on the map, because your units cost a ridiculous amount of food, your Khuwa are more expensive villagers, and your buildings have half the normal wood cost, but cost an equal amount of food. You want all the food you can hunt.
Unique Units
The Lakota have four unique units, and a handful that are available from Cards, Age-Ups, and expensive techs, alongside their unique Villager and Hero.
- Khuwa
- Literally meaning āHunter,ā the Lakota lack normal Villagers, which are replaced by mounted villagers that can move faster, gather faster, and have a stronger ranged attack that they will prefer over melee. On the other hand, Khuwa are significantly more expensive, have a lower build limit, and gather slower from buildings than normal Villagers. Due to the Lakota not having the ability to build walls and their economy relying on spreading out, Khuwa are more prepared to deal with the possibility of having to fight than other villager units. Khuwa have more upgrades available to them than other villagers.
- Heyoka
- The Lakota hero is the Heyoka, the Contrarian Clown. ###### ### horse backwards, throwing her lance at enemies, and smacking people in melee with her bow, she is the Thunder-Dreaming pariah-hero of her people. She deals melee damage at a range and ranged damage in melee. Bearing the markings of Wakinyan, the Thunderbird, her job is to remind people that all of this thing we call life is just a game and not to take it too seriously. With the ability to convert human Treasure Guardians to her side and an aura that grants nearby allies +0.1 melee, siege, and ranged armor, the Heyoka looks to defend her people and her land.
- Warriors
- The Lakota special units consist of the Kitfox Soldiers, the Crow Riders, the War Badgers, and the White Marked. All are cavalry units - the Kitfox is a melee lancer that can dismount and become a powerful pike, the Crow Rider is a powerful cavalry archer, the War Badger is a sneaky cavalry unit with an AoE attack, and the White Marked is an all-around powerful cavalry unit with an exceptional siege attack. The White Marked is unlocked naturally in Age 3, the Crow Rider is given by the Warchief on aging-up, the War Badger is unlocked with cards in Age 2, and the Kitfox Soldier is produced through Plaza upgrades, requiring the conversion of any number of White Marked, Crow Rider, or War Badgers to be present on the Plaza to acquire.
Community Plaza
With the introduction of the Lakota Akicita, now is a good time to introduce the reworked Community Plaza and how it will effect the and form the center of these four nations.
It is important to keep in mind that Villagers need only be tasked on the Plaza for the duration of the Ceremony - after the Ceremony is complete, the Plaza need not be used, unless you want to change the active Ceremony. As a result, however, Ceremonies take much longer to activate than they do currently.
Warrior-Making Ceremony
There is an important āCeremonyā relevant to the Akicita - the Warrior-Maker Ceremony. This is done to acquire the strongest unit from each nation, and is only done through the conversion of other, civ-unique warriors on the Plaza.
The Lakota can create the versatile Kitfox Soldier, the Haudenosaunee can create the stealthy Bone Carrier, the Iron Confederacy can create the fierce White Bear and the Comanche can create the swift Wolf Riders.
Each nation has a collection of units they can create, based on the shared, generic units, that are uniquely available to them through cards, poltician age-ups, or are simply unlocked through ages.
Each Nation has four unique empowerments relating to the Warrior-Making Ceremony: These are ways of choosing which of your Warrior Societies are the dominant society - for the time being.
- As an example, when the Lakota elevate their War Badgers to the Lead Akicita position, War Badgers will gain additional health, damage, and a larger AoE attack. When the Kitfox is elevated, it will gain additional health, damage, and gains the Deflection Aura. When the Crow Rider is elevated, it gains additional health, damage, and fires much faster. When the White Marked is elevated, it gains additional health, damage, and a bonus into buildings on its siege attack, along with more range.
Healing Ceremony
All units near the Plaza are swiftly healed over time, with the speed of healing increased per villager tasked on the Plaza.
Grandmother Gift's Ceremony
For the next X seconds, increased per villager used in the ceremony, yield amount is increased from all natural resources.
Further Ceremonies
The ceremonies needs more thought put into it than I can do for the moment, however, but the general idea of how they would work in the new update is solid and clear - You task X villagers onto the Plaza, choose a Ceremony, and the Villagers will perform said Ceremony over the next 30-60 seconds, and the effects of the Ceremony go into effect when the Villagers are finished with it. Medicine Healers may replace villagers over time, but no nation may have more than 10 Medicine Healers and 10 villagers on their Plaza at a time.
It is a device for planning ahead, not for making on-the-spot decisions, with the exception of the Alarm Ceremony, which would grant a burst of Green Spears and Green Bows at the Town Center.
Khuwa are not more effective at the Plaza than normal villagers.
the Haudenosaunee
Comparatively simple to the Lakota, the Haudenosaunee focus on wood as hard as the Lakota focus on food. From villagers that cost wood (Hi, India!) to buildings that are naturally stronger and more expensive, the Haudenosaunee revolve around maintaining their forests and trees and - most importantly - growing their own wood whenever and wherever they can. With a focus on range and defense, the Haudenosaunee will turtle up and defend their area, but do not think they cannot attack - with a Clan Mother who can hide her allies under brush and quickly heal on the battlefield, the Haudenosaunee focus on stealth raiding and attacking from the shadows whenever and wherever they can.
Unique Buildings
The Haudenosaunee center on two buildings, and donāt have a focus on their Trade House, as the Lakota do.
- Longhouse
- The Haudenosaunee feature a unique Town Center, granting them 50 population on its own, and no other buildings can grant population for the Haudenosaunee. As they are unable to build another until Age 3, they will hug this building and defend it. Three Sisterās Gardens near the Longhouse will enjoy an increased gather rate when near Longhouses.
- Tooāte Lodge
- A relatively small, minor defensive building with the ability to garrison units to increase its attack, the Tooāte Lodge will spawn trees over time near it. With a card, they can train Villagers as well. While gathering wood near a Tooāte Lodge within the trade radius of a Trade House, Haudenosaunee villagers will generate a small income of food as well.
The Haudenosaunee economy focuses primarily on gathering wood and maintaining a steady source of wood around themselves.
Unique Units
The Haudenosaunee have the unique ability of having Warrior Society units that wield powerful European technologies, though they have less than the other nations.
- Clan Mother
- While not typically known as a warrior, the Haudenosaunee Clan Mother scouts for her people to find the best place to build their Longhouses. She fights with a rifle, earned in combat from her younger days, and can recruit human Treasure Guardians and to heal her allies quickly, she is a powerful defensive hero. While near allies, she will increase their maximum health, and can be carded to increase her own by a massive amount and grant her both the Deflection Aura as well as the ability to temporarily hide all units around her, even from āSees-Stealthā type units - but if any of these units move, the camouflage will break for all of them, and lasts but a short while.
- Warriors
- the Haudenosaunee feature only three Warrior Society units - the Big Hollow, a pair of soldiers arming a cannon, the Mourning Bowman, a powerful archer, and the Hollow Scout, a swift warrior armed with a rifle with a large LoS.
- Additionally, the Haudenosaunee have a mantlet and a ram, but these are not considered viable units for the Warrior-Making Ceremony.
Iron Confederacy and the Comanche
So, unfortunately, Iām sort of running out of room and ideas at the moment, but wanted to make a shortlist of what I believe would be the ideal usage for the creation of the Iron Confederacy and the Comanche.
Iron Confederacy
Comprised of both woodland and prairie nations, the Iron Confederacy would provide a unique angle to create a culture explicitly out of pieces of other cultures - in this case, the Nakoda, the Anishinaabe, and the Cree would be the foundation of the Iron Confederacy, which would allow for usage of both the current Lakota + Haudenosaunee building assets to be used in their creation, and they would uniquely be capable of taking advantage of buildings like the Haudenosaunee Tooāte Lodge and the Lakota Buffalo Pound, although likely not to the same extent as their cousins.
Comanche
I have long believed that the current gameplay of the Lakota would be better suited to just about any other prairie nation out there - the Lakota, at their heart, have always played a defensive role in military excursions, and abhor war to the point where we entirely lacked gods of war or battle in our pantheon until late into fighting with Americans, at which point both Sungmanito, the Wolf, and Anwi, the Sun Chief, were prayed to in times of battle. Neither were known to be associated with war prior to this.
The Comanche would take over most of the current Lakota gameplay, from their heavy rush-focus and early-game focus to their focus on tipis, with Comanche tipis being primarily offensive tools as opposed to the more defensive economic usage the Lakota have for them.
Along with the ability to mine, the Comanche would be more of a callback to TADās Sioux than anything else and allow the Lakota to better inhabit a space reflective of their own history. The gameplay of the Lakota simply fits a much more aggressive people, and the Comanche are exactly that.
Final Thoughts
Although the Iron Confederacy and the Comanche would require much more work to become functional, both civs would be fairly simple to create and the Comanche in particular would bring a level of name-recognition that a Native American DLC would require the most, and the Iron Confederacy would certainly be capable of backing that up as a secondary civ.
If the full work was put into it, the AI for the Lakota now could be re-skinned and given to the Comanche without changing much beyond his name, as Quanah Parker would do much the same thing that Gall does now. This would give space and time to rework the Lakota AI to a much more suitable personality, one that better suits the new goals of the reworked Lakota - Chief Eagle Woman, giving AoE3 its fourth female personality.
Of the four civs present, the Lakota may have been the most matriarchal amongst them, and having a male calling the shots would have been unusual for the time. (No, people like Sitting Bull were not leaders of anything beyond their own bands - Eagle Woman led multiple tribes, not just a small slice of a single tribe, like Sitting Bull did, and Crazy Horse never led even a band.)
The leader of the Iron Confederacy may require some digging - the descendants of Poundmaker are already displeased with his portrayal in the Civilization series, so unless the devs were willing to understand what differences would be wanted, Poundmaker is likely not a good choice.
If youāve taken the time to read through this in its entirety - ####### This took three days to type up and has been sitting in my active tabs for far too long. Thoughts are much appreciated!