You obviously don’t play treaty which is what he is talking about. If the Lokata didn’t get the ability to build walls that would be really bad in treaty except Andes or a map like that. Walls are a must in treaty games otherwise people can just easily ignore your forces and destroy your eco. Players already try to do that when you have walls. Just think how annoying a shogun would be if your didn’t even get walls to stop him from riding into your base as he pleases.
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Maybe they can be upgraded like the Atlantean Heroes in Age of Age of Mythology: clicking a button while the unit is selected. This can be done individually and in groups.
Honestly, I’m not overly picky about how the Warrior-Making Ceremony happens.
Treaty is something else entirely. If walls need to be enabled in Age 5 through some sort of upgrade, then fine. But designing a defensive civ without walls is far more interesting a playstyle that forces people to think outside the box than just giving them the tools to wall up in a box in another way again.
I have always enjoyed playing the Lakota as a cavalry man, but I have felt that more and more their unique playstyle is being turned into more European playstyle. One of the things that I enjoyed so much about it was that it was to bait or get your enemy to come onto your territory and into your tipis to be able to crush them, although it was overpowered.
That playstyle always made it feel like the Battle of Little Bighorn so I am curious though to the idea of making the tipi just an economic building and not having a military bonus. I might be totally off basis but I’m curious about the history and culture.
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The tikčeya, as it’s actually called, is purely a symbol of home life and peace to the Lakota. It is not a symbol of war. It signifies our existence here on Grandmother Earth and is our connection to the stars, where the spirits come from. The tikčeya is the bottom half of an hourglass symbol that represents our philosophy of As above, so below - what we do on Earth is reflected in the heavens, and what happens in the heavens is reflected on Earth.
Tȟipi is a word that means “to live,” or “place where living happens”. The house you live in is tȟipi, the building you work at is tȟipi, the rock you take shelter under if you’re caught in a rainstorm while out hiking is tȟipi.
The more aggressive interpretation of plains culture is founded with the Comanche, who did have a much more bloodthirsty outlook on life and the home. Boys were warriors from birth, girls were generally only used to make more boys. The Comanche are the people who would better represent the current playstyle and culture that the Lakota have in the game now - the Lakota only ever fought to protect Hesapa, the Black Hills, and our hunting grounds. The Comanche are the ones who wanted to expand their empire - the Lakota wanted simply to tȟipi on their lands.
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Hello Ana! it’s always good to hear from your ideas.
What you are proposing is to create a proper metafaction for Tortuamerica (never heard the term) like the ones that already exists for European, African, Asian and Revolutionary civs. I think that’s a fair point.
I also see you have changed your original Lakota proposal.
Regarding your Elite warriors, I think you should go for either and atlantean like upgrade (you pay resources to elevate the unit to a new status) or just use the already stablished promotion system. I’ll rather keep it simple and just use the promotion system and see if it is posible to add an aditional effect at promotion 3.
While its tempting to turn Lakota into a full cavarly units, I think that would create a lot of readibility and balance problems. Not even civs that share their archetype of nomadic horseback people, like the Huns or the Mongols are to striped of infantry.
Unfortunately, At the end of the day, Age of Empires is a game about virtual tin soldiers killing each other.
I got an idea and a question for you. I want to steamline tech trees across many civs. For example, I want every civ to have a Warrior/Soldier type of unit. The Europeans have the musketeer, the hauds have the Tomahawk, Ethiopians have the gascenia…Do you think Lakota could have something like this? Even as a strong melee unit with a timed range attack (like the Royal Musketeer pistol shot)
The “Sioux” in TAD were meant to be played with about 90% cavalry and they were largely fine there. They were hard to play, yes, but that isn’t a problem - some civs are meant to be harder than other civs.
Currently, the devs are trying to push the Lakota towards the generic European unit comps, and it’s taking away everything that made the Lakota unique in the first place. Why should people want to play the Lakota when all they do currently is something European civs do already, but worse and without the ability to scale into the mid-late game very well?
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Good job for the rework, although I make a point:
- Native American societies in general displayed a variety of social structures, there is no consensus among scholars that the Lakotas were particularly matriarchal, and claims about specific historical figures such as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are subject to debate and differing interpretations. What’s more, in some Iroquois tribes, it is said that women had a little more influence in politics.
I… what?
I am Lakota. Our oyate are led by old women, our tribal councils are made up of women. Our leaders are predominately women.
In the old days, a man moved into a woman’s tipi when they got married, and he became part of her oyate, not the other way around. If a woman wanted a divorce, she needed only put his stuff outside the tipi and that was that. If a man wanted a divorce, they had to mediate with the rest of the oyate about it.
The elder Councils that led the bands and tribes were and are made up of the leaders of the various oyate in the area - as I said, they are led by old women.
The Haudenosaunee are quite explicitly led by Clan Mothers, which can be seen today and is even explained on their websites. That’s not even a possibility, that is fact.
“Scholarly” sources on Native Americans mean very little unless it’s directly from us. “Scholarly” sources say the Lakota have been on the prairie for 3-400 years at best, but our own religious practices and stories can easily be traced back to about 2.5k years out on the prairie. We follow the stars around the prairie and I know people who still know the old paths, and it’s all based on the stars, which is easily calculated backwards through precession.
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Sitting Bull held the titles of Blotaxhunka, Itanchan, Heyoka, and that of a respected elder. None of his titles included leadership of the entire tribe, only of his own band. Crazy Horse’s titles were solely Blotahunka. Crazy Horse created his own Akicita, and it is that Akicita that followed him - no more, no less. He led no band, much less a tribe.
These aren’t “interpretations,” that’s literally what those titles mean. Neither held the title of Itanchan Thanka or Naca.
You know who did hold the title of Itanchan Thanka and Naca? Chief Eagle Woman.
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I only gave information that I had read at the time from various sources. I respect your view as a Lakota descendant of the history of your ancestors.
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These things aren’t mutually exclusive. The bulk of the Lakota population did move onto the prairie relatively recently, but they adopted elements of the culture and religion of the original inhabitants.
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@AnaWinters , of the Lakota and Haudenosaunee units already present in the game, who should be women or a variation villager-like of both genders?
The Healer should be both, the Tokala Soldier should be both, the Warrior should be both. The explorer of both would be more flavorful if it was defaulted to a woman.
The rest of the units I’d leave as-is because they’re already a work of fiction anyway and not based on anything from either culture anyway. The Forest Prowler… maybe.
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