People do not build TP for researching current techs.
How can we sure that people would do if there are new techs?
For European civs, there are already 18 kinds of buildings which making the 6*3 table full.
I sure do get the techs, just I donât rush to get them, since they arenât anything groundbreaking for the majority of them. But some of the techs are pretty good.
Some additional ideas:
- Increase number of native units as you age up in fortress age by 33%, industrial age by another 33% and imperial age by another 33%.
- Allow training the units at barracks / stables / castles, according to unit type.
- Allow trading posts to call some sort of minuteman, to defend the trading post from raiding parties. These could be a party of units from that trading post but which lose hp after a set amount of time.
- Increase the HP of those trading posts by default (and not of the trade route posts).
2 Likes
Many of the native techs are great though. Like the Najo shepherding upgrade, the Zen upgrade for discounting vertancy costs, Cherokee basket weaving or the Houron fishing upgrade.
Though some are just useless like the fasting upgrade 10% bonus gathering for -40% villiager hpâŠNever in a million years.
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I wouldnât say many. Itâs more like few that are universally useful. Some are useful in niche contexts. More than half are useless though. Even top tier civs have questionable tech. The only differences between S tier and D tier is how many useless upgrades they have.
Take for example Seminole. Both of their upgrades are of questionable use. The guerilla war thing looks great on paper, until you realize a bunch of cavalry can shut you down. The +15% bonus damage to archers is essentially only useful for the Seminole units themselves and for Japan and British, since they are the only one which have late game useful archers. Even in this context,500 resources for 15% attack is barely worth it. Maybe if it was 20% attack, or 15% attack and 15% HP. So basically, you take Seminole if you like them (like I do), you play Brits or Japan, you play against a civ that cannot reliably spam HC.
On the other end thereâs Cheyenne, which for 300 resources gives you like 6000 food. Their cav training time is ok, most civs can benefit from it. Their native unit upgrade is sort of meh.
In the long run it would be fine. In treaty if it works.
They donât seem like bad improvements to me, itâs just not short-term practices. What is sought is that the native TPs are profitable from the beginning of the game as well as the route TPs.
Youâre forgetting cav archers and the like so Ottoman, Russian, Lakota etc, Also mantlets.
Spanish and Port crossbows are cheap and spammable, and they along with germans (who may want to save coin for dopps) have papal guard.
And the sharktoof bowman are great siegers because they have range resist unlike the melee resist of heavy infantry which you would pair them with.
You realise that natives are usually beneficial to the type of map theyâre onâŠCheyenne is an obvious example there are lots of open plains in maps theyâre in. So cav tactics reign supreme even cav poor civs like USA will be encouraged to get them so cheyenne is really good for them but theyâre good for any civ that gets them.
Perhaps another simple solution would be to simply reduce the cost of all the native TP upgrades by ~200w. Usually you would be willing to pay the high cost to get one of those upgrades, but the entry cost of building the TP prevents you from doing so. Simply reducing the cost of the upgrades might make them much more viable.
I also like @Moonshadow7475 's idea of allowing native training out of stable and barracks. Iâve always disliked using native embassies. Itâs just another hotkey to map and keep track of, and the macro factor definitely disincentivizes me from training native units.
200 wood might be too much seeing how some upgrades are very good (like Cherokee giving 4 villagers).
Another idea: trading posts refund 50/100 wood upon being build. Think of it like a welcoming gift from the natives or something.
I think they should Shadow tech like with African civs. That would make them more interesting and less of an burden on anyone eco.
(Also not sure why African get that bonus for free)
3 Likes
I think two main problems are that a lot of native posts are hard to defend because of their spawn and that many natives are pretty useless for the investment. In addition, I think more card upgrades should affect them, like for example the Asian civsâ.
There are a couple of ways to bypass that:
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having a new window just like age of empires 2 (which wouldnât hurt the game because our buildings UI is cluttered due full grid).
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Move embassy to a wagon/travois unit. Which also would be ok since all Euro and Asian civs get access to it AFTER having a Native trading post. For all purposes Embassies would be available from Town centers and Native posts.
Iâm still by the side that having cheaper trading post for settlements is a key for balancing minor natives. It would still count as a TP and would make room to improve politicians.
I personally think that it would be rather confusing for new players and on certain circumstances because itâs a random âgive backâ for no reason at all.
If you get half back than you shouldnât be displaying full price to start with: We are actually making something more complex than what should be in my opinion. There more simple ways to solve that.
An additional technology would make them more useful because the sum of upgrades gets bigger.
The other suggestion I made is giving all civilisations something that is equivalent to a 0.5/second influence trickle.
I like the idea of a free villager at the Community Plaza for the Natives and Export Trickle also seems a good idea but just XP for Europeans doesnât seem to be a good idea.
How about the opposite.
Every civilisation has a unit that can be trained at Native TPs making it a more reasonable investment in the second Age to build one because you might not need the Barracks or Stable.
Would be nice if the upgrades would also increase the train limit.
Maybe by the same percentage they increase their strength by.
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Sounds good but this only really works if you have such a trade post near your starting position, otherwise it may simply take too long for your units to get where they need to be, and would not make up for wasting a barracks.
We could surely have both allowing units at rax/stables and giving civs a unique unit at the trade post.
IMO those upgrades should shadow tech for all civs, not just the affricans.
The investments are already ridiculously large: you need 200w to build the TP in the middle of nowhere, then you need some more sources to get the units up to date. There should really be a bigger benefit to those natives.
I do not understand how the forums that contribute ideas have less likes than those that criticize. They are very visited, but they should have at least 100 likes.
2 Likes
There are many native peoples that only have one type of unit available. Some kind of more unit could be added in those towns. For example, the Mapuche did not have cavalry in the base game. You could add 2 or 3 different types of unit in each town, for example the Zapotecs and the Mayans could have an archer or shock infantry unit.
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all aztec ranged units are archers too. Macehualtin, eagle runners and arrow knights, then cav archers, some mercenaries (manchu and iron troops for instance) . you actually picked one of the best native upgrades to showcase as an example of a bad one, unfortunately. Only dutch and india donât have any archer units at all iirc. I will have to check african civs too but i think javelin riders and some of the infantry units are archers too
it also works for archer cavalry, like russian tartar horsemen.
1 Like
You forgot one, only Dutch, India and US donât have archers.
Trade with native populations in the old style of previous games. A cart that goes from the market to the native villages and vice versa.
Other ways to improve the alliance with the natives would be:
The natives who use firearms or metallic weapons such as spears, swords or pikes would cost gold instead of wood.
If the natives with whom you are allied use firearms, but your civilization does not use firearms or have access to the arsenal, then in that town some improvements will appear associated with those that would be in an arsenal.
The capitol upgrade âDeforestationâ makes wood in the markets much cheaper, and the trading posts give you much more wood. Useful to be able to create natives that would continue to consist of wood if many of them cost gold.
The upgrade âlegendary native warriorsâ increases the native embassy limit by +1 and natives are created faster. (In addition to your current benefits).