June PUP- Lakota Rework

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
41

You know? you are right lol. Maybe an age 1 card?

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42

But it could be quite OP if you could keep moving your TC to where the hunts are towards the beginning when others are trying to herd animals towards their TC.

I think its nice enough that its locked by a card. It can work as an Age 1 card as well, I think.

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43

but as a tradeoff you’d lose the no build zone around first tc, to add some risk if you choose to relocate, and keep in mind, while you move tc around you delay your age up due to not making vills

44

I think disassembly could be made significantly slower to compensate.

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didn’t try this yet so idk how fast it is rn

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i think we’re good as long as its not instant like mongols in aoe4, update, tested it, it takes really long already, didn’t bother measuring in seconds yet

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measured, its 33 seconds both to deconstruct and to build back

48

They function similar to how SC-2’s ‘Xel’naga Towers’ function. A good addition in my opinion. Xel'naga tower | StarCraft Wiki | Fandom

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49

it plays like charm, tried all that too
also spoilers, lakota homecity and explorer costumizations are visible in pup

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People have been complaining that most native civs haven’t been used often enough outside of the Africans, and Europeans. This works well because it reduces the attention the player has to direct an important unit like an explorer or villager from a likely more important task like treasures/exploring in the former case or gathering/building other more important buildings in the ladder without directly buffing natives (so as to explore how to balance them) or buffing trade routes, which are almost always important.

51

Been awhile. I’ll give my thoughts on the rework.

I’m a little iffy on this - the name is bland. IMO a good reference could be make to the Sichangu Lakota, who hunted with flaming arrows, torches, and corralling techniques. Something that references that would be a good way to indicate that a lot of the fighting techniques the Lakota used were really just hunting techniques adapted to hunting humans instead of bison.

I’m iffy on this one. The point of the Akicita is that only one “leads” the camp at any given moment, even if there are many Akicita per tribe and band. A better route would be to unlock a bunch of expensive improvements aimed specifically towards one unit, but only allowing one improvement to be researched, disabling the rest after one has been researched. Maybe make it an infinite shipment card to allow all improvements to be researched over a long period of time.

A far better name would be “Red Marathon” or “the Red Dirt Race,” as a reference to the Great Race story. For those who don’t know it, the Great Race was a race between two-legged creatures and four-legged creatures to determine if humans would be allowed to continue to live. Two-legged creatures won because of Magpie, who just sat on the backs of other creatures until the very last stretch, where she flew across the finish line and won. The “Red” part references the colour of the dirt in the Black Hills, which is where the race was held - there’s a circle around the Black Hills that is said to be the path of the race, and it was followed ceremoniously every year by the tribes and is a core reason to why the Sundance is held.
The “Wind Runners” card could also use a name update to reference the Great Race.

100% I agree. Cheyenne Riders should be renamed to Cheyenne Dog Soldiers.

Something that’s always bothered me about the Bonepipe Armor upgrade is that bonepipe isn’t meant to be actual armor - it’s spiritual armor in the same sense as a medicine shield or a dreamcatcher. Giving it an actual function like this is just weird. Also, women wore hairpipe armor, which is basically the same thing, but vertical instead of horizontal.

Overall, I don’t think the changes are enough. It’s a good start, but the main problems with the Lakota are:

  1. The main gameplay loop of the Lakota is inconsistent with the values of the culture - this includes the values that dictated how the Lakota went to war. Lakota warfare was defensive, not offensive. Having them as cavalry raiders is weird and inconsistent with historical precedent.
  2. The economy of the Lakota being so weak makes no sense - the Lakota were a trade empire, first and foremost. You can’t be a trade empire if you have no economy. Lakota trade centered on the bison - the ability to produce bison as an inherent part of the civilization is a must, and it will remove the weird dependency the Lakota have on home city shipments. Enabling the ability to produce their own huntable bison would be a good basis for an economy that mirrors reality, and it would allow the removal of the farm.

(PS - I don’t know if this is actually a problem or not, but the dress the female Warchief is wearing should be royal blue. I’m unsure if the colour on the art is because of the player color chosen for that particular screenshot or if she will actually have cyan colouration, but the dress is based on a design that is commonly references - the issue is the reference is heavily religious in nature, and the upper part of the dress being royal blue is of heavy religious significance. Royal blue is the colour of Inyan’s blood - Inyan’s blood is water. This is the basis of “Mni wiconi,” or “Water is life.”)

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If you want to correct the Lakota people in history, please hold publicity activities or set up a museum. Instead of finding fault in a forum of a lax historical game that happens to have Lakota.

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53

You just told a Lakota person to shut the f up about their own culture and history


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I am Lakota. I critique this game because the Definitive Edition was launched with the promise of reworking the Lakota and Haudenosaunee to be more culturally accurate.

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If someone has a right to critique the changes it is her, man. I am actually enjoying learning a few things about the Lakota culture and how it connects or disconnects with this game. I actually think several of those ideas can be easily addressed without heavily changing the game mechanics too severely (especially given that half the observations are just name changes).

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56

I would argue with the new updates they are actually pretty defensive, just not like how other civs do it normally. The teppe now grants eco + greater speed and has greater area of effect meaning you have to play map control in defending your resources with units and not walls (since you cant build wallls till the late game). So it is a more dynamic defensive play rather then static walling which is what defensive is in the game ( you are limited by overall game design)

There was a period in ESOC where Lakota dominated with pretty defensive play due to similar bonuses (in that case it was stacking eco and built in attack buffs on Tepees) so i suspect this change might have similar effect.

In addition, none of their units are built to be raiders like say the Opri, steppe rider or the raider of hausa, their stats and speed and cav design just makes it amenable to raid play early on and unless you are going to break the civ a bit( I am not sure how) you cant really implement that I think

Their eco is also pretty decent if you stack all the hunt upgrades (team spice trade, great hunter, all the farm techs also upgrades hunts + wise woman age up) and they have infinite bison card so I would argue its plenty powerful but xp dependent, which makes sense since trade in the game is represented through the TP mechanic and shipments in a way.

They also had a good TP boom with the 3 TP travios card so its a pretty good trade eco, arguably stronger now with the new cards, potentially for an Fast industrial play.

edit: and also Lakota has one of the most OP defensive play in the game with the tepee aura stacking so I think overall its pretty defensive, but its a play style that is hard to pull off in the game normally without somekind of eco bonus, which is why I think they went for that tepee eco buff

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57

With the way the tribal market mechanic is being changed, I think the devs should just have it replace estates for hauds and lakota, have it be like mountain monasteries, it gathers from coin at an increased rate but once depleted you can get a tech that just have it gather infinitely at a lower rate

It would simplify their card buffs a lot more, not needing to have 2 different sets of cards for estates and normal coin gathering, it would allow for much easier transitions to lategame coin (which would be a huge boon for the civs) and make certain strange plays like beber salt mine gathering a lot more smooth, which I would like

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58

an issue with this is that it makes lakota even better at camping in base. free estate means they can ship bison and never leave their base. an unfortunate side effect. add the roided up teepee abilities and its a recipe for a really difficult civ to pressure

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I think the tech can be something like: “tribal market now gathers coin without a mine and no longer destroys itself when depleting mines, but cost x (whatever that maybe) wood” and cost about 500-600 resources which would prevent a sort of super camp build

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if there was a cost associated, preferably close to what an estate costs, then absolutely thats a balanced way to approach it. it just can’t be a free estate :joy:

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