[Minor Natives topic] Post here your ideas for every single minor natives so the devs can look at

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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African natives just put almost all previous minor natives to shame, they are so good that they make others look bad. So let’s make a community topic with ideas on how to improve/incentivize/buff non-african natives so we can hopefully help the developers into finally rework minor natives.

The rules are:

  • Just one minor civ per reply, so we can keep a good track

  • Post and explain why current techs/ units should be updated

  • Post and explain why new techs/units belong to this tribe

  • Post lore about your changes

I’m gonna start off:

SEMINOLE (Seminole | Age of Empires Series Wiki | Fandom)

Updated tech: Seminole Boyers
Cost: 250gold, 250wood
Effect: Archers gain 20% damage. Increases Seminole Sharktooth Bowman’s ranged armor by 10%.
Why: DE made this tech go from +25% damage to +15% damage, which makes it the most irrelevant tech in a trading post ever. I’ve added a small tweak to Sharktooth Bowman too.

New tech: Osceola’s Seminole Resistance
Cost: 280 food, 200 coin
Effect: Yields 300 XP. infantry minor natives gain +10% ranged damage.
Lore: You have guns and so have we. You have powder and lead, and so have we. You have men and so have we. Your men will fight and so will ours, till the last drop of the Seminole’s blood has moistened the dust of his hunting ground (Osceola’s response to General Duncan L. Clinch)

New tech: Seminole Wetlands Medicine
Cost: 100 wood, 100gold
Effect: friendly units nearby trading posts, Town Centers and Native Embassy are slowly healed while idle, specially Seminole units.
Lore: Seminole were able to adapt to regions with wetlands after wars and still keep their knowledge and culture after conflicts and wars on Florida to fight back again. Good for Bowmen hit and run tactics.

New tech: Seminole’s Alliance Counter Attack
Cost: 600 food, 600gold
Effect: Summons a party of 5 Black Seminoles to help you, moves them to Commerce age and allows you to train more of them (+6 build limit). Summons 5 Seminole Sharktooth Bowman and increase their LOS by +2.

Lore: The Second Seminole War (1835–42) marked the height of tension between the U.S. and the Seminoles, and also the historical peak of the African-Seminole alliance. In councils before the war, they threw their support behind the most militant Seminole faction, led by Osceola. In addition to aiding the natives in their fight, Black Seminoles recruited plantation slaves to rebellion at the start of the war.

New Unit: Veteran Black Seminole Fighter (available at Fortress Age, build limit of 10)
Type: Black Musketeer with strong siege damage, average ranged/hand damage and lower multiplier vs cavalry that attack with a bow instead of musket (visualize Gascenya). Available at Fortress Age and shadowtechs when you improve Sharktooth Bowman
Cost: 70f, 40w
Stats: to be balanced (but speed is 4.5)
Passive Ability: up to +10% speed and +25% HP while Seminole Sharktooth Bowman is nearby (this max value is reached by having 10 Bowmen nearby)
Lore: The Black Seminoles or Afro-Seminoles are Black Indians associated with the Seminole people in Florida and Oklahoma. They are mostly blood descendants of the Seminole people, free Blacks and of escaped slaves (called maroons) who allied with Seminole groups in Spanish Florida (wikipedia)

Why: My goal is complementing Sharktooth Bowman’s tactics vs buildings with a mobile infantry that can protect them from cavalry/shock infantry and still help them with hit and run tactics (hence the speed and the new Wetlands Medicine tech)
Right now Seminole is by far the worst minor civ in the game: they currently only have two techs that are situational and expensive. I’m expanding them into being a bit more generic while preserving their original design

29 Likes
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Before giving my contribution I will tell you that it is a great job.

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Thank you!

I’m eager to see the suggestions since the community is filled with ideas on how to improve them. One person might inspire other person into redesign stuff.

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I just want the UI to tell me what the upgrades do when i hover over the settlement. Something simple like “increases huron build limit” or “increases cavalry hp”. That way it’s not a gamble if I don’t remember all the bonuses.

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Some natives can give a hero unit like the new African ones. Nootka already had a warchief, and now it can be made into a hero. Some others can get sth similar too.

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Caribbeans

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New technologies:

Born navigators: Makes shipments cost a little less experience and arrive a little faster.
Cost: Age 1- 100 of each resource. (The alliance must stand)
The Caribbeans will tell how to get around the dangerous waters of the Caribbean and the island slopes. They will inform you of the hurricane seasons and the appropriate times for navigation.
It’s a nod to a mission from Morgan Black’s campaign.

Expert fishermen: Fishing boats and canoes are cheaper (-15% wood).
Cost: Age 2- 150 food + 150 coins.
(Being island inhabitants, I am surprised that they do not have an economic improvement in the sea)

I only give ideas. The prices of each improvement I leave to someone with more criteria in this regard.

New unit:
’Dugout canoes’: Especially large canoe, more efficient for fishing than other canoes, and also with better attack. Enabled at the dock. (Creation limit of 10)

12 Likes
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Don’t forget the Carib blowgunner should do poison damage as well as the inca archer (tupi archer should too and they have a relevant technology already)

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click the settlement and hit the alt key. it will display all units and techs available

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It’s true. That improvement is fine.

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What the tech does, or just the name of the tech?

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everything. try it out, shows the icon, which you can hover over and get the costs and effects

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You think you know a game and then you find something like this out 1k hours in…

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You mean you didn’t know how to see the statistics for each upgrade?
At first I did not know how to interpret negative bonuses. I thought that for example 0.5 was something in addition to base damage.

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Sufi Mosque

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The Sufies as such were not a tribe. If not that many tribes were Sufists, which is a different way of practicing Islam.

Current technologies:
Pilgrimage:
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It becomes a passive improvement where every 3 minutes 2 goats arrive without getting fat at your metropolis destination, and you receive 2 when performing this improvement immediately.
(In fourth age it can be improved to reduce the delivery time to 2 minutes).
For the Indians it improves the experience gathering of cattle.
For the Japanese it improves the production of the sanctuaries by domestic cattle.
In case of reaching the limit, a limit of 10 stops resiving them
Fasting
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It’s fine like this, but instead of reducing the resistance points of the villagers, you should rather slow down their creation.
It could become a button in the town center or trading post, where you can toggle between slowing the creation of villagers to get the bonus or vice versa.

I have been researching the Sufis to find out how to include enhancements that make plot sense. Some believers in this doctrine were nomads and good ranchers.

New technologies:

Pasture: Cattle are cheaper.
The Bedouins are expert herdsmen and they know how to obtain resources for cattle in the desert.

Bedouin families: Villagers have more resistance points and better attack.
The Bedouins teach you how to endure the harsh conditions of the desert and obtain its resources.

The statistics of each improvement are left to the discretion of the developers.

They could include a camel fighting unit if historically feasible. That i would like. :slight_smile:

9 Likes
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I didn’t know how to see the upgrade stats on a native settlement without building a trading post first.

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Nootka

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It is perhaps one of the most useless alliances in the game.

Current technologies:

Nootka Potlatch
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It could cause native trading posts or embassies to slowly generate ‘thumps’.
Nootka War Chief: In addition to unlocking him, it could make him immortal as the explorer.

Note: It had already been considered in the past a unit and a technology for this tribe:

Nootka Knife Fighte
A third unit was planned for the Nootka, the Nootka Knife Fighter. A unit portrait exists in the game files.

Nootka Harpoon
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A Nootka technology called “Nootka Harpoon” was planned. A technology portrait exists in the game files. (suggestion: It could make only canoes fish better for whales).

New technology:
Consult with the commoner class: Natural Resources are obtained 5% faster.
The commoner class talks to the chiefs to assure them that the alliance will be beneficial, giving you persistence to obtain the resources of their region.

In conclusion we can have a new unit, plus 2 new technologies. We could make the ‘Slapper’ spawn for free with a redesigned upgrade.

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The upgrades are fine, but I would suggest 3 new upgrades and 1 new unit.

New technologies:

Lever: ‘Maya Holcan Spearman’ gains a ranged attack and bonus damage to cavalry by 1.0. (It also improves his attack on mele)

Mayan trade: (Passive improvement). You have a drip of coins while the alliance is standing.
The Mayans had trade routes through much of Central America.

Limestone mines: : The bastion upgrade is free and moves to the age of trade, and the walls are built faster.
The Mayans will tell you where the local stone mines are.

New unit:

Commoner (Mayan Archer): Warrior with ranged attack who can hunt and is effective against heavy infantry. The Mayans used these weapons for hunting and for battle.

6 Likes
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just nerf the Africa natives, don’t buff everything else. the logic of 1. get new content that is overpowered and then 2. demand to buff everything that came before it to catch up, is terrible game design. it produces power creep which leads to a bad, unfun game.

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Minor natives have needed changes for 15 years. Nobody uses them for a reason outside of the Cree.

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Sorry but that is just mediocre thinking (not you personally). A definitive edition should in fact feel that way, with improvements from past elements as well, keeping it fresh and on pair with the new content.

8 Likes