If those expensive techs are expensive but really really worth it, we will start seeing more people sending native tech cost reduction cards. These are one of the most underused cards currently.
the trouble is opportunity cost. Its pretty much never worthwhile to send those cards because of the chain of things that has to happen for them to be effective. You have to spend a shipment to save some resources at a building you have to build outside a normal build order. Generally just shipping 700w or 700c is always better than reducing the cost (you have to save more than 900 resources cumulatively imo to justify it, the 200w for the tp and the 700 you could have shipped instead). Some native upgrades are fantastic of course, like Seminole Bowry on Bow Riders or Yumi is disgusting, but India doesn’t even have an archer so its useless for them. I don’t see much way to get native settlements to be used wholesale in a majority of games unless they get so good you can’t afford not to use them, which also isn’t desirable. They always have a niche, rushes and stuff, but build limits and opportunity costs make it hard to justify the expense.
Yep!!
And yet it might be available to everyone as long as you ally with american natives.
But the moment we align with Carib we have access to 20 canoes just like Aztec, Haud and Lakota. In a similar case: gunpowder or cavalry units are not available to aztecs/incas, but that jesuit gunpowder tech or comanche techs won’t make them any better or worse, because they would gain a single unit each to benefit from.
I thought of that but went to focus on canoes since they are a secondary native unit.
Same could be said about minor civs with archery and several main civs that don’t have an archer: they don’t make them disproportionately better or worse for that. Obviously Brits & Jap would get better benefits than Dutch or India with Tupi, just like Aztecs and Haud would get the most of Carib about their ships than French or Mexico.
BUT I have added your suggestion to include warships as well. Thank you!
The developers have done some things to improve that. Although they’ve beenin the right direction, unfortunately it didn’t come to fruition as they had expected because of the “opportunity cost” you said.
We would be definitely using more natives nowadays if the cost of Native trading posts had received a simple reduction of at least 50w (200w-> 150w) rather than the reduction done to their elite upgrade (-100w, -75c).
I personally see natives as an acess to optional upgrades and suplementar army. Something like an “open deck with limited cards”. And I think the devs have done a very good job to this design.
- In D.E. the cost of Native Warrior Societies and Discipline Training upgrade (200w, 150c) was halved to (100w, 75c)
- They bumped their train limit a bit;
- They made good & unique native warriors, stronger/versatile improvements and bumped the amount of techs to at least 6 in The African Royals;
There are key tweaks already mentioned in the topic:
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cost reduction to (NTP) Native trading post (that’s essential)
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Embassy available only as travois/rickshaw and only from TPs and TCs:
- building a vulnerable NTP far away from your base is a con;
- the need of an embassy to train them in your base is already a con,
- 100w for a embassy in your base is a con,
- needing villagers to construct them, is just one more unnecessary burden
Quite frankly: Having the embassy in the building grid is a waste of slot for villagers: It is available to all but 4 civs, if and only once you decide to build a NTP, on top of being limited to a max of 3. Trading Posts and Town Centers have plenty of space to include a travois to their slots. The devs had such a problem with the villager’s grid 100% filled, that they even had to move Embassy to the Envoy, because of the Banks for the Dutch
So is your goal with this to add a second trading post type and eliminate embassies? If that is the case I strongly disagree. The amount of things built by wagon is getting ridiculous and we don’t need more and there is no need for a new building type to achieve what you want here.
Embassies should just be that second “native trading post” and trading posts could be limited to just trade routes. Embassies could still also be built away from sockets on settlements and that would function as it is now. If embassies are 100 wood, that would let you get natives trained anywhere for the same cost of what a single trade post is now and the cost of trade posts on trade routes wouldn’t need to be reduced.
Changing cards like Native Lore to also do something useful like convert Native unit wood costs to coin would further make natives more viable.
my supremacy brain likes this idea, my treaty brain would rather die than face germany with this option available to them
For treaty it’s slightly offset by the fact that you need to give up some other eco or unit upgrade. And you’d still be able to cut off access to the units by taking out their control of settlements.
Bit of a controversial take, but what if trading posts themselves were free, with significantly reduced health (like -66% health)? It would shift the power budget towards making Native units more expensive and stronger overall while simultaneously allowing players to build them early before making important deck decisions. More expensive Natives would prevent them from being used as super fast rush units, and allow them to be more use in longer games as they no longer get out-scaled by normal units. It would also make the cards that deal with Natives more useful overall, as both techs and units become more powerful.
For trade routes, make players buy the ability to trade a specific resource for a small amount of the other two resources - IE to unlock trading food, pay 75 coin/wood, to unlock coin, pay 75 food/wood, to unlock wood, pay 75 food/coin.
It would allow Natives to be used more in the early game and give them more strength in the later game, where they’re sorely lacking.
Pretty much. Unfortunately there is no way to make a TP cheaper in native settlements socket. That’s the best way to make alliance viable. Even reducing the cost would cause no impact.
Completely agree with you. 250%!
I fully agree with you that the “.zip” style of design has got to stop (as well as the “shipment frenzy” that started with USA).
Completely disagree with you.
Embassy is a conditional/situational/exclusive building: If there is one thing that deserves to have an easier access, that thing is an embassy, because of the “chain of things that has to happen” as Dansil and I had said.
What DOESN’T need to be delivered as wagon are simple and ordinary buildings, but that’s not with me. 
The problem of everything being packed as a travois is with the devs’ way of balance/design. Imo several things have been (unnecessarily) given as wagons and unfortunately anything new still keeps coming as such with no need at all.
My suggestion of letting a conditional/situational/exclusive building as a wagon, with a laughable build limit of 3, as a travois, from said requirement is legit.
I had thought of that as well and there are three problems: Trade monopoly + cards that affect TPs + the fact that embassies are used as saloons for Major Natives. This idea breaks them all.
I have even suggested that in a few topics. I like you because we think alike about (most of) the things regarding balance.
Most of those aren’t really a problem. Just have the monopoly go by occupied sockets and cards affect both. There’s already an embassy build limit (those built on sockets shouldn’t count towards that) so even if cards like Advanced Trade Post give them an attack and more health it’s not like you can spam them.
The saloon role is a very slight issue but nothing that can’t be worked around. Just make it so when built on a socket, embassies act exactly how trade posts currently do and when built on their own they can train all allied natives and outlaws for major natives just like they do now.
Trade Posts already do two completely different things depending on where they are built. There’s no reason Embassies can’t be made to do two similar but slightly different functions depending on where they are built (and simplify Trade Posts to one function).
Or: just separate Native Trading Post aside of Route Trading Post. Absolutely nothing changes except the cost. 
1000x times more simple and straightforward than all the things you mentioned. TPs already pull their function based on the socket. So have one to natives and one to route. Easy peazy.
Most of those aren’t really a problem
All those workarounds you said mess with so many variables and make things so unnecessarily more complex 
:
It messes with models (the socket doesn’t match the Embassy), it messes with Trade monopoly, it makes cards about TPs even more situational, it confuses players because embassy on socket wouldn’t count, it messes with the function (because embassies already have dual function and it is not coded for that)…
Trade Posts already do two completely different things depending on where they are built.
Good you agree with me. 
TP is already two buildings working as one. Nothing more simple than cloning it and locking one to natives(NTP) and the other one to routes(RTP).
I might be wrong but
Trust me: I’ve thought A LOT about this issue man.
I still don’t see a simpler way to promote natives than reducing the cost of NTPs. And there is no way of doing that unless they clone a TP and set their functions apart (if there is one, I’m down for it! ).
To me that’s the way more complicated way to do it. There’s already a building for training units of your alliances, it’s the embassy. The building already does the function you want, so why create a new one and introduce more problems with the build grid?
It’s also far more intuitive. In real life, embassies are built in the home country and the country you want to establish relations with. This is how what I’m proposing would work.
Trade posts currently have no overlap in function between the different types. Embassies would actually have consistency between functions.
It’s quite a simple setup:
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Embassy built on a settlement - Can train only that tribe’s units and research techs
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Embassies built off a settlement - Can train all allied tribe’s units (and outlaws for natives) but no techs
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Build limit off a settlement is 1 per allied tribe. Natives could have +1 to their limit to allow access to outlaws.
As for your other issues:
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Not fitting the socket should be an easy fix
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There’s no reason this would change how trade monopolies work
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Wagons can just build both buildings. The trade post wagons for USA and Ethiopians can already be used to build a variety of different buildings to make them less situational
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It’s less confusing because that is the actual function of an embassy and it’s less of a dual function than trade posts currently are
It’s also far more intuitive
That’s why an embassy travois from TPs and TCs would make sense
Embassy is just a building to replicate any units far away from the base. And we both know TPs and embassies are quite different and it’s much easier to clone it and lock one to each kind of socket, making actually more solutions and addressing old problems.
But I’m down to any idea as long as it solves our problems with natives viability. 
It’s okay you don’t like travois because there are too many right now but don’t blame my idea:
Blame the guy in the design team that likes to add wagons as souvenirs to every single card and technology when he creates a new civilization. 
. That will not stop that guy. Next civ will be full of Autobots whether you like it or not
But let’s go back to new/more improvements only because you’ve given good feedback on that. Our brainstorming has yield some ideas to the developers who hopefully have read out hot replies 
I believe that there is no need to make any kind of modification to the commercial positions. I think that with some passive benefit, such as with the consulate, it would be enough.
The cost of the natives could be gold in case of using firearms or knives, and wood in case of using bows, clubs and the like.
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CHEYENNE
CHEYENNE: Cheyenne | Age of Empires Series Wiki | Fandom
OVERVIEW: Overall a good civ that needs just a few adjustments. I also hope Rider gets a new bonus effect and is swapped with Dog Soldier (since this one belongs to Cheyenne and not Lakota).
NEW TECHS
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Cheyenne Military Society (350f, 350c): Cheyenne Military Societies will reinforce your army.
New Effect: Delivers 1 Cheyenne Rider for every 2 military shipments/mercenary shipments you have sent so far. From now on delivers 2 Cheyenne Rider with every military shipment/Merc shipment you ship from your HC.
Why: By “military shipments” read as “any Home city shipment cards that come from The Warrior, The Fortress, Military Academy…”. I see it as a militar reinforcement from their Tribal Council when you call out for help from your Home City. I just couldn’t think of a good name.
Lore: Cheyenne military societies and the Council of Forty-four are the two central institutions of traditional Cheyenne native American tribal governance. The headmen of military societies are in charge of maintaining discipline within the tribe, overseeing tribal hunts and ceremonies, and providing military leadership. Cheyenne Military Societies.
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Cheyenne Council (400f, 200c): The influence and guidance of the Council provide resources that were once thought as lost.
New Effect: Delivers the shipment bonus of a random politician from Fortress Age of your civ. Available on Fortress Age
Why: I wanted to praise the authority and secular strength of the Council of 44. I see it as Cheyenne having such a political power that they can “pull” a shipment from one of the 5 members from the traditional Tribal Council.
E.g: If you were playing as Lakota: it can be either 800w, 12 bisons, 1000f or 2 Tokala (any fast age up, gather bonus and/or cards are nulified= won’t be considered as bonus shipment).
Lore: Council of Forty-four: Council chiefs are generally older men who command wide respect. Historically, they were responsible for day-to-day matters affecting the tribe as well as the maintenance of peace both within and without the tribe by force of their moral authority. Council of Forty-four -wikipedia
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Cheyenne Reinforcement (200f, 200c): Follow Cheyenne warriors to make cavalry hit harder.
New Effect: Heavy cavalry gain +20% siege damage and +10% hand damage. Shock Infantry gain +10% more siege damage and +10% hand damage.
Why: It’s a straightforward bonus envolving siege and raiding but it feels stacked. I thought of moving it to Apache, but “Apache Bands” (more coin for every building destroyed) felt more suitable.
Lore: Like many other plains Indian nations, the Cheyenne were a horse and warrior people who developed as skilled and powerful mounted warriors Cheyenne - wikipedia
REWORKED TECHS
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Cheyenne Fury (350w, 350c): Cheyenne Rider multipliers vs. cavalry +1.5x and vs. shock infantry +1.0x
REWORK: I’d like to see a new design for Cheyenne Riders/Fury because there are far too many counters to cavalry who are better nowadays. Long time ago this tech was unique (and good) but 15 years later I can’t feel any spark on it.
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I hadn’t come up with a new unit for the Hurons, but I thought maybe it could be an inexpensive unit:
Huron Birchbark Canoes
Cheap and weak transportation (75 wood), but fast and also useful for fishing and exploring. You can create it from the trading post (in addition to the dock) and it will appear at the destination of the naval metropolis. (Limit 5, but does not cost population) You will be given one for free when you ally with the Hurons for the first time.
It cannot attack, but it generates a slight income of coins (0.20 / s) (Improves + 0.20 / s with each age advance), since it was useful for trading.
Available from age 1, so you can get hold of the water very quickly.
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I feel like there’s a lot misunderstanding going on here lmao - Just to clarify, the smaller canoe already in the game is a birchbark canoe, while the larger War Canoe is modeled off the Haida gelwa.
Neither is particularly accurate, but they’re decent enough. If you wanted a more economic, cheap, canoe to add for Native allies, the dugout canoe would be the canoe to add. That, and the bull boat would be a good, solely-economic naval unit to add.
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I thought the standard canoe was a molded log of wood.
I also had no idea about these details of canoes. 
The same could be a canoe with the role that I proposed, since this only depends on the function assigned to it. The hussars, for example, had firearms and nevertheless appeared as a mele unit.