The Mississippians and the Purépecha (Tarascans), two civ close to my heart.
About the Mississippians I already have made my own civ design and research.
In my design are no horses because horses were extinct in the Americas for 10,000 years ago before reintroduced by Europeans. However I would not mind if they would be able to convert a stable that they have an unique light cavalry. Like the Aztec got the Xolotl Warrior.
I have two campaigns with the Mississippians. One about the rise and fall of Cahokia based on archaeology evidence. The other about De Soto from the Spanish perspective.
About the Purépecha, if you want to learn more I recommend this two episode from the AskHistorians Podcast and here part two.
So far I know is that the best free online source about the Purépecha.
I can see three possible campaigns for the Purépecha.
- The first is about the founder of the empire Tariácuri, listen to the podcast, it is wild!
- The other obvious one is about the wars with the Aztecs. If people know about the Tarascans it is probably because of this.
- The last one is a hybrid of the two, the narrator of the campaign is a Tarascans noble who is being interviewed by a Spanish Franciscan friar who is writing La Relación de Michoacán manuscript.
The first two scenarios are about Tariácuri, the next two are about the wars with the Aztecs and the last one he is lamenting about the burning of his last emperor Tangaxuan II and the pillaging of Nuño de Guzmán.
If you want to learn more about La Relación de Michoacán, get a copy of this book written by Angelica Jimena Afanador-Pujol, it is really good!
Finally the Purépecha (Tarascans) should be an archer civilization, one of the reasons that they could win against the Aztecs was because their bows out range the Aztecs atlatl.
I was thinking of an unique archer unit, slightly worsted than a Plumed Archer but with a charged attack that shoots a volley of three arrows with a larger range than their base range. Their normal attack shoot straight like the Composed Bowman arrows. (unique Archer units are hard to come up with while keeping room for Nubia.)