Native Americans and Mercenaries

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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Intro

So the Native American can't access Mercenaries at the moment, and a big reason behind that is undoubtedly balance issues - the Firepit (*ahem* "Plaza") would bust most Merc units beyond functionality in Age 3 and let Natives steamroll. While this could *technically* be fixed by adding another exception to the "ceremonies" (there's already one on the Charging to exclude `abstract artillery` from being affected), this is a poor way to implement it and mostly works by circumventing problems rather than fixing them.

By far, the simplest solution is to just turn the Native Embassy into a mixed building, but this lacks the fun flair that other cultures get.

While this could be a bandaid fix, it wouldnā€™t fix the fact that the Hauds + Lakota need a rework to separate them from the Aztecs + ######### but I digress, as that is a problem for another time (which I also have an idea of how to use and implement Merc units for that particular problem).

Going back to this particular issue, I propose this (do keep in mind my solutions are very Lakota + Haud centric; I do not know enough about the Aztecs or ###### to give a proper answer to anything to do with them):

the Trade House

Y'all may not be overly familiar with this fact, especially since the DE seems to have gone out of its way to drop this importance, but the *home* is the center of function for the Lakota + Haud culture; Haudenosaunee Longhouses and Lakota Tipis are both up front and center to the flags of both cultures, with the Wampum Belt and every Lakota tribe today featuring tipis on their Reservation flags (this should have been kept with the DE - the religious philosophy of the Lakota centers on the tipi and the concept of "as above, so below," with the tipi being the lower half of an hourglass symbol to represent this meaning).

  • For the Haudenosaunee, this would simply be a larger and more substantial version of the Longhouse. For an interesting approach, giving it a +20 base pop cap addition instead of +15 would make it a fun and unique early rush strategy that would give some reminiscence of the Lakota.

  • For the Lakota, an entirely new model would be required - but it would simply need to be something like a trio of tipis, comprising of one uniquely large one, a medium one, and a smaller one.

Thematically, the Trade House would be the home of a well-known trader in each culture, and could potentially have unique names akin to the Saloon, where it could be something like ā€œHouse of Xā€ with ā€œXā€ being your Warchiefā€™s name. Fun flavor.
This could also help with balance - some new techs could be put into here and potentially some of the ā€œSupportā€ cards would be refit into techs for this to help offset the need for Merc cards now that the Natives can access Mercs.

I know itā€™s a bit of an odd combination, but I feel itā€™s one that fits the overall themes of the cultures while suiting the needs of the game - besides, itā€™s not like taverns or saloons or temples were where Mercs were hired, either, so how unusual is the home of a major trader, anyway?

(I want to edit to note that a lot of formatting failed here and I have no idea why.)

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Love it. Hope they do it

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Iā€™m all for it. I had suggested something similar as a catch-all building for Mercs, Outlaws and Minor civs by way of a single building, though I failed to think of any building name/term that could cover that (I think I came up with ā€˜Councillorā€™s Houseā€™, which is a nonsense!).

Trade Houses seem like a good fit. In fact it meshes well with Aztecs as their Merchant class (which I had previously alluded too, along with a Merchantā€™s House) would hire private armies and so a Trade House fits in for them too.

Whilst the Native American civs will never had the full access to mercs as the Euro civs, at least this brings the balance by allowing every civ in the game have access to the random ā€˜tavernā€™ mercs. I guess having access to the mercs as well as minor civ units in just one building instead of multiple also means the lack of Merc Shipment Cards is balanced with building a single building.

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Itā€™d be funny if this building replaced the Tribal Marketplace, if only so that these civs wouldnā€™t have two buildings that happen to be called an thematically are, well, Markets.

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the problem is natives civs have plaza, cards that buffs, and warchiefs that can make the often op mercs we face now as op or more op. imagine lakota with mamlukes or bonsiaks (plaza, WC buffs, 2 cav combat cards), or haude with giant grenadiers.
im not against this but i think weā€™d have to figure out how to prevent run away scaling by redoing the native decks to only call out their own units. the positive is due to most natives poor coin eco its probably not as hard to balanace this compared to some civs glares at sweden

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Change to ā€œall native civs poor coin ecoā€

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inca can sort of use cards to overcome this, and aztecs do until the mines run out. but especially late game i donā€™t think any have a spectacular coin eco true
i guess if devs count ethopia as a ā€œnative civ thoā€ā€¦ i mean that friggin civ in treaty with tabot bleh.

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it should be a seperate building I agree cause right now with the native embassy having outlaw and native units it can get kinda crowded and can lead to units and techs getting pushed off the UI.

if we add mercs to the native embassy there will be not enough space for anything.

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yeah Iā€™d say its never going to exceed advanced arsenal buffed german mercs, and I definitely would say none of them have the coin eco to spam. Haud might get away with a fur trade merc timing but that would be a fun quirk and use for the card, not game breaking (most likely).

I really think this thread has some solid suggestions

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that is assuming you dont have weird imperial mercs shenanigans for the natives, which i think if they gonna get mercs probably should not get imperial mercs

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Personally, I think this is a change that needs to accompany a removal of the Plaza as a mechanic. The plaza is no better than the firepit in terms of racist stereotypes.

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The Plaza, the Market, and the Tribal Marketplace are all thematically the same building in different variations.

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Didnā€™t you have some alternatives in previous threads? Can you link them on here as well? I think itā€™s worth bringing them up again so Devs may potentially seem them again.

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I completelty agree. I always thought just reskinning it didnā€™t fix anything.

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Yep.

I wish they did some reasearch and had something a little more tailored to each NA civ, instead of the extreme reaction of ditching a dancing ceremony completely and replacing with a weird structure where the villagers just wander around aimlessly (which seems more insensitive). They could call it something generic but accurate, such as a Ceremonial center (though a proper name/term would obviously be prefered) and then give it a graphically appropriate look for each American civ (arenas for Powwow, Temples for Inca/Aztec, Longhouse for ceremonies, etc). I get why the ā€˜magicalā€™ fire pits were done away with as they had a lack of sensitivity and played up to a stereotype, however Plazas are the complete other direction.

As for the Tribal Marketplace, theyā€™re the worst offender. Devs should use the suggested Trade/Traderā€™s House as the tavern/native embassy building, but on top of that, why not make that new building the ā€˜coinā€™ building as well? Itā€™s a typical structure and cannot be placed on mines (which actually makes it easier as universal building) however instead it generates coin (or lets look at this as ā€˜wealthā€™ from trade) at a rate depending on how many Villagers are gathering (any resource!) nearby.

Soā€¦ regardless of if the NA civ in question mines gold or not, they will still have a need for a Traderā€™s House. Those that donā€™t mine may get an additional tech based on the fur trade to increase the coin rate per nearby Villager to balance those NA civs that can mine and might place their Traderā€™s House near to Mines.

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Most of my alternatives involve some level of rework to the Hauds and Lakota, but at this point I think a foundational rework to the Hauds + Lakota to remake them as their own cultural region, separate from the Aztecs + ###### is a necessity, if the devs actually do want to uphold their promises made on release.

This could be in part funded by a paid single-civ DLC from another civ in the region, like the Haida or Inuit, or by a dual-civ DLC comprising of the Comanche and Anishinaabe.

A single-civ DLC like the Haida or Inuit would require a full civā€™s worth of new assets, but a dual-civ DLC of the Comanche and Anishinaabe would be able to reuse most assets from the Lakota and Haudenosaunee to create secondary civs for both regions. In the case of the Comanche, the hyper-aggressive playstyle the Lakota have currently could be easily expanded upon and given to the Comanche while the Lakota gain a more defensive and economic playstyle.

EDIT: If youā€™d like, I could create another thread about the addition of the Comanche + Anishinaabe as new civs that would serve to expand on North America and make the region less stereotypical.

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The only culture in North America I have found backing for the lack of mining as a core trait for are the Lakota. Every other culture in North America mined, and the Haudenosaunee specifically helped establish some of the first mines in America.

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Ah, thatā€™s a super broad move then to have given the Haudenosaunee the Tribal Marketplacr in the first place then.

Yeah, that makes sense for a complete split. I suppose itā€™s a non-native American viewpoint (guilty!) that wrongly lump every civ from the Americas together in real-life and then to have the same mechanics and traits in game - itā€™s like saying European civs should function like Asian civs due to being all on Eurasia!

The game American Conquest did a reasonable job in highlighting the differences (although still fairly broad) - for example Meso-American civs all revolve around fortifications, temples and vast, organised foot solders where as woodland civs would have a completely different military and eco structure.

Going back to potential future civs, I personally think although Iā€™m all in favor of any NA civs really, Iā€™d love to see one that would play completely different to the others (obviously that would mean a great deal of work though!) and I think the general DLC consuming masses would probably prefer a completely different civ rather than ones that reuse assets (though again, Iā€™d be happy with any new native content!).

I would really love to see Haida as I think they would be rather refreshing - their particular architecture, their uniquely wooden-armoured units, their almost piratical level of coastal raiding, Totem-building and Potlatches are all really fascinating!

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My personal first vote is to include the Haida as a single-civ paid DLC that would introduce a water-focused and heavy raiding civ for North America that would focus their economy largely on gold. The Lakota are already food-heavy and the Hauds are already wood-heavy, so it would complete an interesting trifecta.

On the other hand, the Comanche and Anishinaabe would require far less resources to make and be much faster to make and would result in two more civs rather than just one. The Lakota would be retuned to be a more defensive + boom civ with nomadic tendencies while the Hauds would be more defensive + turtley with a focus on ranged units, while the Comanche and Anishinaabe would be the opposite of their regional civ - Full rush and aggressive, and economic pusher.

The first would be more unique, but the second would be far cheaper.

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Honestly, the Inca and Aztecs are already worlds apart in terms of culture and society. If anything the Aztecs are closer to the Lakota since they originate from roughly the same region.

Weā€™d need a complete cultural rework to make the culture be, ironically enough, more generic to encompass the entire region, kinda like how Africans are super flexible and can reasonable representate people from wildly different regions of Africa.

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