I understand that’s a commonly held belief but that scholars of mesoamericsn history disagree snd point to compelling evidence that the Spanish considered them quite dangerous and competitive foes
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Yeah the Spanish relied primarily on pitting Indian nations against each other when they conquered Mexico in order to fill out the ranks of their armies.
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Indians were a menace during the French and Indian War, what makes it so different centuries before? It is confusing to me…
Sorry, I’m not sure what you are asking. I meant to say that the civs in mesoamerica were very powerful in the 16th century or so. I believe the French and Indian War usually refer to conflicts in modern day northeastern US about 200 years later involving different civilizations
The Spanish thought of the Mesoamericans as absolutely terrifying foes on the battlefield - As it turns out, Spanish armor was great against obsidian weapons at making sure they didn’t pierce their armor… but so was ichcahuipilli, their own armor. You know what steel armor was terrible at?
Making sure the obsidian weapons didn’t shatter on impact and send shards straight into the unprotected necks and faces of the Spanish soldiers. You know what ichcahuipilli’s sole purpose was? To prevent obsidian from shattering in that exact pattern.
The Aztec bow, the tlahuitolli, was commonly upwards of 6 feet in length and didn’t just rival the English longbow, there are accounts from those familiar with the English longbow saying that the tlahuitolli out-ranged the English longbow. Those arrowheads shattered on impact as well.
The Aztecs in particular didn’t fight to kill - they fought to maim. They wanted captives, not dead bodies. The Spanish understood this, and it’s one of the big reasons they did everything they could to avoid actually head-on fighting with the Aztecs. They knew they would lose, due to both numbers and the fact that their armor was less effective against Mesoamerican weaponry than it was against European.
Native Americans weren’t helpless. On the battlefield, even after being decimated by disease, Native Americans often outnumbered their European enemies. It wasn’t until later on, the 1700’s and onward, that the Native militaries started to get outnumbered as their populations were destroyed by disease. And even then, they were often displaying tactics that surpassed the Americans and colonists.
The main reasons the Natives lost had nothing to do with technology and everything to do with disease, which neither side knew much about, and the greed of Americans and colonists destroying the land the Natives relied on for resources. The most obvious example of this occurs during Mahpiya Luta’s War - Red Cloud’s War - when the US gov’t traded pox-ridden blankets to the Natives in an early form of chemical warfare, and when the US gov’t put a bounty on bison skulls, which helped reduce the numbers of the American bison from over 50 millions to just under 500 in about 50 years. The other big part of that loss of numbers was the lack of tribal management and cultural knowledge, which played a big part in keeping bison numbers high.
Saying Natives couldn’t fight Europeans is just colonists rewriting history so their near-defeat at the hands of “Savages” doesn’t look so bad. The reality is that, if even just one factor - disease - hadn’t existed in the wars between Natives and Europeans, Europeans would have never gotten past the coastal regions of the Americas.
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Nazis only lost because they decided to invade the Great Motherland
No one is really talking about geography. They are saying that Mesoamericans having a chance is unrealistic because of technological disparities, from what I understand (sorry English isn’t first language)
Please get back on topic.
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I wonder what everyone who said “we can’t have fantasy bonuses to units like in AOE 3, so American civs must be ruled out for the sake of historical accuracy” thought when they played the last beta and found out, for example, that Abbasid’s camels give fantasy buffs to your units and debuffs to your opponent’s army. Of course, we all know that every knight was so frightened when he saw camels in his opponent’s army that they all became immediately weak, there’s no fantasy bonus at all on this.
Historical accuracy is giving civs the units, buildings and techs they had in real life (what doesn’t really happen in AOE 2), and “crazy bonuses” are needed for every civ in the Age franchise for the sake of balance.
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Morale boosts are real, not fantasy, lol
Thus the use of so many Christian icons in battles as well, and people like Jan Sobieski III leading armies into battle at the front.
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NO they would have conquered America the same just in slower pace and some regions would fall later.
India got colonized by England and it was much more advanced society in pretty much every aspect than Stone Age Americans.
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I don’t understand how disease will win a battle. Don’t battles last only a few hours?
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Exactly. They got beaten by small forces of adventurers who came on long voyage by ships. Just imagine that Incas met with proper Spanish army with mass cannons Tercios and Heavy cav on planes of Europe. Just ridiculous.
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I guess the same logic could be applied to those people saying frog poison arrows win a battle.
not really. Poison tip arrows will kill in seconds to minutes, most diseases needed many hours, days or even weeks
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I mean, they know how to fight on their own land, why do people think they didn’t different centuries before?
Do not underestimate disease in old times, they had no idea how to deal with it.
Even Europe with massive access to know-how was heavily hit in Middle Ages.
In Mesoamerica, Cocoliztli epidemics was basically Black Death on steroids.
Death toll
Beyond the estimations for New Spain, Around 800,000 died in the Valley of Mexico, which led to the widespread abandonment of many indigenous sites in the area during, or, shortly after this four-year period. Estimates for the entire number of human lives lost during this epidemic have ranged from 5 to 15 million people, making it one of the most deadly disease outbreaks of all time.
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Oh yeah, this is morale, of course. Interesting to see camel riders/archers giving morale boosts that are very specific, or cavalry riding into palings, breaking them and only getting stunned. The game needs fantasy bonuses for the sake of balance though no one cares so long as it has only “real” medieval military civs.
Do you even know the context as to why India was colonized? lol so clueless.
Than stone age north and mesoamericans* - fixed.
Tarascans was a Mesoamerican civilization, that used metal for tools, ornamentation and even weapons. Population 1519 was 1,500,000 People or 1,5 Million people.
Skills In Metallurgy And Trade With The Aztecs
Their lands were rich in metal ores and the Tarascans were skilled metallurgists of pre-Conquest Mexico; their knowledge in metalsmithing was considered much more superior to that of the Aztecs, and yet, the Aztecs used to trade with them, mainly for weapons and metal tools. They were never conquered by the Aztecs.
Long before the Spaniards arrived, the Tarascans used processes of metallurgy which were advanced and complex methods. They hammered, tempered, welded, made alloys, die castings and filigreeing, annealed, soldered, and plated also using gold and silver.
Their craftsmen practiced their craft in gold, silver, and copper
While true, metallurgy isn’t the only way to look at a civilization’s technology. Tenochtitlan was an incredibly well-kept city and nearly a zero-waste society as a core part of their lifestyle. Disease was such a killer to Native Americans because the cultures had fostered such a high level of personal hygiene that diseases had never really had a chance to be created in the first place.
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