I feel that it’s been an issue that has been ignored for over 10years.
I’ve been waiting for an overall patch for almost 1 single year. DE at the release had minor tweaks that felt just like random numbers to claim something had been done because the impact has been equal to zero.
FE really worked their guts to make african minor natives useful and they indeed are (thank you devs). However trying to get them side by side with all civs (before African Royals) it’s still a pricey commitment (even if you stack cards, which only 3 civs can do it, you don’t know whether or not the minor natives are gonna be useful to your civ and against the enemy). Allying and using them is tough.
Native trading post are just too expensive for a mere barracks with a single unit whose training is limited to a dozen or so and many cards,costs and techs are really, really outdated. Their no pop space is irrelevant outside 40min treaty.
It’s not even that hard balancing them, so why is it taking so long?
4 Likes
there are limits to how useful you can make natives, for the simple fact that they give you units that you dont have to house.
however there are a lot of useful allies, even pre AR:
Cherokee, 1 of the best native units in the game, the upgrades are pretty meh but still.
Apache, they are dragoons that cost no pop, 9 is good enough i think to make them worth it. nice that they dont cost wood.
Sufi, good upgrades and good units.
Inca, 2 units and amazing upgrades.
sure not all of them are amazing but some of them definitely are worth it. perhaps they could add or buff some of those cards that gives you a shipment or bonuses based on the native allies you have? might make them more viable.
also in general i think their biggest issue is the wood cost.
After upgrading to Warrior Societies, I think that all wood costs should be changed to one for gold, what do you think?
On the other hand, I consider that the benefits that you get from allying with a native depend a lot on what map it is, what civilization you are using and what strategy you are carrying out. I already used the example of the hurons in a water boom, so I use another example, the Sufis when you are playing with Dutch, when you reach the limit of 50 villagers, it is essential to build a TP is Sufi to increase the limit of villagers, the same applies to the French and Japanese. And the war elephant that the Sufis offer you, although they are 5 and a half expensive, they are as good as an Indian elephant. On a map like Alaska, ally yourself with the Notkas? I don’t know if it’s worth it even though the notka warrior is not bad at all, but there I would no longer ally myself with them under any circumstances. Perhaps it would be necessary to review all the natives and change their available technologies, similar to the Africans.
4 Likes
yes this is definitely true, if you have no skirmisher on your faction and you get a good skirmisher native then you are happy, if you have no good cavalry and you get sufi eles then you are super happy.
obviously there are native units that always will be meh like mayans or zapotec both most of them are at least semi useful.
I often use the native tp’s, mostly for techs rather than units although I really like certain natives like the apache. When I am stacking some wood I just put it to use by getting the natives.
I think you’re right in that they are too expensive for the weak units that are there, the best solution is to slightly buff some of the natives.
2 Likes
When you come across these types of towns you are only interested in the improvements. In this case there should be 2 types of unit such as the Inca or Mapuche villages. There could be a Mayan archer and a Zapotec archer.
They need to make them more profitable in the short term maybe if the native trading posts gave us wood and food equivalent to 2 villagers working they would be more utilized
2 Likes