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  Conquest of the New World

Hints:

How to make loads more gold, metals, ect.!

First you have to get two colonies(recruit settlers), make a net trade withone to the other(gold, metals, ect.) and set it on persistent, now keeptrading every turn and it will say the next turn, you will be at -xxx, thenext turn you will have the normal amount that you make, just go to thetrade window and raise how much you made that turn (say your making 36crops per turn and you have 50 crops, do the above and the next turn, raisehow much you're trading by 36 each turn...).

From Darren Reid:

I like to found my colonies close enough to friendly natives to trade withthem, and close enough to hostile natives to be raided by them. With thefriendly natives, I trade crops for metal/wood. The hostile raiding partiesfrom the other natives are a valuable source of experience for my leadersand troops...they are easily defeated with a handful of cavalry andartillery (speedy demise is important, so run the cavalry straight at theirflag). I keep the hostile settlement around for just his purpose, and don'tover-run it for the entire game!

  The Natives

This game is first and foremost an exercise in alternative reality. Its achance to work through some of the same issues that faced the Europeanexplorers of the sixteenth and seventeenh centuries, and imagine what mighthave happened to the high Native civilizations in the Americas had historyor geography been just a little different. While we definitely have takensome liberties with actual history as we believe we know it to havehappened, we have done so in the interest of good gameplay. Always, ourdecisions were made in the interest of producing a carefully balancedproduct. We have been careful to avoid any design changes specifically topromote a particular view of history, or to establish either a utopian or

dystopian vision. Its a game, not a political tract.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at the natives in the game andtheir actual historical roots:

The Natives

The game includes two different sorts of Natives: small, independent tribalunits and one full Native civilization. Neither is representative of anyparticular group found in the Americas, although there are obviousinfluences. The history of this continent includes lineages of Natives toonumerous to mention. We have abstracted these to one set of primarily smallhunter-gatherer groups and another single high Native civilization.

The smaller groups exist primarily to trade with the newcomers and possiblyprovide military assistance. Like the natives encountered early in thesettlement of the eastern United States, they are quite diverse culturally-- some friendly, some quite hostile. And all are very sensitive to theactions of the people newly arrived on their shores. But they do not haveany sort of central government authority. Our goal was mainly to ensurethat they were more than simple obstacles who had to be slaughtered to makethe New World safe.

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The larger group is more interesting because it gives the player a chanceto take on the role of a hypothetical advanced native civilization alreadypresent in the New World. The characteristics of this civilization werechosen to differ somewhat from those of the Europeans while maintaining areasonable balance of play. Some of the major differences include largercities, a lower technology level, and easier movement across the land.

Visually, the high Native civilization includes elements from manyheritages, including the long houses of certain Native American tribes, thecliff dwellings of the Anasazi, and of course the various stone structuresemployed by Maya, Aztec, and Inca. In our alternate reality, thiscivilization is just reaching a new peak of power and beginning to expandinto new and less familiar territory (the map represents part of thenorthern hemisphere of the world, so you can imagine, if you want aconcrete story line, that they are central Americans beginning to movenorthward).

Biological Warfare: The European Superweapon

This brings us to one obvious, major digression from historical reality:the absence of disease as a consideration in dealings with other cultures.For many centuries prior to the fifteenth century, Europeans lived inrelatively crowded conditions which today would be seen as grosslyunsanitary. These conditions were ripe for the spread of virulent plagues

such as the Black Death, and continued almost to this day, with thedevastating influenza epidemic of 1918. Though devastating, the brutalseries of epidemics which wracked the continent brought forth a powerfulweapon: immunity.

In the Americas, by contrast, living conditions were much less urban,offering far fewer opportunities for the spread of similar diseases. TheEuropeans, without realizing it, had developed a weapon far more potentthan their mightiest cannons. They carried with them, either in their ownsystems or those of shipboard vermin, microbes to which they were at leastpartially immune, but which were completely unknown to the systems of theNatives.

As unprepared for this onslaught as were the original European victims ofthe plague, the natives were cut down literally by the millions. When thefirst explorers encountered natives in Florida and Mexico, for example,they found millions of people living there. When they return after only adecade or so, the majority were dead.

Although this is a fascinating tale historically, it clearly gives theEuropeans a deadly advantage in the game. For the sake of balanced play, wehave postulated in our alternative world that the Natives have encounteredsimilar hardships in their past and either have potent biological weaponsof their own or are immune to those of the new arrivals. In either case,our version of reality offers no significant biological advantage to eitherside. They must compete on a level playing field.

Natives with Guns

In this game, the Natives have guns right at the start. That's not how ithappened. On the other hand, we've taken care to be somewhat vague aboutthe actual time period of the game. The newspaper nominally establishes astarting date of 1500 AD, but it should be obvious that thats somewhatarbitrary. We've mixed elements from two entire centuries together in anumber of cases, so it should come as no surprise that somehow the Nativeshave managed to obtain guns.

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Once again, this is simply a game balancing factor. Natives with noeffective ranged weaponry would be at an insurmountable disadvantage incombat and ultimately, therefore, in all aspects of the game. The firstEuropean to encounter them could simply wipe them out. We took the libertyof assuming in our alternative reality that the Natives do in fact havesome form of ranged weaponry comparable to that of the Europeans.

On the other hand, we did prevent the Natives from utilizing artilleryunless they explicity Westernize themselves. Guns are easily produced orsmuggled; cannon are another matter entirely. Thus the Natives are highlyexpert in the use of basic guns and of cavalry, but not of cannon (whichappeared only during the later parts of the time period covered by thegame, anyway).

Federation and Westernization

The Natives posed an interesting challenge at later stages of the game. Wecould simply have had them declare independence, just like the Europeanpowers. But, since their governmental structure is fundamentally differentthan that of the other players, we chose a different route that wouldprovide a potential major advantage to players skilled enough to takeadvantage of it.

In the game, the high Native player has not one but two options: Federationand Westernization. Each has advantages and drawbacks. Federation lets theplayer gain almost unlimited numbers of colonies though acquisition of thesmaller Native tribes. Westernization allows the player to obtain some ofthe advantages of Western civilizations, such as higher building levels andartillery.

Tips for the Native Player

1) Gotta Get GoldNatives can't trade with any "mother countries" to get gold and, until theystart federating, native trades are iffy at best. This means gold will bemore a necessity than for those silly pale-faces. Unlike them, you can make

(REALLY CRAPPY) gold mines anywhere, but you really want to make sureyou've got your colony down where, once your center is level 2, you'll beable to score some high flying gold mines.

2) Wood Before FoodTry this if you're settling in a good wood-producing area: when you dropyour colony, build 7 mills, 3 houses, and 2 churches on the first turn.Build nothing on your second turn. You should vault into making 12-15 woodper turn from turn +3 onwards, and you have enough crops in your boat towait three or four turns before needing to build a farm. (NOTE: this workswell if you're playing the Euros, too)

3) Religion is GOOD

Don't underestimate the usefulness of Churches. If you overbuild yourindustry, it will start to shut down due to labor shortages. The correctamount of churches can quintuple the speed at which your first colonygrows. A simple rule of thumb is that if you've exhausted your labor supplyand you have 5 wood left over, build a church. Once your population getshigh enough you won't need them as much anymore and you can destroy them.(NOTE: this, also, is very important if you're playing a Euro player)

4) SpecializeThe three most useful Specializations for the Native Player are

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Cartography, Missionary, and Conqueror. Not necessarily in that order. Notethat you cannot buy all three of them for the same game. Cartography ismore useful if you lean towards exploration, Conqueror is more useful ifyou lean towards military. Missionary is ALWAYS useful, since you needfriendly natives for trade. (ps: unless the game is really short, the onlyway to win as the Native is through military victory)

5) Out in the Boonies: Good and Bad.Since you start out on the other side of the map from the other players,you will have more time to build yourself up before they become a threat toyou. Unfortunately, since you can only go to level 2 and they can go tolevel 4, if you wait too long, they'll be able to crush you like an insect.You don't need to concentrate on early defense as much as they do (althoughkeep an eye out for pesky Hostile NSN's), but you need to do the one thingyou, as the Native, do best: grow quickly and make LOTS of combat troopsonce you're ready to take on the world.

6) Combat strategies.Most battles, in my opinion, are won or lost before you ever see the combatscreen. Since you can get more gold, quickly, than they europeans at thestart, make sure you're spending early and often on your research. Makesure your leaders can hold LOTS of guys (you need the numeric superiorityto offset your lack of cannon). Put an EQUAL NUMBER of Cavalry and Infantryunder your leader. Since you have the ability to make many more troops than

the Euros, use concerted attacks of 3 or 4 full leaders to take colonies.Once you get into combat, use your combined arms. Don't toss three cavalryout early, since your strongest positions will be squares that have both 2cavalry and 2 infantry.

7) FederationOne of the best tricks to pull is to federate the colonies near theEuropean players. When they federate to you, they become VERY hostile toall other players. The CPs will get raided fairly continualy and that willsoften them up for you. Also, if your leaders have high charisma, they willbe able to get support troops from nearby federated (or very friendly)NSNs. You don't have to immediately get into war with the Euros, you canlet your federated NSNs do some of your work for you.

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Used with permission