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Introduction to Part 2

Part 2 of this guide goes over each of the minor natives in extensive detail. Here I will explain how that part of the guide will work. 

In part 2 of this  guide I will give the basic information of what each minor native group is capable of. This includes how good (or bad) each of their units is in comparison to some of the more standard units. Each native tribe or group has distinctive qualities that can give you an advantage over your opponent; however, these advantages always come with a price.

Because the natives change on a map-to-map basis, it can be difficult to remember which natives are useful to you, and this can change based on your civilization and/or the civilization of your opponent. There are a lot of variables to consider when deciding whether to attempt to employ minor natives into your strategy. This is what this part of the guide is for - to help you the player diagnose when and where natives can help you, or when it is better to spend the resources elsewhere.

How will this guide be laid out?

Basic overview

This will give the basic description of what the natives produce, and a basic idea of what technologies you can research. In addition, this section tells you how many of the minor natives you can have per trading post, and which maps they appear on.

The unit

This section will directly compare the minor native unit to an equivalent unit, usually belonging to the more common European civilizations. Sometimes more than one example will be used.

Analysis

This section will roughly look at the above data, and show varying advantages and disadvantages with the minor native unit in question compared to the standard unit, as well as highlighting any unusual traits about the unit.

Technology

This part will give a basic look at each of the technologies available to the minor natives, and give basic examples of where they could be helpful.

Summary

An overall look at all the information above, and where the group in question stands in how useful they can be to the player.

Explaining the units

The unit part can be complicated, and I’d like to explain it as some players might not be aware of what they actually mean. I am going to use the Incan Huaminca as an example.

At the top is the unit's name and a picture of it. Then we get onto the statistical stuff.

Cost: How much in resources and in villager seconds the unit costs. A villager second is just that, one second of a villager gathering. For example, a villager will normally gather wood at a rate of 0.5 wood per second, so it would take 100 villager seconds to gather 50 wood. It is important to factor in villager second cost rather than just resource cost when comparing units, because wood takes significantly longer to gather than food (0.84 when hunting), so units that have high wood costs can be much more expensive then units that cost a high amount of food.

I always use hunting and mining when calculating villager second costs, so naturally units that have higher wood costs gradually become cheaper when hunting and mines become scarce and players depend on mills and plantations for these resources. Resources that come from sources like crates and the trade route gather at the same rate unless the game states otherwise.

HP: Hit points. How much damage the unit can take before dying. Some native units have surprisingly high amounts of HPs compared to standard units.

Speed: How fast the unit normally moves. Again, some native units are faster or slower than the standard units.

Resistance: A unit with a ranged resistance will take less damage from ranged units. A unit with melee or hand resistance will take less damage from melee units. These numbers are expressed as a percentage. For example, the Incan Huaminca has a 20% hand resistance, so a hand attack that would usually do 20 damage would actually do 16 to the Inca Huaminca.

Attack: Either a ranged, melee or on rare occasion a siege attack and how much damage it will deal. In addition, the range, rate of fire (ROF), and any other features such as attack bonuses are mentioned here. In the case of the Huaminca, it has a hand attack of 15, and it has a ROF of 1.5, which means it will attempt to attack an enemy unit in its attack range once every 1.5 seconds. Its attack damage is multiplied by 3 against any cavalry units, and by 2.25 against any light infantry units.

Siege Attack: Every unit has a different attack which is used against buildings, and that value as well as its ROF is listed here. For the Inca Huaminca, it will deal 48 damage to a building every 4 seconds.

Cover hand attack: Hand infantry units have an ability to go into what is known as 'cover mode', and the Incan Huaminca is no exception. This mode enables units to take less damage from ranged units in exchange for much lower speed and lower attack. That amount and its usual features are listed here.

Cover siege attack: Same as the above, but this tells you what the new siege attack value is.

Train time: How long in seconds the unit will take to train.

Below each native unit summary, this process will repeat once or twice using a similar and usually European unit to more easily compare with the native unit. You can thus see where the native unit has advantages and where it is weaker.