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Basic overview

The Mapuche allow you to build Ironwood Clubmen. They also give access to three technologies; one that lowers the coin cost of any unit, another which increases the siege of all melee infantry units, and thirdly a technology that gives you a varying amount of coin crates depending on how long the game has lasted. You can build 15 Mapuche Ironwood Clubman for each Mapuche settlement you hold, and they appear on one standard map; Araucania.

The unit – Mapuche Ironwood Clubman

The Ironwood Clubman is a melee heavy infantry unit. Like the Incan Huaminca, it is difficult to compare to a standard unit that a lot of civilizations have access to in age 2, so again I will do the same thing: upgrade the Clubman to age 3 stats and compare it to the Halberdier and Pikeman.

Analysis

The Mapuche unit is a mix of the Pikeman and the Halberdier. While it did pick up the Pikeman’s speed, it picked up the lower multipliers of the Halberdier - and its attack is significantly less as well, even if its lower cost is taken into consideration. In general it would probably be better not to use it unless you had a real need for anti-cavalry. That said, with the Mapuche Tactics technology they do become very effective at tearing down buildings.

Technology

Mapuche Ad-mapu

Cost: 250 wood, 250 coin

Effect: Unit coin costs are 10% less

Comments: For the right civilization - and with a bit of luck - this technology can be very helpful. Mercenaries at the Saloon cost entirely coin, so this technology gives you a 10% discount on their cost. In addition, artillery units cost a large amount of coin to produce. Saloon or Monastery mercenaries and artillery can fill a large part of your army, and this technology can thus cut nearly 10% off all your military costs; very useful indeed.

Mapuche Tactics

Cost: 200 Food, 200 wood

Effect: Melee infantry gains +50% siege damage

Comments: Even with just the Mapuche Clubman at your disposal, this technology can allow you to tear down buildings much faster. The Clubman for instances has 45 Siege instead of 30; that’s a huge gain. On Araucania, trading posts can be rather important to control due to the number of trade posts that can be built there, and the size of the map. This technology might give you a slight edge if you are capable of pulling down your opponent's trade posts quickly.

Mapuche Treaty of Quillin

Cost: 225 Food, 225 Wood

Effect: Ships 1 crate of 100 coin for every two minutes of game time, maxes out at 30 minutes

Comments: There are a lot of ways to use coin; you could use it to get an age up, or you could use it to provide more of that mostly ‘coin’ army that was talked about before. Unlike the Klamath technology, this one pays for itself much more easily because coin is usually a slower gathering resource than food, and more importantly it is 1 crate for every two minutes rather than every three.

Summary

The Mapuche themselves are rather mediocre as military units aside from when it comes to tearing buildings down. However, the technologies they offer can change the direction of a game completely. While the Mapuche mercenary strategy does depend on getting decent mercenaries, most of them are pretty good, even more so than usual because you can build them at a discount. Even for some civilizations without Musketeer- like units, they can build pisteleros at the Saloon on Araucania in age 2. However, outside of that strategy, the Mapuche are rather limited in their uses - even as anti-cavalry they perform rather poorly. They will do the job, but not anywhere near as well as standard units.