Native Americans OP?

[Shadow8]

i've been playing my first british campaign for about 4 hours. 3 &1/2 of which i have been spending a total of about 45k gold and about 15000 first class soldiers attempting to take Cherokee Territory. i CANT DO IT! the difficulty setting is N/E (normal campaign, easy battles) about every other turn the cherokee pump out a half stack army. this is not the first time i've experienced tiny little native nations wiping the floor with europeans. as france fighting the iroqouis they churned out about 2 stacks per turn. seriously, i couldn't kill them. now i'm wondering if this might simply be a bug where my native americans are Über strong and manage to fund about 6 full stacks at one time, or if Native Americans just happen to be a little OP in the game. thoughts would be welcome.

[ilikeicehockey]

Don't fight their armies. Just go straight for their capitals. Im on medium/medium and I did it with no trouble. My army was a general, a ranger unit, 10 or so line infantry, and 2 provincial cav.

[Kogen]

So Total War is all about skipping the war. Awesome?

[Mediteran]

i have no problems with them, they arent overpowered

[Captian Rosalez]

yeah your right i played medeium to and had no trouble with the native americans

[zligor]

It has been said many time before, native american factions are too strong in the beggining of the game. Its units behave different compared to Europeans and are much more agressive attackers. Lancers will try to exploit every weakness and charge every time I`m not looking.After you research socket bayonet, square formation and fire by rank things will became much easier. Explosive (?) shells for howitzers helps too.

[Stavroforos]

The most annoying thing about natives is the long range of their bowmen, but once you get artillery they should be no problem.

[Eastern Red]

The most annoying thing about natives is the long range of their bowmen, but once you get artillery they should be no problem.

Agree. The native army is very balanced and on VH level they're usually stacked with cannons but fortunately not very effective. I hate their archers and the cavalry flankings though. The battle AI is challenging.

[Muskhogee]

Zligor pretty much hit the nail on the head. I never go to war with the Cherokee until I have at least fire by rank, socket bayonet is preferred. Still haven't gotten the square formation to work for me, all my units form squares but not one large square as would be the point in the formation. This hasn't stopped me from conquering anything, socket bayonets and line infantry seem to be able to hold their own just fine when a melee is forced by cavalry or anything else. Just don't let them flank you.

[Panzeh]

Native units are about 1/3 the cost of european equivalents, too, so that's why they can field gigantic armies.

[Owain Glyndŵr]

They have a good advantage over your line infantry, especially early on. Don't use them in large numbers until you have socket bayonets and can put them into squares to fend of charges.

Otherwise, use Rangers or other good light infantry to sneak through cover and get into rifle range. Artillery and good cavalry are also important here. An experienced Regiment of Horse will save your rangers from an infantry charge every time.

[Shadow8]

Don't fight their armies. Just go straight for their capitals. Im on medium/medium and I did it with no trouble. My army was a general, a ranger unit, 10 or so line infantry, and 2 provincial cav.

well the problem is... their cities have like 3 full stacks outside of them and a fullstack inside. cherokee territory is too large to move an army in one turn unfortunately.

They have a good advantage over your line infantry, especially early on. Don't use them in large numbers until you have socket bayonets and can put them into squares to fend of charges.

Otherwise, use Rangers or other good light infantry to sneak through cover and get into rifle range. Artillery and good cavalry are also important here. An experienced Regiment of Horse will save your rangers from an infantry charge every time.

well i've been using alot of rangers and they seem just to shake it off. im going to try some of these things though. thank you for the advice. hopefully a mod balancing native factions (aka making them garbage like they ought to be) will be out

[DMC-Ice]

Well I must say it was a fighting the natives early on with M/E as difficulty and especially as UP as u'd have to make an amphibious landing.

But it is very much possible. I had a full stack landing and sure enough they send two entire stacks at me but I held my ground and concetrated on minimizing losses. I fought every battle (no auto-resolving) and I made sure I had ring bayonet tech. Also using my cav to rear and disturb their lines as much as possible. They go chasing after ur cav if u play ur card rights, leaving the rest vulnerable in the flanks.

After routing both stacks I attacked and took their town. After that I focused on holding the city with minimum losses and retraining depleted regiments and fcourse recruiting new ones asap. As soon as I was ready I went for their other cities.

Most important strategy of winning was counter attacking their stacks b4 they reach my cities. This way I was able to hold on to my cities and continue retraining as a besieged city will not allow u to retrain.

They had a big army, but never 3 full stacks around a single town in my game. Maybe that's very unlucky cuz I wouldn't know what to do, well maybe lure them to my full stack one at a time. Ring bayonets however were critical for my succes and fcourse proper cav tactics breaking up their lines so losses were minimized on my part.

[Shadow8]

Well I must say it was a fighting the natives early on with M/E as difficulty and especially as UP as u'd have to make an amphibious landing.

But it is very much possible. I had a full stack landing and sure enough they send two entire stacks at me but I held my ground and concetrated on minimizing losses. I fought every battle (no auto-resolving) and I made sure I had ring bayonet tech. Also using my cav to rear and disturb their lines as much as possible. They go chasing after ur cav if u play ur card rights, leaving the rest vulnerable in the flanks.

After routing both stacks I attacked and took their town. After that I focused on holding the city with minimum losses and retraining depleted regiments and fcourse recruiting new ones asap. As soon as I was ready I went for their other cities.

Most important strategy of winning was counter attacking their stacks b4 they reach my cities. This way I was able to hold on to my cities and continue retraining as a besieged city will not allow u to retrain.

They had a big army, but never 3 full stacks around a single town in my game. Maybe that's very unlucky cuz I wouldn't know what to do, well maybe lure them to my full stack one at a time. Ring bayonets however were critical for my succes and fcourse proper cav tactics breaking up their lines so losses were minimized on my part.

yeah i had colonial dragoons get friggan raped by some tomahawk newbs. thanks this is some good advice. i gotta work on saving some money up to build a stack (i really ed my economy fighting these guys)

[DMC-Ice]

Yeah that's true, u do need a decent income. As UP I had that covered by taking trade spots with my merchant fleets. And also maximizing my profits from my established colonies.

As for Dragoons they can be used but regiment cav is better for hit and run tactics. Also be sure to command them to move around a lot cuz when they're fighting they don't always listen and stay in the fight. Use them to disturb their advance not to beat them. U have to beat them with ur foot infantry.

Also move ur infantry to optimize their killing potential, so if one line of infantry is barely involved, just move it so it is involved. I like to do this:

Imagine the lines (X me, O the enemy)

OOOOOOOOO


XXXXXXXXXX

Then they rush cuz (they're melee) usually concentrated as far as I've experienced

......OOOOO
....OOOOOOO
XXXXXXXXXXXX

I respond by making a crossfire like this:

X......OOOOO.....X
..X..OOOOOOO..X
....XXXXXXXXX...

Using my Cavalry to rear them as much as possible ofcourse. I hope understand what I mean. It's important to maximize the killing potential of ur foot soldiers. And also making the lines deeper instead of wider so u can hold ur ground against melee attackers for longer. Perhaps keeping a regiment or two in reserve to fill gaps in the line.

Not every battle will play out like this but it usually does. And also try and draw as many enemies away from this rush as u can.

Oh yeah one more thing, when they rush be sure to let ur front line rush them at the last bit as u get a charge bonus aswell, fire off one volley and then rush in against them. Letting ur army stand while they charge u is usually quite costly in terms of losses.

[ccllnply]

I totally agree with this. Its bloody stupid. I don't understand why CA keep doing it. It doesn't add anything to the gameplay to make the natives as strong as the Europeans. They don't need to be balanced. They should have to rely on quick movements and ambush instead they just plow through with brute force

I just played a battle where Native American Warriors constantly beat my Line Infantry in one unit battles. At one point, 1 unit of Native American Warriors beat 1 unit of my Line Infantry while the Native's Musketmen where shooting their own troops in the back!

As I've said before, it does nothing for gameplay to make their units that strong and with all their money and cheap units, they have massive armies. Historically they should be weaker. I don't claim to be a history expert but I don't see how a half-naked rabble with no armour and stone axes could beat well drilled, padded soldiers with iron bayonets

[Shadow8]

I totally agree with this. Its bloody stupid. I don't understand why CA keep doing it. It doesn't add anything to the gameplay to make the natives as strong as the Europeans. They don't need to be balanced. They should have to rely on quick movements and ambush instead they just plow through with brute force

I just played a battle where Native American Warriors constantly beat my Line Infantry in one unit battles. At one point, 1 unit of Native American Warriors beat 1 unit of my Line Infantry while the Native's Musketmen where shooting their own troops in the back!

As I've said before, it does nothing for gameplay to make their units that strong and with all their money and cheap units, they have massive armies. Historically they should be weaker. I don't claim to be a history expert but I don't see how a half-naked rabble with no armour and stone axes could beat well drilled, padded soldiers with iron bayonets

guerilla warfare. but guerilla warfare doesnt consist of marching 1200 troops toward fire, and winning. then training 2400 the next year....

what i would like to see is:

Native moral vs gunpowder have severe consequences.
natives have like no money
natives soldiers not be equivilant to European Drill Infantry
natives have more of a raiding tactic(i've seen german factions do better guerilla warfare than native americans. i think that native AI's idea of warfare consists of charging into bullets and strong-arming enemy forces. its completely unrealistic

[Andivh]

My Swedish force invading the Inuit nation didn't have much problems. Attacked by a small scouting force of 4 units and then wheeled around to face a full stack. I smashed them to pieces.

[ccllnply]

what i would like to see is:

Native moral vs gunpowder have severe consequences.

I suppose although, I rather it to be about the same as European units. They are used to guns by now, I'd say anyway.

natives have like no money

I disagree. I don't mind them having big armies. Its when they have big armies who can destroy European troops with nothing more then a stone axe and can reload guns faster then Dutch Line Infantry

natives soldiers not be equivilant to European Drill Infantry

Agreed

natives have more of a raiding tactic

Agreed

[Arej]

Historically they should be weaker. I don't claim to be a history expert but I don't see how a half-naked rabble with no armour and stone axes could beat well drilled, padded soldiers with iron bayonets

They don't. They have no chances if you play your cards right. Hell, they could beat today's armies if the troops were as obedient as in ETW and there were some idiots commanding the armies.

So, yeah.. just learn to control your forces properly and it's game over for the natives.

They're definitely a pain in the ass and they declare war on you for no reason.

Yeah, no reason at all. You've just invaded their country and claimed it for yourself.