The Americas: Recruiting Onde's Men

[Blaze of Macedon]

Just started an Apache game on the Americas campaign. Slow paced start but now i'm totally hooked

Ok, so my question is quite simple: do Medicine Men count as infantry? I need to recruit lotsa infantry to unlock the building that trains Onde's Men so i was wondering if these guys count as infantry?

I know that Braves count as missle, i have unlocked Dog Soldiers and i'm fairly sure i'm gonna get my hands on those awesome Koitsenko anytime now, but i couldn't find a definitive answer about Onde's Men online. If i need to recruit Scouts then i'm screwed, those guys are pretty expensive...

[Silverheart]

Medicine Men are pure infantry, yes, and among the few good infantry units the Apacheans have.
However, in order to recruit Ondes Men, I believe you have to recruit strictly infantry from the same type of building they are recruited from (I´ve forgotten which one - Raiders buildings, I think).
But anyway, this means that recruiting Medicine Men won´t do squat to help unlocking Ondes Men - you have to recruit and use units from the same type of building they are from in order to unlock the next "level" of that building.

As a miscellaneous side-note: If it´s your first campaign as the Apacheans, make sure to kill as many horses and gunpowder troops as you can! This will unlock units that ride on horses and/or use guns, including the best units the Apacehans can get.

[Blaze of Macedon]

Medicine Men are pure infantry, yes, and among the few good infantry units the Apacheans have.
However, in order to recruit Ondes Men, I believe you have to recruit strictly infantry from the same type of building they are recruited from (I´ve forgotten which one - Raiders buildings, I think).
But anyway, this means that recruiting Medicine Men won´t do squat to help unlocking Ondes Men - you have to recruit and use units from the same type of building they are from in order to unlock the next "level" of that building.

As a miscellaneous side-note: If it´s your first campaign as the Apacheans, make sure to kill as many horses and gunpowder troops as you can! This will unlock units that ride on horses and/or use guns, including the best units the Apacehans can get.

Thanks

I know about the gunpowder and horses but apperently if i don't unlock Onde's Men and Koitsenko's before the gunpowder and horse units come - i won't b able to unlock them at all. So i'm paying attention to that and now having in mind what you've told me - i feel screwed So the only way to Onde's Men are Scouts and those are expensive. That's gonna take a while...

[Dominick]

Thanks

I know about the gunpowder and horses but apperently if i don't unlock Onde's Men and Koitsenko's before the gunpowder and horse units come - i won't b able to unlock them at all. So i'm paying attention to that and now having in mind what you've told me - i feel screwed So the only way to Onde's Men are Scouts and those are expensive. That's gonna take a while...

I think Braves count towards Scouts and Onde's Men. What other way you're supposed to unlock Scouts and afterwards Onde's Men? I trained like 2 Medicine Men before unlocking Scouts, and like 6 before unlocking Onde's Men in my campaign. Braves very probably do count as "infantry" needed to unlock Raider's Wigwam and Raider's Longhouse.

[Blaze of Macedon]

Hm.

There must a pretty big random element here. I got Onde's Men just after i posted here last night o.O

I have trained TONS of Rabbit Boys and Dog Soldiers cause i really use them and need them, plus they are numerous and cheap, so i though i'd get Koitsenko's first - but nope. The few Scouts and Medicine Men and Braves (whatever of these 3 really do count) were enough for the third raiding build level but the huge numbers of archers are still not enough for the third hunter level building.

Kinda wierd but i guess it's ok to have random factor in the mix. It would be nice to know how big it is though...

[NobleNick]

While Koitsenkos are nice (really nice!); Dog Soldiers will suffice for now. I am a missile-troop-loving freak; but even I, if I had a choice, would rather have Onde's men pop first. You're going to want them, because...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

About mid game you will get approached from the east, by the French (IIIRC) or possibly it is the English. In any case, it is a lot of guys on horses, carrying guns, and in tin cans, toting along a cannon or three.

If you use the terrain well, your Dog Soldiers and better can fare OK against the foriegners' guns; but quality Heavy Infantry is the only thing that is effective against the armored cav and armored footmen (until you get guns). I found that fielding full stacks, each of which included at least 8 units of Ondes, and at least 6 units of Dog Soldiers / Koitsenko (mostly Koitsenko, as your budget will allow), and -NO- Rabbit Boys (worthless against any foriegn unit, and their morale is a huge liability for your entire stack) did the trick.

In order to do that, economically, you are going to need to develop lots of higher tiered lodges near your expected front line. Units made in those far northwest settlements cost three times as much by the time you march them to the front line.

On a slightly different note:

Although I developed lots of buildings to pump out gun troops and ponies in the later game, I found that I kept coming back to the Ondes/Koitsenko mix for battles against natives (which should be most of your battles). The gun troops, while effective at killing and also at demoralizing the enemy, also killed lots of my own precious Ondes Men. So I brought a few (for the morale effect, and especially for use against Europeans) but relied a lot, in the late game, on stacks heavy with Ondes/Koitsenko.

In fact, in the late game, my economy allowed fielding full stacks composed approximately of: 10 Ondes + 8 Koitsenko + 2 Medicine Men (or 1 Medicine + general), and maybe trading in a few Koitsenko for "boom stick" units if fighting foriegners. Even on Hard difficulty, my native-on-European battles were a breeze, and native-on-native battles were laughably easy. In the native-on-native fights, I even had to turn off the medicine men's chants, after the first enemy attack had been turned back (they always rout), so that the enemy would re-approach close enough for the Koitsenko to get in more than one volley before the re-rout.

[Blaze of Macedon]

Yah i also love versitile missle infantry (ala Ottoman Inf or Dismounted Dvor) so that's the main reason i'm looking forward to the Koitsenko's. Dog soldiers are also quite nice and are definatly good for the time being, they cause tremendous casulaties against the other natives due to the lack of armor. I alreday started buildng longouses in all of my border regions (courtesy of the 30k looted from the first Chchisomething city that i looted). The French and the Spanish (wierd enough - they "teleported" a full stack right at my border regions) are already knocking on my door so the lucky strike i got with getting Onde's Men is definetly welcomed.

Until now i relied heavily on Braves (5-8 per stack), Medicine Men (2-3 in the back, doing their rain dance thing), some some scouts (2-3 for ambushes) and the rest Bunny Boys (which i was sooooo freaking happy to be able to start swaping for Dog Soldiers some 10 turns ago.

I think that cav is not much of a help in the Mesoamerican jungles but i'm looking forward to using it on the Apachee home plains For the jungles i think i'll keep my general stack build: just with 5-6 Onde's Men infron of 4 Braves, some Medicine Men and Scouts maybe and Dog Soldiers and later Koitsenko's.