General Tips Apacheans

[Sweger]

I am currently playing as the Apacheans. It is actually giong pretty well, but I have discovered that I cannot stick with this same overall strategy as I have now, i.e. the same strategy I use for urbanized factions.

What I have discovered is that you generally have only one training spot per settlement, so you need to somewhat "spread" the recruitment, otherwise it'll take forever to compose full stacks, I already do this with two neighbouring settlements, but it still takes a lot of time (in comparison when I do this with a "normal faction" where you have three slots, and use two or three settlements -> Then you'll have 6 or 9 units/turn for that army).

Their settlements seem to be stuck as "villages" (except for a small city I captured from th chichimecs) and my faction is the faction with the least amount of population however the richest. I seriously have more money than I can spend, even if I would recruit a unit in every single settlement and build something. Looking at the tech-tree that came with the game, I see that I can't build any longhouses (is this connected to the population of the settlement although it's stuck to "village"?) and I cannot recruit any cavalry (the gunpowder comes with the English and French I suppose). I haven't even got the raiders wigwam, but the hunters however in some settlements. I keep my taxes on maximum, but considering all the funds I have, and that I might depend a way lot more on pop-growth, I am considering lowering them. Eventhough the taxes are very high, I barely need any troops at all to keep the population happy.

Also, when fighting without armor, I realised that a army is only good for one battle, after that it's depleted, sure they have some more experience, but they are simply too few, so you need lots of soldiers, which is hard, since I barely have any recruiting capacity (although almost infinate funds). With a normal faction, I am not that much of an archery-fan, but I discovered that archers are the key to victory as a native faction, and that it is better with normal arrows instead of flaming. And you tend to lose more auto-resolved battles than else.

I am currently with war with the chichimecs, taken 2/4 of their territories. They in their turn have two neighbours, me and the Taraskans, which I allied. My relations with them are OK, I want to keep them allied with me until I've defeated the chichimecs, however, I will still have to expand, so I would probably like to invade them later. Alternatively I'll keep them good, depends on how hard the French prove to be.

So, I need general help understanding the Apachean system, how to recruit properly and how to get access to the good stuff. And a few battle tips wouldn't hurt either, preferably against other natives.

[Avatar]

I've not spent a huge amount of time on the Americas campaign, but with the apaches I'd look to be abusing warpaths as much as possible and getting as many settlements as possible early in the game so you can build them up. Since you have spotted the high mortality rate in their armies, you want as many different places to recruit replacements from, not to mention creating more shamans to keep the warpaths brewing.

[Drachos]

Look, the Apacheans do not have high quality America troops ( Aztecs and the mesoamerican troops are superior to them), but one thing the Apacheans have is cavalry.
Koitsenko + Onde's men - tandem, and they have skirmishers and gunners too. And yes, you can't upgrade settlements, because in the intro it says that Apacheans were nomads.

[Blaze of Macedon]

I am currently playing as the Apacheans. It is actually giong pretty well, but I have discovered that I cannot stick with this same overall strategy as I have now, i.e. the same strategy I use for urbanized factions.

What I have discovered is that you generally have only one training spot per settlement, so you need to somewhat "spread" the recruitment, otherwise it'll take forever to compose full stacks, I already do this with two neighbouring settlements, but it still takes a lot of time (in comparison when I do this with a "normal faction" where you have three slots, and use two or three settlements -> Then you'll have 6 or 9 units/turn for that army).

Their settlements seem to be stuck as "villages" (except for a small city I captured from th chichimecs) and my faction is the faction with the least amount of population however the richest. I seriously have more money than I can spend, even if I would recruit a unit in every single settlement and build something. Looking at the tech-tree that came with the game, I see that I can't build any longhouses (is this connected to the population of the settlement although it's stuck to "village"?) and I cannot recruit any cavalry (the gunpowder comes with the English and French I suppose). I haven't even got the raiders wigwam, but the hunters however in some settlements. I keep my taxes on maximum, but considering all the funds I have, and that I might depend a way lot more on pop-growth, I am considering lowering them. Eventhough the taxes are very high, I barely need any troops at all to keep the population happy.

Also, when fighting without armor, I realised that a army is only good for one battle, after that it's depleted, sure they have some more experience, but they are simply too few, so you need lots of soldiers, which is hard, since I barely have any recruiting capacity (although almost infinate funds). With a normal faction, I am not that much of an archery-fan, but I discovered that archers are the key to victory as a native faction, and that it is better with normal arrows instead of flaming. And you tend to lose more auto-resolved battles than else.

I am currently with war with the chichimecs, taken 2/4 of their territories. They in their turn have two neighbours, me and the Taraskans, which I allied. My relations with them are OK, I want to keep them allied with me until I've defeated the chichimecs, however, I will still have to expand, so I would probably like to invade them later. Alternatively I'll keep them good, depends on how hard the French prove to be.

So, I need general help understanding the Apachean system, how to recruit properly and how to get access to the good stuff. And a few battle tips wouldn't hurt either, preferably against other natives.

I'm playing the Apaches on VH/VH too and i'm at 25 settelements atm, fighting wave after wave of French settlers and hordes of Mesoamerican armies so i know the drill. I only used 2-3 warpaths so i' not sure what's the big fuzz about them - nice experience and movement points for your troops but nothing to get you knocked out.

1) You're not stuck with just one recruiting slot. Train more Rabbit Boys and eventually you'll get to tier 2 hunter buildings and you'll be able to train Dog Soldiers. Train more Dog Soldiers and you'll eventually get to the tier 3 hunter buildings - and there's where the good stuff is: Koitsenko's! The same thing applies to your melee infantry - although i'm not sure if your Appachean Braves count as infantry that help you get to the tier 2 raider buildings, so just to be sure recruit lotsa Medicine Men too. At tier 2 you get Scouts which are nice and give you cool ambushing options but the real good stuff is again at level 3: Onde's Men.

At tier 2 hunter or raider building ("wigwam" - either one of hunter or raider is enough) you get to recruit 2 units per turn and at tier 3 ("longouse") - 3 units per turn.


2) After fighting 5-10 stacks of Eiropeans with gunpowder and mounted units in them you get to build the horse tipi and gunpowder tipi. These two give you an immense advantage when compared to the other American peoples and put you pretty much on par with the Europeans. Build Thunder Braves and Mounted Apaches to get to the level 2 and 3 buildings (the horse buildings are especially good since they give you Mounted Thunder Braves which are fast moving and have huge range) and you've got yourself everything you need to start an empire.

3) Strategy? Your armies are extremely cheap (upkeep costs are ridiculous - averaging something like 30 gold per turn) and very numerous - Europeans come at you with full stacks with units of 45-60 men in them, and even though some have 2 hit points they're not a match for your units averaging 112 men.

At the start your armies are very weak. At the end your armies are pretty much invincible. There are a couple of phases you'll go through:

Phase1: Rabbit Boys, Rabbit Boys and more Rabbit Boys. The other half of your armies should be Braves (with 112 men and those nice javelins they are the only constant in your armies all the way through the game - i always find them usefull). 1-2 Medicince Men for morale and maybe a Scout unit to get an ambush going and that's about it.

This army is very weak. If the Chichisomething come at you while you're in this phase know that you need at least 2 of your stacks for 1 of theirs. Luckily i got to phase2 before the war with Chichithingies...

Phase2: Dog Soldiers! Substitute all of your Rabbit Boys with Dog Soldiers. Now you can stand "mano a mano" with the Chichis but it's still be tough. Chose your battles carefully. Your Braves are still your "bread and butter infantry" and the elite warriors of the Chichis (something like "Galaiguchi"... or smth...) will make minced meat of them 1 on 1. Same thing goes for the average Mesoamerican troops - Jaguar and Eagle Warriors will crush your Braves 1 v 1.

Phase3: Welcome Koitsenko's and Onde's Men! Substitute all of your Dog Soldiers with Koitsenko's (these guys are actually comparable to Ottoman Infantry or Dismounted Dvor, come with 112 per unit and are dirt cheap) and make Onde's Мen your main infantry. Now you actually have a unit that can keep up against the elite Mesoamerican units plus it gives you spears to fight the European mounted troops. Put some Medicine Men for the morale in the back and keep 3-4 Braves to hurl their javs from behind Onde's Men.

Phase4: Mounted Apaches! Finally some cav! Your biggest headache was that you could't catch many prisoners so you had to fight the same armies 2-3 time to finally destroy them. Not any more! Not only are Mounted Apaches good for chasing prisoners but they additionally give you some great tactcal flexibility. Except for the Europeans, noone wears armour in the Americs so battles are always going to be heavy on casulaties and arrows are always going to be very effective - even more so when you can get your Mounted Apaches to shoot at the backs of your enemies.

And the best thing in phase4? Thunder Braves! Long range, 14 attack. What more could you want?

I know! MOUNTED THUNDER BRAVES!

Here's an idea for your advanced armies:

- 5 Onde's Men
- 3 Braves
- 1 Medicine Men
- 3 Thunder Braves
- 4 Koitsenko's
- 3 Mounted Thunder Braves
- 1 General

So all in all - Apaches rock! As i said: battles are probably going to be with lots of casualtues because of the lack of armour and sometimes high attack stats, but that's why tou have the best choise of archers in the Americas (and probably wider) to counter that.

[Sweger]

I'm playing the Apaches on VH/VH too and i'm at 25 settelements atm, fighting wave after wave of French settlers and hordes of Mesoamerican armies so i know the drill. I only used 2-3 warpaths so i' not sure what's the big fuzz about them - nice experience and movement points for your troops but nothing to get you knocked out.

1) You're not stuck with just one recruiting slot. Train more Rabbit Boys and eventually you'll get to tier 2 hunter buildings and you'll be able to train Dog Soldiers. Train more Dog Soldiers and you'll eventually get to the tier 3 hunter buildings - and there's where the good stuff is: Koitsenko's! The same thing applies to your melee infantry - although i'm not sure if your Appachean Braves count as infantry that help you get to the tier 2 raider buildings, so just to be sure recruit lotsa Medicine Men too. At tier 2 you get Scouts which are nice and give you cool ambushing options but the real good stuff is again at level 3: Onde's Men.

At tier 2 hunter or raider building ("wigwam" - either one of hunter or raider is enough) you get to recruit 2 units per turn and at tier 3 ("longouse") - 3 units per turn.


2) After fighting 5-10 stacks of Eiropeans with gunpowder and mounted units in them you get to build the horse tipi and gunpowder tipi. These two give you an immense advantage when compared to the other American peoples and put you pretty much on par with the Europeans. Build Thunder Braves and Mounted Apaches to get to the level 2 and 3 buildings (the horse buildings are especially good since they give you Mounted Thunder Braves which are fast moving and have huge range) and you've got yourself everything you need to start an empire.

3) Strategy? Your armies are extremely cheap (upkeep costs are ridiculous - averaging something like 30 gold per turn) and very numerous - Europeans come at you with full stacks with units of 45-60 men in them, and even though some have 2 hit points they're not a match for your units averaging 112 men.

At the start your armies are very weak. At the end your armies are pretty much invincible. There are a couple of phases you'll go through:

Phase1: Rabbit Boys, Rabbit Boys and more Rabbit Boys. The other half of your armies should be Braves (with 112 men and those nice javelins they are the only constant in your armies all the way through the game - i always find them usefull). 1-2 Medicince Men for morale and maybe a Scout unit to get an ambush going and that's about it.

This army is very weak. If the Chichisomething come at you while you're in this phase know that you need at least 2 of your stacks for 1 of theirs. Luckily i got to phase2 before the war with Chichithingies...

Phase2: Dog Soldiers! Substitute all of your Rabbit Boys with Dog Soldiers. Now you can stand "mano a mano" with the Chichis but it's still be tough. Chose your battles carefully. Your Braves are still your "bread and butter infantry" and the elite warriors of the Chichis (something like "Galaiguchi"... or smth...) will make minced meat of them 1 on 1. Same thing goes for the average Mesoamerican troops - Jaguar and Eagle Warriors will crush your Braves 1 v 1.

Phase3: Welcome Koitsenko's and Onde's Men! Substitute all of your Dog Soldiers with Koitsenko's (these guys are actually comparable to Ottoman Infantry or Dismounted Dvor, come with 112 per unit and are dirt cheap) and make Onde's Мen your main infantry. Now you actually have a unit that can keep up against the elite Mesoamerican units plus it gives you spears to fight the European mounted troops. Put some Medicine Men for the morale in the back and keep 3-4 Braves to hurl their javs from behind Onde's Men.

Phase4: Mounted Apaches! Finally some cav! Your biggest headache was that you could't catch many prisoners so you had to fight the same armies 2-3 time to finally destroy them. Not any more! Not only are Mounted Apaches good for chasing prisoners but they additionally give you some great tactcal flexibility. Except for the Europeans, noone wears armour in the Americs so battles are always going to be heavy on casulaties and arrows are always going to be very effective - even more so when you can get your Mounted Apaches to shoot at the backs of your enemies.

And the best thing in phase4? Thunder Braves! Long range, 14 attack. What more could you want?

I know! MOUNTED THUNDER BRAVES!

Here's an idea for your advanced armies:

- 5 Onde's Men
- 3 Braves
- 1 Medicine Men
- 3 Thunder Braves
- 4 Koitsenko's
- 3 Mounted Thunder Braves
- 1 General

So all in all - Apaches rock! As i said: battles are probably going to be with lots of casualtues because of the lack of armour and sometimes high attack stats, but that's why tou have the best choise of archers in the Americas (and probably wider) to counter that.

Thanks for that + rep!

I am currently round 20 i guess, and pretty much in phase 1 due to your description. So, the thing I have to do is to train more. And since I have so much money, I think I'll simply go for the spam-tactic for a while, because my main mistake was that I haven't trained enough units. I think that like 50-75 % of my armies consist of medicine-men, lol ....But as I've already noticed how important archers are, I've already started to train more Rabbit Boys, (heck, I've never ever had so much trouble just fighting rebels, no wonder the chichimecs are so hard). I have to consolidate my front against the chichimecs anyway, as I prepare my conquest of Florida.

I did finf the warpath quite useful for the extra movement point, but after I've conquered the chichimecs, I won't need those, the settlements in the aztec area are not very far from each other. And I always trian the maximum amount of priests, regardless of faction, but now it is more important since I am alone with my religion.

[In3x]

The apacheans are completely beastly, IMO the best faction in the Americas campaign, being the only faction with access to a crusade/jihad type ability really puts you miles ahead of the opposition.

[Blaze of Macedon]

Aya, i forgot that - religion is pretty imporatnt as you are the only faction who follows the "Great Spirit" so definatly train Wisemen Let them advance in the regions that you're about to conquer: get 3-4 of them in the region 3-4 turns before your armies get there.

Also: when you conquer a city everything, except for the walls, will get demolished, so in every city you'll have to build everything from scratch.

[Sweger]

OK, I am still playing that same campaign (m/m) and I can still only train rabbit boys, apache warrior and medicine men! All my settlements are completely filled up! What do I do, when I can only fight with budget units against enraged and strong (due to my screwed-up siplomacy) Taraskans, and when I (most likely?) can excpect the French just any moment now. Round 96 and I can still only train rabbit boys and apache-warriors, jeez, this was my first and last campaign with the Apacheans!

[Double A]

You are the Zerg.

Your upkeep is almost nonexistant, and entirely so when on a Warpath (abuse the hell out of these - put all your generals on one a turn or two before you finish, or as long as they can still go towards the city in question). Spam Dog Soldiers, Braves, and the like. They're pretty good and dirt cheap (Braves are probably the most versatile (and sexy) unit you have pre-mounted thunder braves, even though all the archers are pretty good in melee). You can lose tons of troops and still win the day. Hell, you can even lose 5 armies if it means killing a European stack, which hardly ever get reinforced. You'll also get the nice bonus units. Let guns and horses run away, by the way, it's a lot easier in the long-term if you fight the same "gunpowder" or "cavalry" army again because it counts towards another point on the Unit Get scale. Make sure you get horsemen before gunners, though, or you won't be able to get horses.

You get new units by killing people, taking cities, winning battles, and recruiting stuff. Use this for exact details.

Apache are really goddamn fun, and one of the most unique factions in the game.

[Sweger]

Thank you AA and rep! After playing some more after posting that, I kind of learnt more how to actually play with them. And the link was very helpful!

But i still wonder

• Dog Soldiers - Recruit 20 missile units and capture five settlements.
• Koitsenko's - 50 missile units must be recruited and 15 settlements must be captured.

"Note that there is a reported bug where unlocking cavalry/gunpowder units before Koitsenkos & Onde's Men means that you can never recruit those third tier units. There have also been reports that satisfying the above conditions does not always unlock the units so it is possible that a random factor is hard-coded into the game."

I have over 20 settlements, had 25 at most but lost some to the Taraskans, however, It seems that I then should be able to create Dog Soldiers and Koitsenkos, or do I have to train 20 resp. 50 units in total, or from each settlement?

[Blaze of Macedon]

I think it's random :/ So don't take those numbers as solid, they're just a guid i think. I certainly didn't have to fight 10 battles to get access to guns and cav. And i definatly didn't train enough (accoridng to that guide at least) infantry to get Onde's Men - but i did get them. And i had to train more archers than suggested to train Koitsenko's... So you get the point...

[Sweger]

So, I managed to complete the campaign, really a different experience. But I wonder if I encountered a big (or several), after that kind of empire (more than 20 territories plus all settlements more or less filled with units) without being able to create any Ondes or Koitsenkos whatsoever, nothing better than rabbit boys, apache braves and medicine men during the whole campaign! And winning the campaign on round 119, I never saw any French (or English for that matter)! Anyone else been experiencing this?

[NobleNick]

So, I managed to complete the campaign, really a different experience. But I wonder if I encountered a big (or several), after that kind of empire (more than 20 territories plus all settlements more or less filled with units) without being able to create any Ondes or Koitsenkos whatsoever, nothing better than rabbit boys, apache braves and medicine men during the whole campaign! And winning the campaign on round 119, I never saw any French (or English for that matter)! Anyone else been experiencing this?

Your experience varied from mine, a lot. It could be that the great RNG spirit was punishing you.

I played that campaign on H/H (I think. Maybe it was VH/VH. Whatever.) I got Dog Soldiers fairly early on. Then Ondes and Koitsenkos popped about the same time (maybe turn 50?). The French showed up near Louisiana in mid-game, and trooped back and forth for dozens of turns before attacking anything that belonged to me. By that time I was fielding full stacks of: 8 Koitsenkos + 9 Onde's Men + 2 Medicine Men (solely for their effect on morale) + 1 General. I had lodges to build just about any unit in just about any settlement which I had held for more than 30 turns. I made some riders for chasing routers, and a very few "Boom-stick Braves" for use against the Europeans; but the bulk of my armies were built around the Koitsenko/Ondes/MM core, which absolutely kicked butt. The French were toast: took them out with about the same number of stacks as they fielded. And the rest fell by about turn 100.

So, the recipe which worked for me (and I do not know why it didn't work for you) was:
1.) Train Rabbit Boys and take settlements, in order to get Dog Soldiers. Then train Dog Soldiers and take more settlements, in order to get Koitsenko.
2.) Meanwhile, train Apachian Braves and take sttlements, in order to get Ondes Men.
3.) Win multiple battles against horses in order to get cav; and win multiple battles against firearm-equipped stacks to get firearms. (But this is not nearly as important as getting Koitsenko and Ondes.)

Two possible things come to mind (other than the RNG thing), but they are guesses:
1.) Maybe you did not build enough lodges of the precursors of the units you wanted (e.g., did not build enough lodges for Rabbit Boys or for Braves).
2.) Maybe you did not use the precursor units enough in battle (i.e., you relied too heavily on Medicine Men.)

Congratulations on wrapping it up in less than 120 turns, despite not having the bread-and-butter advanced units. Kicking the Europeans, Chicmecs, Tarascans, and Tlaxacans to the gutter; using Braves, Rabbit Boys and Medicine Men? Wooo Hooo! You did well.

[Strom]

I think that the best late game apache army is 19 thunder braves and a leader - who is mostly there to make sure that they don't go rebel. Benny Hill your leader around whilst the enemy chase him and shoot them to bits from range. Note that some enemy troops may be fast enough to catch your leader in which case just withdraw your leader.

Thunder braves are the fastest units, have the longest range (apart from pretty worthless European artillery) and carry enough ammunition to obliterate all but the very largest of the South American armies almost without loss, except for a not-totally-trivial number of friendly fire incidents from bad AI.