Conquest of the New World

Hints:

How to make loads more gold, metals, ect.!

First you have to get two colonies(recruit settlers), make a net trade with
one to the other(gold, metals, ect.) and set it on persistent, now keep
trading every turn and it will say the next turn, you will be at -xxx, the
next turn you will have the normal amount that you make, just go to the
trade window and raise how much you made that turn (say your making 36
crops per turn and you have 50 crops, do the above and the next turn, raise
how much you're trading by 36 each turn...).

From Darren Reid:

I like to found my colonies close enough to friendly natives to trade with
them, and close enough to hostile natives to be raided by them. With the
friendly natives, I trade crops for metal/wood. The hostile raiding parties
from the other natives are a valuable source of experience for my leaders
and troops...they are easily defeated with a handful of cavalry and
artillery (speedy demise is important, so run the cavalry straight at their
flag). I keep the hostile settlement around for just his purpose, and don't
over-run it for the entire game!

                                The Natives

This game is first and foremost an exercise in alternative reality. Its a
chance to work through some of the same issues that faced the European
explorers of the sixteenth and seventeenh centuries, and imagine what might
have happened to the high Native civilizations in the Americas had history
or geography been just a little different. While we definitely have taken
some liberties with actual history as we believe we know it to have
happened, we have done so in the interest of good gameplay. Always, our
decisions were made in the interest of producing a carefully balanced
product. We have been careful to avoid any design changes specifically to
promote a particular view of history, or to establish either a utopian or
dystopian vision. Its a game, not a political tract.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at the natives in the game and
their actual historical roots:

The Natives

The game includes two different sorts of Natives: small, independent tribal
units and one full Native civilization. Neither is representative of any
particular group found in the Americas, although there are obvious
influences. The history of this continent includes lineages of Natives too
numerous to mention. We have abstracted these to one set of primarily small
hunter-gatherer groups and another single high Native civilization.

The smaller groups exist primarily to trade with the newcomers and possibly
provide military assistance. Like the natives encountered early in the
settlement of the eastern United States, they are quite diverse culturally
-- some friendly, some quite hostile. And all are very sensitive to the
actions of the people newly arrived on their shores. But they do not have
any sort of central government authority. Our goal was mainly to ensure
that they were more than simple obstacles who had to be slaughtered to make
the New World safe.

The larger group is more interesting because it gives the player a chance
to take on the role of a hypothetical advanced native civilization already
present in the New World. The characteristics of this civilization were
chosen to differ somewhat from those of the Europeans while maintaining a
reasonable balance of play. Some of the major differences include larger
cities, a lower technology level, and easier movement across the land.

Visually, the high Native civilization includes elements from many
heritages, including the long houses of certain Native American tribes, the
cliff dwellings of the Anasazi, and of course the various stone structures
employed by Maya, Aztec, and Inca. In our alternate reality, this
civilization is just reaching a new peak of power and beginning to expand
into new and less familiar territory (the map represents part of the
northern hemisphere of the world, so you can imagine, if you want a
concrete story line, that they are central Americans beginning to move
northward).

Biological Warfare: The European Superweapon

This brings us to one obvious, major digression from historical reality:
the absence of disease as a consideration in dealings with other cultures.
For many centuries prior to the fifteenth century, Europeans lived in
relatively crowded conditions which today would be seen as grossly
unsanitary. These conditions were ripe for the spread of virulent plagues
such as the Black Death, and continued almost to this day, with the
devastating influenza epidemic of 1918. Though devastating, the brutal
series of epidemics which wracked the continent brought forth a powerful
weapon: immunity.

In the Americas, by contrast, living conditions were much less urban,
offering far fewer opportunities for the spread of similar diseases. The
Europeans, without realizing it, had developed a weapon far more potent
than their mightiest cannons. They carried with them, either in their own
systems or those of shipboard vermin, microbes to which they were at least
partially immune, but which were completely unknown to the systems of the
Natives.

As unprepared for this onslaught as were the original European victims of
the plague, the natives were cut down literally by the millions. When the
first explorers encountered natives in Florida and Mexico, for example,
they found millions of people living there. When they return after only a
decade or so, the majority were dead.

Although this is a fascinating tale historically, it clearly gives the
Europeans a deadly advantage in the game. For the sake of balanced play, we
have postulated in our alternative world that the Natives have encountered
similar hardships in their past and either have potent biological weapons
of their own or are immune to those of the new arrivals. In either case,
our version of reality offers no significant biological advantage to either
side. They must compete on a level playing field.

Natives with Guns

In this game, the Natives have guns right at the start. That's not how it
happened. On the other hand, we've taken care to be somewhat vague about
the actual time period of the game. The newspaper nominally establishes a
starting date of 1500 AD, but it should be obvious that thats somewhat
arbitrary. We've mixed elements from two entire centuries together in a
number of cases, so it should come as no surprise that somehow the Natives
have managed to obtain guns.

Once again, this is simply a game balancing factor. Natives with no
effective ranged weaponry would be at an insurmountable disadvantage in
combat and ultimately, therefore, in all aspects of the game. The first
European to encounter them could simply wipe them out. We took the liberty
of assuming in our alternative reality that the Natives do in fact have
some form of ranged weaponry comparable to that of the Europeans.

On the other hand, we did prevent the Natives from utilizing artillery
unless they explicity Westernize themselves. Guns are easily produced or
smuggled; cannon are another matter entirely. Thus the Natives are highly
expert in the use of basic guns and of cavalry, but not of cannon (which
appeared only during the later parts of the time period covered by the
game, anyway).

Federation and Westernization

The Natives posed an interesting challenge at later stages of the game. We
could simply have had them declare independence, just like the European
powers. But, since their governmental structure is fundamentally different
than that of the other players, we chose a different route that would
provide a potential major advantage to players skilled enough to take
advantage of it.

In the game, the high Native player has not one but two options: Federation
and Westernization. Each has advantages and drawbacks. Federation lets the
player gain almost unlimited numbers of colonies though acquisition of the
smaller Native tribes. Westernization allows the player to obtain some of
the advantages of Western civilizations, such as higher building levels and
artillery.

Tips for the Native Player

1) Gotta Get Gold
Natives can't trade with any "mother countries" to get gold and, until they
start federating, native trades are iffy at best. This means gold will be
more a necessity than for those silly pale-faces. Unlike them, you can make
(REALLY CRAPPY) gold mines anywhere, but you really want to make sure
you've got your colony down where, once your center is level 2, you'll be
able to score some high flying gold mines.

2) Wood Before Food
Try this if you're settling in a good wood-producing area: when you drop
your colony, build 7 mills, 3 houses, and 2 churches on the first turn.
Build nothing on your second turn. You should vault into making 12-15 wood
per turn from turn +3 onwards, and you have enough crops in your boat to
wait three or four turns before needing to build a farm. (NOTE: this works
well if you're playing the Euros, too)

3) Religion is GOOD
Don't underestimate the usefulness of Churches. If you overbuild your
industry, it will start to shut down due to labor shortages. The correct
amount of churches can quintuple the speed at which your first colony
grows. A simple rule of thumb is that if you've exhausted your labor supply
and you have 5 wood left over, build a church. Once your population gets
high enough you won't need them as much anymore and you can destroy them.
(NOTE: this, also, is very important if you're playing a Euro player)

4) Specialize
The three most useful Specializations for the Native Player are
Cartography, Missionary, and Conqueror. Not necessarily in that order. Note
that you cannot buy all three of them for the same game. Cartography is
more useful if you lean towards exploration, Conqueror is more useful if
you lean towards military. Missionary is ALWAYS useful, since you need
friendly natives for trade. (ps: unless the game is really short, the only
way to win as the Native is through military victory)

5) Out in the Boonies: Good and Bad.
Since you start out on the other side of the map from the other players,
you will have more time to build yourself up before they become a threat to
you. Unfortunately, since you can only go to level 2 and they can go to
level 4, if you wait too long, they'll be able to crush you like an insect.
You don't need to concentrate on early defense as much as they do (although
keep an eye out for pesky Hostile NSN's), but you need to do the one thing
you, as the Native, do best: grow quickly and make LOTS of combat troops
once you're ready to take on the world.

6) Combat strategies.
Most battles, in my opinion, are won or lost before you ever see the combat
screen. Since you can get more gold, quickly, than they europeans at the
start, make sure you're spending early and often on your research. Make
sure your leaders can hold LOTS of guys (you need the numeric superiority
to offset your lack of cannon). Put an EQUAL NUMBER of Cavalry and Infantry
under your leader. Since you have the ability to make many more troops than
the Euros, use concerted attacks of 3 or 4 full leaders to take colonies.
Once you get into combat, use your combined arms. Don't toss three cavalry
out early, since your strongest positions will be squares that have both 2
cavalry and 2 infantry.

7) Federation
One of the best tricks to pull is to federate the colonies near the
European players. When they federate to you, they become VERY hostile to
all other players. The CPs will get raided fairly continualy and that will
soften them up for you. Also, if your leaders have high charisma, they will
be able to get support troops from nearby federated (or very friendly)
NSNs. You don't have to immediately get into war with the Euros, you can
let your federated NSNs do some of your work for you.

This page, and all contents, are Copyright (C) 1996 by Interplay
Productions

Used with permission