The Warpath DLC was released just a short time ago for ETW via steam at the price of $10 USD.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steam Store
5 New Playable Factions — Play through the new Warpath Campaign or in multiplayer as one of 5 new American Indian factions in Empire: Total War, including the Iroquois, Huron, Plains, Pueblo and Cherokee nations.
Expanded North American Territories — A new, more detailed North American Campaign Map featuring new regions and a new start date.
New Elite Units — Command new Elite units specific to each American Indian faction including Mohawk Elite Warriors, Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, Navajo Scout Warriors and many more.
Shaman and Scout Agents — Two new agent types - Infiltrate enemy territory with the new Shaman unit and sabotage the opposition with the cunning Scout.
New Tribal Technologies — 18 new tribal technologies including Spirit Medicine, the Call of the Wild and Dreamwalking creating a brand new tribal technology tree.
New Objectives — New winning objectives for each of the playable factions.
The Campaign: It's basically a retooled North American theater from the vanilla game, rebalanced to add more provinces and completely redone art-wise from the looks of it
The Time Frame: The game starts in 1783 and ends in 1828, as such all the European factions in America are at their peak technological. They posses a serious advantage at the start of the game.
The European factions: There are five unplayable European factions that share the continent with the 5 playable native factions. Great Brittian, Spain, France, United Provinces and the United States. Some of these factions are rather small, others are large empires, none however are playable "out of box".
The Tech Tree: The new tree has three technological paths, a government, war, and economical/social. The earliest techs can be researched quickly and there isn't a great deal to get as there was in vanilla ETW, likely due to the short time frame the Warpath campaign offers.
Pictured here the Shaman (left) and the Scout (right)
10-16-2009, 11:54
Fisherking
Re: Warpath General Information
Warpath Impressions:
I have been playing Warpath, and while it is not the GC it is entertaining but much is lacking or dose a really bad job of portraying Native Americans.
The fact that they have only a single leader is perhaps the worst!
Everything was done by counsel. A War Chief was basically a general. All the leaders had their positions due to respect and admiration of their people.
None of the depicted cultures had a kingship as we would know it.
Give them a council or cabinet!
Next they lack a policy window where you can check the state of the regions. While they can not exempt taxes that is now reason not to be able to see what is happening.
There is no reason to think their approach to governing their peoples was any less sophisticated than their European counterparts.
Overview
The units are more subjective. They are a little weak but I had little trouble using even the early units to gain victories.
Now I don't mean that you can take a stack and auto resolve with the Europeans. You have to use your abilities and gang up on a single unit.
I used a unit of bowmen to lead a line infantry unit into an ambush where several other bowmen go a shot at them. One on one or even two on one fire fights are not going to work out for you. Use your melee units to gang up on weakened units and move your ranged units to take on another unit.
The cavalry is decent enough but still best used in pairs or groups.
Research is fairly rapid and Shamen work like Gentlemen but some can give a +2 bonus in combat. I have never had more than two, the second came after the tech tree was finished, though. They also produce a +2 & +4 happiness bonus.
One or at most two of them is all you will need for research. Any more are just for happiness. It takes longer to get the building built than to research the tech and for most of the game I was only able to use one, though the second did come in handy at the beginning and the end of the research.
There are 15 different Government building in three types. The three types are council grounds, hunting grounds, and burial grounds. Hunting grounds give the most unit types and recruitment slots. Burial Grounds give happiness bonuses, and Counsels give income bonuses. The large regions can build all three while smaller regions must select one type to specialize in.
There are 3 technology threads with 18 techs. There is only one screen.
Your town types are weavers, longhouses, and metal workers. The longhouses are schools and have one upgrade, the meeting hall. The first is worth 10 research points and the second is worth 20.
The weavers have one upgrade and likewise the smiths. The metal working line cuts the cost of unit recruitment and the weavers just provide cash.
Farms can also be converted to pioneer settlements. They provide cash and are dirt cheep but they convert your population to Protestantism and cause tons of unrest.
Mines can be prospectors which have no upgrade but are cheap.
There are lots of new region, one in particular, the Chickasaw region should have been the Choctaw region, I think they did it just to tick me off.
Ports are all fishing ports and have one upgrade. They will boost your trade values but provide no trade links and no ships.
All trade is overland and only with those you border with.
The only minor nation I saw was Mexico.
The Spanish start at War with all the southern and western tribes. The Americans pretty much hate all the tribes but allied with the Huron. The French and Dutch were far away. Unless you want to invite them in by gifting regions (I don’t recommend it) then you will likely have no dealings with them.
The British were friendly with all but the Huron.
Settler Revolts:
Settlers bring in lots of cash (compared to other things) but bring unrest. They also convert everyone to Protestantism.
When they revolt they belong to the US and if they win the region belongs to the US. Taking it back puts you at war with the US.
Also if you see blue regions popping up you have some idea what happened.
