I Didnt know the American Indians fought in rank and file formation!

Yeah, that was a strange move on CA's part. Not as bad as Roman Ninjas, but still strange nonetheless. At least they're only fixed with a mere range of 400.

Despite being on the same elevation, they were still out-ranging me somehow.

This is not a very popular opinion lately, but..

I think people are fooling themselves if they think the only reason that Europeans defeated Native Americans was because of disease.

I will agree that it had a huge effect and is responsible for some of the Europeans rapid destruction of these peoples. However, even if the Native Americans were innoculated by medical space aliens from the future (mspaftf for short =P), they were still over a thousand years behind in war materials and techniques.

Horses.

There was a battle when 50 Spanish Conquistadors beat an Inca army of over 10,000, due solely to the fact that the Spanish were on horses.

The American Indians were technologically backward. While Indians, generally disinclined towards open battle anyway, quickly abandoned head on confrontations with European armies after a general pattern of early defeats, their equally quick adoption of the mustket and, as soon as possible, the rifle, over the bow and melee weapons demonstrates that they intuitively recognized their inability to compete against modern firearms with ancient-era weapons. It was noted by some commentators of the colonial period that certain Indian tribes had come to regard bows more as toys for children than as serious weapons.

Adoption of European weapons, of course, did not meant adoption of European tactics. The Indians remained more akin to European light infantry/light cavalry/guerillas throughout their wars with Europeans and Americans, and generally avoided pitched battle unless ensured of overwhelming tactical or numerical superiority. What successes the Indians enjoyed against Euro/American armies were due to a combination of Indian adaptation of European technology to wilderness warfare and, in most cases, siginificant tactical blundering the part of western forces. A Euro/American force not overwhelmingly outnumbered and able to deploy was almost never in any signifcant danger from any American Indian army.

The Indians in this game should be mostly represented by small, mostly rifled-armed, skirmisher and light infantry. Massed bows and lancer cavalry, were rare or unheard of, particularly for the northern tribes.