Northeastern North American Indian Warfare

[Hosakawa Tito]

While reading Champlain's Dream: by David Hackett Fischer I became intrigued, again, by his account of the warfare, tactics & strategies employed by the Northeastern tribes of the Huron and their Iroquois enemies in the St. Lawrence Valley. The assumption by most is that the natives only used guerrilla tactics of ambush & raiding, no unit formations, no body armor, no siege tactics or machines etc... and in actuality this is far from the truth. Champlain's' first military encounter as an ally of the Hurons in an attack on a superior force of Mohawk warriors described in this book dispels the myth of the "skulking Indian".

Here's a link for more info on the subject. At the bottom of the page is a bibliography of the reference material. I can't wait to purchase and read some of these books.

[Polemists]

There is a vareity of intrigue for alot of us. While I'm sure CA wants to make the factions as playable and fun as possible I see the Indian war aspects as a little bit of flavor that could either really help the game, or just be a bleh feature.

On the one hand the diplomacy between the Indians and the Europeans/Colonials, Techonlogy trades, and proxy wars, all make for very interesting game play. Oh the other hand I fear they will be put in as just a generic faction made up of vastly outnumbering guys with axes and javelin throws (Anyone remeber Mayans in kingdoms?)

We'll see but with so much focus on governments, rebellion, gunpowder, navies, etc, etc, not sure how much attention third party factions will recieve, if any.

[AussieGiant]

I think the expectations will need to be tempered in this part of the game. It's argueably a marginal aspect of the game so I don't see CA spending too much time on it.

[Fisherking]

If it is marginal then they will have a lot of explaining to do to a large share of the market!

In these times they were the key to power in North America and as allies and trading partners they were of great worth.

The proxy wars the Indians fought were trade wars more than anything else.

Also almost all of the Eastern Tribes built fortifications. They were often referred to as Castles. There tactics were not unsophisticated and while ambush was used pitch battles were also a part of war.
Even the ambush was more sophisticated than you likely know. The L shaped ambush is a legacy of Indian combat. Making them underpowered or just mobs of men with axes would be a big mistake.

[Mailman653]

Might get more attention in an expansion. Generally speaking, most of the games action will still take place in Europe.

[Oleander Ardens]

A great read and find.

It certainly shows that European technologies and siege tatics were both rapidly aquired and incorporated in new ingenous procedures and techniques.

[Fisherking]

Might get more attention in an expansion. Generally speaking, most of the games action will still take place in Europe.

Only if you have no colonies! If you have interests elsewhere in the world you had better be prepared to fight to keep them. If you only fight in Europe you will only have interests in Europe. All the rest will belong to others.

Wars of this time were fought on a global scale by the powers that had overseas colonies. If however you are only going to play as a land-locked European then by all means, Europe is your world.