Sioux Eco play

[vaso413]

I know all people think that Sioux(in fact all native civs, but more on that later) have a terrible economy that drops off as early as ~15 mins into the game. However, when combined with age-up politicians and farms/plantations economic improvements can match their European counterparts(in fact, natives have surprisingly better wood upgrades, which helps to get farms/plantations)(though Sioux and Iro[not sure about Iro] lack good eco shipments, therefore they are bad, but not AS bad as people make them out to be). If you take the prices for a mill and a plantation(1200 wood total) they seem quite overwhelming to gather, but in reality, Sioux spends little to no wood and Iro has the option to get 3 travois when they hit up to fortress.
For the Aztecs, it does not make sense to gather the additional 1200 wood to build farms and plantations because that would fatally slow them down.
On top of all that, if the game gets to the point where the natural resources have run out(30-45 minutes), you have already partly transitioned to resource-gathering buildings. Tell me what you think of this(for subjects such as diarouga please don't reply with something like "This sucks.")

[_venox_]

I think that apart from the standard 3 villager and 4 villager shipment the only 2 options left to boom (as I understand the word boom) is either spice trade/furtraders, which is a really costly steel traps upgrade (costing 1 shipment worth around 700resources, when other civs get it for 250 res at the market) and stagecoach upgrade while having multiple trading posts. I do not think that building farms when the natural food resources haven't run out is a good idea because it still takes some investment and the food income is generally much lower than from natural food sources. Compared to known boom civs siouxs resource income curve really does flat out around 15 minutes and they are, in comparison to all other nations, one of the worst civs at booming, besides Otto on a non tp land map.

[deleted_user0]

sioux eco sux early game because they lack good vil shipments. they only have 4vil, while most civs have something like 5+4 vils, they also lack other means of booming, such as shrines, manors or banks. Neither do they have schooners.

Their lategame eco sux because all TWC civs lack factories, they also lack good lategame eco cards, most notably refrigeration and royal mint. But while iro and aztecs atleast have other means or good cards, sioux lacks these completely. They do have good hunting cards, but usually you can't afford to send them and on top of that, you are only making an already rapidly declining resources decline even faster.

EP perhaps should look into sioux getting a bonus on gathering hunts, considering that they were a hunting migratory civ. But who knows if its really neccesary. Sioux is one of those civs whose eco is in the army, like otto. And they are good at keeping the other eco low, rather than keeping their own eco high.

sioux is by design probably the most one dimensional civ. it would be nice if somehow they would be given a none-traditional second option besides military victory. Something other than winning by tech or winning by eco. Perhaps if the tashunke prowlers were made non useless, a sort of powerful version of oprichniks, sioux could possibly win by stealth and surprise.

[Jaeger]

The native civs could have better wood upgrades, but by the time it's time to switch to mills and plantations, the euro/TAD civs would have already gathered more (due to steel traps, refrigeration, 5 vills, etc) by (lets say) no more than the 1k wood that the TWC civs are saving.

[purplesquid]

It's important to note that farm upgrades affect food gather rates (likewise plantation upgrades affect coin gather rate) so it is possible (particularly with sioux age 4 politician who gives 30 bison and +30% huntable gather rate) to get food/coin gather rates much faster than the European civs. This is only really viable with iro because of travios and that card that gives free farm/plantation upgrades.

[vaso413]

The native civs could have better wood upgrades, but by the time it's time to switch to mills and plantations, the euro/TAD civs would have already gathered more (due to steel traps, refrigeration, 5 vills, etc) by (lets say) no more than the 1k wood that the TWC civs are saving.

True, besides, there is no way to match refrigeration with natives.