Amsel_ wrote:Thank you for making this thread. I've always thought natives were too underwhelming in AoE3. Since the ESOC Patch doesn't want to make major changes to the game, I can only recommend.
-Tweaking unit cost and strength.
-Revealing the whole map, since the natives probably know the local area pretty well.
-Big buttons that allow you to get a batch of units at a discounted price; one for age 2, 3, and 4.
If we were talking about major changes then some ideas are.
-Adding a "call village militia" feature that essentially works as a free minutemen. You can use it every 3-4 minutes. This would make nats useful for map control.
-Building a native TP gets you a unique explorer unit from that tribe. He's immortal like a regular explorer, but can be killed if the TP was destroyed.
-A random gift every 5 minutes. It could be resources, units, villagers, or temporary buffs to stuff like damage or gather rate.
-An extra row of shipments in the home city menu, but they're shipments from that native tribe.
These are great ideas, I have been watching a lot of streams lately and I don't think I can really say I have seen natives used. But they should be as important as trade post. And trade post provide a constant income which makes them very worth while.
I think an increased LOS would be helpful more so than reveal map, that would just be kind of OP to find treasures etc...
Also maybe a buff to the nat cards civs already have, so maybe the cheaper card makes them even cheaper.
Big buttons and HC cards awesome idea.
Village militia has some merits too to add to the value like a TP increases in value over time.
I think the explorer idea is cool for some tribes like a mansabar unit. sort of like the nookta chief
allow Asian civs to build embassy?