Iroquois Overview
Posted: 22 Aug 2019, 11:32
IROQUOIS OVERVIEW
Introduction
Even though the Iroquois have been gaining some popularity lately, they are still definitely an underplayed civ, and in my opinion, undeservedly so! They carry a bit of a stigma from RE, because in 1v1 they were too strong and people disliked playing against them, but in team games they are more on the average side of things and they can be somewhat of a challenge and a lot of fun to play. In the EP their initial TP was removed and the civ was brought down to roughly the same level as other civs; chances are, if you play Iroquois on EP you won’t get flamed as you would on RE.
I am by no means a good player (arguably not even decent), but having played the civ for a while in team games and some 1v1, I am quite confident with saying that I understand the core mechanics of the civ and can provide an introduction to people who are curious about it and are willing to give it a try but are a bit shy when it comes to getting started. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive, in depth guide for the civilization. It’s simply an attempt at taking the information you could possibly find looking around in forums, vods, recorded games and putting it together in a somewhat organized way, and it is also a way for me to learn more about the civ and understand it better. Hopefully this will be helpful to some players.
Units
Tomahawk: Basic musketeer type of unit. Slightly inferior to their counterparts because they have a slightly slower animation and their base stats for their cost is not great. What’s great about them instead (and about all the other iroquois infantry units as well) is that you can upgrade them a lot with cards, and also the war chief aura makes up for their initial sub-par cost effectiveness. What they excel at is melee combat, only bested by the infamous indian sepoys, among musketeers.
Aenna: Their stats are quite nice (5 speed is the most notable value), but being an archer unit they have the long windup animation (microing them is possible but also a bit hard) and their usefulness is limited to the colonial age. If you age to fortress and have a lot of leftover aennas then it is a good idea to upgrade them, but actually producing them in the fortress age or later is generally not a great idea. They can be decent in some situations in the very late game (e.g. if there is a seminole settlement on the map) but forest prowlers will always be the safest choice in the long run.
Forest Prowler: Probably the best iroquois unit, and arguably the best skirmisher in the game (if we don’t account for arquebusiers who have better multipliers after repelling volley) because they can be upgraded a lot and also obtain 22 range. It’s already a great unit stats wise, and on top of that they get stealth mode, that is often forgotten about. Stealth mode has potentially infinite uses that only Aizamk could think of, but I’ll mention a few ways to use it, to provide an example:
-Scouting;
-Sniping artillery;
-Hiding from the enemy cavalry;
-Setting up ambushes.
In short: skirmisher on steroids.
Kanya Horseman: Slightly cheaper and worse version of the hussar. Not much to say about it, besides that it has 30% ranged resist, a bonus vs. artillery and very good unit shipments. They don’t have a lot of upgrades, you usually make them just for necessity since they aren’t one of the Iroquois strongest points. The fact that they cost wood makes your macro easier in the colonial age but also a bit harder in the fortress age.
Musket Rider: Dragoon equivalent for the Iroquois. It is slightly cheaper than dragoons, while it maintains more or less the same stats. The main drawback is that later into the game they will fall a bit behind euro dragoons because of the lack of upgrades. They can remain relevant with the war dance, but they will also represent a huge gold drain once you switch to plantations.
Ram: This unit is a bit tricky. It is comparable to a petard, but it also comes with significant differences. The surprise effect is not as great as with petards, because they don’t instantly destroy buildings. Your opponent will have time to react most of the times and even if you manage to sneak 5 rams into the enemy base you’ll usually struggle to get more than a couple of important buildings down. I like to use them in team games as a follow up to a colonial tomahawk rush, because they soak a lot of damage from ranged infantry, shielding your tomahawks while chewing through enemy infrastructure, and also because you can keep your vills on food and wood only, even after aging up. They are affected by infantry combat cards, thus sending cards for tomahawks will also be beneficial to rams.
Mantlet: Decent unit, whose main use should be soaking damage in my opinion. Its short range of 10 might look like a bit of a nuisance at a first glance, but in reality it is an advantage. Because of it, mantlets will always be fighting in front of the rest of your ranged army, becoming automatically the first potential target for enemy units without needing you to micro them all the time. They have good siege, but I would consider that a side feature. This unit is so tanky that it can win you fights you probably should not even win (e.g. 25 non-microed longbows vs 2 mantlets and 10 tomahawks). As for rams, mantlets also benefit from infantry upgrades, making them probably the most upgradable unit of the whole iroquois army (they can get to 1000+ hitpoints). The Iroquois have very valuable mantlet shipments in both the fortress and industrial age.
Light Cannon: This is a mix of a falconet and a culverin, and has the same limber and bombard speed, which is nice. They are also cheap for being an artillery unit. Their main drawback is that they are locked behind the industrial age. I like to rank their usefulness in this specific order:
- Anti-artillery and anti-ship: their speed, their range and their bonus damage against artillery make them incredibly useful at sniping enemy artillery and decent at keeping boats off the shores.
- Siege: they are good for pressuring a turtling opponent. They can take down buildings relatively quickly and if you ever happen to be in the industrial age before your opponent is, make sure to use them.
- Anti-infantry: they are really underwhelming if you try to use them as anti infantry; unlike a culverin, they do okish, but don’t expect to see more than a couple “+10” pop up on the screen for each cannonball. They are better at scaring off enemy infantry than they are at actually dealing with it, due to their low damage, low multiplier and low area of effect.
War Chief: He is the mascotte of Iroquois, and probably one of the best explorers in the game. His aura boosts the HP of nearby units by 15% and his eagle eye (crackshot) can be a fight changer. Try to keep him with your army and alive all the time. If he dies, build a fire pit and dance to revive him.
Canoe and War Canoe: These don’t have a really good reputation and the Iroquois doesn’t have a lot of good water cards, but usually they’ll be able to get the job done if you commit to water hard enough.
Big Buttons
Iroquois Scouting Party: Ships 5 Tomahawks (500 food)
Iroquois Raiding Party: Ships 10 Tomahawks (500 food and gold)
Iroquois War Party: Ships 15 Tomahawks. (500 of all resources)
Party time! The first one is very versatile. You can use it as minutemen, you can use it for a rush, for a semi-FF etc. It’s really one of the Iroquois’ trademark features, and you can implement it in infinite different ways. The other two are definitely less versatile because they are actually more expensive than war hut tomahawks and usually you’re never be stacking that many resources. They are still useful in dire situations and I think they can be very useful when going industrial: you can send crates of 1500 resources twice, getting 10 tomahawks and 4 houses the first time, and 15 tomahawks the second time. It helps a lot with massing tomahawks to protect your light cannons while pushing a turtling opponent.
Woodland Dwellers: Ships 500 wood for every 10 minutes of the game, maximum 30 minutes. Cost: 250f 250g (Longhouse)
This one can be useful from 10 minutes already. If your macro is focused on food and coin, you can just ship this for some wood to build houses. Otherwise, if you don’t need it just save it for later.
Strawberry Festival: Ships 500 food for every 10 minutes of the game, maximum 30 minutes. Cost: 250w 250g (Farm)
Maple Festival: Ships 500 gold for every 10 minutes of the game, maximum 30 minutes. Cost: 250f 250w (Plantation)
These ones are best saved for after 30 minutes. You could use them after 20 minutes already and get something out of it, but obviously, as most big buttons, the longer you wait the better it is.
Please note that sending any of these big buttons before the 10 minute mark will result in you losing your resources, since you will get nothing in return!
Lacrosse: Increases LOS and range of all War Hut units by 2. Cost: 600w, 600g. (War Hut)
It’s what makes the iroquois infantry over the top and dominate other infantry in the late game. It’s expensive, I wouldn’t suggest getting it early unless in very specific situations (on RE if you’re facing abus guns with 18 range, having 2 more range can help a lot with keeping your forest prowlers safe, but it is still a very big investment, and I am not sure it is worth it).
Horse Secrets: Increases all Corral units' speed by 10%. Cost: 400w 400g (Corral)
Decent technology. A bit expensive to afford early on, but later on can help you hit and run with musket riders or in general for kanya mobility (they will be able to escape/catch other cavalry, which is a big deal). Keep in mind though that it’s unlikely that iroquois players will have big cavalry masses in the late game.
Siege Drill: Increases all Siege Workshop units' speed by 10%. Cost: 500f 500w (Siege Workshop)
Obviously a must have in case you’re going heavy on siege.
Secret Society: The iroquois war chief gains healing ability. Cost: 200w 100g (Fire Pit)
Heals 400 HP in a radius of 10, and has a 120 seconds cooldown (it’s an active healing ability, not a passive one like the ones indian or japanese monks get). Nice to have between fights I guess, but I don’t think it’s worth getting out of your way for it.
Rawhide Covers: Increases warship hitpoints by 20%. Cost: 400f 400w (Dock)
Pretty much self explanatory.
Firepit
As with every TWC civ, the firepit is a core feature of the civ and a fundamental part of the gameplay. Generally speaking you will need the firepit as Iroquois from the mid game onwards, unlike Aztecs who usually have it from the very start. Important dances for the Iroquois are:
- Fertility Dance: useful when you’re on 3 tcs and want to speed up your boom, if you find yourself a bit behind. TWC civs can boom really quickly with this dance, but the problem is that town centers become such a food drain that you’ll hardly be able to afford anything else while you are booming with 3 tcs and 25 vills on the firepit. Make sure that you can defend yourself or that the team can cover you up for a couple of minutes if that’s what you intend to do.
- Gift Dance: If you have vills on the firepit and you aren’t fighting or booming or making travoises, you can switch to this dance to avoid wasting villager seconds. It’s not the most efficient thing to do, but considering how many good cards iroquois have, it’s not that terrible in my opinion to dance for XP. Just try to keep it to a minimum.
- Warchief Dance: Pretty simple, bring back to life your warchief with his precious aura.
- War Dance: Again, pretty simple. When you are fighting this dance helps a lot.
- Founder Dance: Absolutely a must. Spawning a travois at the fire pit costs 325 villager seconds, which translates to about 160-170 wood for every travois if you make a comparison to unupgraded villagers chopping wood. It is cost effective to dance for extra war huts to gain map control over natural resources, and insanely cost effective for transitioning to mills and plantations.
- Earth Mother Dance: This is on the list just because it’s one of the two iroquois unique dance and I want to say that it is bad and you shouldn’t use it.
Cards
I’m just gonna mention a few iroquois special cards, without going through all of them.
Town Destroyer: An interesting/fun card that can go a bit under the radar. Lets your warchief siege as roughly 11 tomahawks would. There are some strategies that revolve around this for ruining your opponent’s build, but it is never used at high level, maybe because it doesn’t work, maybe because it’s really annoying, probably a mix of both.
New Ways: This is definitely a must have in your team decks unless you plan to rush as hard as possible and win/lose the game in 10 minutes. CIR, Ranged Cavalry Caracole and Cavalry Cuirass are good upgrades to have in the late game. In 1v1 it’s not a great card, because it requires too big of an investment. Obviously CIR can be very useful against civs like india, but often you won’t get to the point where you can actually send this card so I generally wouldn’t include it in 1v1 decks.
Conservative Tactics: Iroquois version of Boyars. Enough said, I guess.
Agrarian Ways: Important card that lets you boost your eco/smoothen your mill-plantation transition significantly in the fortress age. The farm and plantation upgrades will be free, but you will still have to research them and it will take a couple of minutes. The maximum benefit you can gain from it is +45% on food and +30% on coin, which are really good values for a single card.
Iroquois Woodworking: This card has really good value on paper. It’s 500f 785c worth of upgrades that you get instantly after shipping the card, potentially boosting your wood gathering from 0.5/s/villager to 0.8/s/villager instantly. The problem is that you will never find yourself switching your whole economy to wood all at once in the third age as Iroquois, since your mills and plantations, and even extra warhuts should all come from the firepit in the form of travoises. I wouldn’t suggest keeping this card into your decks, most of the times getting the upgrades manually is better/more versatile and can fit your needs a lot better.
Mohawk Support: Out of all the iroquois support card, this is the only one that actually gives you good value for the shipment you are sending. 5 mantlets and 6 rams are worth 2200 resources, most of which is wood and gold. It saves you building an artillery foundry, in case you needed some siege units. I’d consider it very situational, though, because siege is not a predominant part of the iroquois army and often it can be tricky to make it fit. It could be a good addition to counter TAD civs like japan or india that have a lot of ranged infantry and also some important infrastructure at home. If you manage to take the fight with your army and the mantlets while you sneak the rams in their base and destroy a wonder, you should be in a good spot.
Good colonial unit shipments:
4 Kanya (Good value!)
7 Aenna (Good value!)
6 Aenna
6 Tomahawks
Good fortress unit shipments:
8 Forest Prowlers (I’ve seen Mitoe send 6 FP too, but i’m not a fan)
5 Musket Riders
6 Kanya (Good value!)
5 Kanya
5 Cuirassiers for 500c (Mix them with some kanya, otherwise they will be focused and accomplish nothing)
9 Tomahawks
10 Aenna (Only if you have some leftovers from the colonial age that you intend to upgrade)
5 Mantlets (Situational)
Good industrial unit shipments:
4 Light cannons (A must in every deck)
7 Mantlets (Infinite, really good value, but situational)
16 Tomahawks
Iroquois Downsides
Late game economy is definitely the Iroquois Achilles’ heel. The amount of economic upgrades that iroquois get is really lackluster, as a matter of fact they can only get +120% on their mill base gather rate and +100% on their plantation base gather rate, whereas french can get +155% and +200% respectively (just to put into perspective), on top of having factories. Iro doesn’t have factories, but they have a villager politician which they should always save for the imperial age in team games, since it lets them overpop to 119 vills and makes up a bit for the lack of factories. Needless to say, it is a lot harder to defend 20 of your 119 villagers than 2 factories, so you should be as careful as possible once you have that imperial villager surplus. Therefore, we all understand that the Iroquois can’t really compete with other civs eco wise in the late game, and that’s why you will always need to have an almost full to full firepit in the lategame. You can’t afford to take bad military trades, you need to get good trades because your economy won’t be able to back a constant unit spam up like some other civs do. When you need to switch to mills and/or plantations, put a good amount of vills on the firepit and dance until you have at least a couple of farms and a couple of plantations. Ideally, once you are maxed on vills you want to have at least 50 vills on plantations with the iroquois, because their best units are very costly in terms of gold.
How to get greedy with the Iroquois
I think that one of the things people tend to struggle the most with as Iroquois, is setting up a good economy for both the early and the late game. No factories, no refrigeration/royal mint and lack of substantial upgrades (steel traps, amalgamation, third plantation upgrade) hurt them a lot. There are a few options, not always on par with the other, more boomy civs, but potentially viable and useful in keeping the iroquois economy relevant enough throughout the game.
-Trading posts, they are a nice way for every civ, but especially TWC civs which have a bit of a lackluster eco, to improve their economy. Fight for the TPs, because they help the Iroquois a lot. A 2-3 TP stagecoach can help you keep up with euro civs very easily. From my experience, trading posts are often at least partially neglected in team games.
-Agrarian Ways semi-fast fortress, mainly a team strategy, not sure how good it is, but I like to use it and for me it works. Build a farm with your first travois, chop for a house. Age with the wise woman and chop for a TP in transition+25 wood that you will use for a house with the 100w of the wise woman. Once you are up use the travois for a warhut and send 5 vills followed by 600 coin. If needed, call the tomahawk big button. Age up with the messenger, and chop for a market. Build a plantation from the fortress travois and send agrarian ways. At this point you can already start producing forest prowlers from a warhut. Try to get your market upgrades as well, while you are getting the mill and plantation upgrades. If you manage to pull this off, your vills will gather food at 1.3/s and coin at 0.84/s, which is better than what euro civs can obtain from just the market upgrades. Note that these upgrades apply to berries, mills and plantations too! From this point you’ll be able to spam forest prowlers and/or musket riders quite easily.
-Fertility dance, a nice perk of any TWC civ is that you can build town centers with villagers and keep your war chief in the fight, making it easier to start focusing on the economy when needed. You can simply add town centers and make villagers at the base rate, but if you are in a hurry and want to speed things up you can add villagers to the fire pit and use the fertility dance. A good thing about this is that you can decide the extent to which you want to boost your boom, from leaving 5 vills on the firepit to a full 25 villager firepit. It’s up to you to adapt and decide how much you need and want to forfeit your military presence on the map to get an economical advantage. See the fire pit section for more details.
-Fishing, having a travois from the start in the discovery age, makes fishing with iroquois a real pleasure, especially on EP where fishing boats only cost 70w. On water maps, always consider including a bit of fish boom in your build (at least 3 boats in the discovery age and more in transition/later on). Don’t overinvest into water if you don’t plan on defending your ships though.
UPDATE - As of 11/04/2020 i've decided i will not finish this guide. I have lost interest in the game some time ago (maybe temorarily) and i don't really like the changes that were made to the civilization in the Definitive Edition, which is a further disincentive for this. I don't think anybody will be missing this anyway.
Introduction
Even though the Iroquois have been gaining some popularity lately, they are still definitely an underplayed civ, and in my opinion, undeservedly so! They carry a bit of a stigma from RE, because in 1v1 they were too strong and people disliked playing against them, but in team games they are more on the average side of things and they can be somewhat of a challenge and a lot of fun to play. In the EP their initial TP was removed and the civ was brought down to roughly the same level as other civs; chances are, if you play Iroquois on EP you won’t get flamed as you would on RE.
I am by no means a good player (arguably not even decent), but having played the civ for a while in team games and some 1v1, I am quite confident with saying that I understand the core mechanics of the civ and can provide an introduction to people who are curious about it and are willing to give it a try but are a bit shy when it comes to getting started. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive, in depth guide for the civilization. It’s simply an attempt at taking the information you could possibly find looking around in forums, vods, recorded games and putting it together in a somewhat organized way, and it is also a way for me to learn more about the civ and understand it better. Hopefully this will be helpful to some players.
Units
Tomahawk: Basic musketeer type of unit. Slightly inferior to their counterparts because they have a slightly slower animation and their base stats for their cost is not great. What’s great about them instead (and about all the other iroquois infantry units as well) is that you can upgrade them a lot with cards, and also the war chief aura makes up for their initial sub-par cost effectiveness. What they excel at is melee combat, only bested by the infamous indian sepoys, among musketeers.
Aenna: Their stats are quite nice (5 speed is the most notable value), but being an archer unit they have the long windup animation (microing them is possible but also a bit hard) and their usefulness is limited to the colonial age. If you age to fortress and have a lot of leftover aennas then it is a good idea to upgrade them, but actually producing them in the fortress age or later is generally not a great idea. They can be decent in some situations in the very late game (e.g. if there is a seminole settlement on the map) but forest prowlers will always be the safest choice in the long run.
Forest Prowler: Probably the best iroquois unit, and arguably the best skirmisher in the game (if we don’t account for arquebusiers who have better multipliers after repelling volley) because they can be upgraded a lot and also obtain 22 range. It’s already a great unit stats wise, and on top of that they get stealth mode, that is often forgotten about. Stealth mode has potentially infinite uses that only Aizamk could think of, but I’ll mention a few ways to use it, to provide an example:
-Scouting;
-Sniping artillery;
-Hiding from the enemy cavalry;
-Setting up ambushes.
In short: skirmisher on steroids.
Kanya Horseman: Slightly cheaper and worse version of the hussar. Not much to say about it, besides that it has 30% ranged resist, a bonus vs. artillery and very good unit shipments. They don’t have a lot of upgrades, you usually make them just for necessity since they aren’t one of the Iroquois strongest points. The fact that they cost wood makes your macro easier in the colonial age but also a bit harder in the fortress age.
Musket Rider: Dragoon equivalent for the Iroquois. It is slightly cheaper than dragoons, while it maintains more or less the same stats. The main drawback is that later into the game they will fall a bit behind euro dragoons because of the lack of upgrades. They can remain relevant with the war dance, but they will also represent a huge gold drain once you switch to plantations.
Ram: This unit is a bit tricky. It is comparable to a petard, but it also comes with significant differences. The surprise effect is not as great as with petards, because they don’t instantly destroy buildings. Your opponent will have time to react most of the times and even if you manage to sneak 5 rams into the enemy base you’ll usually struggle to get more than a couple of important buildings down. I like to use them in team games as a follow up to a colonial tomahawk rush, because they soak a lot of damage from ranged infantry, shielding your tomahawks while chewing through enemy infrastructure, and also because you can keep your vills on food and wood only, even after aging up. They are affected by infantry combat cards, thus sending cards for tomahawks will also be beneficial to rams.
Mantlet: Decent unit, whose main use should be soaking damage in my opinion. Its short range of 10 might look like a bit of a nuisance at a first glance, but in reality it is an advantage. Because of it, mantlets will always be fighting in front of the rest of your ranged army, becoming automatically the first potential target for enemy units without needing you to micro them all the time. They have good siege, but I would consider that a side feature. This unit is so tanky that it can win you fights you probably should not even win (e.g. 25 non-microed longbows vs 2 mantlets and 10 tomahawks). As for rams, mantlets also benefit from infantry upgrades, making them probably the most upgradable unit of the whole iroquois army (they can get to 1000+ hitpoints). The Iroquois have very valuable mantlet shipments in both the fortress and industrial age.
Light Cannon: This is a mix of a falconet and a culverin, and has the same limber and bombard speed, which is nice. They are also cheap for being an artillery unit. Their main drawback is that they are locked behind the industrial age. I like to rank their usefulness in this specific order:
- Anti-artillery and anti-ship: their speed, their range and their bonus damage against artillery make them incredibly useful at sniping enemy artillery and decent at keeping boats off the shores.
- Siege: they are good for pressuring a turtling opponent. They can take down buildings relatively quickly and if you ever happen to be in the industrial age before your opponent is, make sure to use them.
- Anti-infantry: they are really underwhelming if you try to use them as anti infantry; unlike a culverin, they do okish, but don’t expect to see more than a couple “+10” pop up on the screen for each cannonball. They are better at scaring off enemy infantry than they are at actually dealing with it, due to their low damage, low multiplier and low area of effect.
War Chief: He is the mascotte of Iroquois, and probably one of the best explorers in the game. His aura boosts the HP of nearby units by 15% and his eagle eye (crackshot) can be a fight changer. Try to keep him with your army and alive all the time. If he dies, build a fire pit and dance to revive him.
Canoe and War Canoe: These don’t have a really good reputation and the Iroquois doesn’t have a lot of good water cards, but usually they’ll be able to get the job done if you commit to water hard enough.
Big Buttons
Iroquois Scouting Party: Ships 5 Tomahawks (500 food)
Iroquois Raiding Party: Ships 10 Tomahawks (500 food and gold)
Iroquois War Party: Ships 15 Tomahawks. (500 of all resources)
Party time! The first one is very versatile. You can use it as minutemen, you can use it for a rush, for a semi-FF etc. It’s really one of the Iroquois’ trademark features, and you can implement it in infinite different ways. The other two are definitely less versatile because they are actually more expensive than war hut tomahawks and usually you’re never be stacking that many resources. They are still useful in dire situations and I think they can be very useful when going industrial: you can send crates of 1500 resources twice, getting 10 tomahawks and 4 houses the first time, and 15 tomahawks the second time. It helps a lot with massing tomahawks to protect your light cannons while pushing a turtling opponent.
Woodland Dwellers: Ships 500 wood for every 10 minutes of the game, maximum 30 minutes. Cost: 250f 250g (Longhouse)
This one can be useful from 10 minutes already. If your macro is focused on food and coin, you can just ship this for some wood to build houses. Otherwise, if you don’t need it just save it for later.
Strawberry Festival: Ships 500 food for every 10 minutes of the game, maximum 30 minutes. Cost: 250w 250g (Farm)
Maple Festival: Ships 500 gold for every 10 minutes of the game, maximum 30 minutes. Cost: 250f 250w (Plantation)
These ones are best saved for after 30 minutes. You could use them after 20 minutes already and get something out of it, but obviously, as most big buttons, the longer you wait the better it is.
Please note that sending any of these big buttons before the 10 minute mark will result in you losing your resources, since you will get nothing in return!
Lacrosse: Increases LOS and range of all War Hut units by 2. Cost: 600w, 600g. (War Hut)
It’s what makes the iroquois infantry over the top and dominate other infantry in the late game. It’s expensive, I wouldn’t suggest getting it early unless in very specific situations (on RE if you’re facing abus guns with 18 range, having 2 more range can help a lot with keeping your forest prowlers safe, but it is still a very big investment, and I am not sure it is worth it).
Horse Secrets: Increases all Corral units' speed by 10%. Cost: 400w 400g (Corral)
Decent technology. A bit expensive to afford early on, but later on can help you hit and run with musket riders or in general for kanya mobility (they will be able to escape/catch other cavalry, which is a big deal). Keep in mind though that it’s unlikely that iroquois players will have big cavalry masses in the late game.
Siege Drill: Increases all Siege Workshop units' speed by 10%. Cost: 500f 500w (Siege Workshop)
Obviously a must have in case you’re going heavy on siege.
Secret Society: The iroquois war chief gains healing ability. Cost: 200w 100g (Fire Pit)
Heals 400 HP in a radius of 10, and has a 120 seconds cooldown (it’s an active healing ability, not a passive one like the ones indian or japanese monks get). Nice to have between fights I guess, but I don’t think it’s worth getting out of your way for it.
Rawhide Covers: Increases warship hitpoints by 20%. Cost: 400f 400w (Dock)
Pretty much self explanatory.
Firepit
As with every TWC civ, the firepit is a core feature of the civ and a fundamental part of the gameplay. Generally speaking you will need the firepit as Iroquois from the mid game onwards, unlike Aztecs who usually have it from the very start. Important dances for the Iroquois are:
- Fertility Dance: useful when you’re on 3 tcs and want to speed up your boom, if you find yourself a bit behind. TWC civs can boom really quickly with this dance, but the problem is that town centers become such a food drain that you’ll hardly be able to afford anything else while you are booming with 3 tcs and 25 vills on the firepit. Make sure that you can defend yourself or that the team can cover you up for a couple of minutes if that’s what you intend to do.
- Gift Dance: If you have vills on the firepit and you aren’t fighting or booming or making travoises, you can switch to this dance to avoid wasting villager seconds. It’s not the most efficient thing to do, but considering how many good cards iroquois have, it’s not that terrible in my opinion to dance for XP. Just try to keep it to a minimum.
- Warchief Dance: Pretty simple, bring back to life your warchief with his precious aura.
- War Dance: Again, pretty simple. When you are fighting this dance helps a lot.
- Founder Dance: Absolutely a must. Spawning a travois at the fire pit costs 325 villager seconds, which translates to about 160-170 wood for every travois if you make a comparison to unupgraded villagers chopping wood. It is cost effective to dance for extra war huts to gain map control over natural resources, and insanely cost effective for transitioning to mills and plantations.
- Earth Mother Dance: This is on the list just because it’s one of the two iroquois unique dance and I want to say that it is bad and you shouldn’t use it.
Cards
I’m just gonna mention a few iroquois special cards, without going through all of them.
Town Destroyer: An interesting/fun card that can go a bit under the radar. Lets your warchief siege as roughly 11 tomahawks would. There are some strategies that revolve around this for ruining your opponent’s build, but it is never used at high level, maybe because it doesn’t work, maybe because it’s really annoying, probably a mix of both.
New Ways: This is definitely a must have in your team decks unless you plan to rush as hard as possible and win/lose the game in 10 minutes. CIR, Ranged Cavalry Caracole and Cavalry Cuirass are good upgrades to have in the late game. In 1v1 it’s not a great card, because it requires too big of an investment. Obviously CIR can be very useful against civs like india, but often you won’t get to the point where you can actually send this card so I generally wouldn’t include it in 1v1 decks.
Conservative Tactics: Iroquois version of Boyars. Enough said, I guess.
Agrarian Ways: Important card that lets you boost your eco/smoothen your mill-plantation transition significantly in the fortress age. The farm and plantation upgrades will be free, but you will still have to research them and it will take a couple of minutes. The maximum benefit you can gain from it is +45% on food and +30% on coin, which are really good values for a single card.
Iroquois Woodworking: This card has really good value on paper. It’s 500f 785c worth of upgrades that you get instantly after shipping the card, potentially boosting your wood gathering from 0.5/s/villager to 0.8/s/villager instantly. The problem is that you will never find yourself switching your whole economy to wood all at once in the third age as Iroquois, since your mills and plantations, and even extra warhuts should all come from the firepit in the form of travoises. I wouldn’t suggest keeping this card into your decks, most of the times getting the upgrades manually is better/more versatile and can fit your needs a lot better.
Mohawk Support: Out of all the iroquois support card, this is the only one that actually gives you good value for the shipment you are sending. 5 mantlets and 6 rams are worth 2200 resources, most of which is wood and gold. It saves you building an artillery foundry, in case you needed some siege units. I’d consider it very situational, though, because siege is not a predominant part of the iroquois army and often it can be tricky to make it fit. It could be a good addition to counter TAD civs like japan or india that have a lot of ranged infantry and also some important infrastructure at home. If you manage to take the fight with your army and the mantlets while you sneak the rams in their base and destroy a wonder, you should be in a good spot.
Good colonial unit shipments:
4 Kanya (Good value!)
7 Aenna (Good value!)
6 Aenna
6 Tomahawks
Good fortress unit shipments:
8 Forest Prowlers (I’ve seen Mitoe send 6 FP too, but i’m not a fan)
5 Musket Riders
6 Kanya (Good value!)
5 Kanya
5 Cuirassiers for 500c (Mix them with some kanya, otherwise they will be focused and accomplish nothing)
9 Tomahawks
10 Aenna (Only if you have some leftovers from the colonial age that you intend to upgrade)
5 Mantlets (Situational)
Good industrial unit shipments:
4 Light cannons (A must in every deck)
7 Mantlets (Infinite, really good value, but situational)
16 Tomahawks
Iroquois Downsides
Late game economy is definitely the Iroquois Achilles’ heel. The amount of economic upgrades that iroquois get is really lackluster, as a matter of fact they can only get +120% on their mill base gather rate and +100% on their plantation base gather rate, whereas french can get +155% and +200% respectively (just to put into perspective), on top of having factories. Iro doesn’t have factories, but they have a villager politician which they should always save for the imperial age in team games, since it lets them overpop to 119 vills and makes up a bit for the lack of factories. Needless to say, it is a lot harder to defend 20 of your 119 villagers than 2 factories, so you should be as careful as possible once you have that imperial villager surplus. Therefore, we all understand that the Iroquois can’t really compete with other civs eco wise in the late game, and that’s why you will always need to have an almost full to full firepit in the lategame. You can’t afford to take bad military trades, you need to get good trades because your economy won’t be able to back a constant unit spam up like some other civs do. When you need to switch to mills and/or plantations, put a good amount of vills on the firepit and dance until you have at least a couple of farms and a couple of plantations. Ideally, once you are maxed on vills you want to have at least 50 vills on plantations with the iroquois, because their best units are very costly in terms of gold.
How to get greedy with the Iroquois
I think that one of the things people tend to struggle the most with as Iroquois, is setting up a good economy for both the early and the late game. No factories, no refrigeration/royal mint and lack of substantial upgrades (steel traps, amalgamation, third plantation upgrade) hurt them a lot. There are a few options, not always on par with the other, more boomy civs, but potentially viable and useful in keeping the iroquois economy relevant enough throughout the game.
-Trading posts, they are a nice way for every civ, but especially TWC civs which have a bit of a lackluster eco, to improve their economy. Fight for the TPs, because they help the Iroquois a lot. A 2-3 TP stagecoach can help you keep up with euro civs very easily. From my experience, trading posts are often at least partially neglected in team games.
-Agrarian Ways semi-fast fortress, mainly a team strategy, not sure how good it is, but I like to use it and for me it works. Build a farm with your first travois, chop for a house. Age with the wise woman and chop for a TP in transition+25 wood that you will use for a house with the 100w of the wise woman. Once you are up use the travois for a warhut and send 5 vills followed by 600 coin. If needed, call the tomahawk big button. Age up with the messenger, and chop for a market. Build a plantation from the fortress travois and send agrarian ways. At this point you can already start producing forest prowlers from a warhut. Try to get your market upgrades as well, while you are getting the mill and plantation upgrades. If you manage to pull this off, your vills will gather food at 1.3/s and coin at 0.84/s, which is better than what euro civs can obtain from just the market upgrades. Note that these upgrades apply to berries, mills and plantations too! From this point you’ll be able to spam forest prowlers and/or musket riders quite easily.
-Fertility dance, a nice perk of any TWC civ is that you can build town centers with villagers and keep your war chief in the fight, making it easier to start focusing on the economy when needed. You can simply add town centers and make villagers at the base rate, but if you are in a hurry and want to speed things up you can add villagers to the fire pit and use the fertility dance. A good thing about this is that you can decide the extent to which you want to boost your boom, from leaving 5 vills on the firepit to a full 25 villager firepit. It’s up to you to adapt and decide how much you need and want to forfeit your military presence on the map to get an economical advantage. See the fire pit section for more details.
-Fishing, having a travois from the start in the discovery age, makes fishing with iroquois a real pleasure, especially on EP where fishing boats only cost 70w. On water maps, always consider including a bit of fish boom in your build (at least 3 boats in the discovery age and more in transition/later on). Don’t overinvest into water if you don’t plan on defending your ships though.
UPDATE - As of 11/04/2020 i've decided i will not finish this guide. I have lost interest in the game some time ago (maybe temorarily) and i don't really like the changes that were made to the civilization in the Definitive Edition, which is a further disincentive for this. I don't think anybody will be missing this anyway.
