How the Native Americans Work

The natives are the most complicated part of Colonization. Eight tribes share the New World with you. They trade, teach, give gifts, beg, demand, raid and, if you push them far enough, burn your colonies to the ground. The Colonopedia explains very little of it. Most of what decides how a tribe treats you is a set of hidden numbers that the game never shows.

This guide explains those numbers: how a tribe's mood is measured, what raises and lowers it, what every option in a native settlement actually does, how missions and converts work, and what makes a tribe go to war. It also covers several surprises in the code. A few of them are outright bugs that change how you should play.

How difficulty changes the native numbers is summarised in How Difficulty Affects the Game. Fighting natives is covered in How Combat Works.

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At a glance #

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1. The eight tribes #

A tribe's level never changes. It decides almost everything about the tribe:

The defence bonus doubles at a capital. See How Combat Works.

Some tribes have their own special cases:

• Inca and Aztec have their own first-contact pictures and music, and their cities are drawn in their own art. They are placed in the west of the map; see How the New World Is Generated.
• The Arawaks greet you happily with a collection of scalps on display. They can also kill a scout for "breaking sacred taboos" even when they like you (see Speaking with the chief).

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2. Settlements #

Size and growth #

Every settlement has a size (its population). It starts at its tribe's normal maximum, 3, 5, 7 or 9. A settlement below its maximum regrows slowly: each turn it adds its current size to a hidden counter, and when the counter reaches 20 it gains 1 size.

A camp knocked down to 1 needs about 30 turns to get back to 3. An Inca city knocked down to 1 needs about 75 turns to get back to 9.

Size only ever goes down in combat. Each time you defeat the defender of an empty settlement it loses 1 size, and at size 1 it is destroyed. Trade, converts, teaching and lost braves never shrink it.

Capitals start at the ordinary size and grow to the capital size over the first 7–9 turns. A tribe has exactly one capital. If it is destroyed, no new one is ever chosen.

Braves #

Every settlement places one brave at the start of the game. A tribe never builds extra braves: a settlement only makes a new brave to replace one that was lost. It uses the same growth counter, and a replacement comes before regrowth. If a settlement loses several braves before it replaces one, it gets only one back. So a tribe's army is about one brave per settlement, and heavy losses shrink it for good.

Braves stay near home. Each square more than 2 from their settlement counts against a move. The pull of home is halved when the tribe is at war with someone, halved again for an armed brave and quartered for a mounted one. So armed and mounted war parties roam much further than peaceful braves. Braves never enter water, Arctic squares or Lost City Rumours, and avoid stacking with each other.

What you can see #

The game never shows the numbers, but it gives several clues:

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3. First contact and the peace treaty #

The first time one of your units stands next to a tribe's brave or settlement (or one of their braves walks up to you), the tribe introduces itself:

"The {tribe} welcomes you. We are a glorious nation of N villages. To celebrate our friendship, we generously offer you the land you now occupy as a gift. Will you accept our treaty and live with us in peace as brothers?"

At that moment the tribe's alarm towards you is capped at 20, whatever it was before.

• Yes: you get a peace treaty and the peace-pipe message. The "land you now occupy" gift is only words: no land changes hands.
• No: alarm jumps by 100, which takes it to the maximum, and the chief answers: "Then the mighty {tribe} shall mercilessly drive you from our shores. Prepare for WAR!"

This is the most important decision you make with any tribe, because it is permanent. The game makes a peace treaty only at first contact and never takes one away. If you refuse, then for the rest of the game, with that tribe:

• your colonists cannot live among the natives to learn their skill;
• your scouts and soldiers cannot demand tribute;
• your missionaries can do nothing: no missions, no denouncing, no inciting;
• you are never asked to buy land. Your colonists, roads and cleared forests simply take it, and you pay in alarm.

The treaty also has one downside: only a tribe you have a treaty with can burn your missions at maximum alarm.

Tip: Always accept. Even if you plan to fight the tribe later, the treaty costs nothing, and refusing makes them hostile from the first turn.

Before first contact, a tribe's land is not claimed against you at all. See section 5.

The computer players always accept.

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4. Alarm and grudges #

Two measures #

The game measures native feelings in two separate ways:

1. Alarm belongs to the whole tribe. There is one value of 0 to 100 for each European nation. It decides the greeting, the chief's portrait, whether the tribe is at war with you, and most prices and odds.
2. Grudge belongs to one settlement. Each settlement keeps its own value for each nation, with no upper limit. It builds up from your colonies nearby and from refused demands. It decides whether that settlement's braves attack you.

Alarm bands #

There is no declaration of war. A tribe is at war with you simply while its alarm is 75 or more. The game contains a war-declaration message and a later peace-offer message, but this version never uses either. War ends quietly when the alarm falls back below 75.

A settlement whose grudge against you is 128 or more shows the Uneasy greeting even when the tribe is Content.

Grudge thresholds #

When the tribe's alarm falls and crosses a multiple of 5, every one of its settlements has its grudge against you capped: at 32 if the alarm is now below 50, otherwise at 96. Any calming act that lowers alarm by 5 or more therefore wipes out the 128+ grudges across the whole tribe.

Alarm falls on its own #

Each turn, every settlement of a tribe rolls dice for each nation the tribe has met. Every 8 points rolled take 1 off the alarm. The number of dice grows with the alarm band, so angry tribes calm down far faster than content ones:

For a tribe of 10 settlements, that is about −0.1 alarm a turn when Content, but about −3 a turn when Angry. Left alone, a tribe at 100 falls back below 75 in about 8 turns. Large tribes calm down faster than small ones.

This natural calming stops completely during the War of Independence.

What raises alarm #

Every rise is halved for France, rounded down, and halved again with Pocahontas. A rise of 1 therefore becomes 0 for either.

The amounts that depend on difficulty are listed in the difficulty guide.

What lowers alarm #

Falls are never halved.

Natives calm down when they take revenge. A successful raid lowers their alarm towards you, because their anger has been spent.

Colony pressure #

Every turn, each settlement looks at the European colonies within 6 squares and picks the one that weighs on it most. That colony's pressure grows with:

• the colony's size, especially above 6 colonists;
• the number of buildings in it, which counts for more on harder levels;
• how close it is;
• soldiers, dragoons and artillery within 2 squares of the settlement;
• a flat amount added on harder levels.

Pressure is halved across water, and halved for France and again for Pocahontas.

The nation with the most pressure on a settlement is named in its status bar ("Alarmed by …") and its "!" marks. Each turn, that settlement:

• adds the pressure to its grudge, plus a fifth of the tribe's current alarm;
• adds the pressure to a counter that raises the tribe's alarm by 1 for every 8 points.

Pressure is doubled at a capital. A mission changes it: your own mission in the settlement reduces your pressure (×0.75, or ×0.5 for an expert mission), but a rival's mission increases it (×1.5, or ×2 for an expert one).

Tip: France and Pocahontas players get a hidden bonus here. Colony pressure arrives as +1 steps, and a halved +1 is 0, so colony pressure can never raise their tribe-wide alarm. Their settlements' grudges still grow, though.

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5. Land #

Which squares are claimed #

A square belongs to a tribe if the nearest settlement on the same landmass is within the tribe's claim radius:

The capital claims no more than any other settlement. A square is not claimed against you if:

• it is water;
• one of your colonists already works it;
• it has already been bought, or settled, or worked by a pioneer;
• you have not met the tribe yet;
• you have Peter Minuit.

When a settlement is destroyed, its claims disappear. Another settlement may take them over if it is close enough.

Buying land #

With a peace treaty, you are asked to pay when you put a colonist on a claimed square, plow a claimed forest, or build a road on claimed land. You can back off, pay, or take the land anyway. The price is:

1. Start with the tribe's level + 6 + 2 × difficulty.
2. Subtract the distance to the settlement.
3. Add the number of land deals already made with this tribe.
4. Subtract half of (10 − your total colonists), if you have fewer than 10.
5. Double it if the square has a special resource. The minimum is 1.
6. Multiply by 65.
7. Multiply by 1, 2, 3 or 4 for Content, Uneasy, Restless or Angry.
8. Multiply by 1.5 at a capital.
9. Halve the result.

Every deal with a tribe makes the next one dearer, by about 32 gold for a Content tribe. The count is per tribe and covers every purchase, whatever it was for.

Tip: Buy while the tribe is Content. The same square costs double when it is Uneasy and four times as much at war.

Taking land #

Taking the land costs alarm instead of gold. If you have no treaty, you are never asked and always take it.

Each is doubled within 2 squares of the settlement and tripled next to it. Working a special resource doubles it again.

For six of the eight tribes the claim reaches only 1 square, so roads and clearing only cost alarm right next to a settlement, and there they always count triple.

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6. Visiting a settlement #

What a unit can do depends on what it is, and on whether you have a peace treaty with the tribe:

• A ship is turned away if you have not yet met the tribe on land, if the tribe is at war with you, or if that settlement's grudge is 64 or more.
• Every action ends the unit's turn.
• A treasure train can only cancel.

Speaking with the chief #

First, the scout may die:

1. At alarm 75 or more, the scout is always killed.
2. Otherwise, at alarm 25 or more, the scout dies if a roll of 0–100 (0–140 for a seasoned scout) comes up no more than alarm ÷ 4.
3. The Arawaks may also kill any scout for breaking "sacred taboos". The chance is 1 in (9 − difficulty), or 1 in (17 − 2 × difficulty) for a seasoned scout: 11–20%, or 6–11% seasoned.

Francisco de Coronado cancels every one of these deaths.

Then the chief speaks. He names the skill his settlement teaches and the goods it wants: "We are a peaceful village known for our expert fur trappers. We would gladly trade with you if you bring us some badly needed tools. We would also pay well for cloth or rum." He says this on every visit.

Each settlement's chief gives something only once in the whole game, to the first scout of any nation that gets there. The chief also gives nothing if the same 0–100 roll is no more than the alarm. When he does give, it is one of three outcomes, a third each:

Chances on a first visit to a non-Arawak settlement:

Tip: Scout every settlement early, before the tribes grow uneasy and before rival scouts get there. Each chief's gift goes to whoever comes first.

Living among the natives #

A colonist entering a settlement can ask to learn its skill. The game checks these in order:

1. The tribe is Restless or Angry (alarm 50+): "Your ill manners infuriate us", and alarm +3.
2. A petty criminal is refused: he will never be more than a common criminal.
3. A convert is refused: converts already know the native ways.
4. Any specialist, including a hardy pioneer or seasoned scout, is refused.
5. A settlement that has already taught anyone, of any nation, refuses, unless it is the capital. Capitals teach any number of colonists.
6. An Uneasy tribe (alarm 25–49) may say you are too slow to learn. The chance is 10% on Discoverer rising to 90% on Viceroy. This is a fresh roll each time and costs nothing, so you can simply try again next turn.
7. Otherwise you are asked to confirm, and the colonist becomes an expert at once, in the same turn.

Only free colonists and indentured servants can learn. A servant becomes an expert in one step. A pioneer carrying tools can learn too, because what matters is the colonist, not the unit.

What a settlement teaches is a weighted draw from what the settlement produces, seeded by its position on the map:

Because the draw uses the settlement's current production, the skill can change if the land around it changes, for example when your colonies start working its squares.

Trading #

A wagon train, or a ship at a coastal settlement, can trade. A visit allows one sale (or gift), followed by one purchase, and then the unit's turn ends. You cannot buy anything unless you first sell or give something on the same visit. An empty wagon is told: "Since you have brought no trade goods, we will not trade with you."

What they want and what they have #

Settlements have no warehouse. Every time you trade, the game works out from the land around the settlement, its size and its tribe what it can offer and what it wants:

• A settlement never buys what it produces most of. Its top three products are struck from its wants.
• A settlement will not take the same goods twice in a row. It remembers the last goods it bought from you and the last goods you bought from it, for every nation, until the next trade there replaces them.
• Selling to a tribe lowers what the whole tribe will pay for that goods: about 2 points of demand for every 100 sold. This fades again over 13–51 turns, faster for higher-level tribes.
• Capitals want twice as much of the raw goods, and offer twice as much of the finished ones.

Selling #

The offer depends on how much the settlement wants the goods, the difficulty, the tribe's alarm band and a random element:

• Content tribes pay the most. Each alarm band takes a discount off the price, except for muskets and horses, which pay full price whatever the tribe's mood.
• Harder levels pay less: about 69% of the Discoverer price on Viceroy.
• Muskets and horses pay best of all while the tribe has few of them.

Examples, for 100 units:

You then have three choices:

1. Accept. You get the gold. If the tribe had any patience left, its alarm falls by 2 for each point of it, and the settlement's grudge falls by the amount sold. Selling exactly 100 clears it.
2. Haggle for more. Each try succeeds if the tribe still has patience. Goods they want badly give 3–5 points of patience; goods they barely want give none, and then haggling always fails. On harder levels each try is a little riskier. A success raises the price and costs one point of patience. A failure ends the visit: you keep the goods, buy nothing, alarm rises by 1–4, and the settlement refuses those goods until you next complete a trade there.
3. Give the cargo as a gift. This lowers alarm by about twice as much as a sale, and the purchase still follows.

Buying #

After the sale you are offered the settlement's three most plentiful goods. Food, muskets, tools and trade goods are never offered. The amount equals what you just sold, but a ship gets only a quarter of it. The price:

1. Start at 200.
2. Add (4 − tribe level) × 50 for horses and the finished goods.
3. Add (your European price) × (15 + 2 × difficulty) for silver and the finished goods.
4. Multiply by a random 1–2.
5. Subtract 4 × the settlement's supply.
6. Add 4 × the tribe's alarm.
7. Scale it to the amount being bought.
8. Add 10–60, depending on difficulty and a random roll. The minimum price is 50.

Paying lowers alarm a little. If you can't pay, alarm rises by 1. Haggling down succeeds about 78% of the time on Discoverer and 33% on Viceroy, and cuts the price by a quarter. A failure costs +2 alarm and the settlement refuses to sell, but only until your next sale there.

Trading with a hostile tribe #

If the tribe is at war with you (alarm 75+), a wagon train can still try:

Demanding tribute #

A scout or any soldier can demand tribute from a tribe you have a treaty with. Your threat is half your total land military strength plus your forces in that part of the map, ×1.5 for Spain and ×1.5 again with Hernan Cortes. The tribe's resistance is twice its own strength in that part of the map (plus half its overall strength), plus half its alarm. The game rolls a random part of each.

• Tribute is always goods, never gold. It is the settlement's most plentiful product, 10–100 units, delivered to your nearest colony in that part of the map.
• Each settlement pays only once in the whole game.
• You cannot cow a tribe in a part of the map where you have no colony.

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7. When the natives come to you #

Braves visit colonies within reach of their home settlement from time to time; a colony closer to a settlement is visited more often. They also visit wagon trains. Each tribe makes at most one such visit to each nation per turn. A tribe at war never visits.

Whether the visit is friendly depends on a roll: the visitors are generous if 4 × (alarm above 25) + the settlement's grudge is no more than a roll of 1–328. A Content tribe with no grudge is always generous. At alarm 40 with no grudge, it is generous 82% of the time.

Gifts #

A generous visit from a tribe that is not yet Restless brings a gift. The settlement's grudge then resets to 0. The gift is the first of these that applies:

1. A convert, if your mission is in the visiting brave's settlement: chance (tribe level + 2) in 16, doubled for an expert mission (see section 9).
2. Food, if the colony is down to 25 food or less and the settlement has spare: the colony is topped up to 75.
3. Goods: one of the settlement's top three products, usually 5–30 units. Never food, and never silver from tribes below Advanced.

If the tribe has already visited you this turn, the braves just comment instead: "…your colonies are beginning to overuse the lands near our settlements."

Begging for food #

A settlement that is short of food may ask a colony with 75 or more food for half of it.

• Give: the settlement's grudge resets to 0, alarm falls by 5 (10 at a capital), and a gift follows: always if the visitors were generous, otherwise with a chance of 100% on Discoverer down to 20% on Viceroy.
• Refuse: the settlement's grudge grows by half. The alarm rise this was meant to cause never happens, because of a bug (see Curiosities).

Demands #

Visitors who are not generous demand the goods they value most from the colony: up to 100 units, sometimes only half. The more valuable the goods in Europe, and the more you hold, the likelier they are to be chosen. Muskets are rated higher on harder levels.

• Hand them over: the settlement's grudge resets to 0, and the alarm falls by 4 for every 100 gold the goods are worth. Muskets or horses go straight to the visiting brave, who becomes armed or mounted.
• Refuse: that settlement's grudge +128. Its braves now treat you as an enemy.

A brave who meets a wagon train in the open demands its whole first cargo, with the same choice. An empty wagon train hands over nothing and the braves accept that.

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8. Muskets and horses #

Every tribe starts the game with no muskets and no horses. Everything they ever use comes from Europeans:

Horses breed: every turn a tribe gains one horse per herd, up to twice its population plus 50.

How they use them:

• A new brave is armed if the tribe has muskets, and mounted if it has 50 horses.
• A brave who stays in his settlement is armed or mounted on the spot (25 horses to mount).
• Muskets go further on harder levels. Each use of the stock only uses it up with a chance of 1 in (difficulty + 1), so one lot of muskets arms on average 1 brave on Discoverer and 5 on Viceroy.
• An empty settlement's defender is armed and mounted for free if the stock allows.

Mounted Warriors, with attack and defence 3 and four moves, come from a tribe that has both.

Tip: Selling muskets and horses pays very well, but the tribe will one day point them at someone, possibly you. Sell them to tribes far from your colonies, or to tribes next to your rivals.

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9. Missions and converts #

Founding a mission #

Any missionary can found a mission. A petty criminal blessed as a missionary founds the same mission as anyone else. Each settlement can hold one mission, of any nation. Different settlements of the same tribe can hold different nations' missions. To take over a rival's mission you must denounce it (below).

You need a peace treaty with the tribe. The founding is not a dice roll. Its effect on alarm is fixed:

1. Count your missions already in this tribe. With Sepulveda, double the count. With las Casas, Pocahontas or as France, halve it, once for each that applies.
2. The alarm changes by 8 × that count, minus 25, 15, 10 or 5 for a tribe that is Content, Uneasy, Restless or Angry.

Your first mission in a Content tribe calms it by 25 at once. Every further mission in the same tribe costs 8 more alarm. France, Pocahontas and las Casas let you found about twice as many before missions start to hurt.

The founding message tells you the result: the tribe approaches the new religion with curiosity, is cautious, is offended, or reacts with hostility.

Warning: never found a mission in a tribe's capital. In a capital the change is meant to be multiplied by nine, but a bug turns every calming change into a large rise as well. A first mission in a Content tribe's capital changes the alarm by +175, not −25. That takes the tribe straight to 100: at war with you, and rolling to burn all your missions at once. Missions in ordinary settlements are safe. The DOS version of the game does not have this bug.

Expert missions #

A mission is an expert mission if a Jesuit Missionary founds it, or if you have Jean de Brebeuf. An expert mission:

Las Casas doubles the calming; Sepulveda halves it. With Sepulveda, a plain mission in an ordinary settlement calms nothing at all. Missions keep calming through the War of Independence.

On the map, expert and plain missions look the same: the cross is drawn in your nation's colour either way.

Where converts come from #

A mission never produces converts by itself. There is no per-turn chance at the mission settlement. Converts come from exactly two places:

1. Gifts. When a brave from a settlement holding your mission visits one of your colonies and brings a gift, the gift is a convert with a chance of:

   Tribe level	Plain mission	Expert mission
   Semi-Nomadic (Apache, Sioux, Tupi)	12.5%	25%
   Agrarian (Arawak, Iroquois, Cherokee)	18.75%	37.5%
   Advanced (Aztec)	25%	50%
   Civilized (Inca)	31.25%	62.5%

   The convert appears on the colony's square: "The wisdom of your missionaries has convinced some of us to join your colony…" A mission also helps indirectly, because it lowers the settlement's grudge, and that makes generous visits more likely. Missions in settlements close to your colonies therefore produce the most converts.

2. Defeating a mission settlement. When you beat the defender of an empty settlement that holds your mission, a convert may join you: 31% normally, 62% with an expert mission or as Spain or with Sepulveda, and up to 100% with all three. Las Casas takes 31% off. See Sepulveda.

Converts as colonists #

A convert works like a free colonist, but:

• outdoors, he makes +1 on food, sugar, tobacco, cotton, furs and fish; nothing extra on lumber, ore or silver;
• in a building he works like a petty criminal: 1 unit where a free colonist makes 3;
• he cannot found a colony, teach, be taught, learn on the job, learn from the natives, or become a soldier, dragoon, pioneer, scout or missionary;
• he counts 1 point in the score, like a servant. A free colonist counts 2.

A convert left alone outside a colony loses faith. After nine such turns (not necessarily in a row) he returns to his tribe: "Indian converts lose faith and return to tribe…" Turns spent in a colony, a settlement or alongside other units don't count.

Bartolome de las Casas turns every convert you have into a free colonist when he joins.

Denouncing heresy #

A missionary entering a settlement with another nation's mission can denounce it. The game weighs the two sides, and the chance of success is your weight ÷ (your weight + theirs). The missionary is always used up: he either becomes the new mission or is burned at the stake.

Your side gets:

• the size of every settlement in the tribe that holds a mission, counted double for expert missions and capitals;
• the tribe's alarm towards the mission's owner. This counts 16 times over if the contested settlement is the capital;
• the owner's colony pressure on the tribe.

The owner's side gets:

• half the tribe's alarm towards you, or nothing at a capital;
• your colony pressure on the tribe;
• double if the contested mission is an expert one.

At a capital, both sides also add a random 1–20.

• Success: the owner's mission burns and yours takes its place. The owner's alarm rises and yours falls, by 1–16 either way.
• Failure: your missionary burns. Your alarm rises and the owner's falls.

Two bugs make denouncing different from what the Colonopedia promises:

• Jesuits get no bonus. The code checks for the wrong specialty: a blessed Master Cotton Planter counts double, and his new mission is an expert one. A Jesuit counts as plain, and the mission he wins is plain, even with Brebeuf.
• Every mission in the tribe counts for the attacker, including the defender's own. So the more missions a tribe has, the easier denouncing becomes.

The computer players denounce your missions automatically when their missionaries get the chance.

Inciting the natives #

A missionary can pay a tribe to attack another European nation. The price is:

1. Take the tribe's military strength, plus its muskets and horse herds, plus 8 per settlement.
2. Multiply by (the tribe's alarm towards you + 75).
3. As France, take two thirds of it.
4. Subtract 250 for each of your plain missions in the tribe and 1000 for each expert one, doubled at a capital.
5. Subtract 1500 if the missionary is a Jesuit, and 500 if you are at the capital.
6. The minimum is 500.

Example: a tribe of 6 camps with 10 braves and 2 herds, Content towards you. The price is 5100; 3100 with a Jesuit; 2600 with a Jesuit at the capital.

• The target's alarm rises by 100, so the tribe is immediately at war with it and may burn its missions.
• The tribe tells everyone who paid: "…{your} missionaries incite {tribe} to warfare against the {target}!"
• The missionary is not used up. He can incite again.
• During the War of Independence the only possible target is the Crown.
• If the tribe already hates the target, it says so after you agree to pay, and charges nothing.

The computer players incite tribes against you when they are weaker than you and have at least 1500 gold. They do it on 4 visits in 5 to settlements without a mission, and always at settlements that have one.

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10. Burned missions #

If a tribe you have a treaty with reaches alarm 100, every further rise (and every alarm change that leaves it at 100) rolls to burn all of your missions in that tribe at once: 18% on Discoverer up to 55% on Viceroy, and 27% for the computer players. "{Tribe} burn {nation} missions! Church authorities are outraged!" No missionary is returned.

A tribe that joins the Tories in the War of Independence always burns all your missions.

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11. War, raids and attacks #

When braves attack #

Massing soldiers next to a settlement provokes it. Two or more of your armed units around a settlement make its braves treat you as an enemy, even when the tribe is Content.

Braves at war go for your colonies first, then lone treasure trains, artillery and loaded wagon trains. A colony gets extra attention the angrier the tribe is. Every native attack on you is announced: "{Tribe} make surprise raid near {colony}! Colonists frightened. {Tribe} chief denies involvement."

Attacks on colonies #

Natives can never take a nation's last colony. Their attack strength is zero against it. They always lose the fight, but the raid still rolls.

Raids #

A raid first has to get past the colony's defences; the odds are in the difficulty guide. Then one of four results is drawn, a quarter each:

On Discoverer before about 1572, and on Explorer before about 1532, burning and ship damage are cancelled. Theft and gold raids can still happen.

Every successful raid lowers the tribe's alarm: by 4 for a theft, 8 for gold, 12 for a burned building and 16 for a damaged ship. The raiding settlement's grudge resets to 0.

The only exception is a tribe that a European has formally gone to war against. Its raids do not calm it down.

Tip: A Restless tribe that has just raided you is usually calmer for it. Don't answer every raid with an attack: each attack raises alarm by 5–9 again, and attacks on settlements count double or more.

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12. Fighting the natives #

Before your first attack on a tribe that is not at war with you, you are asked: "Shall we attack the {tribe}, Your Excellency?" You are asked again every time the tribe has calmed down a little since.

• Attacking costs +5 to +9 alarm, double on a settlement square (and +256 grudge for that settlement), and six times on a capital.
• Fighting a brave doesn't shrink a settlement. Only beating the defender of an empty settlement does: −1 size each time, and at size 1 it burns.
• How combat with natives works, including the ambush bonus they get in the open, is in How Combat Works.

Destroying a settlement #

• Every brave from that settlement disappears with it.
• The tribe loses its share of horses and herds. It keeps all its muskets.
• If it held your mission, your missionary walks out; an expert mission's missionary comes back as a Jesuit. Other nations' missionaries are lost.
• You get treasure and the "loot and burn" message. The amounts are in How Combat Works.
• Every settlement you burn costs score, 1–5 points depending on difficulty.
• Burning any settlement marks the tribe. If the War of Independence comes, a marked tribe sides with the Crown with a high chance every turn (below).

Destroying the capital #

The tribe bows before you: its alarm towards you drops to 15 if it was higher. "The {tribe} tribe bows before the might of the {nation}. In tribute to your greatness, we give you all the land you now occupy." As with the first treaty, no land changes hands.

The game is meant to clear every grudge the tribe's settlements hold against you, but a bug makes it clear another tribe's grudges instead. The large fall in alarm still caps your grudges at 32.

The tribe never gets a new capital.

Wiping out a tribe #

When its last settlement burns, the tribe is gone: "The {tribe} tribe has been wiped out." None of its braves survive. It still appears in the Indian Advisor, marked Extinct.

Paying others to fight #

A European rival can be paid to attack a tribe, or a tribe incited against a rival (see Inciting). A rival you hire loses its treaty with the tribe. The computer players also go to war with tribes on their own when they feel strong enough. Spain does this most readily.

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13. The War of Independence #

During the war:

• Natural calming stops for every tribe. Missions still calm.
• Each turn, every tribe that has not yet chosen a side may join the Tories:
  • a tribe whose alarm towards you is 25 or more joins with a chance of (alarm ÷ 400) × 1 in (11 − 2 × difficulty);
  • a tribe whose settlements you have ever burned joins with a chance of 1 in (11 − 2 × difficulty), whatever its alarm.

When a tribe joins the Tories:

• "…enter the War of Independence on the Tory side! Tories agree to provide Muskets and Horses…"
• its alarm towards you rises by 100 and towards the Crown falls by 100;
• all your missions in it burn;
• its musket stock is multiplied by 4, up to 4 per settlement, and its horses are reset to 25 per herd.

The Tories don't hand out arms. A tribe with no muskets still has none, and a tribe with horses but no herds loses them. It never changes sides again.

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14. The Indian Advisor #

The Indian Advisor lists every tribe you have met, and every tribe that has been wiped out. For each it shows:

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Curiosities and bugs found in the code #

• A mission in a capital provokes the tribe. The Windows version turns every calming change into a rise of seven times its size. A first mission in a Content capital changes alarm by +175 instead of −25. The DOS version gets this right.
• Refusing the peace treaty is permanent. The game never offers it again. It contains an unused message in which a defeated tribe offers a treaty, and an unused declaration of war.
• Refusing to share food doesn't anger the tribe. The alarm rise is written to the wrong place: it lands in the next tribe's record instead of yours. Depending on which tribe begged, that can change another tribe's horses, muskets, silver or even its level. This has not been tested in play.
• Jesuits are no better at denouncing heresy. The check looks for a Master Cotton Planter by mistake.
• Every mission in a tribe helps the attacker in a heresy contest, including the defender's own.
• Burning a capital clears the wrong tribe's grudges. The comparison mixes up two kinds of tribe number.
• The Tories' muskets and horses are mostly imaginary. They multiply what the tribe already has, and can take horses away.
• "Don't sell the same goods twice" was meant to exempt muskets and horses. The check compares the wagon's number, not the goods, so in practice it almost never does.
• The skill a settlement teaches can change, although it is drawn from a fixed seed. The weights come from the land around it at the time you ask.
• Six skills can never be learned from natives, although the code is ready to teach them. The settlements simply never produce the goods they would be drawn from.
• Capitals start small. A capital's size is worked out before it is made the capital, so it starts at the ordinary size and grows.
• The expert-mission cross was meant to have its own colour on the map. A masking slip draws every mission the same.
• "Come visit us" after the peace treaty depends on a value read from the wrong table, so whether it appears is effectively random.

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Sources #

All of this comes from the reconstructed C source in matched/game/. Tribe names, levels and colours are the TRIBES text resource; settlement words are the LEVELS resource; every quoted message is from the game's text resources. Several findings, among them the capital mission bug and the heresy bugs, were checked against the shipped program itself and against the DOS version.

These findings are for the Windows release. The DOS version is believed to behave the same except where noted above, but has not been checked line by line.