Natives without reforming

[Double_Jay]

Is it possible to play the long game as a native american country without reforming the government?

Specifically as one of the native north american nations.
One would hold onto these insanely good native ideas (construction cost -20%, nat. tax mod. +25%, all tech cost -15%) and keep the native buildings (advisor cost -50%, land force limit +10 --- mostly for flavour though), at the cost of embracing the institutions and catching up with tech much slower. You would of course still get the neighbour bonus for tech, so that should help a lot once the institutions are embraced. And of course you'd be stuck with the buildings, so +1 fort level is the best you're gonna get (although you can also increase local defensiveness with a building, which should help a lil bit at least at the start).

I'm currently playing as the Cherokee, trying to get the 'No Trail Of Tears' achievement, but I feel that it kind of ruins immersion a bit if you just turn yourself into a european country with the push of a button and possibly a few years of turmoil. Besides, the native americans nowadays, although not many, still live in 'primitive' buildings, in some cases. Feels a bit weird that they would just suddenly start building churches to increase tax income, especially if not turning christian (which I don't plan on doing).

The portuguese and dutch have only just arrived, but the portuguese are already expanding their territory rapidly, as the portuguese do. I still want to kick some european buttocks and preferably kick them back into the ocean, but I'm not sure if that's reasonably doable without pushing that button.


Additional ponderings:
I currently can't make use of 'Innovativeness' because I don't have the DLC (still says that embracing every native idea gives +1 Innovativeness, f you paradox), but I was wondering if this Innovativeness stays or if it slowly goes down or something, or if it disappears when you reform. Because then not reforming would reduce all monarch cost by another 15%.

[Double_Jay]

Oh ye and also: you'd be stuck at duchy rank, which means less states, however I already went with expansion ideas (gives +5 states upon completion) and could add administrative ideas to that to remedy this.

[Yxklyx]

The game is in general ridiculously easy playing with your capital in the new world. That's because you can declare war on colonial nations and their overlords will never defend them, but I think you might set yourself up as a target if you don't reform because you'll be viewed as too weak by the European powers. Your economy will definitely be much weaker because you won't have Manufactories. Trade income always exceeds tax/production by a large margin in the long run and you won't have that without those buildings. I don't think you could ever become a Great Power and I always become one when playing there and reforming.

[tonypa]

What level techs have you reached compared to Portugal and Dutch? As native you can not embrace any institutions which means every new tech level will have higher and higher penalty. You can end up with 300% penalty on every tech meaning you practically can upgrade your tech once while europeans upgrade it 3 times within same time. When you fall 10 military techs behind europeans, they will be able to conquer you with single 10k stack.

[Double_Jay]

Just to show current territorial progress:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1734996490
I only came up with this idea of not reforming when the europeans arrived, so I've been playing to reform as soon as I could, meaning I only have 5 - 3 - 5 in the respective technologies, exploration completed and all of the native ideas are done, I've been spending a few points in developing the provinces since then.

I wasn't aware that I couldn't embrace institutions without reforming, is this relatively new? I'm pretty sure in 1.15 or so I was able to embrace feudalism way before the europeans even arrived, because I was silly and spending all my points in the development of my capital as the Incas.

Also when I hover over embracing an institution it says "Primitive countries must reform their religion before embracing Institutions". I'm assuming they mean government instead of religion? I don't remember ever seeing anything about reforming religion other than in CK2. (I guess religion and government are, and especially were the same thing back then, but that's a whole nother discussion.)

[tonypa]

Not sure which patch made Natives behave like they do currently, but as Native you are considered as "primitive" meaning you can not embrace any Institutions without reforming the country/religion/government (this is all same thing depending which DLCs you own and conditions you need to fill to be able to reform also change by DLC).

https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Technology#Primitive

[Double_Jay]

Alright so... it is clear now then that I cannot get the achievement without reforming.

But since primitives can go to war with colonial nations without calling in the mother country, would you say it's a good strategy to wait with reforming until having had at least one war with one or two colonial nations to take their provinces to block more of the coast off for colonising?

[Yxklyx]

It's not only primitives that can go to war with CNs without calling in their overlord - it's any independent nation with a capital in the New World. The AI overlord is supposed to Enforce Peace on the aggressor but never does. I think I saw an Enforce Peace in that case a couple of years ago.

[bri]

Originally posted by Double_Jay:

Alright so... it is clear now then that I cannot get the achievement without reforming.

But since primitives can go to war with colonial nations without calling in the mother country, would you say it's a good strategy to wait with reforming until having had at least one war with one or two colonial nations to take their provinces to block more of the coast off for colonising?

Nope, the longer you wait the more you have to catch up afterwards. You get tech based on a percentage of what they have not a simple their tech-x levels so you can easily put yourself in a position where you are still 3-4 techs behind after you reform if you wait too long.

[Double_Jay]

Alright cool, cheers!