Poundmaker, terrible no matter what?

[Mad]

We've tried to unlock the best playstyle with this one but it escape us. What's good about this one? If you go early trade route you have to build troops to keep them alive otherwise it's a 100% sure that some random barbarians will kill them. And even then. That means less troops to explore.

Everything you do seems counter intuitive with your next move. It's super weird I can't explain it well but we just don't feel it's small early boosts really count for much.

Anyone have some good playtest review on Youtube or something like that? I couldn't find any.

[Stormwinds]

Cree are a generalist civ, which generally means science is your win con. Free trader early gives you gold if you've found city states nearby or is food/production to help your cities get online faster. It also helps save you gold from having to buy certain tiles if you plan it properly. The Mekewap is a great tile improvement as it is basically a better mine early, and housing is crucial to growing your cities.

Sure, the scout replacement is marginally more useful than what it replaces and the Cree have no real bonuses to science, faith, or culture, but they can still perform adequately well at anything you put them to.

[Mad]

Originally posted by Stormwinds:

Cree are a generalist civ, which generally means science is your win con. Free trader early gives you gold if you've found city states nearby or is food/production to help your cities get online faster. It also helps save you gold from having to buy certain tiles if you plan it properly. The Mekewap is a great tile improvement as it is basically a better mine early, and housing is crucial to growing your cities.

Sure, the scout replacement is marginally more useful than what it replaces and the Cree have no real bonuses to science, faith, or culture, but they can still perform adequately well at anything you put them to.

great feedback thanks man

[SeanZero]

Another nice aspect with the Cree is you can get your unique unit and unique improvement bonuses early in the game.

They're actually my favorite civ to play as. Using trade routes to snag key tiles from encroaching enemies is a beautiful thing.

[Mad]

It's the trade routes that doesn't work. No matter how well you defend them there will always be a random barbarian scout that will destroy it before long. Every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game.

The gain the trade routes bring are not even remotely worth the hassle. They need to rethink poundmaker and give a bonus to his traders otherwise he's ♥♥♥♥.

[Stormwinds]

Barbarians scouts don't care about your trade routes until their camps get cleared. Plus, you want to deal with barbarians proactively anyways, so you shouldn't be sending your traders into areas you have no knowledge of.

You don't even need to send your free trader out as soon as you get it. Hold onto it until a more opportune time.

[grognardgary]

To me getting your cities road connected early is as important as the gold and becomes more important as the game goes on just saying...
Note long trade routes early game are a fools errand

[gdshore]

And grognardgary's point applies to ALL civ's. Deploying traders to soon is asking to get them deaded, a waste of time, material and effort.

[Elric of Melnibone]

Trade routes gain +1 food per camp and pasture in the destination city.
Destination cities of Cree trade routes gain +1 gold per camp and pasture they control.
- This is the main power of the Cree (with the mekewap), played well it can boost your cities with additional food, getting large cities fast. The Cree can become powerful if played well.

Build 1 or 2 orkihtcitaw or slingers to protect the trader, don't lose him. Search and kill the barbarians near.

[Heau]

You want to identify either your cap or B2 (city #2) with a lot of pastures or camps and make it the internal trade route hub. You'll want to do internals for most of the game. Internals should be easier to defend from barbs, especially with 3 or 4 tiles distance between early cities.

The internal trade route hub will have
magnus 2
gov plaza
diplo district

beyond that, you will generally prefer districts that add prod rather than food to internals (comm hub, encampment, industrial). All other cities just go comm hub first to always have a trade route ready as the next settler founds a city. And then campus or theatre 2nd district depending on whether you want to SV or CV.

It's one of the best civ for flexible gameplay. It's similar to Rome or Persia albeit a little more work to get rolling. But once you get like 6-8 food 3-6 prod internal trade routes, it's gamebreaking.

It's nerfed in the civ player's league MP mod to not receive the trader on pottery because it gives too much early game tempo. But then the mod also makes magnus2 give 2food 2 prod instead of only 2 food.

The civ is also particularly strong on a few map types that are housing-depraved. Like inland sea or highlands, due to their unique improvement.

I've assumed here you have all the content. If you are strictly Vanilla, I think the general gameplay remains internals even without magnus but it's been quite a while.

[Mad]

You guys have great feed backs I'll give you that.

I do pretty much all of the above with great success but the protection of the trader is just a hassle and way too much micro management for what it's worth. I liked the race but got sick of these barbarian units making impossibly long detours just to go unnoticed and BAM! Whack my trader a turn before I can move my warrior to protect it. Nothing I can do and the timing is often terrible.

The ability to get a trader so early is a waste, basically (and confirmed in some of the comments above), keeping a military unit in protection instead of doing it's job, and bring next to no revenue. Why put that crappy option in the first place if it's next to useless about every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game then?

[Mad]

My friends tells me I try too much to use the trader early on but I've managed to obtain some results sometimes and see the potential. And that's probably what frustrate me the most: there IS something to do BUT (and man a big BUTT it is)

[Elric of Melnibone]

At worst losing the trader is not so catastrophic, you can build another one.

[grognardgary]

Originally posted by Elric le nécromancien:

Trade routes gain +1 food per camp and pasture in the destination city.
Destination cities of Cree trade routes gain +1 gold per camp and pasture they control.
- This is the main power of the Cree (with the mekewap), played well it can boost your cities with additional food, getting large cities fast. The Cree can become powerful if played well.

Build 1 or 2 orkihtcitaw or slingers to protect the trader, don't lose him. Search and kill the barbarians near.

Get archers asap it takes slingers forever to kill anything.

[-=Maure=-]

Your first trader is better used to create roads and some production/food between your first two cities, it's easy to protect the 3-6 tiles in-between them.