Trail of Tears: Tips for starting as Cherokee (CoP 1.5)

A few pointers for those who want to try the No Trail of Tears Achievement, and basic considerations on playing Native Americans
Now updated for Conquest of Paradise and 1.5

This guide has been overhauled

With the Conquest of Paradise DLC, a lot of Native Mechanics have been changed (Incapable ruler, westernization) and a lot more native tribes populate the starting area, making the guide obsolete.

I feel the new mechanics make it somewhat easier, and I've updated the guide

Teching as a Native American Tribe: How bad can it be ?

Really bad

First, the good news: you can store up to 3497 Monarch points, up from the 999 of western countries.
That's it for the good news.

The new world tech group gives you a 250% penalty (initially)

That means each tech level would cost 2100 Monarch points.

There's no penalty to Monarch Points (contrary to vanilla), but it still a lot of points to waste, and of course, your units are much worse, tech for tech, than western units.

In place of teching, Native have access to "Native Improvements", who work like National Ideas and cost 500 Points each: they include access to Colonist, Lower Advisor costs, HIgher Diplomatic Reputation.

One of these improvement lowers your tech penalty from 250 to 150 (yeahh!!)

More importanty, once you filled the 3 native improvements track, AND have a western neighbour, you can reform government

Reforming the govenrment will:

• Change you to Monarchy (with 0 legitimacy)
  
• Allow you to start westernization
  
• Wipe out all Native infrastructure (ouch)
  
• Upgrade your tech levels to around 80% of your western neighbour

This means, if you're sitting next to Portugal with Tech Level 13/12/14, you will instantly be upgraded to 11/10/12.

Notice that you might be too close in tech to westernize (need a 8 level Tech gap) and might have to wait for them to tech up.

So all teching prior to reforming the goverment is a waste of points

This comes at a price, since wiping all your buildings will probably kill your economy (all those +1 Base tax... and lower your force limit by 10 )

You will have to dump a lot of ADM points to recreate an infrastructure (temples, etc)

No Trail of Tears achievement: General strategy

To get this achievement, you need to start as Cherokee, Westernize and control the original 13 colonies.

The general strategy is to expand as much as possible on the US Coast before the Europeans start colonizing there, while trying to find one of their Cored colonies, to put one next to it and start westernization.

Step 1: Cleaning House

Natives get their claims through mission, but starting a war with no CB is not terribly expansive.

On the other hand, the Federation mechanic (Defensive only alliances), the large number of OPM and their disporportionate military power make the initial wars tricky, and it's easy to be overwhelmed.

Since one Native Improvement gives +10 Force limit, 2 OPM can field around 23k troups, while a 2 province Nation will only have 13k or so. So watch out before declaring war...

Anyway, for a perfect start, you need to take the "Crush Powatan" mission, and use it as a pretext to vassalize Creek and Chowctaw, it's allies.

You can't do this alone, so you need to ally with c.

Chickasaw is randomly hostile at start, so restart until they're in a good mood. Restart also if Powhatan didn't ally with Creek.

Build to the max with your 50 gold (even over your forcelimit), then declare war.
Susquehannock should keep Powatan busy, you must focus on taking out the capitole of Choctaw, then Creek and getting separate peace with them to vassalize them.

Finally, annex Powatan (vassalizing them would put the mission on hold, and we need to complete it to get other claims)

Your manpower might be low, focus on getting your economy up to speed with native buildings and improvement, and you will be able to rely on mercenaries for an easier time.

After 10 years, annex your vassals, since your government has no prestige, there's no penalty.

You should be already the largest nation on the continent, but don't get cocky, as all OPM have large armies.

Continue to pick your targets and vassalize the large nations, to save on ADM points.

At minimum, get rid of Shawnee, your two former allies Susquehannock and Chickasaw, and any OPM that is on the coast.


Step 2 : Start blocking European access

Take the Colonist idea in the DIplomacy Track (500 points) ASAP and start colonizing towards the coast. You can only manage two colonies at a time when your economy is strong enough (careful, the 2nd colonies cost twice the maintenance).

We're trying to block access to prevent a European colony spawning in North America before we're ready.

Step 3 : Prepare for Westernization
Once you start westernizing, you won't be able to vassalize Native nations, only make the protectorate.
So it's a good idea, once you unlock ADM lv 4 to take Exploration ideas, dump your DIplomatic points and go find the Aztec.
Vassalize them in one or two wars, but Do NOT annex them, unless you're sure you will have time to convert them all to your religion before Westernizing.

Westernization will crank up the revolt risk (+5 RR and -3 Stab hit), so you need to be prepared.
Change culture of all your provinces, so they don't spawn "Nationalists" rebels that could potentially break away. If you annexed Aztec, change their religion too, to have 100% religious unity.

So stockpile on gold, on manpower, and Monarch points (but not in excess of 999 your new limit)

You will have to decide if you want to convert to Christianity or stay Totemist.

• If you stay Totemist, that's one less thing to worry about, but neighbours with Religious Ideas will have a Holy War CB against you, and you'll have to endure diplomatic isolement (no RM, "Different Religion modifier" etc. The holy war CB can be avoided if you have no neighbor (selling them the offending border province if needed
  
• If you switch to Christianity, you're in for huge increase in revolts. Religious Unity will drop to 0 (+2% Revolt risk) and each totemist province will have Heathen Intolerance +4,5% Revolt risk. This will also kill your economy as all provinces will have their Tax cut in half by various modifiers.

So if you plan to switch, invest ahead in the Religious Idea group (they also have stability increasing events, always nice), and take all decisions that Increase Missionary success rate without increasing revolt risk. Tolerance of Heretic can be abysmal, as we're dealing with heathens, not heretics.

As Catholic, with Embrace the Counter Reformation and Religious Ideas, you can field 4 missionaries and they can convert most provinces in 7 to 10 months.

The good news is that converted provinces will be revolt free for the rest of the westernisation process, due to a high "tolerance of the true faith" risk reduction.

Try to convert the high base tax provinces first to restart your economy, and try to convert all provinces in a region. This way, you'll have "secure areas" with no revolt risk and you can concentrate your armies elsewhere.

Step 4 : Finding a nice western neighbour
If you did your job well, the whole coast is yours, so you can either meet them up north in Canada (usually it's England or France) or you can go fish in the Carribeans.

Upgrade your Diplomatic Tech level to get range and plant a colony in one of the two big islands, and wait for them to come to you.

If there's already someone there, and if you have the choice, prefer Colonial Nation to their Overlords. They are usually less aggressive and will feel treatened by you, while Portugal or Spain will instantly rival you, and probably declare war due to border frictions.

Once you triggered Westernization, and add the Religious conversion event, consider selling the Carribean colony to your neighbor. This will ease your relations and deprive them from a Colonialism Casus Belli.

Even if you get in a war, don't despair. Use your flotilla of light ships to prevent any landing on the mainland, and destroy isolated ships. This will stall the war and after a while you can negotiate a "Cash only" peace with them.

I was able to keep Portugal at bay this way, denying them the "Show superiority" ticking WS with naval battles and keeping WS at -7% for a few years. They accepted a peace for 2500g and I kept my colony, with a 5 year truce to prepare westernisation.

Government Form : Curse of the Incapable Rulers

Obsolete. I keep this just for nostalgia sake... What a pain this was.

You start as a Tribal Democracy.
This gives you :

• -100% Trading Power (i.e. 0 Trade Power in all your provinces)
  
• +10% Technology cost (because we really needed another handicap)
  
• -33% Stability cost (finally something good)

But you also get the "Incapable Ruler" Mechanic, in the "Triggered Modifiers" section;
Basically, once you're larger than 10 provinces, any ruler with a skill below 4 will trigger a penalty:

• -33% Tax Income if Administration is 3 or less
  
• +3% Revolt Risk if Diplomacy is 3 or less
  
• +200% Coring Cost if Military is 3 or less

They are ,of course, cumulative, thanks Paradox :)

But wait, you say, there's a "Change Government Form" Decision available !
There's hope yet!

You can switch to "Noble Republic" if you meet these criteria:

• 3 Stability
  
• 99 Republic Tradition
  
• 200 Admin Points
  
• Having completed either Economic / Innovative or Administrative ideas set

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That last requirement means that you'll need to wait until Admin Lv 4 (i.e. almost one century) then dump 2800 of your precious, precious Admin points to fill one of these ideas.( about 39 years).

And you lose the chance to get the Exploration idea, which is the only way to break from your initial isolation.

So, the switch to Noble Republic will have to wait ...

Note that Incapable only triggers at 10 provinces or more: if you stay small, it's not an issue

[Five Knight]

all these guuides for cherokee are outdated and everything at the start is different than what is shown here and other guides

[Drake]

i did play cherokee for that archievment and all i did was "simply kill everyone you see" ^^ it was pretty easy also you have so thousend of money (build EVERY BUILDING!) that you can colonize 5 provinces same time having whole america then just westernize and overrun everyone that come at you :) with your nice 200-300k army xD
no need for any guide xD

[Sals]

Bear in mind you can get this with randomized america. I did so and had a much easier time as all the tribes are usually grouped much closer together, war ~ vassal ~ annex all the way. Also when I got serious to do this and found a good start I nearly wept thinking there wasn't a 13 colonies area but then I found it as a 1 province section in the far west on an island.

[touch me]

Seems like a reasonable way to go about things, I'll have to try it. Last game I managed to annex Creek and Shawnee, fend off a British invasion (they weren't interested in fighting my army, just taking my land =)) start westernization and convert to Protestantism but just 2 years after getting +1 stability, my ruler died and I was hit by 2 stab dropping events in quick succession. The dice gods judged me wanting =p

[DancingSamurai]

In the beginning, ignore stability. Stay at -3 stability -- then you can laugh at all the random events that give you minus 1 stability! :) You need those admin points way more than a little less revolt risk or a few more pennies in tax income...

[[Sample Text]]

having trouble following the guide, ruler dies within first month so you already get a stability hit, and then for some reason creeks 5k stack just chews up my 9k stack cheerokee with new ruler, also doesnt help that shawnee allays with them within the first few days. i keek getting messed up trying to follow this.

[steelweaver]

Well at leat one good thing, westernization with Cheerokee is the easiest part i've ever had.

[Bitter]

I wish I had this guide when I did my playthough, I annexed both Shawnee and Creek, still won though and god the Spaniards are a huge pain.

[Stevenmain]

I'm stuck after getting every place south of Manhattan but i can't fight the spaniards. They brought 50k troops over to take over the british and never took them back to Europe. and this happened in the 1550s so I had no way of getting up there. Spain had annexed Portugal in a union. The only good thing is the Birtish can't do anything. Somehow spain and France both got footholds on the British Isles.

[Smelyansky]

Im surprised you even have enough time to westernize before France or Britian fully annexes you LOL.