I played the non-Deluxe version of the game when it first came out in 1996 and purchased the Deluxe edition a couple of years ago. I have recently been playing "Native-only" games - usually by having high water seeds so I start off alone on an island and carefully develop my economy and maximise war college bonuses before venturing out and attacking Europeans after 200+ turns.

I have started a new game where I have reduced the water seeds and appear to have one massive continent. Unlike other games however where the Natives tend to be in a secluded area of the map, the Portuguese are very close to me. I am considering attacking them early on in the game (turn 60-70 or so) and have several questions:

-They have 3 colonies all close to each other. Do I attack the main colony at level 4, the secondary colony at level 3 or the most recently established colony first?

-Is it possible to capture the colony and in doing so, be then able to produce artillery?

-Do you recommend playing the battles or doing auto-play? In my previous games, I would just send about 6-7 waves of leaders to raid a colony in a single turn and auto-play the games. They would often fail if the European colony was too big even if I had very good war college ratings. The few times I play the battles against European enemies it is a carnage, where my enemy gets wiped out after only firing several shots!

Finally I should add that my rationale for auto-playing battles is that in defensive battles, I always seem to incur higher raiding costs when I play the battles as opposed to when I leave them to auto-play.

It's few years since I played last, but I have played this a lot and several times a lot. And, believe I have mastered it quite a bit when I did. However, I have relatively limited experience as Native (my preferred nation is Dutch, what can be seen as kind of cheat, because after some startup time gold becomes nearly unlimited in practice).

1) it is not normally possible to capture European colonies by natives. However, there is a game bug that offers an elusive possibility of doing just that: if an European colony is captured by the Mother County as part of the independence war, that colony can be captured and held by the Native player. The theory is, somehow it is not correctly registered with Mother Country holds the town, so the Native re-capture it from it as its own.

Should say, I personally haven't managed that stunt myself, but what I'm read about is quite encouraging to try, it is said there exists level 4 graphics for Native colonies and artillery becomes leader figure firing fireballs. I'm not sure is it possible to produce additional artillery though, from what I have read it may be that only colonial artillery present at the moment of the (re-)capture is available.

Most European colonies start independence wars at about 3 or 4 well build towns (I think there is soft limit of 5 colonies per AI player, they may hold more if captured some, but never would found any new if currenly have five or more already) sometime between turns 90 to 120 or about so (as far I recall, my difficulty setting is normally at hardest though), but they tend to win them fast and easy, unless distracted mightily.

2) I always play out my battles, because I value level 5 units and insanely experienced leaders that control 24+ units while have 15+ attacks and increased speed. I'm not afraid to retreat when that necessary (and often do that to save colony I'm raiding for capture with next attack). However, I can see how playing Native may encourage auto resolve usage: without artilery and usually much lower level units than opponent, battles may become lot less fun. I tend to have better results playing them out anyway, and as I said, I love that unit by unit micromanagement and often play for experience and training not for victory in battle at hand at any cost, but long term efficiency and advantage. I (almost) never lose any leader, and cry out laud for lost level 5 units. (Sometimes I even save scum. I save at the end of the turn, and kill the game if I REALLY don't like the battle I'm in. That means replaying ALL battles of that turn up to the point, and that may be many, so yeah, I use that sparingly; and yes, that's cheating.)

Defending colony from raid with minimal loss is the hardest thing there is in the game. I use fleet of speed optimised leaders to catch most incoming attacks outside, sometimes even retreating right away at the start of the battle, that slow down the enemy leader anyway and allow my main guardian force to catch up and destroy. Then I use fast transport leaders to replace any wounded troops, so my main leaders may see battle every turn when there is highly heated war (it may be necessary to feed the enemy up for a time to get there tough). Only if I'm outstretched myself, or the enemy is truly overwhelming locally AND I believe they may rather be coming for capture, I allow defensive battles to take place, but never more than two incoming attacks per turn (it is next to impose to keep damaged units to appear in defence after that point (I have elaborated on how to organise defence forces here somewhere in another post )).

I also use trainee patrol leaders to regularly destroy native raids before they are ready -- by marching crisscross the nearby village territories until they attack me, that way I preserve the villages for continuous leader training and other benefits.Only if some is very annoying or within city territory, I remove them before they become confederated.

3) If I'm going to kill a player (what I seldom do, because I prefer long cat&mouse play, as you may have guessed already) I would go for his main army base first, to take out as many forts as possible as fast as possible. Hitting a small colony is usually easy, and I do that if I don't like where it is. Well, with Native there no option for capture anyway. If the AI player thinks he needs more towns, he will send out settlement within 10 to 20 turns, unless his current are heavily underdeveloped. When I'm going for capture on my first aggressive campaign around turns 60-70 I aim for well build, and fourth level already, but recently founded colony in as good spot as possible, and often remove others that may overlap. The main may hold huge amount of units if you unlucky with the timing and he is about to send out campaign of his own. It most efficient to catch him with forces out in the open, he even may have hit the unit limit, while 3/4 of that is not at home. Colony defense also have bonuses the field battles have not, so it is worth to try and lure him out first. Positioning threatening armies close to his weaker colonies may or may not work for that.

Now, there is that elusive stunt of Native capture. Mother Country (usually, but not always) attack the first town first, then the smallest by population with each next attack (up to 3 I think, unless successful, what don't count; in other words, after 3 or so defeats of the Mother Country, independence war is won). Knowing this, the smallest colony is the most probable to be hold by the Mother County, and thus, have the (re-)capture option.

Yes -- to capture -- in special circumstances.
No, to produce artillery. That can only be captured if some was produced in the town while it was under control of the Mother Country.

I love to revisit this game time after time, and I'm doing it again, and according to save game files I found and memories they trigger, sometime after the above post I have done just that -- done a purpose native run to test that elusive achievement.

So!

What I did I singled out English colony #4 (Kingston) in a good spot somewhat distant from their main 3. About turn 80 I destroyed their #5 upstart I didn't like and then continously raided Kingston ensuring it have no defensive units beyond the forts garrison (those strength 2 red numbers guys). It took some working out (and even limited save scumming) to not destroy it accidentally, but the resource flow it provided was worth the hassle. I was also extra careful to NOT destroy forts of Kingston, and being harrassed they built extra, ending up with 5 level 4 forts I was only happy to see.

Sometime in the high 90 English colonies declared independence. Kingston was attacked right away, and since it was practically empty, did lose. The only indication of it was flash of the battle announcement between turns and a couple of empty English leaders camping outside the town center. Battles with Mother Country isn't reported in the newspaper.

There still wasn't a (( Capture )) button.

I saved extra copies and attacked the town anyway, as a raid, and easily obliterated the few Mother Country defenders. It was a surprise success, I did successfully capture it! It was however empty.

There was no specific graphics for level 3 and 4 buildings, those retaining European design. Level 2 and 1 buildings changed to native appearance. Even with town center at level 4 I was not allowed to upgrade buildings above level 2, including existing level 3 buildings can not be upgraded to level 4. It was possible to recruit level 4 infantry and cavalry from existing level 4 forts, but not artillery. The town territory was insanely huge though! Also, it was possible to recruit level 4 leaders from the town center, with a LOT more extra points.

My main goal was capture of artillery though, so I reloaded the game. Experiments in another (European) game indicated that upon surrender to Mother Country attack existing units are pushed out of the town as usual, so pre-existing units cannot be captured. So I continued to harrass other English towns and guarded Kingston from possible recapture all the way to turn 133 -- with was when English colonies would have finally won independence. But I reloaded right before that, and sent my specifically standing army to finally capture Kingston.

I was disappointed at first seeing only one infantry and lone artillery piece in token defense, and those were immediately destroyed upon retreat (in face of 24 units strong forces I sent). I immediately rejoiced though, seeing the colony containing a whole balanced army, including 5 artillery pieces, two of with were level 3 for some unclear reason. The other three strength 5 I immediately transferred to my main general and sent against one of the other English colonies I hoped (falsely) to also might be under Mother Country control. There was no mystical warriors, the artillery was standard appearance, still wearing English uniforms. Now, I don't know is that just standard, or did they indeed retain the uniforms of the previous owner.

Conclusions:

• Native player can capture European colony -- by raiding it while it is under control of the respective Mother Country during independence war. (It should be clearly considered "undocumented behavior" at least and rather a bug exploit.)

• Artillery can not be produced. Some units of it can be captured, but only if produced under the rule of Mother Country (by the AI). Artillery units captured this way retain standard appearance in battle, and possibly previous owner's European uniforms.

• No building can be upgraded above level 2 even despite town center being of higher level. Existing Level 3 & 4 buildings retain their design and production levels, including, existing level 4 forts can produce level 4 infantry and cavalry, but not artillery.

• The captured town territory expands according the native progression, with apparently is 13 square radius at level 4. Yes, thirteen square radius is HUGE!
(Bear in mind that more than 100 buildings per town break the building list feature crashing the game if accessed, but it is wholly possible to play without using that helpful but minor feature for offending town(s) without any other apparent ill effects.)

• It is possible to recruit high level leaders from the captured town, with lots of additional points to use. In my case, with leadership research at level 7 I had 53 points to use in my other towns, but 85 points when recruiting leaders from captured level 4 European colony.

• It may no longer be possible to federate tribes. I guess it mess something up. Immediately after the capture the diplomatic screen was European style with option to declare independence, ability to federate tribes was grayed out, and of course, there still was no Mother Country to trade with. Closing and reloading the game itself (not just the save) cleared the condition and few turns after, playing at a later date, I was again able to federate tribes. Still I may suggest to federate as many tribes you can before trying to capture European colony.

This is so cool! Thank you for putting in the time to test this theory!

Playing as Natives is a major step jump in difficulty. I lost so badly the two times I played it that I never tried again. Now though I win ~90% of the time on hard difficulty with European nations that I'm thinking maybe I have learned enough to give it another go. I want to try capturing some European colonies!

It is. The play style have to differ a bit. Amount you can trade per colony per turn is limited by number of tribes you have federated, so you under almost no circumstances want to destroy a single tribe, and you want to have many colonies even if small and inefficient, and mostly filled with gold mines. You will spread products around instead of concentrating and then haul gold to the research center.

A little exploitative pro tip: engage in ritual combat with nearby tribes to train your leaders and units -- retreating just in time -- that's the tricky part. You want army smaller than your opponent and as you do damage retreat units to the reinforcements row were they seems to have slightly reduced, but still nonzero, weight in AI decision to run from the battlefield).

While for European player having level 5 units is a nice but mostly inconsequential bonus, bringing your native units from level 2 to 5 trough combat experience needs a lot of grind (and luck), but the resulting crack force makes a difference.

A unit needs to be injured to get a chance of roll for a level gain, the number of such rolls available may be related to total health points hit in the battle by both armies combined, but I have no hard knowledge of this, the exact algorithm governing experience gains seems to be a stack of random numbers or I'm missing obvious patterns.