Colombia

The Maya/Federation of Colombia have the Power of Architecture
==Game Info==
===National bonuses===
Starting government: Liberalism
*First senate is free
*Gain food from lumber posts
*Units are hidden and heal in your territory when not attacking or under attack
*Conscript units have additional hitpoints
*Scouts spawn from your barracks, and can move through forests
===Unique units===
*Javelineers => Heavy javelineers
*Spearmen => Heavy spearmen => Libertador Chosen Men
*Llaneros [3] => Llaneros cavalry [4] Medium cavalry, representing a balance between the cheapness of hussars and the hitting strength of heavy cavalry
*First Nations archers => Matchlock cacique [2]
*Batab warbands [1-2] => Guerillas [3-5] faster, stronger and stealthy units, better than normal militia.
*Missionary [3] an agent unit recruitable from the Presidium
*Possibly: armed caravans and merchants and supply
====Auxiliaries====
* [1] Merchant cavalryman — Weak but rather fast unit.
* [1] Holkan - replaced by Garde Écossaise in [2]
* [3] Native lancer
* [3] Irish Brigade
* [4] Confederados
* [5] Gauchos
* [5] Tankette.
===Unique buildings===
*Nobles' Court - trains your elite units
*Cathedral - performs taxation and religion research, and is the main stopping point for your auxiliary units.
*Presidium (requires Civics 3; available from [3])
**Spawns 2 Maxims when built
**Attacks enemies
**Improves unique light infantry rate of fire
**Has a +5 wealth bonus (once 2nd Green researched)
**reduces the knowledge costs of military research and the research time for civics research.
==Spoiler==
===Strengths===
*Strong defensive capability
*Good mid-game infantry and cavalry
===Weaknesses===
*Mediocre early and late game mastery
*Weak early-game navy
*Higly dependent on geography: a lack of woodcutters means that this faction's food bonus is near to useless
One of the harder factions to master, the Maya have a variety of unique units and bonuses that need to be understood well in order to be used to perfection.
Like all First Nations factions, the Maya initially rely heavily on archers, javelineers and warriors - these units are not as efficient as their European counterparts in range, but they do have one special bonus - they are capable of moving while hidden (most comparable units are cloaked only when not moving), and have very good LOS. Further, whatever conscript units you recruit from your drill square or barracks also have better hitpoints, thus making them harder to kill if things go wrong. Mayan units are thus capable of ambushing; eventually however they will lose these units to a more mainstream Western-style army but by no means is the game over yet. You will be capable of creating llaneros in the Imperial Era. These cowboys, are weak yet fast and cheap to train, and will be the perfect ambush units. Have them gathered under several generals, and you will be able to use them to great effect in flanking attacks or all-out assaults on the opponents' lighter infantry.
Not to be neglected are the Mayan's scouts. You not only get one free with each barracks or drill square you build, but they also have another ability too: they can run through forests. Thus, any enemy that dares to challenge the Maya in their home territory best be prepared for sneak attacks, especially once they hit the Imperial Era. Like the Maya, perhaps it would be best to say that you should seek to intimidate your opponent as opposed to completely destroying him. Although the commandos are capable of it, you should never use them against mechanised units. If you are playing against a faction with an advantaged in mechanised warfare such as Savoy or Russia, always try to tech up to obtain assault infantry, and use your commandos to hit soft targets instead.
A strategy can then be given to the Maya: first, use your tougher-than-normal infantry units to ambush enemy positions - bowmen and javelineers are better off using subterfuge than fighting in a single line! - while at the same time your scouts can be used to distract your enemy. Once you hit the Imperial Era, those scouts will become commandos, which can cause devastating damage. Additionally, at the Imperial Era you should now have the ability to upgrade to a 100% modern army with muskets, artillery and cavalry. This light cavalry along with the Libertador regiments and some grenadiers to ward off enemy cavalry should now represent the core of your armies. If your enemy has a larger force, lure him into a killing field - light infantry into your Llaneros, and his heavier components into your grenadiers and commandos, who can snipe his units.
===Leaders===
*Canek
*Atlacatl
*Tecún Umán
*Kayb'il B'alam
*Simon Bolivar
*Justo Ruffio Barrios
*Antonio Guzmán Blanco
*Francisco de Paula Santander
*Jacinto Pat
===Settlements===
*Mayapan; Chan Santa Cruz; Campeche; Medellin; Bacalar
==CtW==
===Grand Campaign===
You start off as an ally of the Spanish - Peru and Mexico are currently under Spanish control as vassal-states, and thus your main job will be to liberate them. Beware of annexing them: annexation brings on the ire of the USA, which is a substantially larger power than you are.
During the American Civil War, you will be asked whether to help the rebels or the Union - helping the Union means improved relations with the USA, yet helping the rebels will strain relations - the USA will refuse to talk with you until it regains its lost territory - but will create rebel-controlled provinces in the Southern USA.
Alliances with the Europeans can be profitable indeed. The more allies you have, the more tribute you can expect per turn: yet, it will be your task to drive out all the European nations from Latin America and the Caribbean. The European nations are most helpful - the League of Nations will buy and sell different bonus cards (this happens automatically each time it has sufficient tribute;) and England will happily give away pockets of its own territory for hefty sums of tribute.
Another different story goes around for the USA, France and Germany. During the Imperial Era, it can be expected that the USA will make persistent offers on your rare resources and your armies. Not so, however, with the Europeans. In the Industrial Era, it becomes the role of the French (who will attack you) or the Germans (who will attack everyone else) once they finally reunite Germany as a whole. As you are fairly isolated from the rest of the world, it will be fairly difficult for the European powers to invade, yet it also means that expansion will be troublesome.
Note, however, that even despite liberating the Americas from the Europeans, there will still be rebellions. You will be immediately notified of each and every rebellion. The danger of each rebellion is that if left for too long, another European power may step in and re-colonise the area.
====Starting territories and diplomatic stances====
Starting diplomacy:
*Alliances: England, Spain
*War with: France
Starting territory:
*Venezuela
*Colombia
Initial bonus cards: 1 Betrayal, 2 Eureka: Civics
Strategic Objectives:
*Surpass the United States in total territory strength before the Mechanisation Era
*Control all of the below before the Mechanisation Era, either through commerce or conquest:
**Central America and Caribbean
**Latin America
==History==
The Maya first emerged as a series of city-states throughout the Yucatan Peninsula in southern Mexico and further down into present-day Guatemala, although they would be conquered at first by the Toltecs and then the Spanish, they would continue to revolt on and off. In the early modern era, they came under Spanish rule, but managed to achieve independence in the early 19th century. Once this was achieved, however, the territories which formed Spain's former empire collapsed into several smaller nations , whose governments were dominated by the Iberian-descended criollos and mestizos which were (often) at war with one another even as the ethnic Maya continued to remain outcasts in the lower classes of these new nations.
===Pre-Columbian Central America===
Long before the arrival of the conquistadors in the late 16th century, Central America was home to a variety of civilisations, among which the Maya were the most prominent. Although the Maya can be said to have been present since 2600 BC, it wasn't until the 6th century AD that they came to the fore.
Mayan history was punctuated by the founding of numerous cities were founded and the eventual desertion of the same: for instance, Chichen Itza was founded somewhere between 750 and 950 AD, yet was abandoned by 1224, only to be reoccupied again before being left to the jungle again, the survivors moving to a new city, Mayapan. Pre-classic Mayan culture was primarily influenced by the Olmec, from whom the Maya inherited mathematics, writing and astronomy. The Mayans refined the knowledge learned from them to develop a solar calendar from their astronomical calculations that was more accurate then even the modern Gregorian calendar. The Mayans had also learnt to create a form of paper from specially prepared tree bark, and developed the most sophisticated writing system in Mesoamerica, consisting of over 800 glyphs and symbols.
Despite these seemingly benign developments, the Mayans were still as savage as any race on earth. As with many nations in their infancy, the Maya did not constitute a single nation, but lived in separate and independent city-states scattered throughout Central America. While these city-states formed a network of trade routes that supported a vibrant and cultured society, life was often tough and brutal for the average Mayan: the Mayan were often involved in bitter rivalries with one another. Furthermore, the Maya often came under the rule of foreigners, such as the Toltecs and the Spanish. While life would continue and great cities such as Palenque and Tikal would continue being built, however, Toltec culture brought a darker side: human sacrifice. While the Maya had practiced self-mutilation and animal sacrifice, the Toltecs introduced human sacrifice to the Maya. Homage was sometimes paid to their gods through a sacred but deadly ball game where the losers would be sacrificed. These practices were both religious and political. Like other First Nations peoples, they believed that blood was required to ensure that the gods would be appeased and provide for their people, and it was important for the leaders of each state to make these sacrifices to reinforce his prestige and hold on the people.
Around the 13th century, the Maya revolted against their Toltec overlords, and their leader, Hunac Ceel, established a unified empire centred around the city of Mayapan, near present-day Merida in Mexico, yet however, consolidation proved impossible, and by 1500 Mayapan was presumably abandoned after a rebellion killed the ruling family, plunging the Maya back into bloody conflict.
===The Columbian Era===
The first contact the Maya had with Europeans was in 1511 when a Spaniard named Gonzalo Guerrero was shipwrecked in Maya territory. A most surprising twist of fate awaited Guerrero, who was immediately enslaved by the local Maya, but escaped to a rival tribe, eventually marrying into a Maya noble family based in Chactemal, near present-day Quintana Roo in Mexico. Rising to the status of warlord, Guerrero would later become a staunch foe of the Spanish, and helped the Maya in resisting Spanish rule in the Yucatan. Spanish expenditions against the Maya would meet no success until 1542 with the capture of the city of T'ho, which was subsequently baptised as Mer&iaxcute;da. The rest of the Maya city-states would still put up dogged resistance holding out for several years against the Spanish, but eventually the fate of the Maya was sealed, and by 1697 the Spanish had seized the Peten basin in present-day Guatemala, finally ending Mayan political autonomy once and for all. The new lands seized by the Spanish were subsequently reorganised along with present-day Mexico and the southwestern United States, as part of the Viceroyalty of Nueva España.
For the Mayans, the coming of the Spanish was a disaster, as once the Spanish had taken a city or an area, native cultural practices would be proscribed, with temples razed and conversions forced upon the locals - although some missionaries did make use of the intricacies of the Mayan religion to successfully convert some of the local rulers. The polytheistic religion of the Maya was suppressed but the Maya managed to integrate Christianity with their animist religion combining Christ and the Virgin Mary into their pantheon of gods.
===Independence and Beyond===
Spanish hegemony throughout continental South America would be maintained for the better part of three centuries, and when independence came, it was not due to the efforts of the colonials themselves, but due to the French. When the French under Napoleon came to occupy the Iberian heartland of the Spanish Empire, this divided the peoples of Spanish America as well into "patriots" and "loyalists".
The first shots of the war against Spanish hegemony were fired in Venezuela. Eventually, it fell to a nobleman of Caracas - Simon Bolivar - to eventually liberate the whole of Spanish America from her colonial overlords. It was not free of peril, however - Bolivar often clashed with his fellow "libertadores" or liberators, and lost many battles with the loyalist forces, but with persistence and financing by the fledgling state of Haiti, he managed to prevail and by 1819, the whole of Spanish Nueva España - now Colombia, Venezuela and several other smaller states - were free. This in turn inspired the Mexican revolution, and by 1821, the Spanish viceroyalty of Nueva España was as good as dissolved, now replaced by two new nations: the Mexican Empire, and the Central American Republic, covering the old Mayan hinterland.
However, even though Spanish hegemony was well destroyed, the old political practices of the old regime continued to dominate the politics of the new Latin American states. Thanks to the French revolution, the libertadors woke up to discover that the peoples of Latin America were now bitterly divided into liberals and conservatives. This soon led to the breakup of the new republics formed out of the old Spanish captaincies-general, and by the 1830s, the whole of Latin America was now torn apart by infighting between the libertadors who were now evolving into caudillos or dictators. Even after independence, the indigenous peoples of the new nations still continued to suffer oppression and discrimination. In 1847, this led the Mayan peoples of Mexican Yucatan to rebel and sparked off what would then be called the War of the Castes, and by 1850, the rebels had founded what would be known as the Maya Free State in present-day Quintana Roo state in Mexico, which would even be recognised by the British government present across the sea in Belize and Jamaica. The Free State would collapse with the Mexican army taking its capital, Huaan Santa Cruz, in 1901, only to transform the war into an insurgency, which continues well to this very day.