Notes

* ATeamFiring: Justified, since almost all guns present in the game are smooth-bore muzzle loaders. The more primitive the gun, the more likely the unit is to simply miss their target, making volley fire a necessity. It's perfectly possible to end up with two musketeers standing against each other and missing their shots repeatedly. It also applies to bows - unupgraded archers can go as far as ''miss smaller buildings'' at their maximum range.
* AnachronismStew: Averted. Part of the reason why the European campaigns are so incredibly difficult is being locked with early 16th century troops, which don't offer that much of an edge over the natives... and the natives [[WeHaveReserves have reserves]].
* AntiCavalry: Just about any unit maintaining formation can qualify. Ironically, from all infantry, pikemen and helberdiers have one of the highest natural fears against cavalry, making them initially subpar options - just like in real life, they need first training and formation to be effective.
* AnnoyingArrows: Not as much subverted, as nuked from the orbit. Arrows are incredibly lethal, don't use any resources, bows don't need lenghty reload muzzle-loaded guns have and there is only a handful of units that have any sort of protection against arrows. The higher you go up the tech tree, the more your units are exposed to being slaughtered by bunch of archers, since steel armour is gradually removed with each tech tier.
* AntiFrustrationFeatures: Fortifications and garrisoned buildings only use coal and iron for their artillery fire. The small arms aren't accounted for, so thankfully you aren't spending thousands of each resources during defense.
* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: PlayedWith. While the maximum number of population is limited as such by the number of structures that support bigger population, a small, basic base can easily support a thousand or so units and it can only grow from there. There is no actual cap on the population limit, either.
* ArrowsOnFire: Another reason why arrows aren't annoying is how easily they can set up buildings ablaze. Sure, natives don't have artillery, but they don't really ''need'' one, if they can just mass bunch of archers and set your fortress on fire. A fire that is incredibly hard to put down quickly during peace, not to mention in the middle of an assault.
* AwesomeButImpractical: Artillery is widely regarded as this by the players community. True, even a single cannon can stop a small army of infantry trying to get to it, either by killing in gruesome manner many soldiers or by inciting panic in the rest of the attackers and it can take pot-shots at fortified buildings from afar with complete impunity. But they cost a lot, require entire line of high-end buildings to be set, reload forever and worst of it all, they are pushed by their crew by hand, thus moving at a crawl speed. Unless you can set up a fortress (with a costly foundry upgrade) very close to enemy settlement, you can forget about hauling cannons there.
* BaselessMission: Almost all campaigns are build of ''strings'' of those, especially when you play as Europeans.
* BayonetYa: Fusiliers are the only gunpowder unit armed with bayonets - everyone else just picks rapiers or tomahawks in close quarters. Which they need to draw first.
* BladeOnAStick: Helberdiers armament, obviously.
* BlingOfWar:
** Spanish Conquistadors wear shiny armour and colourful plumes on their helmets.
** Chiefs of plains indians wear feathered headdresses; Mayan equivalent has a feather bonnet made from macaws.
** Native units armed with firearms had their guns adored in various way, depending on which nation they come from.
* BoringButPractical: Musketeers. They are fast and cheap to train (and even basic fort can do that), their upgrades are relatively cheap, they have relatively accurate guns, they reload relatively fast, they can perform relatively well in melee, their natural armour is relatively strong and they benefit from relatively large number of secondary upgrades... Noticed the number of those [[MasterOfNone "relatively"]]? There are troops out there that are going to out-perform musketeers in a specific niche, but musketeers aren't about niches. And this is what makes them so versalite. They also don't have additional upkeep beyond food (unlike fusiliers), making them perfect for garrison duty, so they remain a viable unit for the entire match.
* CallThatAFormation: Invoked as part of gameplay mechanics. Troops that aren't in formation easily scatter or blob together into tightly packed circles and gain additional debuffs to morale. When they are put under any sort of damage, they quickly panic and lead to a rout, which triggers ''other'' units to also retreat. Set the same soldiers in a formation and they will perform gallantly in combat, while also gaining ''massive'' bonuses to resistance, even if they don't wear armour.
* CannonFodder: Certain special units are designed for either swarm tactics or as desperate defense, always dying by a dozen in combat and the main idea being to just bring enough of them to win or use them as distraction.
** European pikemen take it to logical conclusion. While they are primitive, crappy melee unit, they also come with powerful natural armour, tonnes of upgrades for it ''and'' qualify for the special upgrades for armoured troops. This means they can shrug as ScratchDamage attacks that would normally kill any other unit, while steadily advancing toward enemy fortifications or troops and taking all the heat.
* CombatMedic: Priests and shamans. They take forever to be trained (especially in case of European priests), but can heal unit fast enough it's entirely possible to pull YouShallNotPass with handful of heavy-armour units supported by a priest or two in a choke-point.
* ConstructAdditionalPylons: Forts, fortresses, barracks and dwellings all provide increase to the maximum population cap. Since you need dwellings to produce peasants to send them to military buildings and re-train as various soldiers and warrior units, it's a self-perpetuating cycle. Native factions also have options to increase capacity of their dwellings, rather than keep building new ones.
* CoolButInefficient:
** Arquebusiers are armoured, gun-armed troops that are cheap and quite fast to train, while accessible almost from the start. They also use huge quantities of coal for each shot, have notoriously bad aim (even when volley-firing) and don't benefit of any upgrades speeding up reload. And even if upgrades are ignored, they still have the longest reload from all standard firearm infantry. They also have very low storm rating, so aren't that great for taking over enemy structures.
** European hunter units when deployed in combat. While their hunting rifles deal just silly amounts of damage, they also take forever to reaload, precisely due to being muzzle-loaded rifles. Hunters also don't have any upgrades and are utter crap in melee. Their rifles are a huge problem should they somehow didn't kill the animal they were trying to hunt or missing a hostile predator, because they will get mauled or trampled by some angry animal long before they will be even half-way through reloading.
* CosmeticallyDifferentSides: Averted with vengeance in case of natives. Great Lake tribes have different roster of units than Plains Indians, Pueblo have unique mix and anything from Central and South America comes with completely unique sets. And even tribes from the same region still can have different units. Meanwhile, European factions are for the most part uniform in their basic units, ''but'' tend to have unique specials that might heavily change the playstyle (like Spanish Conquistadors, English Trappers or Russian Cossacks). Oh, and the different architecture of each faction, normally a cosmetic thing? It also plays role in the actual gameplay, affecting things like farm efficiency or coverage of artillery from fortifications.
* CripplingOverspecialization: ''All'' Sioux units are mounted. They are lighting fast, quite powerful, have extra HP and obviously install fear in all units afraid of horses and[=/=]or cavalry. But this means they are incapable of storming any buildings and instead have to set them on fire with arrows. Depending on who you are facing, this might be a near-impossible task.
* DamageIsFire: Buildings that start taking damage eventually are set on fire. Actual fire, that starts to deplete the HP of the building and requires fast reaction of entire group of workers to put it down. The fire can also burn improvements of the buildings, and thus knocking down the max HP it has, not to mention removing benefits of the improvements. It's yet another reason why arrows are so deadly, because unlike units, buildings are stationary, large targets that are very hard to miss and all it takes is one lucky shot.
* DamageReduction: Defense rating is substracted from the damage value of attacing unit and the outcome is used as the damage sustained. Which in certain situations means taking no or barely ScratchDamage.
* DamageTyping: Swords and pikes for melee attacks, arrow, bullet and artillery (including canister shot) for ranged damage. Only armoured troops gain defense of any kind against ranged attacks.
* DisasterDominoes: Entire morale mechanics run on this. After units start dying in combat, troops surrounding them will suffer debuff to their morale, eventually routing. This means they are no longer under any control and will head toward nearest fort or fortress in disorganised manner, not fighting back. Other units in vicinity, upon noticing this, can panic themselves. And even if they won't, it's very easy to slaughter troops already routing (since they don't defend themselves), which will further increase the death toll and might cause panic to remaining troops. In other words - when a rout starts, things go to shit in no time.
* DiminishingReturnsForBalance: Each following building of the same type costs progressively more. This means complete turtling with forts and blockhouses isn't possible, while recruitment of units have practical limitations in number of dwellings and military buildings possible to construct.
* DodgeTheBullet: Thanks to the inherit inaccuracy of ranged attacks, it's perfectly possible to avoid being hit by constant, shifting movement, preventing not only basic aim, but also LeadTheTarget. Mind you, this is in an RTS game about hundreds of soldiers fighting each other in formation.
** And done right, a handful of cavalrymen can force entire formation into firing a volley, ''missing them'' and then charging right into the now busy with reloading troops or moving in your own shooters, who with impunity can fire into defensless enemy.
* EasyLogistics: Averted. Just like in Cossacks, American Conquest requires from player to have food to feed all units (or they starve) and iron and coal to shoot guns of all sorts. And since now various guns use different amounts of resources to shot, some are better than others when resources are limited.
** Made even worse if you play as any of the Northern American tribes, since you can't build mines. The only way to get ammo for your gun-totting units is via trading post, while you can only sell food and wood there. Same with gold needed for few important upgrades.
* EnemyExchangeProgram: Limited to capturing buildings and workers of other factions, but without ability to construct, train or upgrade anything. Still, capturing dwellings belonging to someone else is a nice bonus to max population limit.
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: Enemy troops aside, there are also wild animals. Some of which are predators, some of which are just big enough to be dangerous when pissed off. So you can end up with bunch of your soldiers trampled by a bison or a hunter killed by a wounded, but not quite dead moose.
* FogOfWar: Only buildings can keep a zone discovered, otherwise it blackens again when the player's units move away. Drummers and standard bearers have greater visibility range than other units. Unless specifically set in the game options before a match, there is no way to reveal the whole map than cheating.
* FriendlyFireproof: Painfully averted, especially in case of firearms. Units by default have disabled the option to shot at a mob of units if friendlies are inside the mob. Should it be enabled, you can end up with a situation where back-row of your shooters opening fire at enemies fighting with the front-row of the formation and killing troops from both sides. It is also a gruaranteed way to lose your soldiers if you place them between target and garrisoned building, since stray bullets can easily kill your own. Somewhat downplayed by bows and arrows, as they thankfully have an arc, ''but'' anything near their target can be hit by accident and due to poor aiming.
* FragileSpeedster:
** Native light infantry units can run at a pace of heavy cavalry, easily overcoming any obstacles on their way... asuming they will survive first, and they lack any sort of serious protection.
** Russian Cossacks are one of the fastest unit in the game... and the only European cavalry not armed with guns, while having sub-par HP pool and poor defenses in general. Unless enemy forces rout from the initial shock of the charge, cossacks get slaughtered within seconds.
* GarrisonableStructures: Each and every building can be used as a garrison for limited number of troops, ranging from 5 tightly crammed people inside a small hut to 200 men strong garrison of a fortress. And regardless of what the building is, troops inside can fire toward attackers at very high rate while being virtually impossible to hit back. Expect a ''lot'' of StormingTheCastle.
* HiredGuns: If the option is enabled in random maps, it is possible to recruit a group of AI-controlled native troops after sending officer to negotiate a treaty with this particular tribe. For handful of gold and[=/=]or other resources, a small squad of various units can be recruited and it will then perform a raid on a nearby enemy settlement. Unlike Cossacks, those mercenaries are normal, full quality units and don't require any upkeep aside hiring fee, but on the other hand are controlled by AI and can only perform raids.
** Despite their name, French buccaneers are a subversion - they work as a hunter unit.
* HitAndRunTactics: European cavalry lives and breathes this trope. Each rider has two pistols in saddle holsters and after firing both can either charge into melee ''or'' simply ride away, while reloading those guns and firing again on enemies that can't even keep up due to being infantry. With a bit of micro-management, a small group of dragoons can wipe out few ''hundreds'' of infantry.
* HollywoodTactics: [[DefiedTrope Nope]]. Formations are an absolute must. Charging blindly toward enemy position will wipe out your troops before they even reach their destination. Placing a fort in the middle of forest is the best way to make it indefensable thanks to foliage blocking all the shots. Putting your troops between enemy and fort will decimate your own soldiers. And so on and forth.
* JokeCharacter: American unique unit, Milita, is a complete pushover in combat, doesn't carry any upgrades and worst of it all, comes with ridiculously high gold upkeep.