Broken Colony Mechanics

[b0ra]

I haven't played eu4 for 3-4 years, last week I played a game and I could not believe my eyes, colony mechanics are so broken. Natives are overpowered they constantly attack my little colonial nations. There are too many unrealistic american native countries. American natives generally unify after 1600's and kick all colonial powers, they had all north america in my last france game. this is an extremely difficult and annoying situation even for the players, the ai colonial power cannot do anything about it. Also colonist are not enough you can't make colonies with expoloration idea which gives you only 1 colonist. this idea used to give us 2 colonists that was more fair and balanced nowadays colony mechanics are extremely broken becasue of annoying native states and confederacies and useless expoloration idea. I hope Paradox will soon save and repair this colony mechanics and make it playable as it was before.
What do you think?

 

[Jespoke]

I haven't played eu4 for 3-4 years, last week I played a game and I could not believe my eyes, colony mechanics are so broken. Natives are overpowered they constantly attack my little colonial nations. There are too many unrealistic american native countries. American natives generally unify after 1600's and kick all colonial powers, they had all north america in my last france game. this is an extremely difficult and annoying situation even for the players, the ai colonial power cannot do anything about it. Also colonist are not enough you can't make colonies with expoloration idea which gives you only 1 colonist. this idea used to give us 2 colonists that was more fair and balanced nowadays colony mechanics are extremely broken becasue of annoying native states and confederacies and useless expoloration idea. I hope Paradox will soon save and repair this colony mechanics and make it playable as it was before.
What do you think?

The intentional design of the natives is arguably already overtuned at the moment, but there are also bugs that make it even worse. I recommend just turning off the Conquest of Paradise DLC until they fix it, as every problem with them is in that DLC, and it doesn't add anything else aside from Random New World.

As for colonists, I didn't play when Exploration gave 2 colonists so I don't know how it used to be, but nowadays it is mostly thought of as a way to get footholds around the world, and extending your trade/coring range. And a single colonist can still put in quite a bit of work as you increase in tech, though you will need Expansion ideas if you want to make big colonies on your own without conquering them off others.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

I haven't played eu4 for 3-4 years, last week I played a game and I could not believe my eyes, colony mechanics are so broken. Natives are overpowered they constantly attack my little colonial nations. There are too many unrealistic american native countries. American natives generally unify after 1600's and kick all colonial powers, they had all north america in my last france game. this is an extremely difficult and annoying situation even for the players, the ai colonial power cannot do anything about it. Also colonist are not enough you can't make colonies with expoloration idea which gives you only 1 colonist. this idea used to give us 2 colonists that was more fair and balanced nowadays colony mechanics are extremely broken becasue of annoying native states and confederacies and useless expoloration idea. I hope Paradox will soon save and repair this colony mechanics and make it playable as it was before.
What do you think?

You can enforce peace ro enter a war on the side of your colonial nation.

 

[Putuna]

Yes, the natives are way to strong and turn colonizing into an extremely tedious ordeal. In the past North America would actually be colonized and it was a very easy laid back process. You could colonize North America and continue expanding in Europe simultaneous in those days because you barely needed any armies to be constantly stationed in your colonies. These days however, you can't do that as you need to bring like 30k to 40k just to beat one or two federations. They also seem to stay up in tech much better then they used to which makes it even more of a pain in the ass.

If you want to play with conquest of paradise random new world seems to fix a lot of the issues as well. Recently I have been pretty much only been playing random new world games and there are some good mods that make that feature quite good.

 

[b0ra]

You can enforce peace ro enter a war on the side of your colonial nation.

Yes, we can enter their war but it is not the solution you have to bring 30-40k army to defeat them that makes you weak in europe last days I was at war against spain portugal and papal states as england during 1520's then all north american tribes attacked my thirteen colonies I entered the war but I bring 30k to defeat them that made me weaker in spanish war then before the peace south tribes attacked my brazil colony then I bring 15k to them... yes we can still defeat al of them but this is not fun this is annoying.
furthermore since exploration give only 1 colonist you have to unlock exploration and expansion for first two ideas so that is another problem which makes you weaker militarily.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

Yes, we can enter their war but it is not the solution you have to bring 30-40k army to defeat them that makes you weak in europe last days I was at war against spain portugal and papal states as england during 1520's then all north american tribes attacked my thirteen colonies I entered the war but I bring 30k to defeat them that made me weaker in spanish war then before the peace south tribes attacked my brazil colony then I bring 15k to them... yes we can still defeat al of them but this is not fun this is annoying.
furthermore since exploration give only 1 colonist you have to unlock exploration and expansion for first two ideas so that is another problem which makes you weaker militarily.

It's a solution.

It actually also provides an interesting dilemma. You have to actively support your colony. Because before you pretty much set up a colony and could then forget about it for the next couple of hundred years. That's neither historical nor interesting.

Native aggressiveness is over the top and the devs have stated that much and it will be reduced, but I still take it over the state of colonization from years ago.

CN not sharing truces with overlords is an oversight and needs to be fixed.

 

[b0ra]

It's a solution.

It actually also provides an interesting dilemma. You have to actively support your colony. Because before you pretty much set up a colony and could then forget about it for the next couple of hundred years. That's neither historical nor interesting.

Native aggressiveness is over the top and the devs have stated that much and it will be reduced, but I still take it over the state of colonization from years ago.

CN not sharing truces with overlords is an oversight and needs to be fixed.

you say that old state of colony mechanics are unrealistic huh? soo now ai hardly colonise South America they can not even touch North and Central America tribal confederacies unify all of north america untill 1700 so is this realistic is this fun.

 

[durbal]

The intentional design of the natives is arguably already overtuned at the moment, but there are also bugs that make it even worse. I recommend just turning off the Conquest of Paradise DLC until they fix it, as every problem with them is in that DLC, and it doesn't add anything else aside from Random New World.

As for colonists, I didn't play when Exploration gave 2 colonists so I don't know how it used to be, but nowadays it is mostly thought of as a way to get footholds around the world, and extending your trade/coring range. And a single colonist can still put in quite a bit of work as you increase in tech, though you will need Expansion ideas if you want to make big colonies on your own without conquering them off others.

Aren't colonial nations themselves part of Conquest of Paradise?

 

[InvisibleBison]

Aren't colonial nations themselves part of Conquest of Paradise?

No, colonial nations are part of the base game. Conquest of Paradise just lets you play as one.

 

[L-Histidine]

soo now ai hardly colonise South America they can not even touch North and Central America tribal confederacies unify all of north america untill 1700 so is this realistic is this fun.

"hardly" and "can not even touch"?
In all the playthroughs I've completed (granted, all four of them, three with Conquest of Paradise, but all on 1.33 or later) exactly one had any native presence in the Americas worth mentioning by 1821, and that was because my colonial Britain was actively interfering with colonial Spain (to the point of enforcing peace against their native conquests) and generally picking fights with competing metropole states, while not actively conquering the main federation myself. Left to their own devices, AI Europeans have blobbed over both continents by 1700.

 

[durbal]

No, colonial nations are part of the base game. Conquest of Paradise just lets you play as one.

Does removing Conquest of Paradise stop native nations from having 20+ dev by 1500ish?

 

[InvisibleBison]

Does removing Conquest of Paradise stop native nations from having 20+ dev by 1500ish?

It does. In my most recent game, the highest dev province in the New World in 1500 was Cuzco, with 14 dev (which is what it starts with). By 1558, it had increased to 16, and was only at 18 in the late 18th century, when it had been conquered by the French.

 

[Blizzrd33]

No, colonial nations are part of the base game. Conquest of Paradise just lets you play as one.

Conquest of paradise also adds mechanics for tribal nations such as migration, federations, and reform tribal government.

Does removing Conquest of Paradise stop native nations from having 20+ dev by 1500ish?

Most of the tribal mechanics require the DLC, without it they are very basic nations who would ally each other for defense but won't otherwise quickly form large tribal federations.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

you say that old state of colony mechanics are unrealistic huh? soo now ai hardly colonise South America they can not even touch North and Central America tribal confederacies unify all of north america untill 1700 so is this realistic is this fun.

I have not seen a single game where south America wasn't completely colonized. I have never even heard of the problem in all the colonization broken threads so I will say that this is at least an extreme exaggeration on your part.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

Conquest of paradise also adds mechanics for tribal nations such as migration, federations, and reform tribal government.



Most of the tribal mechanics require the DLC, without it they are very basic nations who would ally each other for defense but won't otherwise quickly form large tribal federations.

Since leviathan adds the tribal land and I presume the bug with them obtaining cores from others via this have you ever tried turning that off?
Not sure if tribal land was part of the DLC or free patch.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

Since leviathan adds the tribal land and I presume the bug with them obtaining cores from others via this have you ever tried turning that off?
Not sure if tribal land was part of the DLC or free patch.

Tribal land is part of Conquest of Paradise.

 

[heliostellar]

Yeah, they moved the extra colonist over to Expansion. I think the idea is that the early colonizers (i.e., Castile, Portugal, and England) had too much of an advantage. They have an expel minorities cost modifier in Exploration, which is 100% useless. There is never a reason to use expel minorities.

I'm honestly pretty disappointed. Paradox basically shat out this patch with completely broken colonization (and combat AI, btw) and is already off to selling their next DLC.

 

[heliostellar]

I have not seen a single game where south America wasn't completely colonized. I have never even heard of the problem in all the colonization broken threads so I will say that this is at least an extreme exaggeration on your part.

It's mostly in North America. South America is almost completely uninhabited. I have seen them overrun colonial Columbia though. It's just not as common.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Natives are free real estate for players.

There are two things that need to be fixed. One is the bug that allows federations to take land away from other nations on formation without a war. The other is that truces with subjects and overlords should consistently align, and that includes colonies. That's it.

Losing colonial nations to freshly reformed native Americans is a meme.

In the past North America would actually be colonized and it was a very easy laid back process.

The funny thing is that players seem to think natives being mostly conquered by 1700 should somehow be the default/expected state without working to accomplish it. In reality, NA natives remained a problem to the colony (and later USA) until well after the game's timeline, with conflicts against them inflicting more casualties than most US conflicts other than civil war + world wars.

These days however, you can't do that as you need to bring like 30k to 40k just to beat one or two federations.

This is consistent with requirements to win wars in EU 4 generally, and shouldn't be considered as a "problem" unique to NA/SA if using coherent rationale. While one may or may not prefer it, it's part of the game's design.

South America they can not even touch North and Central America tribal confederacies unify all of north america untill 1700

"Pics or it didn't happen". AI natives generally don't pick colonizing ideas, so they won't fill in after reforming. Also, I find it improbable that fights between AI natives result in one federation fully "unifying all of NA" in a meaningful % of EU 4 games. To the extent that quoted is almost certainly not an honest representation of what was observed in-game.

As for SA...lol.

 

[deretao]

The colonization mechanism is broken. I had to disable the two last expansions to play a colonial empire, since these two expansions turns north american and african natives into superpowers (Leviathan have this stupid thing called stealing/concentrating dev., and Origins made african AI too annoying). But i kept seeing europeans failing in North America, maybe i'll disable the Conquest of paradise either.

I still wonder what happened to the trade companies. The disappeared. This was something that the developers said it would happen somewhere?
It had problems, but they provided an essential foothole in asia. Times ago, when this mechanism was working, the AI would buy a small land in India, get a truce and later start its expansion. This small landmass was essential for the AI to move troops half world to conquer india. Now, i cant even remember the last time i saw an european at least trying to conquer these lands.

I'm not seeing problems in south america, they get colonized in almost my games. But central america is getting flooded with super tribes from the north. New castile? I dont see it anymore.