I am a bit discouraged by the way the subject's importance is being reduced
Regarding micromanagement, I belive that forts built in lands outside Europe should be of low resistance/troop and siege value, not cost. There should be a maintanence cost for both forts and naval bases under your flag in order to simulate the mounting cost of supplying and upkeeping such structures. Most of the forts built at the time by Europeans were mainly wooden structures which held a few hundred soldiers. There were larger ones i.e. Louisburg, but those were built over time and held under 5k troops and reached those sizes due to their strategical position. Not every fort was built of stone, cement, and iron holding large numbers of artillery batteries. This idea can be used in the game by limiting the levels forts can achieve outside both European lands and colonies and determining what technologies would allow them to be built/upgraded, and at what cost plus their drain on the royal coffers over time.
In the 1600's no fort in the Americas could possibly have had more than 500 men garrisoned within its quartes. Even the main Spanish strongholds in the Caribbean didn't exceed this number. The three forts which guarded Havana, Spain's main port and naval base in the Caribbean, totalled only 475 men fully garrisonednby the 1590's while the city itself had well over 5k inhabitants. This was due to the cost of upkeep and supply, the limited technological capabilities of colonial powers at the time, and the fact that monarchies regarded Europe as the main scenario for their conflicts; both politically and militarily. Colonies were important, but without a homeland there were no colonies. Therefore, forts were needed to safeguard them, but the wealth they produced was for the increase of the homeland's power in Europe. The colonial forts of the period served three main purposes:
1-To protect trade and national interests within the forts' influence.
2-To protect the home country's claim to the land around the forts against European intrucions, be it military or settlers i.e. Duquesne.
3-To guard against native attacks upon settlements, TP's, or trading routes withing the fort's zone of influence.
These forts were of high diplomatic value, and I suggest we think of them in that light rather than mere micromanagement. Colonial wars involved small armies whose main objective was mobility. A small fort could stop such army from wreaking havoc on another country's lands by cutting their cupply lines and severely narrowing their effective areas of operations. Again, the French and English forts in North America are a perfect example. By the 18th century the importance of these forts grew tremendously due to the rapid increase of trading revenues and wealth emanating from the colonial territories. At this moment we can think of colonial forts similar to their European counterparts in function, but never in size and power. La Cavana, in Havana, was one of this. It was so large and expensive that the King of Spain, when told of its cost replied..."get me my looking glass, a fortification this expensive should be so enourmus that I should be able to see it from Cadiz." But that large fort was built in the 1770's after the British succesfully managed to take Havana during the Seven Year's War by landing a large expeditionary force and overpowering the three antiquated forts which guarded the city.
As for naval bases, they were of equal if not greater importance. True, they were extremely important in the 19th century thanks to steam and coal, but like forts, they played a key role in the expansion and propagasion of European empires and influence. Again, I think we should think of these in diplomatic and plitical terms, not just their micromanagement and military aspects. A naval base would allow your warships to insure the safety of the seabound trade generated by TP's and colonies within the reach of the fleet stationed at such naval base, serve as supply depots for your fleets crossing across oceans, or become a permanent base from which a battle fleet would operate. True, a colony would serve the same purpose as a naval base, but at times, such a propostion was neither suitable, profitable, or appropiate. What eventually developed into the Cape Colony began as a Dutch naval base in what is now Cape Town. To stress the importance of naval bases, without the Cape base, the Dutch would be close to powerless should Portugal, with a base in Goa, natives, or Asian nations attack their TP's or settlements. Moreover, they might have not been able to even attain such a large East empire, let alone any substancial territories in the area, without this strategical base. To a naval power such as Portugal, the Netherlands, or England, naval bases were just as important, if not more so, as forts. Like forts, they would deter and check another nation's naval operations/advances. They were not just merely supply posts, but a projection and excertion of military might, and a great source of prestige to its owner as well as a constant threat to that country's rivals.
Without St. Helena the British control of their Indian interests would have been perilous at best, until they took the Cape Colony from the Dutch. With a base in that island, they could restrict and monitor their enemies' access to the South Atlantic, and thus passage into the Pacific and/or Indian Oceans; thereby restricting the shipment of supplies and troops to enemy territories. Should the French have acquired such a strategic base, the struggle in India would have been different. They did take Bourbon later own, but to get there they needed to sail past St. Helena. The same can be said for Gibraltar. It was never a province, and the Spanish gave it little importance due to its proximity to Cadiz. True, it had a large fort, but it possesed as high an importance as Plymouth. Gibraltar allowed the British to separate the main French battle fleets stationed in Brest and Toulon; which gave then great power over the North Atlantic, and consequently over the rest of the World's Oceans. It also allowed them to virtually control the Mediterranean, as well as to monitor the main Spanish port/base at nearby Cadiz. A naval base alone could be the cause of a war, as well as a fort; or at least a high priority objective. After 1704 the Spanish have entered wars with Britain wit Gibraltar as one of their primary objective. They have tried countless sieges and assaults to retake the Rock, but to no avail.
Sabotage and spy operations, even entire campaings, were planned around this bastions of power. Both played key roles in the way countries deviced their foreign and internal policies. Both were equally important as defencive tools. Both served an even greater role as agressive and offencive devices. Both were very expensive, but the prize was worth the trouble. And both were royal pains to many nations, to the point that their proliferation can be compared to an arms race. We should not just consider them in terms of the game's micromanagement mechanics, but mainly in their importantce and role within the powers' diplomacy and policy, along with their weight on European plitics. It is one of the things I missed in EUI, though I couldn't quite put my finger on it till I read this post, but I think EUII would be an even better and interesting game if these two elements are implemented. The game's depth and value would increase dramatically as a player's options and priorities and devercified. I do hope Greven and any of the guys at Paradox read this. I think it could be an integral part of this priceless jewl we call Europa Universalis.
PS. sorry I wrote so much, but I feel the subject needs a little more explanation and understanding. From what I have seen so far it has been reduced to mere micromanagement, when the two played as key roles in European affairs as did alliances and royal marriages.
Find any book which goes into detail regarding European affairs of the time and you will find both of them. True, they had limited importance in the early stages of the game, but their importance increased drastically over time. The fact that they were small didn't reduce their importance, which I think shouldn't be a reason to omit them from the game, much less the question of how many ducats, how many troops, or were will those troops come from.
