Can't core a recently colonised province because 'It's already a core' when it's only a territorial core

[fossar_]

To expand on the title, I colonised this province in the last 20 years and want to core it to extend my colonial range, however when I try to use the button to core it, I'm given the message that it's already a core (right image) despite the game telling me it's only a territorial core (left image). Playing as Castille for reference.
I have tried to look up what might be causing this issue but the only things I've been able to find is people having issue that aren't present in this case. Some of things that appear to cause common issues which I don't have or other point which can skip over some simpler explanations:

• This province is well within my colonial range (my range is currently 413, in colonial mapmode it actually says effective distance is 0).
• I have more than the 30 admin power needed.
• I am at war, but there are other provinces which I can still core. Don't know if its relevant but just in case, me and my allies are blockading any and all sea regions with enemy controlled provinces that would connect the two.
• None of my provinces are occupied.
• I have excess governing capacity (358/500).
• Don't really know how to use Trade companies but I didn't click the button to do that so it shouldn't be relevant here.

Just picked this game up a few days ago on the humble bundle deal so am playing with all DLC except Origins, also means I'm very new so there could easily be something I'm missing but I don't think it's obvious whatever it is.

As a side note, the main reason I was interested in coring this province was to provdice extra colonial range because I was reading somewhere that colonial range counts from the nearest cored province. Is that right? The fact Arguin comes up with a colonial range at effective distance 0 in the mapmode suggests not and so I'm not in as much of a rush to core it as I would otherwise have been (would still be good to whork out why I can't at the moment though!).

Thanks in advance for whatever help any of you might be able to give.

 

[Opanashc]

Wiki has all the information you need.
Cape Verde is a territory, hence territorial core in Arguin. For a full core, you need to make Cape Verdea full state.

 

[CaesarVincens]

Welcome to the game!
For some time now, cores have been divided into two types, "colonial" or "territorial" or "half" cores, and "state" or "full" cores. For most purposes, these work the same, so Arguin is a core province and does provide you most of the benefits, extended colonial range, ability to recruit troops, etc.

The primary difference between the two types has to do with Autonomy. All provinces are grouped into areas (the Cap Verde tab in your picture), and each area can be a territory or a state. By default, territories have a minimum autonomy of 90%, which generally means you're getting about 10% of the province's output. States have no minimum autonomy, and provinces with a "colonial/half" core in a state have 50% minimum autonomy.

Another difference is that if you lose the province in a war, territorial cores are lost immediately, while full cores will remain for some time.

There is more to it, but that should cover the basics.

 

[Kevkos]

To add to what was already written by CaesarVincens to change territorial core into full core you need to make state containing that province into full state. It can be done in several places, but the easiest way is to click on the state tab when province is selected (Cap Verde on your screenshot) and then press blue flag icon in top right.

As for trade companies there's a lot of theory crafting how to use them, but there're basically 2 ways:
- add everything to trade companies wherever it's possible. Just be aware that adding province to trade company blocks convertion of religion by missionary. So in some cases it might be better to convert province first and only then add it to trade company;
- add only provinces or states that contain Centers of Trade and leave remaining states as territorial (though making them into full states is viable option if you have governing capacity and administrative power for that);
You can add to trade companies every province that is not located on same subcontinent as your capital and is not in colonial region (North and South Americas, Australia).

 

[fossar_]

Cape Verde is a territory, hence territorial core in Arguin. For a full core, you need to make Cape Verdea full state.

Ah wonderful, solved it.

Welcome to the game!
For some time now, cores have been divided into two types, "colonial" or "territorial" or "half" cores, and "state" or "full" cores. For most purposes, these work the same, so Arguin is a core province and does provide you most of the benefits, extended colonial range, ability to recruit troops, etc.

The primary difference between the two types has to do with Autonomy. All provinces are grouped into areas (the Cap Verde tab in your picture), and each area can be a territory or a state. By default, territories have a minimum autonomy of 90%, which generally means you're getting about 10% of the province's output. States have no minimum autonomy, and provinces with a "colonial/half" core in a state have 50% minimum autonomy.

Another difference is that if you lose the province in a war, territorial cores are lost immediately, while full cores will remain for some time.

There is more to it, but that should cover the basics.

Thanks for the extra insight, I've conquered most of the Magreb so encountered the states/coring mechanics a little, but I must've made everything into states before trying to core them and so didn't have this issue there.

So far the only downsides of turning conquered/colonised territories seems to be increase in governing capacity requirement (unless you expand a lot really quickly it seems like tech will keep up with this for a while) and state maintenance (which all in every case seems to pay for itself due to decreased autonomy). The question leading on from this is what are the reasons (if any) for not turning a territory into a state? If you're at your governing capactity then obviously not, maybe waiting until years of separatism/devastation has reduced is common? Would be a great help to get some experienced input on that.

One last thing on this topic, I can see two buildings that interact with these mechanics: Courthouse/Town Hall and the State House. Looks like most efficent way to build Courthouses would be one per state and in the highest development province; seems quite possible they're not important enough to bother with in general though, I don't know. The State House seems a little lackluster for it's cost, but might be necessary very late in the game in high development states if you have no other ways to get below your governing capacity. Those are my initial takes on the buildings, are there any rules of thumb as to when to/when not to build them?

 

[Kevkos]

what are the reasons (if any) for not turning a territory into a state? If you're at your governing capactity then obviously not, maybe waiting until years of separatism/devastation has reduced is common? Would be a great help to get some experienced input on that.

Governing capacity is the only factor to my knowledge. You also want to have as low autonomy as possible to get maximum manpower, gold and government reform progress. There're ways to get 90% minimum autonomy in territorial cores to 40% or even to 0% in some cases with proper National Ideas and religion (great projects). Basically what's written here:
https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Local_autonomy

One last thing on this topic, I can see two buildings that interact with these mechanics: Courthouse/Town Hall and the State House. Looks like most efficent way to build Courthouses would be one per state and in the highest development province; seems quite possible they're not important enough to bother with in general though, I don't know. The State House seems a little lackluster for it's cost, but might be necessary very late in the game in high development states if you have no other ways to get below your governing capacity. Those are my initial takes on the buildings, are there any rules of thumb as to when to/when not to build them?

You basically want to have Courthouse/Town Hall in every province, especially if you're expanding.
Personally I use State Houses only when I'm really lacking governing capacity and to get that minimum autonomy in territories down. But I'm sure people would disagree with me and say to put at least one every state, especially when you're expanding very fast or if you're playing very tall (a lot of expand infrastructure) and in provinces with paper, glass or gems. Which is also ok

Usually you can disregard placing all those 3 buildings in state where your capital is.

Overall for buildings in single player I have following priority:
1. Manufacture or Soldier's Household (only on provinces with Grain, Livestock or Fish)
2. Fort (only in provinces which are needed to create traps or make full wall of zone of control to block passage inside my country)
3. Courthouse/Town Hall - in most provinces which have less than 10 dev there're only 2 building slots. So if I have to place fort there, I won't bother deving province up to 10 to have place for Courthouse. Well, in most cases - sometimes if I'm really lacking gov capacity, I'll dev once province with 9 dev and fort to get that 3rd building slot.
4. Whatever else I need, like for example Markets in provinces with Centers of Trade or in Trade Company state with Centers of Trade, Barracks if I'm lacking manpower (especially in provinces with Solider's Households), maybe Shipyards if I need more fleet. It depends on my actual/future needs.

 

[Guibou]

The question leading on from this is what are the reasons (if any) for not turning a territory into a state? If you're at your governing capactity then obviously not, maybe waiting until years of separatism/devastation has reduced is common? Would be a great help to get some experienced input on that.

For far away, downstream trade wise and if near your goverment cap you can go for a Trade Compagny instead of the regular territory or full core.

Territory = 25% GC
TC = 50% GC
Core = 100% GC

There's also culture/religion to take into account. Usually you want to accept culture in your full core and leave the rest as territory. Before putting a province in a TC, if you have good bonus for true faith and no use of heatens than you should religion convert before you TC as you wont be able to do it after.

What I do but it's all down to you:
main trade node + culture group + accepted culture up stream, gold = full core
Provinces with high trade power upstream = TC (until you get 50% in that node to get extra merchant for it)
all the rest = territory

One last thing on this topic, I can see two buildings that interact with these mechanics: Courthouse/Town Hall and the State House. Looks like most efficent way to build Courthouses would be one per state and in the highest development province; seems quite possible they're not important enough to bother with in general though, I don't know. The State House seems a little lackluster for it's cost, but might be necessary very late in the game in high development states if you have no other ways to get below your governing capacity. Those are my initial takes on the buildings, are there any rules of thumb as to when to/when not to build them?

Only really usefull if you go really wide or with a special goverment (like prussia). After 1610, you try to build these building over other building with available money. Your governing cap will increase slower than your expension so you need ways to reduce the amount of GC you get with your new land.

Courthouse = -25%
Town hall = -50%
State house -20% or 40% (pape, glass, gem)

Check the % of GC vs building. Build courthouse in every territory, build town hall in every TC and full core. State house only in your full core and I wouldnt care outside of the 3 special goods. And only 1 per state ! They stack on top of Town hall.

State house could be usefull if you dev push institution outside of your capital area.

oh yeah, capital area = 0% GC so don't build them there.

 

[fossar_]

thanks for the adivce Kevkos and Guibou!

 

[CoolSpin]

Nobody mentioned the Centralize State (Leviathon DLC), 50 adm and 50 reform progress to lower high GC using states. Gives -25% GC cost, -20% state cost and +0.10 prosperity, it will take 5 years from button click to complete, you also have a option in the Outliner to see the Days remaining, you have to enable it. You will want to click the State tab of a province to see the total GC cost for the state to decide if its worth it, and if its worth the reform progress.

This button can be clicked again and again.

In the macro builder, you can go to States tab on the right side, then the first top left tab Administer States and sort by Development, the button is also there. However, if you already centralized a state, you need to click a province in the Area and the State tab to see effective GC usage, than just go by development in this macro builder list.

Also WHY is there no wiki on this one??

Edit0: Moved "This button.." on a seperate line so its not lost in Wall of Text.

 

[Opanashc]

Nobody mentioned the Centralize State (Leviathon DLC)

WHY is there no wiki on this one??

You can add it on the wiki yourself.

 

[CoolSpin]

I kind of formulated my reply in a way so it would be less thinking if I decide to do so, I was just really surprised a DLC feature is not on the wiki.

 

[grotaclas]

Unfortunately there are not enough people who update the wiki and nobody who adds new features in a systematic way. I encourage anybody who notices things which are missing or wrong on the wiki to update them or at least leave a comment on the talk page

 

[fossar_]

Nobody mentioned the Centralize State (Leviathon DLC), 50 adm and 50 reform progress to lower high GC using states. Gives -25% GC cost, -20% state cost and +0.10 prosperity, it will take 5 years from button click to complete, you also have a option in the Outliner to see the Days remaining, you have to enable it. You will want to click the State tab of a province to see the total GC cost for the state to decide if its worth it, and if its worth the reform progress. This button can be clicked again and again.

In the macro builder, you can go to States tab on the right side, then the first top left tab Administer States and sort by Development, the button is also there. However, if you already centralized a state, you need to click a province in the Area and the State tab to see effective GC usage, than just go by development in this macro builder list.

Also WHY is there no wiki on this one??

Seen this, no idea when you would reasonably have the admin power spare to do this, seems like one of the most precious resources in the game and gives similar bonuses to a 100 gold building. Definitely worth pointing out for completeness though

 

[Opanashc]

Seen this, no idea when you would reasonably have the admin power spare to do this, seems like one of the most precious resources in the game and gives similar bonuses to a 100 gold building. Definitely worth pointing out for completeness though

You can centralize more than once.