Change Expansion's finisher and Quantity policy

[FleetingRain]

As of now, Expansion is the ugly duckling of ADM ideas. Back then, they used to have a great policy with Quantity and also a good finisher, but now the former got nerfed and the latter got outdated.


The Quantity policy (Colonial Garrisons), while good (+10% Land Forcelimit, +10 Yearly Colonial Growth), also feels highly inconsequential, specially when compared to the old one giving +1 colonist and other stronger ones you can get from the other ADM groups.

The fact that Expansion has a much bigger opportunity cost than Exploration (ADM being needed to core/stabilize, other ADM groups being better) for less advantages (lower colonial range and colonial growth, fewer colonists) makes Expansion really only feasible for roleplay. And, funnily enough, there was a time not even AI Russia would get it, as Exploration is leagues better for colonizing, even inland.

The finisher is also really weird. Exploration's got bad with 1.18 too (due to native neighbours insta-reforming and thus losing the Primitive status), but the issue with Expansion is that it DOES work... nonsensically. It gives the CB to Western/Eastern/Anatolian against Chinese/Subsaharan/Indian nations, which means now that no matter your tech cost, will always make you the receiver or the target of the CB (or worse, be left out, aka Muslim).

While I know policies are in need of a revamp (I think Johan said so in some thread last week) and that Exploration also needs to be looked into, here are my quick suggestions for Expansion:

1) Change Additional Colonists to +1 Colonist and Auto-Discovery of Neighbour Empty Provinces (Siberian Frontier clone)
2) Change the Colonial Garrisons policy to +1 Colonist and +5% Monthly Colonist Chance
3) Change Competitive Merchants to +15% Provincial Trade Power and +15% Caravan Power (or just +20% Caravan Power)
4) Change the Overseas Expansion CB to target less advanced (=>50% tech cost difference) and Tribal nations


This would define both groups' roles better. Exploration would be for forming a colonial empire, while Expansion would be more geared towards expanding in your own continent (see: Russia). Changing the CB also makes the targets quite clear: hordes, tribes and backwater kingdoms, instead of being able to target a three-militechs-ahead Ming. It also lets nations like Japan and such to build their co-prosperity spheres without the need of taking an America-centric idea group.

 

[grommile]

I get the strong impression that Paradox don't want people to be running around with four colonists unless they've got one in their national ideas.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

I agree with changing the finisher - had a game as Kongo and have embraced more Instituations than Spain, they decided to declare an Overseas Expansion war against me.

 

[Vulkandrache]

I get the strong impression that Paradox don't want people to be running around with four colonists unless they've got one in their national ideas.

If i had anything to say about this then every nation would get an extra Colonist at DipTech 20.
Explo and Expa should be for the early game guys at the edge of Europe.

The Quantity policy (Colonial Garrisons), while good (+10% Land Forcelimit, +10 Yearly Colonial Growth), also feels highly inconsequential

Almost all Policys are highly inconsequential.
Many of them would have to be increase 5 or 10 fold in their effect to be on par the handfull top ones.


The problem with Expansion is that it doesnt do anything.
The Colonist is obvisously good, the Merchant is nearly useless as you get more than you can use from colonizing anyway.
10 Colonists is a joke, Recruitment and Shipbuilding time even more so.
The rest just feels out of place.
The fact that the CB is in the finisher makes it shit. It should be the second idea.

The whole group feels like a mess of stuff with no real purpose. It should be redesigned in its entirety.

 

[saegoto]

I think Expansion should be renamed to Colonialism. It should help in colonizing, trade and naval expansion. Ilike new CB less advenced nations = tech penalty is bigger than ~50%

here's my ideas:

1 Colonist
10% colonist chance
1 Merchant
25% embargo, 33% privateers (from Espionage, it gets merc from Administrative. Administrative gets corruption, state maintenance and inflation reducion cost)
-1% naval tradition decay (from Aristocracy, which should be buffed)
-10% naval maintenance
+25% ship trade power
Casus Belli against 50% tech penalty

 

[Troy003]

I always wondered what happened to the +1 colonist policy, I knew it was thing but I could never remember where I got it from after it got changed. I feel like the expansion idea group should get its extra merchants changed to 10% bonus to goods produced, the -25% state maintenance is worthless in all my games, I feel like it should be changed to extra settler chance, the global settler increase should be buffed to at least be on par with, if not better than, the 20 global settler increase from exploration since Expansion costs ADM, which is much more useful than DIP, and since expansion is meant more for inland colonization I feel like the shipbuilding time isn't very useful in that regard, maybe replace it with +25% native assimilation and -25% native uprising chance?