Colonial Nations need a rework along with Naval Power.

[grommile]

M&T alone stands as demonstration what can just a bunch of amateurs do with game mechanics,

Naturally. If a game is decently moddable in the first place, the best mods are pretty much guaranteed to be superior in some regard to the base game. They are also likely to have narrower appeal than the base game unless the base game was just plain bad.

M&T is no exception to this pattern. If you like the kind of thing M&T does, it's miles better than unmodded EU4. If you don't... it's worse.

 

[Granathar]

M&T is no exception to this pattern. If you like the kind of thing M&T does, it's miles better than unmodded EU4. If you don't... it's worse.

I generally still prefer vanilla EU4 because M&T is dangerously close to "Excel simulator". Base EU4 is pretty simple and should just have a little more stuff, to give player a little better control, to make things a little more realistic. M&T is on the other side of barricade - complications and modifiers everywhere. And complications are double bladed sword - first, they may give player too much power (because number_of_complications^2 = how much player is smarter than AI), and second - they will burn your PC by calculations. I'm not sure how is the first thing in M&T, but performance problems are real. That's why I get it why dev team avoids "too much trouble", I totally get it. Yet I spend some time on forum and many users have many nice ideas, that would most probably be pretty simple to implement (having full squad of programmers familiar with code of course). Nobody is saying that every idea should "make it", but if something is simple enough to make it work - why not to try? Open beta for 1.19. was a very nice thing, PDX should do it more often. Just implement some changes, some from dev ideas, some from community and just let people test it themselves to catch the good changes, discard bad changes and to improve changes that are not good, but may be. I would rather be pleased if my "clients" would do brainstorming for me, so I can only implement things they invented with minimum effort and make them happy. It's pretty clear that people want to take part in development, even if only by throwing random ideas or testing beta patches.

 

[Martynios]

But why?

 

[zukodark]

We already have client states:

Allow an earlier version of the clients states to create colonial nations. These would work similarly to how they do now, with the same kinds of flags, perhaps allowing you to choose the color. Any connected provinces would be automatically added to the colony. Add some new ways to make it worth it to make them. You shouldn't be forced to add provinces to colonial nations by hard automation, but by necessity. Merchants could be changed to be gained when you have an x amount of colonial-nation provinces (added together) or even development (which could make developing colonial nations worth it) in a trade node. This way you wouldn't be able to spam 5-province colonies to gain an unbalanced amount of merchants.

With these changes, colonial nations would have borders make sense without completely ruining balance, I think.

 

[wingzero890]

please god no trade companies are the only colonial objective that actually pays off in the end, don't convince paradox to ruin them too...

 

[Chief of Staff]

I still yearn for the day when Paradox will actually offer a way for a trade company to form a subject nation akin to that of the British East India Company rule in the British India (at least prior to the Great Rebellion of 1857) with actual military forces, ability to declare war and make peace, etc. How this will be done, I don't know. But I'm sure either Paradox or someone will think up of something on this.

 

[Philadelphus]

I'm not convinced that devs actually take these suggestions into account.

From the 1.19 patch notes, Hawaii now has a chance to produce tropical wood and California now has a chance to produce wine--both changes suggested by me. I also suggested a minimum sailor recovery rate which was added in 1.18. Achievements and national idea sets have been added from the suggestions forum. I believe the whole devotion system for theocracies was originally a user suggestion. The list goes on and on.

Paradox doesn't respond to or implement every suggestion, but they absolutely have and continue to adopt some of them.

 

[Granathar]

I still yearn for the day when Paradox will actually offer a way for a trade company to form a subject nation akin to that of the British East India Company rule in the British India (at least prior to the Great Rebellion of 1857) with actual military forces, ability to declare war and make peace, etc. How this will be done, I don't know. But I'm sure either Paradox or someone will think up of something on this.

Well, it would be nice if we could morph our Trade Company into some kind of colonial nation if we have 10 or more provinces in trade company area. Such "CN" should give us ~~ 20% of his manpower because of foreign troops recruited (East India Company had bigger army than Great Britain) and it's just normal CN with different ideas, unable to colonize, but with additional tolerance of heathens and cultures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_armies

 

[Grand Historian]

I, uh, actually came here for the stuff about Naval Power.

 

[Granathar]

I, uh, actually came here for the stuff about Naval Power.

You can read thread I linked on previous page

 

[Grand Historian]

You can read thread I linked on previous page

Ah, my bad. Thanks!

 

[tnlyons]

I like the "native policy" idea for colonization. But instead it would affect the type of colony. A Trade Colony (gives bonus to trade steering, trade power in their node, decreased or potentially zero military support); a Standard Colony (basically your vanilla colony that spawns colonial nations); and a Core Colony (doesn't spawn colonial nation, increased coring cost and +X% overextension penalty, but is actually a part of your nation and colonized provinces don't count as distant overseas, or at least those penalties are reduced.)

 

[Atlantians]

Also I'm curious why the thread title says "along with naval power" since this doesn't seem to have been brought up in the post.

Certain scenes were cut in post production.

 

[Metz]

Currently, Colonial Nations are Monoliths.

Yet Historically, different countries administered their colonies differently.

Being inspired by this thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-colonial-nations-into-colonial-areas.980297/

I would like to propose a better system for representing this:

As it works now, when you have 5 provinces in a Colonial Region, a Colonial Nation forms which will include all future colonies in that region. These regions are very large:

I would propose an alternative system that integrates several mechanics:

Similar to your Native Policy, have a Colonial Policy that lets you set how your Colonies will be handled.
Area-Based, Region-Based, or Colonial-Region-Based.

Essentially, an area-based policy would form a Colonial Nation once you have 5 provinces in an area.

Region-Based Colonial Nations would form a Colonial Nation once you have 5 provinces in a region

Region-Based Colonial Nations would form a Colonial Nation once you have 5 provinces in a colonial region.

You would get a free Merchant when you have 10 or more Colonial Provinces in a Trade Region and you have more than a certain share of the trade power in that region.

I would also like to see an integration of Trade Company Regions with Colonial Regions and have the option of forming Trade Companies in areas like the Mediterranean, especially when you are having to compete with other colonizers and can't build up a full Colonial Nation.

Please share more ideas and add to the thread!

Sounds a lot like my idea I posted a few months ago in the suggestions subforum.

 

[Metz]

I go through the suggestion forums every single working day, and quite often on my weekends too.

I can't always respond though, because there are tonnes of suggestions, I often just take note of cool things or hum and ho over 'em, but when there is a very clear hell yes or heck no, I like to pop in with those too.

Or sometimes just respond to these posts to make it clear that yes, we are listening, and indeed are very grateful for the suggestions, both good and bad.

That said I'm not sold on this CN suggestion, we have fairly non-uniform areas and it would potentially spawn a load of tags.

For now, any way we could get more options to control colonial nations to prevent them from creeping into other colonial regions? I hate it when colonial America moves in on Colonial Canada. Either we should get to restrict their expansions to within their corresponding colonial regions (optional), or by creeping into a neighboring colonial region, the taken provinces become yours (or theirs) until 5 are reached and then a new colonial nation is created that has you as their overlord.

However, above is how I feel the current situation could be improved. I personally thing, colonial nations could be more dynamic. Colonizing should instantly create a colonial nation per colonial region. As it grows (meaning it absorbs states), the name adapts dynamically (as would a country that owns a province abroad would) but the tag remains the same.

The regions are fine however, I'd like to see Florida split from the NA colonial region and the Lousiana region cut into 3 regions: Upper Lousiana, Lower Lousiana, and Ohio. The additional option of merging neighboring colonial regions would be nice (only within North America and South America respectively). Regarding the seperation of NA and SA, the cut off point should be right where Costa Rica begins and northwards from that.

Maybe the Caribbean can be cut into Greater Antilles and Lesser Antilles.

Finally, South Africa should be a colonial region and trade companies should work as vassals (they had their own government, army, and navy).

 

[Atlantians]

Sounds a lot like my idea I posted a few months ago in the suggestions subforum.

I found yours after coming up with similar ideas, but I meant for this thread to be about 2x longer, but cut it down because I needed to restart the browser.

That is why I linked your post in my OP.

 

[Atlantians]

We already have client states:

Allow an earlier version of the clients states to create colonial nations. These would work similarly to how they do now, with the same kinds of flags, perhaps allowing you to choose the color. Any connected provinces would be automatically added to the colony. Add some new ways to make it worth it to make them. You shouldn't be forced to add provinces to colonial nations by hard automation, but by necessity. Merchants could be changed to be gained when you have an x amount of colonial-nation provinces (added together) or even development (which could make developing colonial nations worth it) in a trade node. This way you wouldn't be able to spam 5-province colonies to gain an unbalanced amount of merchants.

With these changes, colonial nations would have borders make sense without completely ruining balance, I think.

please god no trade companies are the only colonial objective that actually pays off in the end, don't convince paradox to ruin them too...

Yeah, I actually want to see them expanded to the New World rather than anything else.

We already have client states:

Allow an earlier version of the clients states to create colonial nations. These would work similarly to how they do now, with the same kinds of flags, perhaps allowing you to choose the color. Any connected provinces would be automatically added to the colony. Add some new ways to make it worth it to make them. You shouldn't be forced to add provinces to colonial nations by hard automation, but by necessity. Merchants could be changed to be gained when you have an x amount of colonial-nation provinces (added together) or even development (which could make developing colonial nations worth it) in a trade node. This way you wouldn't be able to spam 5-province colonies to gain an unbalanced amount of merchants.

With these changes, colonial nations would have borders make sense without completely ruining balance, I think.

This is a great idea!

I, uh, actually came here for the stuff about Naval Power.

Sorry, budget cuts.

First obvious issue is that plenty of areas don't have five provinces.

Sorry, meant to say 'adjacent' areas. So you can choose to form a nation out of a string of areas.

 

[Frogbait]

I go through the suggestion forums every single working day, and quite often on my weekends too.

I can't always respond though, because there are tonnes of suggestions, I often just take note of cool things or hum and ho over 'em, but when there is a very clear hell yes or heck no, I like to pop in with those too.

Or sometimes just respond to these posts to make it clear that yes, we are listening, and indeed are very grateful for the suggestions, both good and bad.

That said I'm not sold on this CN suggestion, we have fairly non-uniform areas and it would potentially spawn a load of tags.

Such is the life of a game developer - there is no winning when it comes to fans

These could be rather rubbish suggestions, but I'll say them anyways.

Louisana could probably be split up between the coastal and near coastal areas + the interior. Mississippi or Ohio region could be the interior. N. America I'm just a bit surprised that you have CN regions covering multiple trade nodes rather than a CN region per trade node.

What about giving the option of establishing a trade company or CN for all trade company and CN regions? Could give a bit of a dynamic in that you can either have them be autonomous entities or crown ruled for trade.

And last one - could make trade company regions all coastal nodes but only able to be made on continents that your capital and trade capital aren't on. My actual suggestion would be for all coastal nodes downstream of your trade capital not on your trade capital's continent, but I'm thinking that's literally impossible on the engine / code.

 

[Atlantians]

I updated the opening post with some ideas for the Navies.

Should I just start a new thread?

 

[saegoto]

some nice ideas. gj!