I constantly do successful games without colonizing the Americas. Now why is that?
I'm not sure how this refutes anything I said -- I never said it was the only way to play or the only profitable approach. What I said is that it IS profitable which you seem to dispute, though none of your arguments really refute it. I can say I've played games without colonizing, with colonizing, and colonizing only outside of the Americas. There are many viable strategies. I don't think we're trying to define an optimal strategy here -- if we were, we'd be crunching numbers and talking in equations. In any case, saying it's a "waste of resources" isn't an opinion, it's stating something as if it were absolute when it's not.
Because I am of the opinion that ...
1. I do better by not taking exploration idea first or second and waste my diplo points on it.
2. I do better if I take a different idea group instead of taking exploration first or second (taking exploration later than second is even more of a waste).
3. the money spent on creating colonial nations is not well-invested. It is for example better to use said money to hire mercenaries or go over ones force limit or build temples.
4. Colonial Nations are bugged. I don't want to get upset about my CN protectorizing a Native American OPM.
5. Colonial Nations are useless. I've never seen them colonize provinces and if they would do they would colonize 75% slower than a non regular country.
6. Colonial Nations can't defend themselves. Often they just watch rebels taking over their provinces. My colonies outside of the Americas don't form Colonial Nations and therefore I have complete control over them and get a warning when rebels spawn.
7. Colonial Nations only give you 50% trade power instead of 100% trade power I get from my colonies outside of the Americas.
8. Colonial Nations only pay little money unless you waste ADM points on increasing tariffs. Those ADM points are spent better on ideas, coring, building temple and increasing stability.
1&2 are really strategy specific -- obviously, if you're playing a dominate-the-European-Continent style game, they are absolutely true, but a historically-played Portugal or Spain profits far more from those ideas than from ignoring them. And 3, well, 2 ducats a month is hardly a crushing financial burden, and if you're not at war, hiring mercenaries and exceeding force limits may not be optimal use either. Without a particular situation or strategy pre-stipulated, it's not a given that those are better uses of the ducats.
I acknowledged 4 already (though each beta patch is much better), and I've not seen 5 or 6 (though I wouldn't be surprised if the bug where they don't plan for tariffs when budgeting could cause it) -- I've actually seen them take land by force, and contribute pretty strongly in wars.
7 is really not an apples-to-apples comparison. You can seize huge swaths of land in America and also take advantage of Alex's little trick above and work wonders, and trade power is always worth the most where the trade value is -- there is plenty in America. 8 is also situational, and I'm sure you've seen the discussions on how fast to run up the tariffs.
These are just a few points that come to mind why colonizing the Americas is not rewarding. You don't have to agree with me and judging from your previous posts you won't but we are all entitled to our own opinions and strategies. The OP asked for opinions and I stated my opinion on said matter.
You are entitled to opinions and strategies. But stating opinions as facts doesn't help the OP evaluate whether colonial nations are profitable for his strategy or interesting to his play-style, it just confuses the matter. Though really, the list you gave just there, while not an argument against CNs, is a far better start at evaluating when colonizing America might be the right strategy or the wrong one than just calling them a waste.
