There might be an Australia region soon (announced in the dev multiplayer stream)
Colonial Nations Really?
- Thread starter jayshirley
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CNs are great due to them being able to patrol their coasts and develop their own provinces, which decreases the need for me to "fly" around the world to micromanage everything everywhere. Their self development can bring in pretty nice amount of money even if they do take 50% of the trade power in their nodes, and also saves my monarch points.
The most annoying part about colonial nations are constant pop-ups about their governors. I have about ten CNs as Spain in my current MP game and it can become quite annoying to have to constantly click them when you much more important stuff to do, like fighting big wars in Europe. Especially since with that amount of CNs I rarely select any of the prestige penalty options as that would eat away my prestige pretty fast, so it's just a matter of clicking them away. Even so their liberty desire has never exceeded 20%. Not much point to increase tariffs as I am already far ahead of others in income. My superior navy can steal most of the Western Europe trade node's power etc.
I'd be willing to give up some trade power or tariffs if I could automate that annoying selection. Other option would simply be to increase the interval between choosing new governors.
The most annoying part about colonial nations are constant pop-ups about their governors. I have about ten CNs as Spain in my current MP game and it can become quite annoying to have to constantly click them when you much more important stuff to do, like fighting big wars in Europe. Especially since with that amount of CNs I rarely select any of the prestige penalty options as that would eat away my prestige pretty fast, so it's just a matter of clicking them away. Even so their liberty desire has never exceeded 20%. Not much point to increase tariffs as I am already far ahead of others in income. My superior navy can steal most of the Western Europe trade node's power etc.
I'd be willing to give up some trade power or tariffs if I could automate that annoying selection. Other option would simply be to increase the interval between choosing new governors.
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I'm not sure if it is just me, but in my 1.4 Games i have never seen a CN doing anything. Not even colonize or declare wars. They are just there to give money.
If you increase their tariffs enough an event fires that will reduce their liberty desire and disable choosing governors.
I have seen five of my current CNs to colonize. They're usually bigger ones like the ones in Mexico and Brazil colonial areas. They have never declared wars even though there are primitives next to them.
Oh, didn't know that. Thanks!
I've had my colonial nations drag me into ridiculously bad wars with other great powers because they decided to "purge the heresy" of a neighboring native tribe which happens to be a protectorate of some other colonial nation, which in turn pulls in the overlord of that other nation. The AI is so terrible at dealing with protectorates >_<
Getting tariffs on colonial nations is a pretty good deal compared to how things are with overseas provinces in the Old World:
Old World: full trade power, but manpower and all other income types heavily penalised, and integrating new provinces (including colonies of other Europeans) is tedious.
New World: 50% trade power, not much manpower, but you get a cut of all their income (you decide how much) including trade, and they take care of all the coring/culture/religion issues for you. The price is that they can sometimes get you into wars with other colonial powers (although if you are serious about colonies, you should be prepared to fight the big boys anyway). Independence wars that don't involve big European powers are a mostly theoretical threat, as you need to tax them really hard before they revolt, they're generally easy to beat (not least because taxing them so hard means they can't save up much of a war chest) and you don't even need to properly win the war (you can even 'lose' the war as long as you don't give them independence in the peace offer).
Old World: full trade power, but manpower and all other income types heavily penalised, and integrating new provinces (including colonies of other Europeans) is tedious.
New World: 50% trade power, not much manpower, but you get a cut of all their income (you decide how much) including trade, and they take care of all the coring/culture/religion issues for you. The price is that they can sometimes get you into wars with other colonial powers (although if you are serious about colonies, you should be prepared to fight the big boys anyway). Independence wars that don't involve big European powers are a mostly theoretical threat, as you need to tax them really hard before they revolt, they're generally easy to beat (not least because taxing them so hard means they can't save up much of a war chest) and you don't even need to properly win the war (you can even 'lose' the war as long as you don't give them independence in the peace offer).
The bad things about the colonial nations is that:
- You can't decide which territories belongs to a specific colonial nation
- They are worthless in wars, the Caribbeans just sit on their islands not moving a single army in my wars. Brazil can help a bit sometimes. AI stupidness.
- You can't decide which territories belongs to a specific colonial nation
- They are worthless in wars, the Caribbeans just sit on their islands not moving a single army in my wars. Brazil can help a bit sometimes. AI stupidness.
+1 To this. It would totally make make sense to give Baja California or the Vancouver islands to your California colony, for example, but the game doesn't let you do that. There should be a little bit of overlap between colonial regions, although maybe one of the two regions would be preferred to prevent the game being unable to decide which new colonial nation to form
You are entitled to your own opinions and strategies. They are however factually wrong and functionally inferior.
Colonial nations are the most overpowered feature in this game. There is nothing that even comes close to the measly gold, diplo and adm cost of grabbing the ideas, building the colonies and increasing the tariffs, in terms of how much you benefit from doing so.
You might feel they're strong, but claims like that are rather outlandish.
These are not feelings.
I can link more games to drive my point through if you feel that it's necessary.
Something along these lines would be nice. Particularly if, for example, you had a landborder between to CNs and one CN is huge while one CN is only the minimum number of provinces. I'd lobby that in these cases, it would be nice if they merged as one CN. It would also be nice if they could split as they grew. A colonial reorganization of sorts.
I'd say they are objectively strong in a number of circumstances (if not most circumstances), but I agree with you that calling them the most overpowered feature is too much. (In slight jest: I'd argue for the most overpowered game feature as "ability to play as the Ottoman Empire")
That IS a hell of an income, eh?
Ah, New Spain's inflation?
I like the concept of CNs but the implementation is rather weak. They shouldn't just automatically form at the magic number of 5. There should be a decision to form it (or something like the Create Vassal button) and there should be an obvious incentive to do so. In Civ 4 for instance your maintenance costs would start going through the roof so you'd be sort of forced to create a colony - but the decision would be yours. Also, having them stuck to historical colonial regions is kind of lame and is a lot like the historical trade system now in place which leads to silly things like Japan ignoring Malacca and going for - Mexico!
I like the concept of CNs but the implementation is rather weak. They shouldn't just automatically form at the magic number of 5. There should be a decision to form it (or something like the Create Vassal button) and there should be an obvious incentive to do so. In Civ 4 for instance your maintenance costs would start going through the roof so you'd be sort of forced to create a colony - but the decision would be yours. Also, having them stuck to historical colonial regions is kind of lame and is a lot like the historical trade system now in place which leads to silly things like Japan ignoring Malacca and going for - Mexico!
Not really, since the colonial nations start with bad idea groups already picked for you. They don't even have a colonist.
This.
What bothers me the most is that the overlap between colonial nations and trade nodes is not ideal. I like to set up subjects (vassals, protectorates, colonial nations) in control of their own trade node, which I deem more efficient (possibly mistaken here) but it's not currently possible. My main issues:
- The St. Lawrence trade node is not completely in the Canada region: Iroquois lands, that lone province in Maine + some Great Lakes provinces are either in Louisiana/ Thirteen colonies regions.
- There is no specific colonial region for the Hudson Bay node which means Canada/Hudson Bay Company cannot be both colonial nations (most saddening).
- There is 2 provinces in the Guyana colonial region but the Brazilian trade node, and one province in the Columbia colonial region (and not the Guyana one) but Caribbean trade node.
- Southern Florida as an alone province in the Caribbean trade node but Thirteen Colonies region.
- The Mississippi trade node does not overlap with the Louisiana colonial region nicely (some provinces are in colonial Mexico or the Thirteen Colonies)
- etc,...
I would like that provinces on the border of colonial regions (sea borders counting) would trigger an event letting you decide as the King which colonial nation should get the province. Obviously it will be default (for AI) go to the normal colonial region, and the event would appear only if you have already a CN in each of the respective regions.
Much more emphatic and convincing. Well done.
That said, I'm not sure it's as "overpowered" as alliance abuse, chain dow-cede-annex-vassal, scorched earth, or even protectorate double-declarations (IE breaking truces w/o penalty). Certainly, if you grab so much land uncontested (or minimally contested) you're going to have a superpower on your hands, but that's not really something you don't also see out of, say, Russia or an Asian nation with total control of the Indian ocean + Australia (less FL, ludicrous money). In some ways, it's hard to compare these features; scorched earth can let you beat forces twice your size even if yours are inferior 1:1. Alliances allow an Irish minor to completely wipe England off the map by just after 1500AD. Piling on Mamluks during their war with Ottomans, taking a ton of land, and then declaring on Ethiopia to force them into war again gets you a giant vassal (anyone can declare on Ethiopia to use this, even *good* nations). It was particularly silly with Russia having a few horde protectorates; you could literally keep spamming DoW on their protectorate right after taking stuff while they still had nothing haha...the game forces them in again.
That said, I don't like that colonial nations take such a colonization malus and largely don't do anything abroad whatsoever, even after being firmly established, but with results like you're showing it makes sense as to why they don't.
Of course, what kind of monster would you have had if you instead forced them to become a vassal then got them to that size
?
Of course, what kind of monster would you have had if you instead forced them to become a vassal then got them to that size
Well, this is multiplayer, so it's not the most viable strategy to attempt
Still, in singleplayer, they're even stronger because of how easy it is to lock down the new world for yourself.
I do disagree that colonial nations don't do anything abroad. They largely remove the need to actually defend your colonial empire, anyone trying to fight this Spanish player overseas would need to beat down 100kish Colonial troops that DO walk from the tip of Argentina all the way up to USA if need be. With that being said, they don't colonize very well on their own, but with 1.5 fixing the inland colonial range bug, that's no longer needed. I don't really see what else they could do, I mean they fight their own wars against weak colonial neighbors, they even take protectorates.
The only thing you could possibly ask them to do beyond that would be to send aid to the motherland. If you tell their AI to do that, while keeping them in their current state, they'd be patently absurd.
Plus getting a bunch of Canadian militia landing in the Netherlands to fight during the Seven Years war really seems a silly thing. (Even writing it seemed sillyWell, this is multiplayer, so it's not the most viable strategy to attempt
Still, in singleplayer, they're even worse, because of how easy it is to lock down the new world for yourself.
I do disagree that colonial nations don't do anything abroad. They largely remove the need to actually defend your colonial empire, anyone trying to fight this Spanish player overseas would need to beat down 100kish Colonial troops that DO walk all the way from the tip of Argentina all the way up to USA if need be. With that being said, they don't colonize very well on their own, but with 1.5 fixing the inland colonial range bug, that's no longer needed. I don't really see what else they could do, I mean they fight their own wars against weak colonial neighbors, they even take protectorates.
The only thing you could possibly ask them to do beyond that would be to send aid to the motherland. If you tell their AI to do that, while keeping them in their current state, they'd be patently absurd.
).