Colonization/Conquest of Central America, India and East Indies

[echolot]

Maybe I had bad luck in all my previous game. There was not a single one game with a successfull colonization/conquest of Central America and India. In all my games most of Central American countries successfully survive, heck most of them even westernize. The situation was far better before the Conquest of Paradise DLC, but after this region recieved a huge buff it became worse abruptly. Even by playing an European country and trying to conquere Central America is quite hard. Your country or your colonies are confronted with massive overextension which often results in massive revolts (if these would be highly underdeveloped rebels that would be ok, but directly after the conquest the rebels are relatively high quality units with cavallery and artillery) and hence reestablishing of Indian countries. Also the fact that such countries became christian and even westernize doesn't make the historical outcome more likely.

Don't get me wrong. Ahistorical outcomes are a good thing and are necessary for all Paradox games. But when you see every time a massive westenized Aztek empire and some other smaller countries by the beginning of the 19th century it starts to become ridiculous.

Same problem with India. With the exception of early EUIV versions I've never seen an European colonization or conquest in India. Not even a single colony there. Same here, many countries westernize (though without bordering any European controlled province). Finally more or less same situation in East Indies. Though European powers are colonizing there the results are still always the same. First indigineous countries are far better in colonizing so that you see ridiculously large Brunei or Mallacca empire. Second Europeans only colonize, never fight a war. So for example you will never see Dutchs conquering Java and establishing Batavia, the island is always controlled by local powers.

 

[Zak Preston]

Portugal gets a core province in Indian region, making westernization for locals an easy task, resulting in chain westernizations later.

 

[Selvas]

Well I almost never see Aztec survive in any shape that would cause troubles for any western colonizer. So I think you had been lucky to see them becoming strong. As for Asia I almost always see western presence in form of colonies in Indonesia and beyond. Also I have observed that it's more common that western colonizers establish protectorates instead of taking provinces for themselves. I must admit that I rarely see them taking any provinces in India.

 

[Incompetent]

Conquering the pagans is easy enough, but it's better to do it gradually so your CNs can cope - doing it Cortes/Pizarro-style doesn't work too well unfortunately. The rebel thing is of course unrealistic - not just in terms of technology, but also numbers, given that the majority of indigenous people in European-controlled areas died of all the diseases Europeans brought with them. (On the other hand, conquering Africa is too easy in EU4, because the game doesn't simulate how *Europeans* were struck down by African diseases.)

The AI struggles to invade other continents mainly because it's no good at shipping its armies around.

Portugal gets a core province in Indian region, making westernization for locals an easy task, resulting in chain westernizations later.

Is that still a thing? I thought Johan said it was getting fixed.

 

[Number 7]

Once the AI learns (after multiple games of EU, Victoria and hearts of iron...) how to use navies and how to transport armies the quality of all paradox titles would go up significantly, rather than naval supremacy being unique to the player...

 

[echolot]

Well I almost never see Aztec survive in any shape that would cause troubles for any western colonizer. So I think you had been lucky to see them becoming strong. As for Asia I almost always see western presence in form of colonies in Indonesia and beyond. Also I have observed that it's more common that western colonizers establish protectorates instead of taking provinces for themselves. I must admit that I rarely see them taking any provinces in India.

As mentioned European countries do establish colonies in Indonesia. However a) most of colonial provinces are colonized by local countries like Brunei b) European countries do not (at least in all my games) conquer any provinces from local countries. Java not being conquered is a good example for this.

 

[echolot]

Portugal gets a core province in Indian region, making westernization for locals an easy task, resulting in chain westernizations later.

Does a core without actual control allow a westernization? If so the mechanic is a bit strange. How could an Indian country westernize without having any European presence on the whole sub-continent.

 

[WeissRaben]

Conquering the pagans is easy enough, but it's better to do it gradually so your CNs can cope - doing it Cortes/Pizarro-style doesn't work too well unfortunately.

The "Cortez/Pizarro style" isn't even a thing - while the defeat was decisive enough to say "this will be all mine", the shortest conquest - that of Peru - lasted 40 years. For Mexico, 70 were needed; for the Mayans, 160.

 

[pgroves]

Maybe I had bad luck in all my previous game. There was not a single one game with a successfull colonization/conquest of Central America and India. In all my games most of Central American countries successfully survive, heck most of them even westernize. The situation was far better before the Conquest of Paradise DLC, but after this region recieved a huge buff it became worse abruptly. Even by playing an European country and trying to conquere Central America is quite hard. Your country or your colonies are confronted with massive overextension which often results in massive revolts (if these would be highly underdeveloped rebels that would be ok, but directly after the conquest the rebels are relatively high quality units with cavallery and artillery) and hence reestablishing of Indian countries. Also the fact that such countries became christian and even westernize doesn't make the historical outcome more likely.

Don't get me wrong. Ahistorical outcomes are a good thing and are necessary for all Paradox games. But when you see every time a massive westenized Aztek empire and some other smaller countries by the beginning of the 19th century it starts to become ridiculous.

Same problem with India. With the exception of early EUIV versions I've never seen an European colonization or conquest in India. Not even a single colony there. Same here, many countries westernize (though without bordering any European controlled province). Finally more or less same situation in East Indies. Though European powers are colonizing there the results are still always the same. First indigineous countries are far better in colonizing so that you see ridiculously large Brunei or Mallacca empire. Second Europeans only colonize, never fight a war. So for example you will never see Dutchs conquering Java and establishing Batavia, the island is always controlled by local powers.

Depends, in my current 1.11 Brttany game, both France and Portugal have decent sized holdings in India (it's1690), though no one but me has attacked any Indonesian state, despite France, Spain and Portugal allconising in the area. I own most of Southern China.

 

[pgroves]

I also own most of the New Brittany, Louisiana, Mexico, California, West Indies and Columbia colonial regions...

 

[Cragspyder]

Does a core without actual control allow a westernization? If so the mechanic is a bit strange. How could an Indian country westernize without having any European presence on the whole sub-continent.

Any western and non-western core that co-exists allows the non-western nation to westerize.

Its actually beneficial for a nation in the trade company areas to lose a province to a western nation since you cant westernize from a trade company adjacent, but you can from a core co-existing with a trade company.

You're correct that it is rather weird since Portugal never owned the province but its not like Portuguese people couldn't move there anyways or something

In regards to success of native nations, i have never seen a north or south American nation do well except for a bizarre 10 province pawnee once.

In contrast i have seen the europeans conquer some wacky stuff in asia including one game where half of japan and korea were conquered by Spain

 

[echolot]

I also own most of the New Brittany, Louisiana, Mexico, California, West Indies and Columbia colonial regions...

But not the AI, right?

 

[pgroves]

But not the AI, right?

They've been pretty aggressive colonising too, though less aggressive attacking native states. Spanish La Plata, Portguese Brazil, The Thirteen Colonies and French Canada have all expanded to not far off their maximum size (though somewhat hemmed-in by my CNs)

 

[Fugu]

The central America and Incas are what bugs me most, they survive far too easily. The AI should be more aggressive towards them or sonething.

 

[echolot]

They've been pretty aggressive colonising too, though less aggressive attacking native states. Spanish La Plata, Portguese Brazil, The Thirteen Colonies and French Canada have all expanded to not far off their maximum size (though somewhat hemmed-in by my CNs)

Yes, that's the problem. In all regions the colonization works quite well, conquering native countries is a huge issue. It also worked relatively good and more or less historical in most of the games in early versions (if I remember correctly all before 1.4). But after the number of these countries increased, they got a huge buff and some mechanics were changed, succesfull wars by AI against Central America but also other regions like India or East Indies are practically not present anymore.

 

[Incompetent]

The "Cortez/Pizarro style" isn't even a thing - while the defeat was decisive enough to say "this will be all mine", the shortest conquest - that of Peru - lasted 40 years. For Mexico, 70 were needed; for the Mayans, 160.

In EU4 terms, you could say the Spanish took a few years to nominally annex a large part of the land (e.g. they pretty much claimed overlordship over the whole Inca Empire in one go), and then decades mostly fighting 'rebels'. That's quite different to a slowly advancing frontier, where everything behind the line is solidly Spanish and everything beyond it is untouched.

 

[Lajinn]

In EU4 terms, you could say the Spanish took a few years to nominally annex a large part of the land (e.g. they pretty much claimed overlordship over the whole Inca Empire in one go), and then decades mostly fighting 'rebels'. That's quite different to a slowly advancing frontier, where everything behind the line is solidly Spanish and everything beyond it is untouched.

They laid claim to land that they hadn't actually fully conquered in the typical arrogant manner of Europeans in that time, thus why they spent decades fighting 'rebels'

 

[WeissRaben]

In EU4 terms, you could say the Spanish took a few years to nominally annex a large part of the land (e.g. they pretty much claimed overlordship over the whole Inca Empire in one go), and then decades mostly fighting 'rebels'. That's quite different to a slowly advancing frontier, where everything behind the line is solidly Spanish and everything beyond it is untouched.

No - in EU4 terms, it took that time. At most, you could say that the Inca Empire was vassallized (curious, because in game it is impossible) and it rebelled several times before the complete annexation, but in Mesoamerica, fortified cities fell up to 1697, when Itza was taken. But the Spanish already claimed all those lands, and no one dared going against it.