Colonizing the new world much too fast?

[unmerged(68673)]

Strange thing to see Poland in Louisiana, and Russia and Persia (?!) in atlantic coast of Africa
They should use scripting and favourite colonization regions again...much better historical accuracy anyway.

 

[Secret Master]

I wonder if it wouldn't be possible to make crossing the Atlantic dependent on having a certain level of naval tech, with the chances of successfully completing the voyage increasing with each level?

I think this is the best solution, and I have been toying with the idea myself and looking at how/what to mod to make this viable.


The problem isn't that countries are taking Quest for the New World in 1453. The problem is that they are crossing the Atlantic and exploring all along the American coast without losing ships and without needing naval bases. It's also the same way along the coast of Africa. Explorers are getting around Africa with disturbing speed. Couple this with map spread and you have colonial empires popping up like cirrhosis at a Jack Daniels convention. It takes some time, but the damage is irreversible and decisive.

I suppose we could universally raise the attrition levels in all sea zones (except for places like the Baltic, the Med, and the Persian Gulf) and then place something at naval tech 10 or so that mitigates the attrition by half as much as naval tech 20. This would slow down exploration and make it much more costly, which would in turn drive the need for naval domestic policies for people exploring at low tech levels. At the same time, it would not needlessly penalize countries in other parts of the world who want to take Quest for the New World and explore Siberia, or the mainland parts of Asia and India. It also would not penalize a human playing in Africa who wants to send his tribesmen on a quest to conquer all the other Africans.

Under these conditions, once you got to naval tech 10 or so, exploration would speed up. And that would coincide with 1490s to 1510s.

 

[durecellrabbit]

IIRC the AI does not suffer from naval attrition and any changes to that would not slow down AI exploration. I get affected by attrition pretty bad when I play. I can't get much further than Kongo without advanced bases without risking my ships.

 

[Chaingun]

Wasn't that I just said or did my countryman just clearify what I said?

I must have missed it. No offense taken I hope.

 

[Secret Master]

IIRC the AI does not suffer from naval attrition and any changes to that would not slow down AI exploration. I get affected by attrition pretty bad when I play. I can't get much further than Kongo without advanced bases without risking my ships.

And here all along I thought we left "No Naval Attrition for the AI" behind in EU2.

I guess all there is for it is Zeus' thunderbolts to strike down explorers and conquistadors who live longer than 2 years.

 

[pdubz]

And here all along I thought we left "No Naval Attrition for the AI" behind in EU2.

I guess all there is for it is Zeus' thunderbolts to strike down explorers and conquistadors who live longer than 2 years.

What is the reason for the AI not suffering attrition? Is it too stupid to avoid it?

 

[durecellrabbit]

And here all along I thought we left "No Naval Attrition for the AI" behind in EU2.

I guess all there is for it is Zeus' thunderbolts to strike down explorers and conquistadors who live longer than 2 years.

I'm not 100% sure but I've seen my AI allies sail around the Africa from the mediterranean to attack enemy fleets at the horns of africa. They did'nt stop anywhere so they either don't suffer from naval attrition or most of my allies fleets were "ghost fleets".

 

[Secret Master]

What is the reason for the AI not suffering attrition? Is it too stupid to avoid it?

That was the reason in EU2.

In EU2, it wasn't such a big deal, since navies were not as important and the AI was not able to make good use of its colonization.

It still isn't nearly as good as the human player is with colonization or naval operations, but it is much better. (If it could learn to mass its fleets and land more than 2,000 men at a time, it would be down right dangerous!)

 

[Judas the Rogue]

I must have missed it. No offense taken I hope.

None taken. It's fun to see that we swedes think alike.

But I really like the idea about lower naval tech equals higher attrition when crossing oceans (this should even have been mplemented or did I miss something?).

But as mentioned by someone before, it would also be better to let the naval tech level decide how great the extra penalties for colonizing across oceans will be.
The colonist will actually have to survive the trip across the Atlantic to actually be able to set thier foot in the New World and with badly constructed ships and a low knowledge of the sea, this probably won't happen.
Because it's sick that my Europe Dominating Austria with like 4 in naval tech actually is a big concurrent to the great colonisation states.

 

[corporateslave]

I think this is the best solution (higher naval attrition at lower naval tech levels), and I have been toying with the idea myself and looking at how/what to mod to make this viable.

This solution will not fully solve the problem of unrealistic colonization. Requiring a certain level of naval tech to reach the New World will simply postpone unrealistic colonization, not stop it.

The only way to fix unrealistic colonization is to make significant changes to the map spread system. Let me explain.

Imagine for a moment that map spread for colonizable provinces was limited to nations that have the QFTNW idea until some hard date, say around 1600. If this were done, you would not see every nation in Europe rushing to found colonies 50 years into the game. Instead, early colonization would be limited to the nations that actually are looking to found colonies.

 

[Judas the Rogue]

I believe beo asked how to delay the colonisation to a more histrical date

But yes, to keep an totally ilocial country (one which doesn't really focus in colonisation and have the QFTNW) to start colonizing the world and which parasites on other countries discoveries, your idea is ideal.

 

[unmerged(66460)]

"I believe beo asked how to delay the colonisation to a more histrical date"

Indeed I did, but i asked so many questions that I don't blame anyone for loosing track.
What i wanted, was a discussion on the subject of (too) early colonization, and this is turning out to be a great one.


"Imagine for a moment that map spread for colonizable provinces was limited to nations that have the QFTNW idea until some hard date, say around 1600. If this were done, you would not see every nation in Europe rushing to found colonies 50 years into the game. Instead, early colonization would be limited to the nations that actually are looking to found colonies."

This is a great idea. A lock on map-spread (maybe link it to the QFTNW- idea? No QFTNW - No mapspread: simple as that) would fix the problem of unrealistic ( NOT ahistorical, but unrealistic) colonisation by european powers.
I also like the ideas about higher naval- attrition for lower naval - tech levels.

Maybe the QFTNW should have a +1 colonist as well, and all others get a -1 colonist penalty from the start?

Keep the suggestions flowing...
thx 2 all

 

[shaldon]

For me this is one of the most important topics on the forum right now.

I think the main issue here is that the reasons why settlers from a 15th-16th century nation decided to ship off halfway around the world and settle strange foreign lands is not accurately modelled. I thought there were two main reasons - lack of land to farm, and religious persecution.

Therefore, countries with a lot of farmland at their disposal should not get so many colonists, and neither should those of one unified religious faith.

If on the other hand your provinces are fairly barren (Spain) or your country is riven by religious strife (e.g. England in 16th century), this should grant colonists. If your country has any Protestants, there should be a chance the new colony is going to be Protestant, even if your state is Catholic (and vice versa). Conversion of colonies by missionaries should not be allowed, until they are cities.

I saw a documentary describing how during Elizabeth I reign, settlers from England would MUCH rather go to recently conquered provinces in Ireland, where they had been 'allocated' land (= forcibly stolen from the locals) than suckered into dangerous expeditions to insect-ridden swamps in the New World. That localised migration (n.b. I'm not condoning it politically!) isn't currently reflected, and could be tied in with number of colonists - reducing colonists if you conquer new fertile land in Europe.

To 'fix' the unrealistic nature of colonisation, I believe these issues have to be addressed. It would boost the game greatly and make it more historical for the RIGHT reasons, without resorting to scripted events.

I also agree exploration is too easy, as others have noticed, but that is a separate issue.

 

[Hen]

It would also make naval tech research a lot more important, and make it less likely for continental countries which need to concentrate on land tech to get a foothold in colonization until later in the game.

Continental countries concentrating on land tech? Currently I have a one-province AI-Silesia in my game with landtech 3 and naval-tech 3... but maybe the transports on the river Oder need some advanced raft building techniques.

 

[unmerged(12921)]

Strange thing to see Poland in Louisiana, and Russia and Persia (?!) in atlantic coast of Africa
They should use scripting and favourite colonization regions again...much better historical accuracy anyway.

They don't need to "script it", just provide some "common sense guidelines" to the AI when it makes it's choices. Like for Poland it would ask itself "How many potentially hostile/more powerful states within 5 provinces of my capital?" If it came up with more than one, the military choices would get a 20% positive modifier. If more than two, a 50% modifier.

Something that would encourage more rational choices on the AI's Part.

 

[Judas the Rogue]

"I believe..."

Indeed I did, but i asked so many questions that I don't blame anyone for loosing track.
What i wanted, was a discussion on the subject of (too) early colonization, and this is turning out to be a great one.

"Imagine..."

This is a great idea. A lock on map-spread (maybe link it to the QFTNW- idea? No QFTNW - No mapspread: simple as that) would fix the problem of unrealistic ( NOT ahistorical, but unrealistic) colonisation by european powers.
I also like the ideas about higher naval- attrition for lower naval - tech levels.

Maybe the QFTNW should have a +1 colonist as well, and all others get a -1 colonist penalty from the start?

Keep the suggestions flowing...
thx 2 all

Yep, I'm beginning to get really confused too.
Ahh, "unrealistic" that was the word I was looking for.

But remember, we rewrite the history, not living through it again in the same way.

 

[TheFlemishDuck]

Maybe the QFTNW should have a +1 colonist as well, and all others get a -1 colonist penalty from the start?

Thats quite a good idea, as it is people are often replacing QOTNW after the have explored enough, and tats quite soon, a big difference in colonists will make it more usefull for longer.

I think the main issue here is that the reasons why settlers from a 15th-16th century nation decided to ship off halfway around the world and settle strange foreign lands is not accurately modelled. I thought there were two main reasons - lack of land to farm, and religious persecution.

While religious perscution was often a motive for colonists to go colonize, especially England and maybe the lowlands, you can not really argue that all colonists, or even the majority, went because of religious differences, or farming chances even.Most of the Portugese and Spannish colonists (all rabit catholics) just went there for the carreer opportunity's, be it soldier or priest or landlord or trader.Colonization should not depend on those religious differnces and conflict, however there is some logic in youre point, that is that religious persecution did add a lot of colonists where it happened, i would say maybe a bonus to colonists depending on the global tolerance on a religion that is present in good number?

 

[unmerged(56271)]

Continental countries concentrating on land tech? Currently I have a one-province AI-Silesia in my game with landtech 3 and naval-tech 3... but maybe the transports on the river Oder need some advanced raft building techniques.

Yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but because of the slow way the first few techs are generally researched, I don't think it would be a practical solution anyway.

 

[Freebot]

In my rather limited experience, the AI is superhuman at exploration but sucks at actually building a colonial empire. It races towards full innovativeness, which kills both colonists and missionaries. I've had to edit their sliders in the save file to get them back into the colonizing game.

 

[shaldon]

Most of the Portugese and Spannish colonists (all rabit catholics) just went there for the carreer opportunity's, be it soldier or priest or landlord or trader.

Without the need for new land there are no career opportunities - it's all down to land, in that era - it all starts with farming opportunities and communities build up from there.