Colony costs

[unmerged(786310)]

I'm a bit new to colonies, having one had a couple of them before while playing Italian minors. Right now I'm in a more serious game as Sibir and I want to expand East to all the colonies in Siberia (I've seen some debate over whether Siberian colonies are worth it, but basically, the ones North of Sibir have fur and stuff, to the East there's a lot of metals). I've started sending colonists and things but while doing some research I found out that colonies slow down your tech investments. Is this still true in DW? Is there a way to work around it? I'd say my tech levels are good for a country that started out as steppe nomads but they're not that great in comparison to European countries, for example.

I'm also wondering if there's anything like the unstable expansion alert you get when you conquer too much land, but for colonies.

In general, is there any way to figure out how many colonies I should have at once and how quickly I should expand? Thanks.

 

[Dathon]

Colonies do not really slow down your tech investments, but they do require money to grow. And because you need to invest money into their growth, you can't send that money into tech investments. Having too many colonies can seriously hurt your economy and thus your research and income. You can see your colony upkeep and the slider on the bottom left area in the money-tab. As shown in this picture:

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb88/douglaslain/EU3_2.jpg

I don't believe there is a separate event besides the overextension for colonies, but i recon if you expand too much you will get the same event for having too many uncored provinces.

As for seeing how many colonies you should have; Keep a eye on the expense and make sure you don't go broke like the story in the thread where i gotten the picture:

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?415058-Colonial-Maintenance-and-Going-Broke

 

[unmerged(786310)]

Thank you

Right now my colony investment isn't that high. Will something happen if I change the colonial maintenance slider down to 0 or something once the colonies become self-sufficient?

My money is being sapped, although I can't figure out why - colony costs aren't such a big portion of it, they're at about 4.6 or something. However, my profits and my investments seem to always be more or less the same and I'm not sure why. My military maintence + colonies + a loan the game took out for me automatically don't add up to those "investments" so I can't figure out what's up. :sad:

 

[Dathon]

If you set the slider to 0 you will end up with people leaving the colony, so don't do it unless you are really in money trouble. Once a colony becomes self-sufficient you don't need to maintain it anymore as it's .. well...self-sufficient!!

As for your money, post a screenie of the budgetscreen, so we of the forum can give hints on why your money is being sapped.

 

[unmerged(786310)]

Thank you. All of my colonies were self-sufficient (though not cores) by the time I posted that, so I assume I could have set the slider to 0 back then? For some reason, I kept having to pay for mantain them when they were already self-sufficient, maybe I shouldn't have.

This is what my budget screen looks like. I'm trying to decrease inflation because early in the game I had to build forts, and then later on I was embroiled in a war against Novgorod, and those two things didn't help. What I'm concerned about is the fact that my income is equal to "investments", which amounts to 0, and then colonial and army maintenance topple it down to negative. What are those investments, anyway? I've also noticed that when I manage to boost my income, the "investments" increase too.

http://i42.tinypic.com/34grfvk.jpg

Colonial maintenance is at 5 here because right before I took it I grabbed two colonies and they're not self-sufficient yet. Could I make it lower and increase their size just by sending colonists? In the long run I think that would be cheaper or easier to manage.

 

[synthshadow]

Investments are basically how much money you are ploughing into technology research. As I see you aren't diverting any away for minting then yes all your income WILL go in investments (and military/colonial maintenance etc).

If you want to reduce it, get a master of mint adviser and/or the National Bank idea. You can mint a little to build your cash up but keep it so inflation constantly REDUCES each month, ideally as much as you can and just live off your annual income. if you can't then by all means mint a bit to keep yourself afloat.

In answer to your last question, again if you can afford it, I would sent as many colonists as you can to those last remaining colonies. Every one is worth 100 colonists (if all your settings are normal) so assuming as a standard rate you send 53 people as a default (probably less as you are on half maintenance...) that's at least 2 years worth of normal growth in one hit.

Sorry for the waffle, hope it helps.

 

[unmerged(465279)]

I think it's worth it to go heavy colonisation (20+ colonies growing) if you are able and willing to be passive for a century or longer to wait for cores. After that it's clobberin' time.