Colonzing, is it worth it?

[unmerged(19926)]

Ive been thinking about this for a while.

To me it seems to cost more than you get back, specially if you do it in the 1700th century in GC f.x.
Im not talking about sending settlers to ireland as England, as its pretty cheap. Its the costly settlers to todays USA and likewise Im worried about.

If you look at this from a historic perspektiv, I think the whole settlers thing is overprized.

The alternative to colonizing new places, is to use the money to wage war in Europe, and invest in infrastructre.

 

[unmerged(24379)]

Fellow countryman, the more land, the better . If your goal is conquest, you should also concider America...

 

[Havard]

If you look at this from a historic perspektiv, I think the whole settlers thing is overprized.

If you look at this from a historic perspective, most colonies didn't make any money...

 

[MarshalN]

If you are colonizing early it's way worth your money, and depending on the province as well. Something in India can make you 40d a year, easily. 10 years and you have most of your money back.

So it depends on what kind of province you're talking about. There's also the additional trade benefit (from higher values in COTs)

 

[unmerged(24379)]

In my view, you gain land, and that is the most important. If you want to conquer the world you need to expand...

 

[unmerged(11486)]

Plus the historical benefit of having colonial nations actually being colonial nations...

Steele

 

[unmerged(19926)]

Fellow countryman, the more land, the better . If your goal is conquest, you should also concider America...

Establishing a colony up to 1000 people can cost you as much as 700 ducats.
700 ducats can also give you 100k infantery that you can use to conquer more than 1 territory in europe.

Lets say you conquer one territory in mainland france. The area has population of 20000. It might also have higher base value...

To me it seems like a waste, when you can conquer Europe instead

P.S Have you played a game called Planetarion?

 

[unmerged(19926)]

Plus the historical benefit of having colonial nations actually being colonial nations...

Steele

???

 

[ForzaA]

Establishing a colony up to 1000 people can cost you as much as 700 ducats.
700 ducats can also give you 100k infantery that you can use to conquer more than 1 territory in europe.

Lets say you conquer one territory in mainland france. The area has population of 20000. It might also have higher base value...

To me it seems like a waste, when you can conquer Europe instead

there is ofcourse, stability cost and Badboy..
a French province will no doubt cost more to your stab than a state culture/religion colony

 

[joak]

Establishing a colony up to 1000 people can cost you as much as 700 ducats.
700 ducats can also give you 100k infantery that you can use to conquer more than 1 territory in europe.

Lets say you conquer one territory in mainland france. The area has population of 20000. It might also have higher base value...

To me it seems like a waste, when you can conquer Europe instead

P.S Have you played a game called Planetarion?

Colonizing gives you territory of the proper culture and religion, with no BB, which are the big pluses. Also beneficial are that other nations don't have CB's, that colonies often have strategic value, and when they don't they're often isolated enough you don't need to waste money defending them.

You can easily lose a lot more than 700 ducats in even a "small" war, especially if you add in lost income due to looting, let alone stab costs. Indirect costs to manage with a bad BB can be enormous too.

Personally, I'm not a big colonizer because find fighting more fun. But it definitely gives a nice return on investment.

 

[unmerged(11486)]

One of the reasons I play this and other Paradox games is that they allow me the ability to follow history accurately if I choose to do so. Therefore, if I'm playing as England, I would probably colonize much of North America, and try to create the United States around the 1770s.

Why did you ask about Planetarion? That seems a little out of place here...

Steele

 

[unmerged(11633)]

Colonising is nearly always worth it.

However, increasing infra tech LOWERS the cost of colonising, so get infra up if you think the cost is too much. And lower serfdom, increase cent etc.

 

[JohnMK]

Well let's pursue this mathematically. Let's say it takes 8 colonists to bring a territory from 0-1000 (inc. nativives & natural growth). Let's assume 55 ducats per colonist or so. That's 440 ducats investment.

Now the rewards: Colony brings in 30 ducats per year tax + production, and has a trade value of let's say 20. Assume a trade efficiency of 50%. And what you have is a payoff of 10% of your investment per annum. And it increases as your infra and trade techs increase (production and trade efficiency).

Yeah, it's worth it in some cases such as above.

 

[unmerged(11486)]

And then, there are those places with base of 0, manpower of 0, a huge location penalty, so the population shrinks constantly, with large numbers of extreme aggressiveness natives... Not so worthwhile.

Steele

 

[unmerged(25696)]

Colonising is nearly always worth it.

However, increasing infra tech LOWERS the cost of colonising, so get infra up if you think the cost is too much. And lower serfdom, increase cent etc.

But each year you wait for the infra to raise, and the cost of colonizing to fall, is a year's worth of income lost.

And consider the fact that some colonies may enable you to conquer pagan nations more easily, or attack the possessions of another colonial nation (Brazil is VERY vulnerable to as few as 1000 cav ) to gain enough points to snatch one or more province(s) (who talked about Portugal ? :rofl: ).

Also, 76mm, I think you forget that you need to siege and seize control of more than one province to get one from your enemy, and there're lot of european provinces (even in France) that are poor...

 

[Barca]

Keep in mind JohnMK that you probably wont succeed in all 8 colonization attempts, especially if there are natives. So a better estimate would be something along the lines of 600-700D investment. Still pays off very well though.

 

[henrikhka]

So if i have higher infra, colonizing will cost less? Well, then i'll try to get infra very high in my next SP as Portugal.

 

[unmerged(16181)]

I actually tried once to calculate the cost of establishing a colony and upgrading it completely.

The number of colonists one has to send depends on the initial chance of success, which goes up as one sends more colonists, according to some bizarre formula I worked out, which ended up being so complicated I could not solve it algebraically and had to just work it out by trial and error. Anyway, it seems to me like you should need to send about twelve colonists in order to get to 1000 population, assuming you have an initial success chance of 60% and no natives, which seems about average to me. (Provinces with natives would likely have a lower success chance).

So, assuming we send twelve colonists, and each colonist costs about Ð60 (eth seems like a good letter to use for ducats), then you would spend about Ð720 building up the colony. Add in a tax collector (Ð50), a fortress (Ð129 if you stay as Offensive as you can without getting the siege penalty, which is what I normally do), a chief judge (Ð100), and a governor (Ð100), and you end up with a total cost of Ð1099 for the colony.

This would imply that a colony costs about as much as twenty-one warships at full naval and plutocracy, or as much a manufactory if you haven't built many manufactories, which is quite expensive.

So I played a game as England and later Britain (modified the files) in which I did not found colonies, except for Bermuda, the Falklands, Fiji, and Ceylon as strategic bases, and concentrated instead on improving the British Isles. I found that I made an acceptable amount of money, but that there just wasn't anything to do. Eventually I broke down and starting colonizing stuff, just out of boredom.

So my vote is that colonies are not worth it if you are trying to conquer stuff in Europe (which I wasn't in my Britain game), but if you are not trying to conquer stuff in Europe, then they are useful so that you have something to do. (Of course, they did also double my census tax income, which would be quite useful in MP, but since I only play SP it really does not matter if I have a lot of money, and in SP I have the luxury of playing for fun rather than to survive.)

 

[unmerged(24379)]

Planetarion eh? I remember some people used to play it when I was in "ungdomskolen" (junior high?).

My point about colonization, it brings in more cash than spended, on the long term. About BB points, who really cares, within 50 years of play you "are hated throughout the entire world" anyway...

 

[unmerged(19926)]

Planetarion eh? I remember some people used to play it when I was in "ungdomskolen" (junior high?).

THIS IS A SIDENOTE:
I was thinking of what you called your AAR: Strenght and Honour.
That was the slogon of one of the alliances in planetarion, witch I was member off