Ditching exploration

[Holmesy]

Hi

I was wondering if ditching exploration has any effect on your colonial nations? I'm playing a Hansa game where I've taking exploration second and have a foothold in NA and the Caribbean. However obviously nowadays once you have enough colonies then they form a nation and start doing their own thing. If I was to put them up to a good size then ditch exploration for another idea group would they suffer in any way? I only really want them for sending nice trade goods back to Lubeck

 

[haltabush]

I don't think they would suffer from it, they have their own idea slots.

 

[Cossack_PL]

Your NI set doesn't impact CNs, only viceroys increase tarriffs of course.
CNs have a colonist from Expansion Ideas, so they can colonize on their own, but they have lower settler growth. Therefore it's a good idea to leave inland provinces for them to colonize, but especially in contested areas like Carribean you should colonize everything on your own ASAP.

 

[Incompetent]

It would significantly reduce your ability to feed them with colonies - bear in mind that although CNs can colonise on their own, they face heavy penalties in doing so, which means they are quite slow at it until late in the game. But I suppose you could just let other powers colonise and then seize colonies off them.

Actually as the Hansa, a reasonable approach might be to just let everyone else colonise the New World apart from a few strategic bases (not enough to form a CN), but flood the place with your ships. That way you can still get a healthy share of trade, but all the CNs will also be getting a 'Merchant Republic trading in node' bonus to goods produced. (Your own CNs do not benefit from this effect, as they are transferring trade power to you.)

 

[Holmesy]

Yeah, my initial plan was to have a few colonies in each region (one below the trigger for CN's), then max up the trade buildings on them, direct trade to the north sea and let everyone else colonise. However I accidently triggered a CN in the caribbean

If I sell a province would it reverse CN'ing?

 

[RobRoy3]

Actually as the Hansa, a reasonable approach might be to just let everyone else colonise the New World apart from a few strategic bases (not enough to form a CN), but flood the place with your ships. That way you can still get a healthy share of trade, but all the CNs will also be getting a 'Merchant Republic trading in node' bonus to goods produced. (Your own CNs do not benefit from this effect, as they are transferring trade power to you.)

Would be interesting to see how that worked with HSA, in 1.8. I compared something similar, but as the Dutch in 1.7 (so smaller map and no Merchant Republic bonuses). Bottom line from that experiment was that forming the CNs, yourself, generated more benefits than trying to siphon off trade with four provinces and Light Ship fleets.

Will have to see whether it's more viable in 1.8 with a Merchant Republic. And, of course, since you can't always guarantee you'll be early enough to form a CN in each area, this could be the only option open to you.