Europa Universalis IV: Developer diary 18 - Part II - Colonisation Clarification

[unmerged(1823)]

From http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...alis-IV-Developer-diary-18-–-Sail-away-with-me!


Bonus Detail: Colonization
The colonization system in Europa Universalis IIII worked well, but had one small annoyance; you had to continually send out your colonists. We looked to see what we can do with the sending colonist mechanic to make it less of a chore while at the same time keep the feel of the old system.
Now, when you send out a colonist, you automatically succeed, but only 10 people arrive in this new land. And they take a while to grow; if you leave your colonist envoy there then it will help the colony grow faster – but he can’t be everywhere at once. Every month, the colonist envoy will have a chance to add to the population of the colony, based on the old success formula you are familiar with.

So instead of spamming out colonists as soon as you got a new one, you now place your limited colonial envoys in building up colonies, in a more strategic way. Where do you want to emphasize your growth? When do you relocate your envoy?


- Colonist Envoy & Colonist is the same thing, we just call colonists, missionaries, diplomats and merchants for envoys as a group.
- Colonists are no longer a renewable resource.
- You have a set amount of colonists, depending on ideas and status.
- It takes X amount of time for a colonist to reach its destination, depending on technology and distance.
- There is no longer a default amount of colonist you have, you have to decide to become a colonial power.
- Colonies grow every month, depending on climate, natives, technology and other factors.
- If a colonist is present in a colony, it grows quicker.
- Colonies not yet full cities cost a fair amount of maintenance.
- A large native presence increase the amount of trade a colony produces, offsetting costs..

So how do you get colonists...

1. if you border horde territory you have 1 colonist.
2. 1st idea in 'exploration' gives 1 colonist.
3. 6th idea in 'exploration' gives 1 colonist.
4. full exploration idea group give you 1 colonist.
5. 1st idea in 'expansion' gives 1 colonist.
6. There are also 2 countries getting a bonus colonist in their ideas.

All in all, this makes for a colonial game that feels much much more historical.

 

[Jia Xu]

This is a nice surprise. Thanks.

 

[Jia Xu]

Of course, telling us that bordering a horde gives us a colonist grossly implies that we'll be conquering hordes with envoys again! You're going to get some heat for that, I think. I'm probably the only one who liked DW's horde system. *cough*

 

[Seli]

Nice. That looks like a great system.

 

[MilosM]

Of course, telling us that bordering a horde gives us a colonist grossly implies that we'll be conquering hordes with envoys again! You're going to get some heat for that, I think. I'm probably the only one who liked DW's horde system. *cough*

Well horde system was not that bad, I am sure that Paradox will find a way balance it and make it more enjoyable.

 

[Dragassa]

So we will no longer have to spawn colonists. Good these changes make the game more realistic since now you have to dedicate your nation towards being a colonizing power.
This will prevent implausible colonial empires from forming I assume.

 

[Jia Xu]

Well horde system was not that bad, I am sure that Paradox will find a way balance it and make it more enjoyable.

Honestly, I still don't see why people despised DW's horde system so much. Did it take a while to colonize all of the hordes? Yeah, of course! What, you wanted to conquer all of central Asia in 20 years or something? Building a Russian sized empire on the back of hordes is supposed to take a long time. The system gave you all of the horde provinces you wanted at a 0 BB cost. That's worth it alone, IMO. It also made colonists useful for land based countries like Russia.

 

[DarkieBabZ]

Thank you for the extra DD

I really look forward to the new colonial system! thanks for going more into detail.

 

[Andy 1984]

- There is no longer a default amount of colonist you have, you have to decide to become a colonial power.
- A large native presence increase the amount of trade a colony produces, offsetting costs..

This is truly great news. I used to spam colonies in desolated places as they didn't give the penalty to growth. Say Bermuda, Cape Verde and St. Helena. The lack of a default colonist per year (as in EU3) is also great news, depriving others of the possibility to colonize... and finally giving the Iberians some time to colonize at a slower pace.

So how do you get colonists...

1. if you border horde territory you have 1 colonist.
2. 1st idea in 'exploration' gives 1 colonist.
3. 6th idea in 'exploration' gives 1 colonist.
4. full exploration idea group give you 1 colonist.
5. 1st idea in 'expansion' gives 1 colonist.
6. There are also 2 countries getting a bonus colonist in their ideas.

All in all, this makes for a colonial game that feels much much more historical.

Looks very nice. Thank you,

Andy

 

[nOxr]

So how do you get colonists...

1. if you border horde territory you have 1 colonist.
   

Ah, the first bit of information about hordes in EU4. I take it the horde mechanics work more or less like in EU3 when it comes to colonization. Have you considered introducing 'nomadic' provinces? That is, no complicated stuff, just regular provinces that does not have a capitol city. They would work like a regular province in all other aspects, except that you can't build any buildings. At any time you could send a Colonist to the province and build a city, and with that the province would be a normal province. Steppe nomads would begin the game with mostly nomadic provinces, and they would be able to draw twice the manpower from nomadic provinces. They would have the choice to build cities themselves in a effort to settle down and modernize. Also, when a horde conquers a province from a settled neighbour with the help of the occupying mechanism in EU3 they would have the choice to burn the capitol city and turn the province into a nomadic province.

It would bring an underlying logic to why you have to send colonists to horde provinces to capture them. Before you do it is just a vast steppe land, and to control the area you need to set up a city. I know it has been a source of frustration to players that they have needed to send colonists to provinces they have lost earlier to a horde, thinking it made no sense. But this would bring the simple explanation that there is no city left in the province and all the city population are gone. They need to rebuild the city with a colonial envoy.

From a horde perspective it would bring an extra strategic choice between keeping your nomadic provinces and high manpower, or turning them into regular provinces and lose some army might. It would also be greatly satisfying to capture a province, burn the cities and turn all the settled farmers into nomads.

 

[spyroware1]

Oh nice surprise

One thing that begs clarification though, will there be a limit on how many active colonies you have at any one time? [perhaps tied to the number of envoys?]

Otherwise one colonist would be enough to colonise as much as your treasury can support, you will just have to wait more. Extra colonists would boost growth but if you don't have the money already then having more than one would be of little use. For how long will the colonies remain colonies and not full provinces to warrant needing that many envoys active at first place.. ? I'm just asking since the envoy system invites you to get close and personal with your envoys, but it looks like they will be sitting idle for most of the time, unless blanket colonising is economically sustainable and long-term viable, which in EU3 is neither, as you lose the mid game once you overcolonise.

 

[Avrelianvs]

Oh nice surprise

One thing that begs clarification though, will there be a limit on how many active colonies you have at any one time? [perhaps tied to the number of envoys?]

Otherwise one colonist would be enough to colonise as much as your treasury can support, you will just have to wait more. Extra colonists would boost growth but if you don't have the money already then having more than one would be of little use. For how long will the colonies remain colonies and not full provinces to warrant needing that many envoys active at first place.. ? I'm just asking since the envoy system invites you to get close and personal with your envoys, but it looks like they will be sitting idle for most of the time, unless blanket colonising is economically sustainable and long-term viable, which in EU3 is neither, as you lose the mid game once you overcolonise.

IMO, that's the limitation right there. I can have only so many colonies, unless i want to go bankrupt. Once the fiscal burden becomes too heavy, i'll have to stop founding colonies and start developing the ones I already have. And if I overcolonize... well, that SHOULD be a losing move.

 

[MilosM]

Honestly, I still don't see why people despised DW's horde system so much. Did it take a while to colonize all of the hordes? Yeah, of course! What, you wanted to conquer all of central Asia in 20 years or something? Building a Russian sized empire on the back of hordes is supposed to take a long time. The system gave you all of the horde provinces you wanted at a 0 BB cost. That's worth it alone, IMO. It also made colonists useful for land based countries like Russia.

Well I was ok with it, altough there were some things that annoyed me.One thing is that I was often seeing Bohemia or Austria snaking all the way to China, then you had those damn wars every 5 years, so your only solution was to conquer them or they will never stop attacking you.
One positive thing about mechanic and those constant wars was that Russian states were almost guaranteed to colonize Siberia, if they survive that is.I also never understood how come AI can vassalise hordes but I can't.

 

[Meanmanturbo]

- Colonist Envoy & Colonist is the same thing, we just call colonists, missionaries, diplomats and merchants for envoys as a group.
- Colonists are no longer a renewable resource.
- You have a set amount of colonists, depending on ideas and status.
- It takes X amount of time for a colonist to reach its destination, depending on technology and distance.
- There is no longer a default amount of colonist you have, you have to decide to become a colonial power.
- Colonies grow every month, depending on climate, natives, technology and other factors.
- If a colonist is present in a colony, it grows quicker.
- Colonies not yet full cities cost a fair amount of maintenance.
- A large native presence increase the amount of trade a colony produces, offsetting costs..

So how do you get colonists...

1. if you border horde territory you have 1 colonist.
2. 1st idea in 'exploration' gives 1 colonist.
3. 6th idea in 'exploration' gives 1 colonist.
4. full exploration idea group give you 1 colonist.
5. 1st idea in 'expansion' gives 1 colonist.
6. There are also 2 countries getting a bonus colonist in their ideas.

All in all, this makes for a colonial game that feels much much more historical.

So you will have to grab expansion as Sweden if you want Lappland then? Well, It wasn't incorporated untill fairly late, so it makes sense I guess.

 

[spyroware1]

IMO, that's the limitation right there. I can have only so many colonies, unless i want to go bankrupt. Once the fiscal burden becomes too heavy, i'll have to stop founding colonies and start developing the ones I already have. And if I overcolonize... well, that SHOULD be a losing move.

Yes, but that would mean that for a coloniser who's already limited by his gold, 5-6 colonial envoys are way too many

 

[MilosM]

So you will have to grab expansion as Sweden if you want Lappland then? Well, It wasn't incorporated untill fairly late, so it makes sense I guess.

I am pretty sure that it is fairly easy to make events or decisions that create colonies for you, for some cost of course.

 

[Tufto]

Ack, Hordes. Otherwise excellent, will probably improve balance no end.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Ack, Hordes. Otherwise excellent, will probably improve balance no end.

Seeing that there is no longer one big horde, but instead lot of small ones, hordes will not be a problem anymore. Even if they would be in crude, unbalanced form as they are in Divine Wind.

But imo, Georgia should have level 2 forts all over their country, to balance the fact they will propably still border few strong hordes... It would make it harder to kill them for hordes.

 

[Gunnarr]

Honestly, I still don't see why people despised DW's horde system so much. Did it take a while to colonize all of the hordes? Yeah, of course! What, you wanted to conquer all of central Asia in 20 years or something? Building a Russian sized empire on the back of hordes is supposed to take a long time. The system gave you all of the horde provinces you wanted at a 0 BB cost. That's worth it alone, IMO. It also made colonists useful for land based countries like Russia.

The thing I did not like about the horde colinization is oftentimes an ai country would occupy all of the Golden Horde, sit there for the entire game colonizing the entire area, and after a hundred years was touching the pacific ocean. This actually happenend in one of my games (well not my game, but my twins game, one of his first games. he was really put off by it. Autria was one big line from europe to the pacific ocean, by going through siberia and a beaten golden horde.)

if they make it so you cannot sit and occupy all of a horde and just colonize it all as if you had a monopoly on the land, then i would be happy

 

[The Turk2]

I'm still curious, can you build trade posts around nodes, in lets say India as the Portuguese, and will these tradeposts be upgradeable? I was thinking that if you had a tradpost, you could get a CB to capture the province, once its become powerful enough, for a monetary/prestige/infamy hit, but that would increase the income you get, just like in CK2 The Republics.