Getting my colonies to colonize

[kal56]

Title kind of says it all just looking to see if anybody has had any strategies to work on getting my colonial nations to do some colonizing of their own. In 100 years my 5 CNs have got a combined total of 1 colony going, although to be fair 2 of them don't have any space in their zone and one is a somewhat new colony.

Is this a money issue? If I start sending them subsidies are they more likely to pick up the pace?

On a somewhat related note why would my CN start a conquest war with a OPM native win the war 100% and then take a peace that wasn't annexation?

 

[Rinsukaze]

Maybe giving them a subsidy would work.

I've read around that playing as the thirteen in America and giving subsidies to your vassals for two or three months is usually enough for them to start colonizing. Maybe with a CN is the same.

I'll keep an eye on this thread, as it will be useful for future games

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Even 1 month is good enough, assuming they have a colonist. Give them ~10 ducats/month then cancel it.

 

[Kipperian]

Don't raise the tariffs so much, specially in the beginning

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Don't raise the tariffs so much, specially in the beginning

Irrelevant. The AI will think it needs like 8 ducats/month in income and ignore its colonist. The subsidy is the way to go.

 

[Kipperian]

Irrelevant. The AI will think it needs like 8 ducats/month in income and ignore its colonist. The subsidy is the way to go.

I don't think it's irrelevant.

 

[atwix]

give them loads of ducats. Worked for me.

AFAIK they start colonizing if they see they got plenty gold in reserve. The even fund multiple colonies at once (over their limit) if you give them crazy amount of gold (what i'm talking about is like 5k ducats per colonial nation)

 

[Thrake]

Overall, AI needs money to colonize. I tried optimizing it; in the end, the most efficient way is to give it a really big subsidie. If you give them say 2 ducats a month, then it'll start raising army, building stuff,... and only later after start colonize. If you give them 10 ducats a month, usually that's enough for them to colonize a couple months later (usually next month as said above but if it really needs more men, then it'll build men first). Then you can simply cancel the subsidie and it will fund the colony until completion; you'll have to give another subsidie later on to make it colonize again, until it views itself rich enough to do it on its own. Now however, I would strongly recommand you to give the AI a permanent 2 monthly ducats subsidie; otherwise it might just ruin itself to pay the colonial upkeep if it's a small dependencie.

The other thing needed is to see terra incognita. Seems obvious, but unlike standart AI with exploration, colonial AI doesn't have conquistadors. This means that, in the Carribeans, it might colonize in adjacent provinces, as fog of war is automatically lifted quite fast. Now however, it will hardly ever colonize Curacao because it's an isolated island.

 

[dav77-b]

I modded the colonial idea group and gave them a colonist, cb versus primitives, moved the auto explo as first unlocked idea + culture change cost reduction, core cost reducation + missionary strength.
This helps them and AI in general to colonize instead of sitting idle creating protectorates.