How bad are colonial wars? (like Spain vs. United States)

[wetblowdryer]

I've never had to deal with it thankfully. Once a nation controls such a large area, it looks hard to keep your other nearby possessions from them. (judging from the AI)

How hard is it to keep a civilized new-world nation at bay? This was just a late scenario, but I've seen late in game where Spain and Portugal lost literally everything in South America both due to rebellions and those emergent nations taking it from them with the game starting in 1451 (or whatever the first scenario's start date is) They seem pretty devastating to the AI.

 

[lordelenath]

That's because the AI is horrendously bad at managing rebels in general. As a player I never had any problem whatsoever with these.

 

[gaius valerius]

I've never had this happen in any of my games which I saw through till 1820 . In the first instance as Sweden I stayed clear of colonialism altogether apart from some ventures in India, the Americas were carved up between various factions but nothing really happened. In another session I was playing as Castile/Spain and had all of Middle America, Texas, California, Philippines, Indonesia and parts of Africa colonised. By the late game I got several events notifying me of cores spawning (Mexico, etc) BUT nothing ever happened. My empire was just to stable to allow any insurgency to take root. Only around 1700 did I ran into some trouble as I changed my goverment and saw my legitimacy drop to 20... revolts everywhere, but again I kept them in check sooner or later and all stayed the way it was.

Basically I was doing everything right keep stability up, prestige high, legitimacy maxed and minor force for occasional policing actions, there was simply no chance for any nationalist revolt. In retrospect I must say this was not challenging enough. Perhaps there should be more scripted events that trigger from a certain date which give some substance to the whole national cores spawning in the New World. Perhaps the new DLC will however touch this, perhaps not. We'll see

 

[wetblowdryer]

That's because the AI is horrendously bad at managing rebels in general. As a player I never had any problem whatsoever with these.

How're they even going to begin to manage with the conquest of paradise DLC when revelations are even more organized?

 

[niallmcfc]

How're they even going to begin to manage with the conquest of paradise DLC when revelations are even more organized?

They'll lose. As they should.

Don't forget the liberty value colonial nations get, the AI might be able to keep that low and prevent them entirely (unlike now, where whatever you do they just happen- even if your capital's in America)

 

[unmerged(804580)]

Well, there are only so much that the colonial revolt nations can do. In fact... your screenshot.. that's the strongest AI USA and Mexico I've ever seen, if you started in 1444 and they spawned instead of starting in a later date where they already exist.

One thing is that the Europeans cannot recruit mercenaries in the New World (since it's distant overseas) that they need to rely on their own manpower recruitments, which can drain pretty quickly if they are also busy in the Old World. A revolter state can finance mercenaries in their home continent at will, so as long as the revolters reach a certain size, the battles are in favor of the colonial nations. But there's a limit to what they can do, because they cannot generate sufficient war score to demand anything except by 1 waiting for a long time for the wargoal ticking warscore to rise 2 invading the European mainland itself. #2 does not happen usually.

But that said, it's entirely situational if the revolt states succeed or not. As long as the colonizer keeps a healthy economy, low war exhaustion, decent stability, etc - anything that goes for low revolt risk - the colonial nations may never claim independence.. well, it's obvious humans are better at managing revolts, but AIs do just fine as long as they don't get caught in a weird spiral by long-ass wars in Europe.

One thing I noticed is that it may be better not to convert the native cultures in North America, like Shawnee, Creek and Cherokee. I didn't bother doing that in one game, and the USA revolted, which I promptly vassalized as soon as chance arose. Most of the Atlantic coast of the North America was owned by GB then, so USA's primary culture was English. I returned the USA cores and sold the rest of the non-cored but culturally English provinces, but the USA just wouldn't buy anything Cherokee, for example. USA was Protestant, I was Orthodox, and USA was willing to buy English-Orthodox but not Cherokee-Orthodox.

So... my guess.

I'll just make a blind assumption that the USA in the OP's screenshot spawned from GB, and GB conquered the natives. GB presumably converted the native cultures (which they often do, since it's cheap overseas). The USA, then, was more inclined to take those same-cultured provinces, and they would have had less desire if the area didn't belong to their culture. Well, it's just my conjecture. AIs do go for conquering people regardless of culture when they can.

 

[Novacat]

In my last game the only colonial nation that popped up was Mexico.

 

[hauptman]

Ive never seen the events spawn stacks larger than 5k. The beat down of an attempted new world nation is retarded easy. I mean this is late game when you are drowning in money and probably have a 30k stack standing around the colonies for the random rebel pop anyhow.

 

[unmerged(804580)]

Ive never seen the events spawn stacks larger than 5k. The beat down of an attempted new world nation is retarded easy. I mean this is late game when you are drowning in money and probably have a 30k stack standing around the colonies for the random rebel pop anyhow.

They usually don't succeed on the first run... But if you beat up their homeland, raise their war exhaustion to the roof by constantly occupying them and draining their manpower, their global revolt risk goes way up, including the colonial revolt risks. And a large-scale colonizer like Spain will be at disadvantage because even they can't harsh treatment all over the place. Once the colonial rebels go out of control, it does spawn a fairly sizable nation. I love it. It's the late game strategy to vassal feed and claim the rest of the New World. Even if you vassalize Brazil (for example) Brazilian colonial rebels will still flip to your vassal Brazil.

 

[Vedinu]

I've never seen big american countries. The biggest one was Louisiana with about 5-10 provinces.

 

[General Baker]

That's because the AI is horrendously bad at managing rebels in general. As a player I never had any problem whatsoever with these.

Patch 1.4 and colonial nations should solve that nicely.

 

[wetblowdryer]

An organized USA is deadly to any nation with their insane production efficiency bonuses.

I cannot wait until the Conquest of Paradise DLC because now, the only thing threatening my colonies is Morocco. (HOW MANY TIMES I have been at war with them and they somehow pull a stack of 20k men out of their ass and send it over.

 

[Lwantssugar]

Against other colonial nations they are horrid, because even though demanding an overseas territory from them only costs 1-2% war score it also only gives 1-2%, you can happily occupy dozens of provinces but you can't demand any unless you go out of your way to carpet siege the enemy homeland as well making them needlessly long and tedious

 

[niallmcfc]

Against other colonial nations they are horrid, because even though demanding an overseas territory from them only costs 1-2% war score it also only gives 1-2%, you can happily occupy dozens of provinces but you can't demand any unless you go out of your way to carpet siege the enemy homeland as well making them needlessly long and tedious

Ticking warscore is your friend. 25% is a helluva lot in colonial wars.

 

[BBBD316]

I have only played a few games to that date, in my French game I only played in India and I forced Spain to release Mexico, USA, Brazil and one other. In my current game I own 95% of NA, so I hope USA breaks in the 2 Spainish colonies so I can devour them.

I would lik a few more nations in the area or dynamic names.

 

[Incompetent]

Against other colonial nations they are horrid, because even though demanding an overseas territory from them only costs 1-2% war score it also only gives 1-2%, you can happily occupy dozens of provinces but you can't demand any unless you go out of your way to carpet siege the enemy homeland as well making them needlessly long and tedious

If you can beat them in Europe though, you can demand a lot of land very quickly. The main problem is managing the overextension afterwards, which is where colonial states come in handy.