How to prevent being dragged into wars that my colonies start?

[Dron22]

My colonies keep starting petty wars with other colonies. Just today my colony in California started a war against a Spanish one, and a few months later I found myself at war with Spain, and I am not too happy about it as Spain won't accept any peace offers, so I have to march across Europe all the way to Spain to win the war. Is there a way to stop my colonies triggering wars for me like that? Or can I at least avoid having to get involved? Is this a bug or was it intended to be that way?

 

[Freudia]

Kill the other colonizers. Your CNs will start wars with other CNs even if they can't win, and if your CN is winning, the AI will always enforce peace on your colony, pulling you into war with them.

 

[Dron22]

Kill the other colonizers. Your CNs will start wars with other CNs even if they can't win, and if your CN is winning, the AI will always enforce peace on your colony, pulling you into war with them.

So whats the solution to this? Is there no way to prevent such wars? I don't mind a war sometimes over colonies, I just don't like being dragged into wars when I am not ready for one.

 

[AurochsAway]

So whats the solution to this? Is there no way to prevent such wars? I don't mind a war sometimes over colonies, I just don't like being dragged into wars when I am not ready for one.

Always be ready, or free your colonies.

 

[rudders10]

Having same prob. Am Portugal and keep getting dragged to war with Spain who have way more troops. Plus they call in their allies. Am allied with burgundy and Austria but they are allied with Spain as well so won't help.

 

[Dron22]

It would be good if you could control aggressiveness level of your colonies, so they don't pick fights without your approval. Hope they make such a feature in next patch.

 

[FreeSoc]

Kill the other colonizers. Your CNs will start wars with other CNs even if they can't win [...]

Does anyone know why this is? I've just seen my Swedish West Indies (all of Cuba save 1 province, in addition to Bermuda) declare war on Portuguese Caraibas and lose due to not having enough ships to overcome the Portuguese. Obviously the war was insanity from start to finish, yet for some reason my CN's AI thought it was a good idea.

 

[Dron22]

Does anyone know why this is? I've just seen my Swedish West Indies (all of Cuba save 1 province, in addition to Bermuda) declare war on Portuguese Caraibas and lose due to not having enough ships to overcome the Portuguese. Obviously the war was insanity from start to finish, yet for some reason my CN's AI thought it was a good idea.

In my experience they colonies start wars against weaker colonies, or if they are in a war with their master far away in Europe, the AI calculates its a good time to attack if Portugal was at war with France. I seen one of my colonies beat up a Spanish colony without Spain intervening because Spain was already in a major war and was too busy fighting in Europe to save its colony in California from being annexed by my colony.

 

[Halaberiel]

I made a thread about this the other day, seems there is nothing you can do. I've just come to the conclusion that colonies aren't really worth it because they're not that much fun to be honest (unless you like fighting a lot in the new world, because that is the only place they fight). They're a bit OP at the moment because you get their naval force limit added to yours 1:1 but it's not suppose to be like that. You're actually only suppose to get 12.5% of their naval force limits which will make them much worse. Not like you really even need the infantry force limits they provide either because you'll just lack manpower & you can get plenty of force limits from buildings anyway.

So yea, I've given up with new world colonies entirely, I pretty much only do Africa & Indonesia now for the merchants. You can still keep up with colonisers naval force limits wise even with the bug provided you build naval buildings in all provinces for +1. AI Colonisers don't tend to concentrate that much on the coast unlike players.

 

[Blackluck]

In a game as England, Spain's Caribbean CN declared on mine (Cuba.) I had sailed down some ships for a possible future war against Spain's colonial holdings but decided to see if my CN would 'buy' them - they did, 22 flytes and 15 lights. Spain's CN had all their army in Jamaica and were trapped there after my CN had destroyed the enemy navy. All they had to do was seize down their provinces. Instead they invaded Jamaica with 6 regiments vs their 10. :huh:

 

[Viperswhip]

My colonies keep starting petty wars with other colonies. Just today my colony in California started a war against a Spanish one, and a few months later I found myself at war with Spain, and I am not too happy about it as Spain won't accept any peace offers, so I have to march across Europe all the way to Spain to win the war. Is there a way to stop my colonies triggering wars for me like that? Or can I at least avoid having to get involved? Is this a bug or was it intended to be that way?

The easiest way is to prevent other countries from colonizing. Basically if I see exploration on somebody's list I take all their coastal provinces away. But ya, your colonials are just plain crazy when it comes to starting wars so there's not a lot you can do other than prevent anyone from colonizing in the first place. It's hard to stop Muscovy though unless you can remove all their western ports before they get to tech 10, which can be tricky depending on which country you are playing.

As either Castile, France or England you can easily shut that crap down. If you play Venice or Byz or someone over there you are pretty much screwed.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

AFAIK CNs don't declare on CNs of your allies, other than that you're going to have this risk if you have them.

Edit:

I usually don't mind, as I can win the colonial wars and off the opposing CNs. The extra money and FL to merc up or spam buildings is nice to have. I don't like colonies as a big investment but once you set up a CN it'll take care of the coring on its own, eventually take expansion (due to the bug blocking them taking it on forming) and slowly colonize, and increasingly have a much larger army than anybody else that bothers to colonize land near it. CNs get a 3% missionary strength NI too so unless you're making a pagan CN they'll have no trouble converting captured provinces, and in 1.8 they seem to do it more consistently than before; both Brazil and La Plata for me as Songhai are almost 100% captured off Iberians, mostly foreign culture while I colonized Cape + other non-tropical stuff in Africa. Even the 7 tax type stuff is Sunni now. If you get a CN and a no diplo for provinces CB you can swap swathes of land to your CN, though of course you can just full annex to inherit AI CNs also.

 

[josh127]

AFAIK CNs don't declare on CNs of your allies, other than that you're going to have this risk if you have them.

Is that always true though? I see Spain and Portugal lose alliances all the time because of their CNs fighting.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Is that always true though? I see Spain and Portugal lose alliances all the time because of their CNs fighting.

Are you sure it isn't a case of "Castillian Mexico declares on English Mexico and England enforces becoming the defender, calling Portugal" type stuff?

 

[josh127]

Are you sure it isn't a case of "Castillian Mexico declares on English Mexico and England enforces becoming the defender, calling Portugal" type stuff?

I'm not positive, no. I know it's consistent enough that if I don't want to fight both Iberians at the same time I wait for the CNs to rip them apart. Only 1.8 example I have was in the Cherokee run and I can't say for sure what the terms of those wars were other than they were fighting and I could declare on one without drawing in the other. In that case I doubt it was GB though because they were allied to me and that kept them on bad terms with the Iberians.

 

[LibertyComrade]

Really what should happen is that if an opposing AI suzerain attempts to Enforce Peace on a Player CN the player should be presented with the choice of white peacing, rather than the AI of the player's CN.

If British 13 Colonies is warring with French Quebec in some border war, the King of France is going to warn and negotiate with the King of England before wading into the fray...not some random governor of the colonies.