I have so many colonies I don't know what to do

[DABegley]

Scotland, DW 5.2, standard difficulty, no lucky nations.

The year is 1585 and I have been pushing the colonial strategy as fast and hard as I can. While waiting for QFTNW I swallowed most of England (only London is left now, I just haven't bothered to swallow them) and a couple Irish minors. When I got QFTNW I ran the northern exploration route colonizing down the east coast and swallowing locals as I went. I took the +1 colonist (Colonial Ventures) and +33% colonial growth (Land of Opportunity) ideas and only sent 1 colonist to a province waiting for them to grow into a city. It is now 1585 and I own all North America except Pennsacola and southern Florida (OK, I haven't settled the far west yet but in 3 years I get a core on a Pacific coast province and that will follow), all of Central America, South America east until the mouth of the Amazon and about half the provinces after that, South America west down to Arica including all the Inca provinces except a couple coastal ones Castille grabbed.

Here is my problem, I have no idea what to do now. I have been woefully negligent in developing building because every magistrate I get I spend on forts and churches (my stability cost is epic). Soon I will have to start slowing down colonization as I will be running out of provinces. I am in the middle of a massive naval building campaign as I realized a while ago I had 138 overseas provinces and only 14 boats protecting them (Doh!), has to a record for worst tariff percent. I am up to 75 boats but now have 160 provinces so the building continues. I swapped out QFTNW for the +33% tariff Idea (Viceroys) and took the -50% ship cost idea (Press Gangs) with the Gov 22 idea.

Trade is in good shape, I have NTP and 8 COTs are full of my merchants and I own Mohawk and Mexico which are massive COTs.

I just have no idea how to proceed from here. I could spend the rest of the game developing this massive territory and never look elsewhere but that would be boring. I'm looking for ideas here on how to proceed. Burgundy is the big boy in Europe having swallowed France and Algeria owns all North Africa from Tangiers to Alexandria.

Thanks.

 

[1anrs]

This is why I pretty much ignore colonies - they make for a boring, and if you are unlucky whack-a-mole revolt crushing, game. As Scotland, I would probably have swallowed England and Ireland, possibly then try to carpet Europe in yellow over the course of the game. Possibly try to take over Scandinavia and then approach the HRE through a gradual encircling of the Baltic Sea. Possibly aim to occupy the whole of the northern coast of Europe from the Baltic to Iberia

 

[Pewt]

Sounds like the game is probably over, but go kill Europe? SP games generally have a shelf-life once you blob, and even if you make massive mistakes (such as a colonial strategy that doesn't involve buildings or ships) it's pretty hard to lose after a certain point.

 

[DABegley]

Yea, the not building ships was a bit of a major oops but I was building buildings constantly. Every colony/city needs a fort and that sucked up my magistrates big time. I built stuff in the British Isles with spare magistrates, docks, workshops, counting houses, land buildings for manpower and churches in the New World when I had spare magistrates but I was expanding so fast I didn't have a chance to catch up. It is 1615 and my colonization is almost done, only a couple of Canadian Pacific coast provinces left to colonize and about 12 colonies growing, so I will be swapping out Colonial Ventures and Land of Opportunity soon. I have been building ships like a mad fool and am up to 70% tariff efficiency which has made my economic situation much better. I also have been finally getting some spare magistrates and have been pumping them into drydocks and shipyards in the British Isles to pump up my naval force limit. My first excursion into Europe was to kick Denmark out of the Orkney's, sink her fleet (grabbing about half) and annex 4 provinces, the 2 mainland, the Orkney's and the first island province. I should have annexed London long ago because Burgundy just snatched it and now has a piece of England This shall not stand. So I need to fight Burgundy, the second biggest country besides Austria military wise. I have about 80,000 troops but can support 160,000 so it's time to bulk up and take on Burgundy. Castile is my ally and my fleet is monstrous so this should be fun.

 

[Pewt]

In the future, I'd advise focusing on military buildings--they're far more important than churches, docks, counting houses and the like. With military buildings and the right sliders/ideas, you should be able to get into the 500k+ troop range easily enough, maybe closer to a million in a pinch by 1615. The solution to the massive stability/tech drag from overcolonization is to just not overcolonize. Forts are paid for by the free magistrate you get when a colony reaches 300 population.

 

[DABegley]

But what is the fun of doing something if you don't overdo it True, colonies provide their own magistrates for forts but the massive # of provinces I obtained from annexing Huron, Cherokee etc. provinces needed to have forts built in them. The Incas and Aztecs had a little more than half of their provinces fortified when I annexed them which did help. How can you afford 500,000 troops without a massive economy? Even being a trading fool I can only pay for an army that big by spamming workshops and other buildings that help with cash flow. I did stop building churches pretty quick as I could generate new provinces faster than I had spare magistrates. I took Church attendance Duty and the -33% stability cost instead.

 

[Pewt]

But what is the fun of doing something if you don't overdo it True, colonies provide their own magistrates for forts but the massive # of provinces I obtained from annexing Huron, Cherokee etc. provinces needed to have forts built in them. The Incas and Aztecs had a little more than half of their provinces fortified when I annexed them which did help. How can you afford 500,000 troops without a massive economy? Even being a trading fool I can only pay for an army that big by spamming workshops and other buildings that help with cash flow. I did stop building churches pretty quick as I could generate new provinces faster than I had spare magistrates. I took Church attendance Duty and the -33% stability cost instead.

Just trade and mint 10% or so of it. I dunno, when you have high forcelimits it isn't too hard to have big armies. Flip through these saves, for instance, to get some idea of how you can maintain giant armies with minimal investment into non-military matters.