It's Time to Call Out the American colonial debacle in EU4

[Nuclear Elvis]

Paradox Developers/Leaders and game players,
It's time we had a more open and brutally honest feedback discussion regarding the current look of the Americas for colonization.

For 3x straight games, in Normal/Ironman mode -- I have observed the pace of tech, military development, and provincial expansion in the Americas, especially the area tagged as the "Colonial Eastern America" region.

The game is currently designed to be completely unrealistic and anti-colonial, and there's no other way to say it.

Dev's - you're ruining the game in terms of colonial game play.

I'm looking up and down the Eastern Seaboard of North America (in mid- to late-1500s), and 100% of all native tribes are rolling around with Cavalry units (at about 20-30% of total army) and Artillery regiments (at about 10-20% of total army). This is pure fantasy, to think that every single North American tribe that historically wielded hatchets, spears, and wooden short bows -- that these tribes have all gathered tech and are industrially smelting ore to fire up the iron works and craft cannons. As for location - the tribes are politically entrenched as holders of provinces in all but 2 total provinces along the coastline, that could be colonized. So this means, that if an "average nation" in Europe is trying to send a Colonist to Colonial Eastern America, they have just 2 provinces to choose from in that entire colonial region, and what instead is required is that a war must break out, a major war between European powers and Natives with Cavalry and Artillery, to clear the North American coastline for European settlement (how unhistorical is that??).

Who allowed the Game Design and native expansion/tech to get to this point? Paradox, you're totally failing to represent the Colonial period of the 16th-17th Centuries, in any meaningful way.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

(how unhistorical is that??).

About the same as last patch, when natives were irrelevant/mostly gone after 1700. But apparently in a direction you prefer less.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

About the same as last patch, when natives were irrelevant/mostly gone after 1700. But apparently in a direction you prefer less.

You're Cherry Picking and making a bad assumption, but to restate a simple analogy for you -- the lack of natives' presence on the seaboard would be more realistic than natives greeting your landing party with Cavalry and Cannons in the 16th Century (mid- to late-1500s).

 

[PDXJon]

It’s funny how the same game mechanics are viewed so differently between players. When I see a bunch of natives congregating on the east coast, I plop down a colony and send over a military stack. I take all their land when my army slices through theirs like butter.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

It’s funny how the same game mechanics are viewed so differently between players. When I see a bunch of natives congregating on the east coast, I plop down a colony and send over a military stack. I take all their land when my army slices through theirs like butter.

That's not Colonization, it's Conquest.

 

[PurpulaPhoenixum53]

It’s funny how the same game mechanics are viewed so differently between players. When I see a bunch of natives congregating on the east coast, I plop down a colony and send over a military stack. I take all their land when my army slices through theirs like butter.

That's not Colonization, it's Conquest.

The weird thing is, that would make sense for Mexico and the Andes; however, for the East Coast conquest should be an option, but it should be far easier to colonize and let your colony once it gets big enough conquer for you.

 

[StriderLS]

They already stated natives passing reforms too fast is not working as intended and it'll be sorted out in the next patch. (It was posted by @Mordred Viking I think, correct me if I'm wrong please)

I think a Mod should make a sticky post or sth. alike about this. Or at least adress the issue in the next dev diary.

At least this will be handled soon one way or another. Concentrate dev/pillage capital issue is still on hold for the time being...

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

They already stated natives passing reforms too fast is not working as intended and it'll be sorted out in the next patch. (It was posted by @Mordred Viking I think, correct me if I'm wrong please)

I think a Mod should make a sticky post or sth. alike about this. Or at least adress the issue in the next dev diary.

At least this will be handled soon one way or another. Concentrate dev/pillage capital issue is still on hold for the time being...

Reforms passing "too fast" - ? But what if there are Reforms that shouldn't even exist? What is it that allows a Native American tribe to become tech-capable to raise up Cavalry and Artillery units? That in itself needs a focused edit/change to the game. It should be VERY restrictive for a Native American tribe to obtain either one of those. For that matter, horses didn't exist in the Americas until Europeans purposely let them loose (or they got away into the wild), and even then the number of horses were very few to choose from for Natives, until the 1800s (and then most of the USA's war against Indians moved quickly to shut them down, and Natives' use of horses was never on par with European Cavalry units, to include those armed with Pistols and swords).

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

The weird thing is, that would make sense for Mexico and the Andes; however, for the East Coast conquest should be an option, but it should be far easier to colonize and let your colony once it gets big enough conquer for you.

Mexico and the Andes did not have Natives with Cavalry and Cannons greeting the Spaniard Conquistadors...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You're Cherry Picking and making a bad assumption, but to restate a simple analogy for you -- the lack of natives' presence on the seaboard would be more realistic than natives greeting your landing party with Cavalry and Cannons in the 16th Century (mid- to late-1500s).

Part of the point is that OP is cherry picking. With the same topic we've seen what, 5-10 times in different thread titles? So I will present the same mandatory standard that has failed to manifest in those threads, over and over again:

Define a standard, whereby said standard singles out NA tribes in their current state...while not also implicating numerous accepted mechanics/abstractions that make EU 4 function in general.

Please note that simply using "historical accuracy" fails instantly for reasons that should be obvious, which means the basis presented in OP does not work.

That's not Colonization, it's Conquest.

Case in point.

Reforms passing "too fast" - ? But what if there are Reforms that shouldn't even exist? What is it that allows a Native American tribe to become tech-capable to raise up Cavalry and Artillery units?

The same thing that allows sub-Saharan African nations, Novgorod, and Tibet to do it in similar timeframes. Same thing that allows Europeans to sustain large scale colonies and conquests in Africa (which took longer to happen in reality than natives using both firearms and cavalry). Same thing that magically generates truces and hard-blocks separate peace deals in some cases.

AI sucks in EU 4. Player starting as any European minor can trivially conquer and establish a US colony > 100 years early. It's not clear why this advantage is insufficient.

 

[PDXJon]

That's not Colonization, it's Conquest.

That's not Colonization, it's Conquest.

So colonies didn’t conquer? Do you want the area free of tribes so you can snatch up the provinces without much hassle? I mean, the game has given colonization such an advantage when compared to what happened historically. Yes, it is not historically accurate to have natives running around with horses and cannons, but once the game starts, you are making your own history.

 

[xrws31]

The mechanics themselves aren't an issue. Being forced to actually do some fighting rather than colonising an entire continent un-contested is fine.

The problems people are see are all symptoms of the underlying root problem that the territories/development in North America is far far too dense. Chomping through New England right now feels more like central HRE or north India than the new world.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

So colonies didn’t conquer? Do you want the area free of tribes so you can snatch up the provinces without much hassle? I mean, the game has given colonization such an advantage when compared to what happened historically. Yes, it is not historically accurate to have natives running around with horses and cannons, but once the game starts, you are making your own history.

Of course some Colonies in the world conquered, but this is about establishment and the norms of first-arrival in North America especially, that coastal areas could ALL be "colonized" so it's about packaging. Yes, I agree that you could roll out a stacked army and start to just wipe out 100% of all North American tribes - no problem, it's a potential tactic in EU4, but what I'm driving at is the fact that when you explore in current game, and then can view provinces along the eastern seaboard of North America, the Dev's have allowed natives to establish what amounts to a continental-long blocking system for colonies to land in the first place, and to only land in very select few spots, rather than the majority of the coast being open to land and start a colony. That's my main point. What you do after starting said colony, is simply gaming from there, but at least preserve the "look and feel" of Colonization.

However, if you do colonize on the coast, and then head inland for interior provinces of North America, and are then greeted by Natives rolling around with Cavalry and Cannons....yeah, that's just fantasy and some Bizarro World way of portraying North America in the 1500s.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

Part of the point is that OP is cherry picking. With the same topic we've seen what, 5-10 times in different thread titles? So I will present the same mandatory standard that has failed to manifest in those threads, over and over again:

Define a standard, whereby said standard singles out NA tribes in their current state...while not also implicating numerous accepted mechanics/abstractions that make EU 4 function in general.

Please note that simply using "historical accuracy" fails instantly for reasons that should be obvious, which means the basis presented in OP does not work.



Case in point.



The same thing that allows sub-Saharan African nations, Novgorod, and Tibet to do it in similar timeframes. Same thing that allows Europeans to sustain large scale colonies and conquests in Africa (which took longer to happen in reality than natives using both firearms and cavalry). Same thing that magically generates truces and hard-blocks separate peace deals in some cases.

AI sucks in EU 4. Player starting as any European minor can trivially conquer and establish a US colony > 100 years early. It's not clear why this advantage is insufficient.

How does "historical accuracy" fail instantly when it comes to extreme deviations from technical advances/capabilities? Please explain how it is possible for Native Americans in North America to all have Cavalry and Cannons in the mid-1500s. Go ahead, love to hear how historical that is. There's a difference between the events of history, such as -- what England colonized, vs. Spain, especially the where/how of their colonization methods. Do I care if that's precisely portrayed in EU4? No. I'm ok with England colonizing South America like the Spaniards did, and vice versa -- for Spanish mass colonization of...Canada, let's say. Ok, that can happen in the game-we-have, and while it isn't historical accuracy, it is accurate for the game engine/algorithms/AI to generate such a possibility.

The problem is when the game design/code/algorithms all add up to FANTASY levels of tech and/or population spreads that simply did not occur on this planet. No one was smelting ore and firing up the industry of cannon manufacturing in North America in the 1500s, nor were there horses even on the continent at that time that were available for Natives to tame and breed, much less to learn equivalent Cavalry military standards and training to the level of Europeans and Asians who had honed themselves for thousands of years with horse Cavalry.

There's sense, and there's nonsense. North America looks like Nonsense in the current game, and none of your analogies can help the Dev's make it look plausible.

 

[xrws31]

How does "historical accuracy" fail instantly when it comes to extreme deviations from technical advances/capabilities? Please explain how it is possible for Native Americans in North America to all have Cavalry and Cannons in the mid-1500s. Go ahead, love to hear how historical that is. There's a difference between the events of history, such as -- what England colonized, vs. Spain, especially the where/how of their colonization methods. Do I care if that's precisely portrayed in EU4? No. I'm ok with England colonizing South America like the Spaniards did, and vice versa -- for Spanish mass colonization of...Canada, let's say. Ok, that can happen in the game-we-have, and while it isn't historical accuracy, it is accurate for the game engine/algorithms/AI to generate such a possibility.

The problem is when the game design/code/algorithms all add up to FANTASY levels of tech and/or population spreads that simply did not occur on this planet. No one was smelting ore and firing up the industry of cannon manufacturing in North America in the 1500s, nor were there horses even on the continent at that time that were available for Natives to tame and breed, much less to learn equivalent Cavalry military standards and training to the level of Europeans and Asians who had honed themselves for thousands of years with horse Cavalry.

There's sense, and there's nonsense. North America looks like Nonsense in the current game, and none of your analogies can help the Dev's make it look plausible.

American natives and west-coast Africans historically mostly acquired guns from trading with europeans. There's nothing implausible about them trading for guns in the 1500s.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

American natives and west-coast Africans historically mostly acquired guns from trading with europeans. There's nothing implausible about them trading for guns in the 1500s.

You're reaching at this point. No native of any kind, anywhere, was trading for a single cannon, much less regiments of cannoneers complete with ammunition, gunpowder, and all the required training to field them in battle. Same with guns - the resources required for the ammunition, gunpowder, etc. - not realistic whatsoever to portray this as if mass regiments are equipped, trained, and ready to fight in the 1500s.

If some rogue pirate ship decides to trade an old broken gun to a native for a gold nugget - yeah, that's a great deal, and the native should have lots of fun using that broken gun as an unwieldly club, but that's about it, in this era. "Trading for guns" doesn't equal mass regiments of gun-toting soldiers, that just doesn't compute.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How does "historical accuracy" fail instantly when it comes to extreme deviations from technical advances/capabilities?

Because if that's your only basis for criticizing this mechanic, you must (necessarily!) either be criticizing EU 4's mechanics as a whole outright or incoherent.

The natives aren't getting nuclear missiles, they are getting the tools available to other nations in the game. That is an unlikely outcome from a 1444 position, but not significantly more so than a viable/self-sufficient pre-1550 NA colony made by an Irish minor/Norway. It is actually less likely than how the game represents coalitions (0 historical parallels, ever, in any period) or magic one or two-sided "truces" between nations that never fought (is that a mistranslation? The word "truce" implies something). Or formation of countries that never existed in the period, at all.

At least in the case of natives, they did eventually pick up SOME usage of horses and SOME usage of firearms. It's anachronistic and silly if you assume real world mechanics. It's incoherent to complain about realism if one is otherwise okay with mechanics that allow Britain to conquer Mali outright or coalition members can never separate peace. Or even 100% limitations on peace deals, which not only didn't exist in history, but outright prevent historical peace deals no matter what the player does.

Please explain how it is possible for Native Americans in North America to all have Cavalry and Cannons in the mid-1500s.

Please explain how this was less likely than the hard mechanical limitations on conquest and coalitions that seem routinely accepted on this board. "Go ahead".

The problem is when the game design/code/algorithms all add up to FANTASY

For preferences to be coherent, they must be applied consistently. I have given you numerous baseline EU 4 mechanics that objectively amount to fantasy by real world standards. Some more egregious than natives having stuff too early. Had you called for an entire rework of the game in the OP, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Instead, you selectively called out an unrealistic thing that, by any coherent standard, is not and can't be more "unrealistic" than numerous core gameplay mechanics.

The quoted sentence above amounts to a criticism of the base EU 4, as a whole. It is not viable to apply that criticism selectively, which is why the argument presented in OP fails. If players were really honestly concerned about historical realism, we should anticipate a similar number of threads complaining about each of the game's unrealistic mechanics.

To put it mildly, that is not what we observe.

There's sense, and there's nonsense. North America looks like Nonsense in the current game, and none of your analogies can help the Dev's make it look plausible.

Coherent standards, please.

 

[xrws31]

You're reaching at this point. No native of any kind, anywhere, was trading for a single cannon, much less regiments of cannoneers complete with ammunition, gunpowder, and all the required training to field them in battle. Same with guns - the resources required for the ammunition, gunpowder, etc. - not realistic whatsoever to portray this as if mass regiments are equipped, trained, and ready to fight in the 1500s.

If some rogue pirate ship decides to trade an old broken gun to a native for a gold nugget - yeah, that's a great deal, and the native should have lots of fun using that broken gun as an unwieldly club, but that's about it, in this era. "Trading for guns" doesn't equal mass regiments of gun-toting soldiers, that just doesn't compute.

"The Dutch themselves were exporting over 20,000 tons of gunpowder every year along the Gold Coast by 1700. All along the region, English, French and other traders competed hard with each other to supply their African customers. By the mid-18th century some 400,000 guns were being exported annually to Africa."

African military systems before 1800 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

True the 1500s is slightly earlier than what happened historically, but the same can be said there for many things in EU4.

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

"The Dutch themselves were exporting over 20,000 tons of gunpowder every year along the Gold Coast by 1700. All along the region, English, French and other traders competed hard with each other to supply their African customers. By the mid-18th century some 400,000 guns were being exported annually to Africa."

African military systems before 1800 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

True the 1500s is slightly earlier than what happened historically, but the same can be said there for many things in EU4.

True - 1700, Gold Coast (Africa) receiving guns is a reasonable thing to consider.
But as you agree - 1500s North America is far too early, and it's not Africa -- North America did not have these resources in significant numbers until 250 years later (in terms of guns to trade), and in North America they were not provided to Natives, except for very few rifles provided to and trained for Natives to assist British, French, and Canadian forces in the late 1700s; and even then, <1% of all military capable natives in NA were not using guns or horses, and none had cannons, and none had European horse Cavalry training.

The issue is not about precise dates of exposure to rifles for small units to augment Europeans with, it is to portray "Independent" native American nations that have independently developed the tech and bred horses miraculously to produce horse Cavalry, and somehow managed to start a 1500s industrial revolution that results in all tribes receiving Cannons.

Many here in the thread are deviating to discussions of "guns" but that's not what this is about - horse Cavalry in itself, whether sword and/or pistol armed, was a very elite thing in the military profession of arms in this period, and no native anywhere could match European standards and tactics for them. Just look up one Charles "The Hammer" Martel who's forces invented the stirrup to get more leverage in the saddle (to deliver more cutting/severing blows with swords), and The Hammer's massive cavalry armies that pushed invaders out of Europe -- and this was 700+ years before our 1444 game start point in EU4. Just think about that for a moment. Europe had the highest Cavalry training/equipping standards by 750 AD, and no other culture/region matched them, so to portray equivalence of Cavalry from natives who only had hatchets/spears/short bows in mid-1500s is just a failure in game design at this point, and the code needs changed.

Natives having horses, even just 2 for breeding, and having the training and equipment to field Cavalry Regiments, are 2 different things. Just like trading a gun, or even 100 guns, isn't the same as outfitting an entire Cannon Regiment.

Independent natives in North America should actually be tech restricted from even fielding Cavalry and Artillery -- both should be denied from them until the mid 1700s at the earliest, and even that may be too soon to preserve some sense in the game.

 

[EnvyDemon]

Man. Why does this game allow me to start in Okinawa and conquer the planet. Stupid game. So ahistorical.