Merchant Republics and Colonial Nations

[Zanza]

I am playing The Hansa and due to England and Austria being pretty strong, I haven't been able to expand much into the English Channel trade node, so that Lübeck is still my primary trade node.

I have started to expand overseas and now wonder if I should go beyond four colonies in a given colonial zone. Right now, I am able to channel the riches of the Americas from the Caribbean (where I have four small islands) to Cheasapeake Bay to Gulf of St. Lawrence and then the North Sea and Lübeck. I don't lose anything in Gulf of St. Lawrence and North Sea right now, but England and Portugal take their share in Cheasapeake Bay and Caribbean.

If I would expand my four colonies in Cheasapeake Bay so that I have a fifth, sixth etc., I would lose half of the provincial trade power there, my colonial nation would eat a considerable share of the trade total and I couldn't forward trade as well anymore.

So the question is whether there is any reason I should expand beyond four colonies in a given area. Any ideas?

 

[Freudia]

Colonial nations currently give some ridiculous amount of their naval forcelimits to the owner's naval forcelimits, which, when combined with trade propagation upstream, results in trade being pulled from nodes by nations who have no presence in said nodes. As Hansa, you can probably form colonial nations and use the increased forcelimits to build a ton of trade ships and propagate trade upstream ridiculously, pulling all the trade to Lubeck even without any merchants steering.

The big reason I would be against forming CNs is so your CN doesn't do something dumb like declare a war on England's CN.

Edit: If all of this is wrong, I'd probably still form CNs just because it's denied land for your rivals and because CNs still give you increased forcelimits. CNs also give you half of their trade power by default, so some of that trade still heads your way anyways.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Colonial nations currently give some ridiculous amount of their naval forcelimits to the owner's naval forcelimits, which, when combined with trade propagation upstream, results in trade being pulled from nodes by nations who have no presence in said nodes. As Hansa, you can probably form colonial nations and use the increased forcelimits to build a ton of trade ships and propagate trade upstream ridiculously, pulling all the trade to Lubeck even without any merchants steering.

The big reason I would be against forming CNs is so your CN doesn't do something dumb like declare a war on England's CN.

Edit: If all of this is wrong, I'd probably still form CNs just because it's denied land for your rivals and because CNs still give you increased forcelimits. CNs also give you half of their trade power by default, so some of that trade still heads your way anyways.

If he has those kinds of CNs, his fleet can blow England's out of the water, and then England's CN is his CN.

 

[Wildcat_PL]

Vassals will buy your cores and auto gain cores on every province you own. You can create one colonial nation - lets say carribbean - since there is no center of trade/estuary there. And keep new york and stadacona with trade post on your own while selling them everything else.

 

[Freudia]

If he has those kinds of CNs, his fleet can blow England's out of the water, and then England's CN is his CN.

His fleet can probably blow England's out of the water if he picks his battles well anyways, to be honest. Galleys are significantly cheaper to maintain, so all he really has to do is lure England's navy to an inland sea and then crush it with superior galley numbers with just a few other ships to soak damage.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

His fleet can probably blow England's out of the water if he picks his battles well anyways, to be honest. Galleys are significantly cheaper to maintain, so all he really has to do is lure England's navy to an inland sea and then crush it with superior galley numbers with just a few other ships to soak damage.

I don't like it because often the Iberians/English will land on your CNs in the new world and cause trouble. I guess it could work as an early gambit though to do something like ally France --> declare on England --> bait English fleet into galley land and sink it (same with Portugal) --> abuse England via straits, but once CNs are around for a nation as rich as Hansa I'd rather just build heavies/lights straight up, sink the English fleet on surprise DoW or enforce, and work from there. Sometimes the AI doesn't go where you want it and if you're using galleys, it's hard to follow (as far as I can tell, galleys lose even to light ships 1:1 in open waters).

 

[Freudia]

I don't like it because often the Iberians/English will land on your CNs in the new world and cause trouble. I guess it could work as an early gambit though to do something like ally France --> declare on England --> bait English fleet into galley land and sink it (same with Portugal) --> abuse England via straits, but once CNs are around for a nation as rich as Hansa I'd rather just build heavies/lights straight up, sink the English fleet on surprise DoW or enforce, and work from there. Sometimes the AI doesn't go where you want it and if you're using galleys, it's hard to follow (as far as I can tell, galleys lose even to light ships 1:1 in open waters).

It really just depends on what the AI decides to do, honestly. Once CNs are around for a nation like Hansa you could probably afford a nice fleet to combat England in open waters, yeah, but I'm assuming CNs haven't really formed at this point yet, and if they have, then OP probably let an opportunity pass to make CNs stronger than the AI does. If he made a good-sized CN and the AI decides to send its fleet over there instead of heaving into galley playground, then you have free reign to siege out England proper while your CN tends to the enemy CN + overlord combo.

Really depends on what the AI decides to do and at what point of the game it is. It also depends if England still has their alliance with Portugal (likely, but not unheard of for them to lose it through CN nonsense).

 

[Zanza]

England has created Newfoundland as a CN with about 10 provinces. I have Stadacona and Manhattan and three provinces next to each. I've conquered half of Scotland now (the rest is still Scottish) and five English provinces, slowly working south on the island. My strategy for now is to ignore Newfoundland completely, make sure that England doesn't annex Ireland and slowly eat England away in a few more wars. That would leave just me, Austria and France in the English Channel trade node eventually. I am sure I can dominate trade against those two as I'll just park a big stack of light ships there. Once that is done, it makes sense to build CN in North America as I will just forward trade directly from Ivory Coast and will additionally get the advantages from the CN in North America. I'll leave the Caribbean and South America to France, Portugal and Spain.

 

[bbqftw]

propagation from English Channel will crush whatever trade power the CNs can field in Chesapeake.

If you're not taking Channel as Hansa you are handicapping yourself quite severely.

Rich CNs are not bad at all, the Caribbean one gets rich that they will build manufactories, so whatever trade value they leech is more than made up due to goods produced going up.

 

[RobRoy3]

...You can create one colonial nation - lets say carribbean - since there is no center of trade/estuary there. And keep new york and stadacona with trade post on your own while selling them everything else.

That might be interesting. Your single CN would have to spread one pot of monarch points over a greater number of provinces and would colonize and convert slower. But otherwise, that should work. Just wonder if the trade-offs are worth it.

 

[balmung60]

That might be interesting. Your single CN would have to spread one pot of monarch points over a greater number of provinces and would colonize and convert slower. But otherwise, that should work. Just wonder if the trade-offs are worth it.

Split it over two or three then - Mexico and Louisiana are right there. With a little work, California might also be helpful.

 

[Wildcat_PL]

I'm a big modding fan so I just removed important trade provinces from colonial nations region. This way I keep 1 important province where I can build trade post. I also feed luisiana and california to 13 provinces - this way they take the trade for me.

I like having strong colonial nations - canada+hudson, chesapeake+ohio+luisiana+california, mexico+north from panama and caribbeans.

And a tradeoff is I can build and keep panama canal myself.

 

[balmung60]

I'm a big modding fan so I just removed important trade provinces from colonial nations region. This way I keep 1 important province where I can build trade post. I also feed luisiana and california to 13 provinces - this way they take the trade for me.

I like having strong colonial nations - canada+hudson, chesapeake+ohio+luisiana+california, mexico+north from panama and caribbeans.

And a tradeoff is I can build and keep panama canal myself.

My current rule is "all of them separate and restricted to exactly their colonial region". Some, such as Eastern America and Mexico will be quite powerful, but the important part is that they all act as a counterbalance against the others, reducing the risk of any one gaining independence, even if it gets to the point of a war for independence.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Don't forget that your colonies will also pay you a percentage of their total income as tariffs. Each new province also adds more trade goods to the node, so the money you make from expanding your CNs more and more makes up for the initial lose in income from no longer having full trade power in their home node.