Newbie question: How do I "core" a province or colony?

[Ilkuul]

This is a very basic question, I know, but I can't find an answer anywhere in the game or in the official manual. I conquered a province, and somehow, somewhere, I was given the option to "core" it (which I took). Now I have a new colony, and I can't for the life of me find any info on how I can (eventually) core it. Any tips will be very gratefully received!

 

[bokorthedust]

Do you mean colony in the traditional sense, meaning a province you've sent a colonist to colonize? If so, when the colony finishes (reaches 1000 population), you'll automatically will gain a territorial or half-core on it. If you state the province, you'll have to pay for the other half of the core, and it will happen instantly. However, if you are colonizing in the New World, you shouldn't state and fully core the finished colony, because once you have 5 in the same colonial region, a colonial nation will form and you'll lose direct control of the land.

 

[AvengedK1ng]

This is a very basic question, I know, but I can't find an answer anywhere in the game or in the official manual. I conquered a province, and somehow, somewhere, I was given the option to "core" it (which I took). Now I have a new colony, and I can't for the life of me find any info on how I can (eventually) core it. Any tips will be very gratefully received!

Is the colony within colonial range
Is the colony fully completed (a city) or still growing to 1000 population

 

[Ilkuul]

Do you mean colony in the traditional sense, meaning a province you've sent a colonist to colonize? If so, when the colony finishes (reaches 1000 population), you'll automatically will gain a territorial or half-core on it. If you state the province, you'll have to pay for the other half of the core, and it will happen instantly. However, if you are colonizing in the New World, you shouldn't state and fully core the finished colony, because once you have 5 in the same colonial region, a colonial nation will form and you'll lose direct control of the land.

Thanks for that advice, which I'll certainly keep in mind. My question, though, is much more basic, which is why I think it's been so hard to find an answer! I've been looking for some button somewhere that I can click to core my colony (yes, it's a traditional one as you describe above). But now I'm starting to think that I can't just randomly decide I want to core my colony now! That that option will only appear (maybe!) under certain conditions—like the one you mention, of reaching 1000 population. Am I right? And will I then be automatically prompted by the game to make the choice you describe above?

From what you say it wouldn't be in my best interests to buy the rest of the core and turn the colony into a state. So when would one ever want to do that? I have another province (not a colony) that I conquered, and I was able to core that soon after. But now I'm constantly being prompted to turn it into a state, which would include several other provinces that I don't own! I don't understand what benefit that could possibly have for me. So when would turning a province into a state be useful?

Thanks again for your input.

 

[Ilkuul]

Is the colony within colonial range
Is the colony fully completed (a city) or still growing to 1000 population

Yes to the first. For the second, I don't know! How can I find that out? I clicked on the colony and got the info panel at the bottom left, but all it showed was a progress bar under the colonist's name (almost full), with the statement "Building Colony". That certainly looks like it's not finished, but where can I see the actual number of people in the colony? Couldn’t find a number anywhere. Just a mouse-over pop-up saying it's growing by 18.6 people per year. Hopefully there are only a few of the 53.76 years left to go!

 

[AvengedK1ng]

Yes to the first. For the second, I don't know! How can I find that out? I clicked on the colony and got the info panel at the bottom left, but all it showed was a progress bar under the colonist's name (almost full), with the statement "Building Colony". That certainly looks like it's not finished, but where can I see the actual number of people in the colony?

Hovering over number and looking in outlier

Couldn’t find a number anywhere. Just a mouse-over pop-up saying it's growing by 18.6 people per year. Hopefully there are only a few of the 53.76 years left to go!

You get events giving growth as well as colonist giving random chance to gain new people, to promote not being above colonial limit (having more wip colonies than colonists)

 

[AvengedK1ng]

Thanks for that advice, which I'll certainly keep in mind. My question, though, is much more basic, which is why I think it's been so hard to find an answer! I've been looking for some button somewhere that I can click to core my colony (yes, it's a traditional one as you describe above). But now I'm starting to think that I can't just randomly decide I want to core my colony now! That that option will only appear (maybe!) under certain conditions—like the one you mention, of reaching 1000 population. Am I right? And will I then be automatically prompted by the game to make the choice you describe above?

From what you say it wouldn't be in my best interests to buy the rest of the core and turn the colony into a state. So when would one ever want to do that? I have another province (not a colony) that I conquered, and I was able to core that soon after. But now I'm constantly being prompted to turn it into a state, which would include several other provinces that I don't own! I don't understand what benefit that could possibly have for me. So when would turning a province into a state be useful?

Thanks again for your input.

You state the existing provinces, any more colonies you grow in that province will automatically be states and so have lower autonomy
States have state maintenance and have increased gov capacity cost but normally always worth it unless blobbing

 

[DukeLeto42]

From what you say it wouldn't be in my best interests to buy the rest of the core and turn the colony into a state. So when would one ever want to do that? I have another province (not a colony) that I conquered, and I was able to core that soon after. But now I'm constantly being prompted to turn it into a state, which would include several other provinces that I don't own! I don't understand what benefit that could possibly have for me. So when would turning a province into a state be useful?

The flag prompting you regarding making states only indicates that you have both territorial provinces that could be turned into states and governing capacity to accommodate it. It does not, however, tell you that you necessarily should. That's why it's color-coded to indicate "helpful good thing" instead of "alert! alert!" Making a state is up to a number of factors, but primarily:

1. Enough gov capacity in the bank for other expansion
2. Enough admin points to spare to upgrade

As AvendedK1ing notes, upgrading a territory to a state means increased state maintenance costs and gov cap usage, but also comes with a major reduction in minimum autonomy (i.e. a lower percentage of total production, tax, manpower, and sailors lost into the ether). That's enormous.

States are made of small groups of individual provinces, and you control whether you treat them as a state or a territory as a group. There is no cost to making a state that includes provinces you don't own (the introduction of gov cap saw to that), but there is one potential benefit - coring cost can be reduced in several ways, but one of the big ones is having a claim on the province. However, the claim is removed once you make it into a territorial core, so it's actually more costly to make it into a state core later.

 

[Ilkuul]

Thanks to you both for your comments. I think I'll have to refer back to them some time later when I've learnt more about the game in general! But I get the point that states are optional. For the meantime I think I'll stick to territories…

I appreciate your input.

 

[bokorthedust]

Thanks to you both for your comments. I think I'll have to refer back to them some time later when I've learnt more about the game in general! But I get the point that states are optional. For the meantime I think I'll stick to territories…

I appreciate your input.

The others pretty much answered it, I'll just add, that you should at least try to state any provinces which are in your culture group or immediate area. Territories have a 90% autonomy floor, meaning any benefit you get from a province (tax and production income, manpower and in case of coastal provinces, sailors) are capped at 10%, making you lose out on 90% of the potential benefits. Stating and fully coring the province will allow the autonomy to eventually reach 0, meaning you will get the full benefits of the province in question.

 

[Retrac910]

Since you asked earlier about why you would want to convert colonies to states (in the new world), you normally would not. The only really use for it I could see is if you were trying to move your capital to the new world (in an “exodus” strategy). However, setting that up is complicated and very rarely done.
if you are colonizing in the new world, the only cores you should make are on provinces conquered by natives (to get 5 cores provinces to form a colonial nation). Otherwise, since the provinces get ceded to your new colonial nation when it is made, the full core would just be a loss of mana.
As an aside, as a new player, states in other parts of the world should pretty much only be considered optional if you are very close to governing capacity cap or the province would be a good trade company spot (requires a DLC). States are *so* much better economically than territories like the person above said. You learn with experience some other edge cases of when to leave provinces unstated, but they are few.

 

[Ilkuul]

Thank you both for those responses, which definitely make it clearer. I didn't understand about the autonomy floor, so I can see that's a strong reason for 'stating'.

However, can I follow up with a related question? I think I've got the colonial scene now (as far as my limited experience allows!). But I'm still puzzled about these 3 provinces near my capital, only one of which belongs to me. The game wants me to state them. How on earth does that work? So I'll own (because I've cored it) one province of an adjacent state. Do I then get ± one third of that province's income? What if the owners of the other provinces declare war on me? (They belong to two other nations, which complicates it even further.)

I'm just trying to get my head around how you can have a "state" that belongs to 3 separate nations!

 

[Jespoke]

Thank you both for those responses, which definitely make it clearer. I didn't understand about the autonomy floor, so I can see that's a strong reason for 'stating'.

However, can I follow up with a related question? I think I've got the colonial scene now (as far as my limited experience allows!). But I'm still puzzled about these 3 provinces near my capital, only one of which belongs to me. The game wants me to state them. How on earth does that work? So I'll own (because I've cored it) one province of an adjacent state. Do I then get ± one third of that province's income? What if the owners of the other provinces declare war on me? (They belong to two other nations, which complicates it even further.)

I'm just trying to get my head around how you can have a "state" that belongs to 3 separate nations!

A state that you don't own all the provinces in is functionally exactly the same as if it was a state with only your provinces in it. The one exception is that conquering the other provinces in it automatically adds those into the state.
It is like when in the modern world we have historic regions that are now split between different countries: They are administered completely separately by separate countries, but have the same name (often with cardinal direction names on them).

 

[AvengedK1ng]

A state that you don't own all the provinces in is functionally exactly the same as if it was a state with only your provinces in it. The one exception is that conquering the other provinces in it automatically adds those into the state.
It is like when in the modern world we have historic regions that are now split between different countries: They are administered completely separately by separate countries, but have the same name (often with cardinal direction names on them).

Macedonian Macedonia and Greek Macedonia

 

[Ilkuul]

A state that you don't own all the provinces in is functionally exactly the same as if it was a state with only your provinces in it. The one exception is that conquering the other provinces in it automatically adds those into the state.
It is like when in the modern world we have historic regions that are now split between different countries: They are administered completely separately by separate countries, but have the same name (often with cardinal direction names on them).

OK, I see the parallel: as well as the 2 Macedonias we have North & South Korea, and historically N & S Vietnam, East and West Germany, etc. OK, I guess that makes sense. So does my 'stating' it give the same benefits to my two rivals who own the other provinces?

Another small question: The same province of mine (Meppen) borders one of my original core provinces to the west, Oversticht, as well as Friesland and Ostfriesland to the north. I'm now constantly seeing those provinces, plus Gelre to the south, referred to collectively as "Frisia". Does this mean that some other nation has created an overlapping state containing those provinces?? So Meppen belongs both to Frisia and to the new state I've just created, i.e. North Westphalia?

I think it's the word "state" that constantly trips me up. In normal life it implies a separate political entity (whether independent or not), and there's no way a province or political subdivision could belong to two states at the same time. But if in the game it just means any group of political entities that have a shared history or culture, then I can see that it wouldn't matter if one of those entities belonged to another "state" as well: if I thought long and hard enough I could probably find a real-world example!

 

[Loganplayseu4]

OK, I see the parallel: as well as the 2 Macedonias we have North & South Korea, and historically N & S Vietnam, East and West Germany, etc. OK, I guess that makes sense. So does my 'stating' it give the same benefits to my two rivals who own the other provinces?

Another small question: The same province of mine (Meppen) borders one of my original core provinces to the west, Oversticht, as well as Friesland and Ostfriesland to the north. I'm now constantly seeing those provinces, plus Gelre to the south, referred to collectively as "Frisia". Does this mean that some other nation has created an overlapping state containing those provinces?? So Meppen belongs both to Frisia and to the new state I've just created, i.e. North Westphalia?

I think it's the word "state" that constantly trips me up. In normal life it implies a separate political entity (whether independent or not), and there's no way a province or political subdivision could belong to two states at the same time. But if in the game it just means any group of political entities that have a shared history or culture, then I can see that it wouldn't matter if one of those entities belonged to another "state" as well: if I thought long and hard enough I could probably find a real-world example!

As for 1, they have to make it a state on their end to get the same benefits on their provinces: the benefits only apply to owned provinces in the states.

2. Trying to understand the question: the states in the mechanic are not dynamic, so the state names are the same the entire time.

As for your 3rd statement, I understand.

 

[Ilkuul]

As for 1, they have to make it a state on their end to get the same benefits on their provinces: the benefits only apply to owned provinces in the states.

Ah, OK, that's good to know. So presumably they're offered the same group of provinces with the same collective name to 'state'. But now it becomes clearer to me: what they're 'stating' is just their own province within the overall territory—is that right?

2. Trying to understand the question: the states in the mechanic are not dynamic, so the state names are the same the entire time.

Tying in with my first statement and your reply, I think maybe my problem has been that I thought I was creating the state of North Westphalia, and that someone else must have created a state called Frisia. But from what you’re saying I get the impression that these are just general names for two geographical map areas: just as one can talk about "North America" referring simply to the geographical region, without any implication that this is some kind of political entity. Is that right?

 

[Jespoke]

OK, I see the parallel: as well as the 2 Macedonias we have North & South Korea, and historically N & S Vietnam, East and West Germany, etc. OK, I guess that makes sense. So does my 'stating' it give the same benefits to my two rivals who own the other provinces?

Another small question: The same province of mine (Meppen) borders one of my original core provinces to the west, Oversticht, as well as Friesland and Ostfriesland to the north. I'm now constantly seeing those provinces, plus Gelre to the south, referred to collectively as "Frisia". Does this mean that some other nation has created an overlapping state containing those provinces?? So Meppen belongs both to Frisia and to the new state I've just created, i.e. North Westphalia?

I think it's the word "state" that constantly trips me up. In normal life it implies a separate political entity (whether independent or not), and there's no way a province or political subdivision could belong to two states at the same time. But if in the game it just means any group of political entities that have a shared history or culture, then I can see that it wouldn't matter if one of those entities belonged to another "state" as well: if I thought long and hard enough I could probably find a real-world example!

Meppen is part of North Westphalia. To state it, your country need to make a state in North Westphalia. As Utrecht, you start with the province Oversticht in the state of Frisia. You start with your Utrechter Frisia (consisting of only the province Oversticht) pre-made. Geldre, Friesland, and Ostfriesland each start with their own state also called Frisia, consisting of whatever provinces in the geographic area called "Frisia" that they own. If you conquer Groningen off of Friesland, it will become part of your state of Frisia, within the country of Utrecht.

Macedonia, Korea and so on are not the best modern examples really. It is more like Brabant and Limburg, which are regions that the Netherlands/Belgium border cuts right through, so the Netherlands has a province called "Limburg", while Belgium also has a province called "Limburg". Germany/Poland have a similar situation with Pomerania.

 

[Ilkuul]

OK, so I was right that names like "Frisia" and "North Westphalia" are simply labels for geographical areas where the people have a shared history and culture? And when you talk about "making a state in North Westphalia", you mean turning my bit of N. Westphalia into a state within my own country of Utrecht—regardless of the other areas in N. Westphalia, which are provinces of other countries and may or may not also be states? (Sorry to spell it out in such detail, I'm just trying to make sure I understand!)

But what you go on to say slightly confuses me: "Geldre, Friesland, and Ostfriesland each start with their own state also called Frisia, consisting of whatever provinces in the geographic area called "Frisia" that they own." Can I try to unpack that in a way that makes sense to me, and you can tell me if I'm right? "Geldre, Friesland, and Ostfriesland each start out owning a province or provinces in the geographic area called "Frisia", which, because they are core provinces from the start, have the status of 'states' within that geographic area." Does that come close?

But counter to your examples of Limbourg and Pomerania, those provinces are not called "Frisia" on the map: they are simply states within the geographical area of Frisia — which can't be seen on the map, but is referred to as an informal entity in the game. So, as you say, if I conquered Groningen, politically it would cease to be part of Friesland and become part of Utrecht; but within Utrecht it would still be a state in the geographic area called "Frisia".

Lol, this is complex! But am I on the right track?

 

[AvengedK1ng]

OK, so I was right that names like "Frisia" and "North Westphalia" are simply labels for geographical areas where the people have a shared history and culture? And when you talk about "making a state in North Westphalia", you mean turning my bit of N. Westphalia into a state within my own country of Utrecht—regardless of the other areas in N. Westphalia, which are provinces of other countries and may or may not also be states? (Sorry to spell it out in such detail, I'm just trying to make sure I understand!)

But what you go on to say slightly confuses me: "Geldre, Friesland, and Ostfriesland each start with their own state also called Frisia, consisting of whatever provinces in the geographic area called "Frisia" that they own." Can I try to unpack that in a way that makes sense to me, and you can tell me if I'm right? "Geldre, Friesland, and Ostfriesland each start out owning a province or provinces in the geographic area called "Frisia", which, because they are core provinces from the start, have the status of 'states' within that geographic area." Does that come close?

But counter to your examples of Limbourg and Pomerania, those provinces are not called "Frisia" on the map: they are simply states within the geographical area of Frisia — which can't be seen on the map, but is referred to as an informal entity in the game. So, as you say, if I conquered Groningen, politically it would cease to be part of Friesland and become part of Utrecht; but within Utrecht it would still be a state in the geographic area called "Frisia".

Lol, this is complex! But am I on the right track?

State areas are pre determined at game start, you can't change their layout