Is this your first game or first colonial game? JC, who you're playing as.
Newbie question: How do I "core" a province or colony?
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Think about this terminology more like how the US uses "state" and "territory." The US expanded into large areas, calling them "territories," and then later incorporated them into "states," areas with a centralized government structure and therefore more productive from the perspective of the US federal government. The only difference is that a "state" in EUIV is a predetermined set of provinces, as AvengedK1ing notes.
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Hopefully I can pull this thread together for you in a simple coherent way. EU4 has a hierarchy of geographical terms. Each term has significance in gameplay. The smallest unit is a province. It is depicted on the map with boundaries and has a separate stat screen if you click on the province. Only one country can own a province at any particular time. Most interactions take place at the province level (building buildings, creating regiments etc).
Provinces are grouped into a larger entity called a state or territory, depending on its cored status. Multiple counties can own provinces within a state or territory. You access the state/territory screen from the screen of a province within the state or territory(tab at the top right of the province screen). The state/territory tab will show all of the provinces in the state/territory. You can turn the provinces that you own in a territory, into a state. Doing so does not affect the provinces that you don’t own.
The key differences between a state and a territory are autonomy and governing capacity. A secondary difference is that you can enact edits in states, but not in territories.
Autonomy significantly reduces your access to the productive resources of the province. States have lower autonomy than territories. So, if the productive resources of a territory are important to you, you want to state it. Stating a territory costs administrative points, often in a significant amount, so there is a trade off cost to making a territory a state.
Governing Capacity is a limiter on the number of provinces you can own without penalty. Substantially exceeding governing capacity will subject you to serious penalties. States use significantly more governing capacity than territories. Governing capacity is shown on the stability screen and the tooltip will show you the penalties.
Which brings us to trade company territories. Most, but not all territories can be assigned to trade companies on a territory by territory basis. Look at the wiki for more information on which territories can be assigned to trade companies. There are several important differences. Trade company territories give you more trade power and production value but little if any manpower or sailors. Trade company territories also allow you to spend additional money to improve various aspects of the territory. You can find these on the territory tab of a province you have assigned to a trade company. Choosing what to do with a territory is complex and every player has a different view of where the trade offs make sense.
Hope this helps.
Provinces are grouped into a larger entity called a state or territory, depending on its cored status. Multiple counties can own provinces within a state or territory. You access the state/territory screen from the screen of a province within the state or territory(tab at the top right of the province screen). The state/territory tab will show all of the provinces in the state/territory. You can turn the provinces that you own in a territory, into a state. Doing so does not affect the provinces that you don’t own.
The key differences between a state and a territory are autonomy and governing capacity. A secondary difference is that you can enact edits in states, but not in territories.
Autonomy significantly reduces your access to the productive resources of the province. States have lower autonomy than territories. So, if the productive resources of a territory are important to you, you want to state it. Stating a territory costs administrative points, often in a significant amount, so there is a trade off cost to making a territory a state.
Governing Capacity is a limiter on the number of provinces you can own without penalty. Substantially exceeding governing capacity will subject you to serious penalties. States use significantly more governing capacity than territories. Governing capacity is shown on the stability screen and the tooltip will show you the penalties.
Which brings us to trade company territories. Most, but not all territories can be assigned to trade companies on a territory by territory basis. Look at the wiki for more information on which territories can be assigned to trade companies. There are several important differences. Trade company territories give you more trade power and production value but little if any manpower or sailors. Trade company territories also allow you to spend additional money to improve various aspects of the territory. You can find these on the territory tab of a province you have assigned to a trade company. Choosing what to do with a territory is complex and every player has a different view of where the trade offs make sense.
Hope this helps.
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Hi guys, sorry, I didn't see that the thread had overflowed onto a new page! Will respond to your helpful comments now…
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Yes, it's my first game of EUIV, though many years ago I had what I think was the first version of the game. Didn't get into that much. I'm enjoying this a lot more. I'm playing as Utrecht.
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Thanks, that is helpful. I guess the analogy breaks down, though, when I hear that different countries can own different parts of a 'state': that certainly isn't the case with US states! But I get the basic idea of a geographical area that already has a name at the start of the game, like 'North Westphalia', and different countries can own different provinces within that territory. For convenience those are termed 'states' when they are cored and become an integral part of the owning country. Have I got that more or less right?
This is very helpful—thank you Hayseed. I discovered the 'Territory' tab just before reading your summary! Your comments on Governing Capacity and trade company territories are new to me, so I appreciate having this basic info.
Haha, well in fact I didn't play that first version much, so this is like learning a new game. But yeah, it's quite a challenge!
Utrecht eh, what difficulty? Oh, if you have missions, I like to get a strong ally, DOW on the Lubeck trade league to get that first mission out of the way for colonization.
Haha, "Very Easy": thought I wouldn't jump in the deep end on my first game!
You lost me in your second statement: "DOW"?? Colonization mission? Not seeing any obvious colonization mission in the list of Utrechtian missions…
DOW is short for Declaration of War, so declaring war on someone.
With the right DLC all the Dutch minors get the start of the Dutch mission tree which includes colonization missions, but i don't know which of the missions are and aren't available in the base game.
One of those missions involves getting trade power in the Lübeck trade node, which a player with the backing of a strong ally can do by declaring war on Lübeck and their allies to take the Transfer Trade Power peace treaty with each one. Not something i advise you do as a beginner without the DLC.
Ah — thanks. Helps to learn the language!
I took out a monthly subscription, so I believe I do have all DLC. I certainly saw the base game change in many small ways when the subscription took effect. So I should have all the latest missions; but looking through them, I'm not sure which ones you're referring to. (See attachment.)
Hmmm. Well, even assuming I do have all the DLC, I'm not sure I have a strong enough ally to risk that! (My largest ally is Liege with 9 provinces…)
Attachments
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So, your reply is mostly right, but I've added an emphasis to a part I want to address: Coring a province is not the same as making it a state. There are two "types" of cores, and, 'helpfully', one of them is just called a "Core". The other is a Territorial core. From here, I'll go into detail on the differences between the two below, but first, I want to comment on areas.
In terms of geography, provinces are grouped into "Areas". North Westphalia is an area, which contains the provinces Osnabrück, Dortmund, Münster, and Meppen. The area of North Westphalia can be a state or terrirtory for nations that own one of the four menioned provinces. Every area will be a territory when you acquire provinces in it for the first time. That's technically a half-truth, which I'll elaborate on later. For now, let's go through an example, step-by-step:
Suppose I'm playing as Portugal, and I currently own none of the provinces in North Westphalia. That area is neither a state, nor a territory for me. Then, I conquer Meppen. North Wespthalia becomes a territory for me, and Meppen is an uncored province, which causes overexentsion. Which is a bad thing. I can now spend admin points to core Meppen. This is not instant; By default it'll take a few years, but that length of time can be reduced, although I won't go on a tangent about that. However long it takes, when the process finishes, I now have a territorial core on Meppen, and it no longer produces overextension. The minimum local autonomy (MLA) in Meppen is 90%, because North Westphalia is a territory. Now that Meppen is cored, I can make North Westphalia a State. This lowers the MLA in Meppen to 50%, inceases the governing capacity cost of the province, and permits me to upgrade the territorial core in Meppen to what the game refers to as a "Core", at the cost of additonal admin points (Upgrading a territorial core is instant, though). The playerbase usually refers to this type of core as a "full core", or (less frequently) a "state core". To emphasise: Coring a province in a new area does not make that area is a state, but it permits you to make that area a state, and making the area a state permits you to make the provinces in that area (full) cores. Any further land I take in North Westphalia will be part of a state, and coring it will create a full core. (This doesn't affect the amount of in-game time it takes.)
Everything below is less relevant to what you said, so you can skip right to the summary at the end if you want, but if you'd like a more complete overview of cores, states, and territories, read on.
Using strictly in-game terminology, "territorial cores" and "cores" are different things, but playerbase generally refers to them both as a "type" of core. An important thing to remember is that even if a territorial core is not the same as a (full) core, a province with a territorial core is never "uncored". The most important reason to "core" a province is avoiding overextension, and from that perspective, the specific outcome of coring aprovince is irrelevant provided it removes the overextension. Indeed, since not all uncored provinces causes overexstension (specifically, provinces that were uncolonised at the beginning of the game never cause overextension), you'll often see players leave those provinces completely uncored, to save their admin points for other things.
Now I want to talk about the other important difference between territorial cores and "full" cores: Permeance. If you lose land, your full cores will remain (Unless you sold the land), giving you a time-window where you'll have the "Reconquest" casus belli on whoever owns that land, which lets you take back the land while incurring less agressive expansion than normal, as well as no separatism in the province, and no need to go through the coring process again. In contrast, territorial cores are lost immediately along with the land.
Note that the above paragraph strictly refers to the cores in the provinces. It is not related the the state/territory status of the area. If Portugal makes North Westphalia a state, but doesn't upgrade the territorial cores in the provinces it owns there, those territoral cores will still be lost if those provinces are lost, even though the provinces being lost are part of a state. Likewise, if you have full-cores on provinces in a territory, the full-cores will remain if the land is lost.
If you're still reading, you might be wondering "But how could I have full-cores in a territory, when making an area a state is what permits me to make full-cores in the first place?" Certain minds might even say "Aha! Can I make an area a sate, create full-cores, then turn it back into a territory, in order to keep the full-cores for reconquest if needed, without having to pay the extra governing-capacity cost?" to which my answer is: Sorry, no. Making a state into a territory downgrades any full cores into territorial cores. with no admin point refund. But to elaborate on how you can have full cores in a territory, I get to elaborate on that half-truth I mentioned in the end of the second paragraph.
What I said was, "Every area will be a territory when you acquire provinces in it for the first time." This isn't wrong, but it would be more precise to say "Every newly-acquired province will be part of a territory, unless, at the point in time when you acquired that province, you already held land in the same area, and that area is currently a state" You can probably see why I stuck with the half-truth earlier. To put it another way: State-status is not preserved when all land in an area is lost. But full cores are. To illustate:
Let's say Portugal owns the entirety of North Westphalia, stated, ("Stated" as in "the area North Westphalia is a state". Not simply that the statement has been made that Portugal owns the entirety of North Westphalia. Though now in our example, the area, and that statement, have both been "stated".). Then, the Ottomans conquer all four provinces in the area. Portugal's full-cores remain on the provinces. If Portugal reacquires any or all of those provinces, they will still have the cores, but because Portugal is acquiring land in an area that it did not already own land in, North Westphalia is a territory.
Alternatively, if Portugal is vassalised and integrated by... Let's say, Mexico, Mexico recieives full cores in any provinces that Portugal had full cores on. But any of those provinces in areas that were not already Mexican states upon intergration will be territories, regardless of the cores on the provinces themselves.
To summarise: The creation, presence and type of core in a province is not the same as the territory/state status of the area in which the province is contained. Coring a province does not create a state, and making a state does not create a core, but a territory containing uncored provinces cannot be made into states, nor can full-cores be created in territories (though pre-existing full-cores can be reacquired.)
Any questions?
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None (yet)! ’Cos that's a fantastically comprehensive set of explanations and examples, and it's going to take me quite a while to reread and understand enough to have questions… Thanks for taking the time to lay it out so fully!
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Another thing OP, if you form the Netherlands, I take religious with them just for the extra siege bonus.