Newbie question: How do I "core" a province or colony?
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I'll answer each paragraph separately.
1) Yes, the game has several layers of geographical areas. Provinces are the smallest units and Continents are the biggest units. The order from smallest to largest goes Province -> Area -> Region -> Continent (there's also a number of other kinds of "regions" for the purposes of trade, colonies etc. but that's not important to know for the most basic explanation I'm making here). The word "State" refers to the administrative unit connected to the provinces held within a specific Area, and you can create a State within an Area where you don't own all provinces within said Area. So an Area can be contested by several countries that may all have States created in said Area.
2) Connected to the answer above, in the case of the Area called "Frisia", at the start of the game the countries of Gelre, Friesland and East Frisia all own at least one province within the Area of Frisia, and they all each start the game off having a State created within said Area. Creating a State allows the country in control of it to make the provinces within the Area full cores in contrary to a half cores or "Territorial Core" (which in practice determines what minimum level of local autonomy a single province can have) as it's called. It kinda makes sense that the core lands of all countries on the map will have full cores and States on their starting provinces too, right? Some countries also have cores in provinces they don't own, relating to them having historically lost those provinces or some other historical reason for them to have a legitimate claim to said provinces.
3) Yes
To summarize, yes, I think you've understood things in general
If you have a Discord account and need to ask more questions about the game I'm down to answer them through there.
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They're referring to the idea group (a way to focus your country on certain administrative, diplomatic or military buffs, unlocked at first after Admin tech 5) called Religious Ideas, but that's not really part of this discussion.
Hi! Sorry for the delay getting back to you about this very helpful post (my day job got in the way, as usual!). Let me comment on your first 2 paras:I'll answer each paragraph separately.
1) Yes, the game has several layers of geographical areas. Provinces are the smallest units and Continents are the biggest units. The order from smallest to largest goes Province -> Area -> Region -> Continent (there's also a number of other kinds of "regions" for the purposes of trade, colonies etc. but that's not important to know for the most basic explanation I'm making here). The word "State" refers to the administrative unit connected to the provinces held within a specific Area, and you can create a State within an Area where you don't own all provinces within said Area. So an Area can be contested by several countries that may all have States created in said Area.
2) Connected to the answer above, in the case of the Area called "Frisia", at the start of the game the countries of Gelre, Friesland and East Frisia all own at least one province within the Area of Frisia, and they all each start the game off having a State created within said Area. Creating a State allows the country in control of it to make the provinces within the Area full cores in contrary to a half cores or "Territorial Core" (which in practice determines what minimum level of local autonomy a single province can have) as it's called. It kinda makes sense that the core lands of all countries on the map will have full cores and States on their starting provinces too, right? Some countries also have cores in provinces they don't own, relating to them having historically lost those provinces or some other historical reason for them to have a legitimate claim to said provinces.
3) Yes
To summarize, yes, I think you've understood things in general
1) Your final statement reassures me, because it says (if I interpret it rightly) that you create a State within an Area. What's often confused me about the way others describe it (and even, I think, the official wiki), is that they talk as if me creating a state consisting of one province within an Area has actually turned the whole area into a State: e.g., in my current (and first) Utrecht game, they say I have "stated N. Westphalia", when all I've done is to turn one province (Meppen) of N. Westphalia into a State. 'Stating' N. Westphalia, to me, would mean that all other provinces in that Area (belonging to other nations) have now also become States. But that's not what it means, right?
2) I think what you say here confirms my interpretation of 1).
This has all helped to clarify my understanding of 'provinces', 'States', 'Areas' and 'Territories' in the game. (It also helped when I discovered the mapmode that shows Areas and Territories.)
One irrelevant point: Your screen name interests me — I'm also a Civ V freak!
Thanks, I very much appreciate your offer. I do have a Discord account, but I'm not very familiar with it. (I use it with a friend when we play various multiplayer games, and he does all the tech stuff of getting us connected.) My username is Ilkuul#1106. If you can give me yours, and some hints on how to connect, it would be a great help to be able to ask occasional questions while I'm playing. Thanks for that offer.
Ah! OK, thanks. Next time I play a Dutch nation I'll bear that in mind.
Stating an area is a choice that only affects the provinces you control in that area, that's correct. Probably the reason we say you've made North Westphalia a state rather than just Meppen is that territory/state designation functions at the area level; you can't mix-and-match the status of provinces in that area. If you take one of the other provinces in North Westphalia, it will be part of the same state. The only way to make that new province be part of a territory is to make North Westphalia a territory, at which point Meppen is now part of a territory as well.
So, if you only own Meppen, and you state North Westphalia, you could think of it as "Stating Meppen". The issue is that if you then take Dortmund, the new province will also be part of the so-called "State of Meppen", because Dortmund is part of North Westphalia, which is what you've actually given state-status.
The way you interpret "Stating North Westphalia" is intuitive, but you're right: It's wrong. Stating an area means "All the provinces in that area, that you own, are now part of a state."
It might help to keep in mind that the way EU4 uses "state", in this context, doesn't really correlate to any kind of real-world usage of the term. It's less "Creating a state within the area" or "Turning the area into a state" and more "Designating the area as being a state".
North Westphalia is a state of Utrecht. Meppen is the (single) province Utrecht owns within the state of North Westphalia.
OK, thanks, I get what you're saying. It had already occurred to me that I'm probably getting too hung up on the normal meaning of the word 'state', and I should rather treat this as game lingo, which simply is what it is. This whole discussion has helped me get more of an intuitive concept of what it is in the game.
Added you as a Discord friend. My username on Discord is the same as the little name you see *below* the name I have on this forum, so you should hopefully see that too among your Discord friend requests
Thanks! Replied to you on Discord.Added you as a Discord friend. My username on Discord is the same as the little name you see *below* the name I have on this forum, so you should hopefully see that too among your Discord friend requests