Please un-nerf Exploration and Expansion in 1.20 + protectorate/institution suggestions

[Granathar]

Colonial gameplay suffered very heavily because of institution spread, but more important thing are Explo and Expansion finishers which should stay connected to technology group / religion / culture rather than technology level. Right now conquering Mexico requires claim spamming and institutions will just explode in this area. It slows down the game and because of that I stopped playing as colonial powers until things will go back to how they were. Institution mechanics is an opportunity to fix protectorates.

So, what protectorate should be? It should be able to be morphed to vassal (when it's technology level is no longer primitive and it's religion is christian), should give us half of their trade power and our own provinces (and our subjects) are treated as "friendly territory" to promote institution spread.

So how should it work? Normally primitive natives should have very, very low level of institution spread from provinces being "overseas" for european countries and from colonial nations (and from protectorates of european powers). Colonies actually should not generate spread at all, UNLESS some european power will create protectorate. What is protectorate for european power? It means "We will give you technology so you can conquer other tribes and prosper, and when you will be ready, we will make you citizens of our great empire of cool white people". What does it mean for nation being protectorate? "Cool white people want to give us guns and other nice stuff which we can use to kick asses of our enemies!".

And what is it in practice? European nation gives guns and other nice stuff and also sends their missionaries to christianize natives. In game mechanics it should mean institution spread and events that change religion of protectorate to catholic/protestant (whatever their "overlord" is), maybe even culture changes can appear when next generation of natives will perceive themselves as for example french people. When protectorate is high enough in technology and became christian, they should be able to be morphed to usual vassal (or colonial nation), as they are semi-european country now. Protectorate should not mean any alliance-relation until they become a vassal/CN, and they should be treated as CN in diplomacy - so when they are fighting their local wars - it's not our business until they ask for help (and their overlord may just not agree to help them), but when any other european country will attack them - then it will call us to war (and denying would break protectorate).

Also pumping development should not give institution spread when we are too far from closest independent and not overseas country (hey, just like colonial or trade range! How the hell can some african tribe adopt reneissance if they don't even know that Europe exists?) with adopted instutiton OR being birthplace of this institution (so in Europe 99% of times we will be able to pump it).

"But hey, it will nerf natives again, and what should players wanting to play in Africa or America do?!"
What should they do? They should abuse protectorate mechanics and break free from their overlord when they become advanced enough, what most probably would mean war (maybe support independence from other european powers huh?). This way we would have nice protectorate mechanics (useful at last), not abusive institutions and still a way for player to become modern country starting as primitive nation.

 

[Asteroids]

Yes indeed, the whole colonial diplo game is non existent too.

 

[NorthernXY]

You'll be much happier if you forget about protectorates, I know I am. They've been broken for a long time; I'm not talking about making them vassals which I'm not for, they just stop being your protectorate for no reason with no warning.

 

[Badesumofu]

Protectorates are totally broken and the only sane way to handle them right now as a player is to pretend that the feature has been removed. So no argument that needs work.

Playing as a coloniser is actually pretty good right now, however. Although the colonist chance change was a strict nerf, the style that it encourages is more interesting and I find that once I have my economy up and going I'll usually aim to run 5-6 colonies at any one time and as a result I colonise very quickly once I get going.

As far as natives go, fabricating claims on them feels a bit odd, but you really only need one claim per alliance network. If the natives are unreformed, you only need one claim and it counts their entire nation as part of the wargoal (ie no Dip cost to annex). If they have reformed and you have a colonial nation in the region, you can demand they concede colonial region in the peace deal which costs very little in terms of both warscore and AE. It also doesn't apply the 'would result in total annexation' malus to acceptance which means you don't even need to 100% them or even close to it in most cases.

Also, even reformed natives tend to be trivial to crush militarily.

I do think it's weird thematically to have to fabricate a claim on a native tribe as a European coloniser, I mean it makes some sense in Europe that you'd make up some document that 'proves' that your monarch's great great grandmother was the true heir to Sundagau or wherever and no one really believes it but it gives you the pretext to attack. But how does the empire of France fabricate a claim to the lands of the Iroquois? And why bother? Who in Europe cares anyway?

Gameplay-wise I think it is totally fine and very profitable to conquer the new world. Thematically it seems odd and like quick-fix to the problems the institutions introduced in this area.

 

[MiniaAr]

I agree that Protectorates are broken at the moment.

But I disagree that they should become vassal after catching up on institutions. Different types of subjects should have different purposes:
- Vassals: territory meant to be integrated at a later date, useful to save ADM by using DIP instead. Also helps managing OE and revolts. Basically differed expansion.
- Marches: territory not meant to be integrated, but you still want to at least get some military output out of it. Decent sized marches can win your wars for you when you do other stuff.
- Protectorates: territory not meant to be integrated without any requested military output for the overlord. Instead, they have trade benefits (seize CoTs/estuaries, divert trade) and they're still under your juridiction.

That's why I suggest that LD of protectorates is linked to their tech penalty, in a linear way. The more behind they are, the more loyal they're going to be. But when they catch up, a player will have to put some effort to keep them loyal. And if they reach 100, they might try to break away just as they used to do before.

On top of that change, I'd suggest that the spread of institutons from trade company provinces is much lowered and that trade companies provinces don't count in the % of adopted institutions.

It should make protectorate viable again in my opinion.