Possible to bankrupt AI by colonial maintenance?

[jadolphson]

Has anyone managed to do this by occupying AI provinces during wars, letting the AI settle more and more colonies, then releasing them all in the peace, creating a massive colonial maintenance for the AI?

In my games I am often at war with Spain and Portugal, and they often keep settling up to 4-5 colonies over their limit as I keep capturing them. I always burn them down right before the peace though, but I'm wondering what would happen if I just released them all. Would the AI be forced to lower it's colonial maintenance to the point where the colonies would die or stall? What happens to colonies if the AI goes bankrupt?

I always play on ironman and never wanted to destroy my game by trying it out. I fear all of the AI colonies will just keep growing normally, the AI somehow not being affected by the colonial maintenance quadratic cost effect...

 

[sinkingmist]

While I've never done it myself, I have seen a post a few weeks back where a player did exactly that, evidently to great success.

 

[Wildcat_PL]

That was possibly my post. As England I use to manage portugeese and spanish colonization with war. Let them colonise Brazil, Panama, Peru, Mexico, California. You can steer all their trade if you fully control Chesapeake Bay, Caribbean and Ivory Coast. You basicly aim for as much colonies as you can. After the war they are left with 6-7 colonies.

The main advantage is you know they will not colonize anything more untill they go down to 2-3 colonies so you're cleared for 10-15 years.
I havent actually checked if they go bancrupt but their income is slower.

As I said, in my experience main advantage is controling where AI colonize so you can have les competition later on.

 

[LarryLeica]

The AI seems to keep reducing colonial maintenance until the colonies grow extremely slowly. When that happens they seem to die out quite regularly due to native attacks as the AI very rarely places troops in colonies for native suppression and/or ethnic cleansing.

The other strategy is to feed your vassals colonies and let them take over the maintenance. This works best if you've annexed a New World or African nation entirely, convert the religion without coring, release them as a vassal and then selling them colonies. The released vassal will have your religion, so will happily buy whatever you feed them until they get overextended but as colonies don't suffer overextension... A vassal can usually support 2 colonies, or 3 if they are a decent size.

 

[Ungerargh]

In my Japan game I bankrupted my Majapahit vassal twice when colonizing the Philippines on their backs. This was back in 1.1 when provinces didn't have to be neighbors for vassals to accept them, and 'home' uncored colonies caused OE and cost full admin to core, so I didn't want to core them myself.

 

[jadolphson]

That was possibly my post. As England I use to manage portugeese and spanish colonization with war. Let them colonise Brazil, Panama, Peru, Mexico, California. You can steer all their trade if you fully control Chesapeake Bay, Caribbean and Ivory Coast. You basicly aim for as much colonies as you can. After the war they are left with 6-7 colonies.

The main advantage is you know they will not colonize anything more untill they go down to 2-3 colonies so you're cleared for 10-15 years.
I havent actually checked if they go bancrupt but their income is slower.

As I said, in my experience main advantage is controling where AI colonize so you can have les competition later on.

Cool. I think I'm gonna try it then. I'm Aztek and going for Sunset Invasion, and looking at repeated wars with Spain and Portugal for the next 100 years or so. It would be great if this crashed their economy. Not only the colonies, but also their armies and fleets. Best case their colonies will stay colonies until the next war so you can burn them then and let them restart a couple new ones...

 

[jadolphson]

The other strategy is to feed your vassals colonies and let them take over the maintenance. This works best if you've annexed a New World or African nation entirely, convert the religion without coring, release them as a vassal and then selling them colonies. The released vassal will have your religion, so will happily buy whatever you feed them until they get overextended but as colonies don't suffer overextension... A vassal can usually support 2 colonies, or 3 if they are a decent size.

Interesting tip. I was actually thinking to release Iroquis to help core conquered SP and GB colonies there. But will they accept colonies in SA, assuming they get a harbor?

 

[LarryLeica]

Interesting tip. I was actually thinking to release Iroquis to help core conquered SP and GB colonies there. But will they accept colonies in SA, assuming they get a harbor?

They need to be a neighbour, or you'll get a -1000 for not being a neighbour and not a core.

 

[TheBloke]

Found a colony. Sell it to a vassal that will buy it. Repeat. AI will never adjust its maintenance slider, and it will go bankrupt every month, but the colonies continue to grow at 50/year

This is what I saw in Creek, after I sold them 10 colonies (over several years) and then tag switched to them

 

[Nobak]

It works exactly like TheBloke says.
I've had Maya growing a good 20 colonies at once before for me, and I've bankrupted a non-vassal Castile by giving it something like 8.