Colonising is one of the main pillars of Europa Universalis IV. A relatively cheap way for your empire to grow without wasting too much, if any, manpower. Although I am happy with how the system is working now, there is that one thing that really bugs me - arbitrariness. Everything about colonisation is predetermined by how it had developped in our timeline which... isn't really a good point of reference for the game.
1. Trade nodes
Trade nodes almost dictate where you should colonise as particular countries. You won't get anything from colonising Canada as Spain or Portugal, no - it's best for you to focus on the Caribbeans and South America. Meanwhile, it's pretty tiresome for northern European countries to profit from trade from South America. You can defend the system by saying that it wouldn't make sense e.g. for Norway to colonise Argentina - you might be right, I don't know, but the fact is that the AI does it and there's no way to stop it. On top of that, creating the flow of the trade yourself would add so much dynamics to the game, in both colonising and trading aspects!
To be fair, I don't know if Clausewitz would allow this. I am pretty sure my second point is doable, though!
2. Colonial Regions
Why are they still in game, actually? We have fully working regions and areas now so what's the point?
These boundaries are telling you where which colonial nations will appear, they're highly based on borders of historical colonies too. Well, what do I care that New Brunswick is historically part of Canada, I want my Eastern American colony to include it and Nova Scotia! You can try to get around the colonial regions by giving land from other regions to a bordering CN but you can only go so far into other CRs before game tells you you can't do that anymore. Also, why the hell would one of them be called Louisiana? I am the first nation to colonise central North America and not a single Louis ever ruled my country!
Simple solution: get rid of colonial regions completely and let the player and AI decide on themselves how many colonial nations do they want(there could be a cap to avoid potential exploits) and where do they want it. Formation of colonial nations could be similar to that of client states, the overlord could keep some land in the New World for himself. It would also allow us to choose which province will be the capital of our colonial nation and we could even design its very own coat of arms!
If any reference is for some reason required in place of colonial regions, areas could do just that. Here you go, another potential use for the state mechanic!
And that's it! Not some urgent plea, just a thing that's been annoying me for quite some time now. Hopefully some wandering dev who decided to enter this forum on his/her free day will see this suggestion... or at least I hope it won't get burried by other topics before Paradox goes back to work.
Happy new year everyone!
1. Trade nodes
Trade nodes almost dictate where you should colonise as particular countries. You won't get anything from colonising Canada as Spain or Portugal, no - it's best for you to focus on the Caribbeans and South America. Meanwhile, it's pretty tiresome for northern European countries to profit from trade from South America. You can defend the system by saying that it wouldn't make sense e.g. for Norway to colonise Argentina - you might be right, I don't know, but the fact is that the AI does it and there's no way to stop it. On top of that, creating the flow of the trade yourself would add so much dynamics to the game, in both colonising and trading aspects!
To be fair, I don't know if Clausewitz would allow this. I am pretty sure my second point is doable, though!
2. Colonial Regions
Why are they still in game, actually? We have fully working regions and areas now so what's the point?
These boundaries are telling you where which colonial nations will appear, they're highly based on borders of historical colonies too. Well, what do I care that New Brunswick is historically part of Canada, I want my Eastern American colony to include it and Nova Scotia! You can try to get around the colonial regions by giving land from other regions to a bordering CN but you can only go so far into other CRs before game tells you you can't do that anymore. Also, why the hell would one of them be called Louisiana? I am the first nation to colonise central North America and not a single Louis ever ruled my country!
Simple solution: get rid of colonial regions completely and let the player and AI decide on themselves how many colonial nations do they want(there could be a cap to avoid potential exploits) and where do they want it. Formation of colonial nations could be similar to that of client states, the overlord could keep some land in the New World for himself. It would also allow us to choose which province will be the capital of our colonial nation and we could even design its very own coat of arms!
If any reference is for some reason required in place of colonial regions, areas could do just that. Here you go, another potential use for the state mechanic!
And that's it! Not some urgent plea, just a thing that's been annoying me for quite some time now. Hopefully some wandering dev who decided to enter this forum on his/her free day will see this suggestion... or at least I hope it won't get burried by other topics before Paradox goes back to work.
Happy new year everyone!
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