Slider changes and colonization priorities.

[Flammehav]

I'm playing Norway. Long term goal, rule most/all of both north and south America. It's currently 1465 and I got a slider move coming up, but not sure what to do with it.

Since I got an uncored CoT a move against free trade would help me compete, (currently at 2), but is this a good move long term, cause it reduces my compete chance in my own CoT, by a LOT. Atm that is not a problem as of the people that know about it I'm the only one with enoughtech to send merchants, but that will ofcourse change. I don't think it will be a huge problem before maybee another 100 years, but still not sure if I shoudl just let it rest at too or move it further towars free trade?

Innovative narrowminded. I do ofcourse want to go innovative, but I'm only getting 0,6 missionaries or year and that is really the minimum of what I need, while I'm still in the process of takeing over and converting the native americans provinces. So I'm thinking it will have to stay still for a while.

Centralisation is an obvuois choise, atm it's 0, becouse that is the limit for Fedual monaries. I'm planning to change to administrative republic, not sure if via Merchant republic or Noble republic first tough. It's alway an option, but becouse of the extra revolt risk I'm thinking of postponing it.

Serfdom vs free subjects. WAnt free subject, but it's at +2 wich is currently at the limit and going further will increase my RR.

Offensive vs defensive, I've just left thia at 0. I want it atleast 1 point towards defensive at one point, but it's not a really any rush.

Land vs naval. It's 3 towards naval. At one point I want it fully towars naval, but I only got 15 774 MP, so again it might be better to wait a bit.

Quality vs quantetive. Currently at 2 vs quantitive, but would like to g a bit towards quality, but again it's with the MP problem and this really isn't an importent slider.



So I got 4 sliders that I'm thinking of moving. Towards centralisation even if it gives me + revolt risk? Today the chance of revolts in cored right religion, right culture provinces is -12, but I got a lot of provinces that isn't there yet.

Towards free subject, wich gives me the same problem as towards centralistation

Towards free trade it will be beneficial to me right now, but will full FT, cripple my ability to trade in my own CoT later down the road?

Really want to move innovative too, but atm, one point more towards narrowminded so I can keep up with takeing new land would be more beneficial.



Other question is about colonisation. When I start to get my first coreas around 1490 I want to move my capital to America, probably some place in north america, so I get the carribian islands. I haven't really decided where yet, good suggestion is welcome, but I don't think it will make a big differnce. But when I start to get cores I can start colonicing again. My original plan was to take the carrabien islands first as those will probably be the first one Portugal and Castille will come in range of(England is beaten hard by Castille and France choose another ide for their second slot, Portugal and Castille only have 1 ide each yet, and Portugal finally got the mission to discovert he Azores, wich seem to be a really hard mission for them becouse they had it for over 5 years).

But then I'm thinking, after I make my move, how much will my economy suffer from haveing about half of my empire, and probably the richest part unconnected to me by land, in a differnt part of the world?(NA vs SA). Should I bridge the 2 part of my land by makeing a land connection there first, or would you be more inclined to take the island, both to get them and to slow down other colonizers?

 

[afb]

I think I'd look at the innovativeness requirements for some of the missionary genereating decisions that beacome available at the reformation. The numbers you get from your slider itself is not as important as being low enough to take the boosting decisions that will allow you to max out on innovativeness and still get missionaries. If you can take a step or two in the right direction and still have them available, that's what I'd do.

 

[Pj Fallon]

Do you need innovative to improve your tech group? if so innovate.

 

[afb]

Do you need innovative to improve your tech group? if so innovate.

Norway is in latin, so no. But he needs it to compensate for all the lovely tax value 1 provinces with fish that Norway consists of.

 

[unmerged(180647)]

As you plan to become a colonial empire, you should stay as narrowminded as you can afford. Usually, a good approach is to have the free subjects slider at about the same position as the norrowminded slider, so that the effects on stability neutralise each other. When the free trade slider is already at +2, a further move right will not decrease your domestic chance, but rather slightly increase it (half of the trade effiency increase).

Hopefully you have secured a European island for yourself, because you cannot move a capital that has land connections to other owned provinces to another continent.

 

[unmerged(128725)]

I usually go innovative even as I colonize. Sure, colonies take a bit longer, but tech is faster and I get no religious minorities overseas, sparing missionaries.

If you move your capital overseas, you have to make a decision right now: will you need Viceroys for the rest of the game, or will you concentrate your colonies on one continent (or connected domain) so to avoid it eventually?

Moverover, after 1750 and the colonial independence thing, you will get events giving you tariff penalties (unless you take the awful revolt risks).

Plan ahead...

 

[Flammehav]

Norway, so latin tech group don't need inovation for westernnasation and the only one I can see that gives me more missionaries requires centalisation -1 or lower + governtech 15.

I don't have a island for myself(exept Iceland), but I'm planning to release Sweden as a OPM and then gift them the provinces around my capital, so I can move. Maybee integrating Sweden back in some 10-30 years later.

I don't think viceroys will be a very prioriticed NI for me becouse my main empire will be north and south america, wich I'm planning on connect to eachother. So the overseas areas will be what's left of Norway after I gift some to Sweden and most of Swden(-Finland and the 3 provinces Denmark got). Possibly a few provinces in Africa too, we'll see what happens. America is my first consern and I think that will keep me busy for a long time, but the time I'm done NI shouldn't be so short in supply anymore.

On the narrovative silderI forgot the 25% boost to colonial growth, and THAT is important as I plan on makeing a lot of colonies and they still ned to grow wether they're on my continent or not. I guess it comes down to how rich I will be. When you're poor it's really important that your colonies grows fast, while when you're rich it doesn't matter so much(In my France WC IN game, I had up to 36 colonies running at a time, While plundering the natives every 5 years I was still struggeling to stay aflout with the around 30 colonies I had running at first, + the cost of building atleast a lvl1 fort in them and the church and one other building, forgot wich one).So when the natives in both america and Africa was running out of money I had to cut it down to around 20 temporarly until enough of them cored and I got enough land in Europa to found them easily). So it's all about the money. Atm I'm really poor compaired to my size, but that will hopefully change. I got to think a bit more on that slider I think. My tech is suffering a lot becouse of low income, even tough I have 5 merchants in 5 CoT most of the time so I could use the tech boost too.

What happens with colonies after 1750? and will it also effect those colonies connected to my capital with a landbridge too?

 

[unmerged(432880)]

Mercantalism when you own the entirety of the Americas is wayyyy better than Free Trade.

Arequipa and Shawnee are worth almost 6000 each, and with full mercantalism you can maintain an uncontested monopoly and get 8000+ ducats of income from each as your trade efficiency improves.

 

[Hatkah]

So long as you dont get big infamy spikes (like 12) and only trade in the top 50% or so of CoTs (bottom ones are not worth the loss of compete chance) with full free trade i find it easy to hold monopolies in my own CoTs with 99% compete chance in them. You also get the advantage of monopolies in everyone elses... As far as i am concerned so long as you ahve good infamy control and don't let it get over 10ish you certainly won't have any problems in your own CoTs.

 

[sprites]

having a monopoly in my CoT is easy (whether I have infamy or not ...) but keeping a full one is about impossible as a free trader

 

[Hatkah]

having a monopoly in my CoT is easy (whether I have infamy or not ...) but keeping a full one is about impossible as a free trader

Full monopoly?

 

[unmerged(487181)]

Once you have a monopoly, you can send additional merchants to compete others out. A "full" monopoly is when you have done this so completely that there are no other merchants in the COT; in other words, if your six are the only ones there, and there are 14 empty spots, it is full. Since you have 100% of the merchants trading there, you get 100% of the trade value of the COT in trade income (after factoring your TE, of course).

Free traders are not equipped for total monopolies because they don't get the very large compete bonuses from owned provinces that mercantilists do. The problem is that because the vast, vast majority of compete chance bonuses are universally applicable, free traders ultimately all end up with the same compete chance against each other, and by late game those free traders are going to have ~50% CC against each other. Maintaining a total monopoly naturally requires no one else to be able to compete against you successfully; 50% is untenable. You can get away with it to an extent in singleplayer by spamming Customs Houses (+1% TE per CH -> +.5% compete chance per; if you've got 50 provinces then that's +25% CC) and maintaining a large Trade tech lead, because the AI does not maximize its TE very effectively, but in multiplayer especially you pretty much have no choice but to go mercantilist if you expect to keep a full monopoly.

 

[Hatkah]

Ah nice to know.
I will keep spamming customs houses in my netherlands game then and see if i can push some ppl out my CoTs. I might manage it considering i build an average of 1 customs house a year .

 

[n0thin]

having a monopoly in my CoT is easy (whether I have infamy or not ...) but keeping a full one is about impossible as a free trader

Well, that depends. In my Aachen game I conquered Europe. Well, nearly all of it, at the end I missed 8 provinces. Was still going full Free Trade.

Have a look:
http://imgur.com/a/ie9lN

Free Traders still get a somewhat nice bonus from owned provinces, especially if you own all provinces trading through that CoT. The only real problem with compete chance is the number of merchants overall malus, which will grow huge.
The infamy ofc makes also a huge malus, but I got it only a year ago from the conquest of most of Anatolia.

 

[unmerged(27034)]

On the narrovative silderI forgot the 25% boost to colonial growth, and THAT is important as I plan on makeing a lot of colonies and they still ned to grow wether they're on my continent or not. I guess it comes down to how rich I will be. When you're poor it's really important that your colonies grows fast, while when you're rich it doesn't matter so much(In my France WC IN game, I had up to 36 colonies running at a time, While plundering the natives every 5 years I was still struggeling to stay aflout with the around 30 colonies I had running at first, + the cost of building atleast a lvl1 fort in them and the church and one other building, forgot wich one).So when the natives in both america and Africa was running out of money I had to cut it down to around 20 temporarly until enough of them cored and I got enough land in Europa to found them easily). So it's all about the money. Atm I'm really poor compaired to my size, but that will hopefully change. I got to think a bit more on that slider I think. My tech is suffering a lot becouse of low income, even tough I have 5 merchants in 5 CoT most of the time so I could use the tech boost too.

You also get that religious migration event at colonies with narrowminded, which converts your colony to a different religion and makes it impossible to convert for a decade or more (can't remember exactly how long). Which can create rebels in provinces without forts, or where you are trying to build forts. And creates additional costs in missionaries and money when you finally can reconvert