The colonial nations features **destroyed** my Ironman game as Spain. Bug or WAD?

[DrunkenScotsman]

So, to make a long (and fairly familiar) story short, I have dozens, maybe hundreds of hours invested in an Ironman game as Castile/Spain. Have managed to wipe out or nerf the other colonial powers (France has no ports, British Isles have all possible nations, and no range to colonizable territories, Portugal was annexed long ago, Netherlands has 2 provinces, Norway is the island of Iceland), and am now the only power with colonies, just as should be. I've colonized the entire Caribbean, and all coastal provinces in North and South America (with the exception of the Pacific provinces north of Oregon, and I'm working on those), and most of Africa. I've also colonized and annexed all the New World nations, and cored everything (or virtually everything). Now, the very day after unpausing my game, my colonial empire breaks into these damned colonial nations, which give me a whopping 4.85 ducats per month, compared to basically more than I could spend before the new mechanic crushed me. Based on the patch notes, I was under the understanding that my colonial empire was only supposed to break into colonial nations if I lost the cores on those provinces... which, I didn't, unless the patch somehow deleted my cores in the New World.

So my basic question is, is this a bug or is this working as designed?

I'll save the rant that I've seen a few of so far, but add my voice to the group saying that if this intended behavior in EUIV 1.4+, there's no point in building up a colonial empire, which was to me, the whole fun of EUIV (and therefore, this mechanic change has effectively ruined the game for me). And while I'm at it, I'll also point out that the idea of preventing the gameplay technique of "feeding vassals" also seems poorly thought out, breaks gameplay, and only results in even worse gaming techniques (feeding allies/neighbors and doing the DoW/annex thing over and over, instead of feeding your puppet states is hardly an improvement in any possible way).

And, I guess, minor rant, this is why I generally despise "cloud" stuff - for reasons completely out of my control, something I invested countless hours in is effectively destroyed, and I'm just SoL. (The Ironman autosave kicked in a few days after this all fired, so my game is irretrievably **ruined**. That was a fun month of playtime. ) Ugh, guess it's time to find something else to do with my leisure time. With Steam achievements and the Ironman thing, PI really needs to be doing more QA on changes that impact these games, and really dropped the ball. I know I'm not the only one who's had long hours of playtime wiped out by this patch, and frankly, after having it happen to me, am not sure whether I'll be able to bring myself to pick up EUIV again after my experience with this patch. <sigh>

 

[aitaituo]

Are you sure the issue isn't that your trade setup got borked from the new trade routes? In my experience, colonies gave very little direct income, but made me fabulously wealthy almost exclusively from trade, even when I owned obscene proportions of the new world.

Also, if you had started this game in 1.4, by now you would have no doubt raised tariffs considerably. At loading, you are literally getting the least possible income from your colonies between low tariffs and a probably sub-optimal trade setup.

 

[Captain Gars]

Based on the patch notes, I was under the understanding that my colonial empire was only supposed to break into colonial nations if I lost the cores on those provinces... which, I didn't, unless the patch somehow deleted my cores in the New World.

That line in the patch notes was unfortunately badly worded (and I have edited it now). You haveing cores or not on those provinces make no difference. Five provinces in the same colonial region will allways form a new colonial nation. What the patch notes meant to say was that your cores would be removed upon this happening. Sorry about that.

 

[DrunkenScotsman]

Are you sure the issue isn't that your trade setup got borked from the new trade routes? In my experience, colonies gave very little direct income, but made me fabulously wealthy almost exclusively from trade, even when I owned obscene proportions of the new world.

Trade is probably part of it, but I did also have tariff efficiency of well over 100% (I wanna say it was around 150%), mostly because of having a huge number of light ships. I had a group of 10 light ships in each trade node in the New World (protecting trade), which gave me a big boost to trade, but also jammed my tariff modifier high enough that I had effectively eliminated the -90% distant overseas income penalty. By not colonizing inland, I was able to keep my number of heavy and light ships almost equal to my number of overseas provinces, which meant a significant amount of direct income from my colonial holdings, yes. I can't exactly check anymore, but my colonial provinces generally gave me about double their base tax income in direct income, between tax/tariffs and production income. (Not to mention all that gold in the former Mayan and Incan empires that used to flow directly into my coffers.)

That line in the patch notes was unfortunately badly worded (and I have edited it now). You haveing cores or not on those provinces make no difference. Five provinces in the same colonial region will allways form a new colonial nation. What the patch notes meant to say was that your cores would be removed upon this happening. Sorry about that.

Well, thanks for clearing that up. I'm still hoping you guys reverse course, or make the colonial nations dynamic optional, as I hate it... but at least I'm not confused about it, so that's something, I suppose.

 

[ChildeR]

Well, thanks for clearing that up. I'm still hoping you guys reverse course, or make the colonial nations dynamic optional, as I hate it... but at least I'm not confused about it, so that's something, I suppose.

It's a single line modding change to turn them off. In defines.lua make this a large enough number: MAX_CROWN_COLONIES = 4

 

[zodium]

It's a single line modding change to turn them off. In defines.lua make this a large enough number: MAX_CROWN_COLONIES = 4

It's an ironman game.

 

[ChildeR]

It's an ironman game.

And it wouldn't help anyway, since the colonial nations have formed and won't go away. My suggestion was meant for future games.

 

[zodium]

And it wouldn't help anyway, since the colonial nations have formed and won't go away. My suggestion was meant for future games.

Fair point. I've stopped playing Ironman except for the odd quick jab at an achievement, in any case.

 

[redmark]

Where I think Paradox have made an error is in putting (giving away?) too much of the supposed DLC functionality in the free 1.4 patch. Until a post by Johan a few days ago, everyone had assumed that the new colonial nations mechanic (as well as the ability to play them) was DLC. No one seemed to have a problem with that.

Ironman (which personally I don't care about) makes it more important for Paradox to ensure that patches really are relatively 'minor' - bugfixes, tweaks, incremental improvements. Major changes to mechanics might allow a save to be loaded, but it's clearly 'broken' for some users if their carefully constructed global empire vanishes literally overnight.

 

[CzechKronner]

In my Ironman WC attempt as France (which I am going to succeed in, I can see that already; started in version 1.3), I lost all my colonies in NA/SA to the new Colonial Countries. No big deal.
I just hope I won't have to conquer them too.

 

[roman566]

I just checked... I always thought that colonial nations are CoP only, not the new vanilla...
That's just... bah, don't care any longer. Going to play EU3 from now on.

 

[lordelenath]

You don't, WC is now achievable by directly or indirectly owning all provinces (basically: no independent state but you).

 

[DrunkenScotsman]

Ironman (which personally I don't care about) makes it more important for Paradox to ensure that patches really are relatively 'minor' - bugfixes, tweaks, incremental improvements. Major changes to mechanics might allow a save to be loaded, but it's clearly 'broken' for some users if their carefully constructed global empire vanishes literally overnight.

Yeah. Hopefully I'll get over it in a little bit and get back to the game... but I don't see bothering with Ironman again after this. Kind of a pity, as achievement-hunting (at least for the non-insane achievements) did add an interesting new level to the game for me. You know, mixed it up a little bit and helped deviate from the old mechanic of start with progressively harder countries and conquering as much of the world as you could before the timer ran out. <sigh> Oh well.

 

[Slargos]

Where I think Paradox have made an error is in putting (giving away?) too much of the supposed DLC functionality in the free 1.4 patch. Until a post by Johan a few days ago, everyone had assumed that the new colonial nations mechanic (as well as the ability to play them) was DLC. No one seemed to have a problem with that.

Ironman (which personally I don't care about) makes it more important for Paradox to ensure that patches really are relatively 'minor' - bugfixes, tweaks, incremental improvements. Major changes to mechanics might allow a save to be loaded, but it's clearly 'broken' for some users if their carefully constructed global empire vanishes literally overnight.

See, people are going to moan whatever they do. If they do as you suggest, they'll be accused of extorting their customers by forcing them to buy the DLC to get what will be termed "minor improvements". Sometimes you just have to implement a change and watch the fallout. I believe more people will enjoy the change than will be temporarily inconvenienced and most of the inconvenienced will realize that it's just a game and that their lives aren't ruined because a save file is.

 

[redmark]

See, people are going to moan whatever they do. If they do as you suggest, they'll be accused of extorting their customers by forcing them to buy the DLC to get what will be termed "minor improvements". Sometimes you just have to implement a change and watch the fallout. I believe more people will enjoy the change than will be temporarily inconvenienced and most of the inconvenienced will realize that it's just a game and that their lives aren't ruined because a save file is.

But that's how the DLC was being discussed without real issue, prior to a post from Johan about colonial nations being in 1.4. Apart from people saying they had no interest in the DLC, there was no real complaint about those features not being free in 1.4.

 

[CzechKronner]

You don't, WC is now achievable by directly or indirectly owning all provinces (basically: no independent state but you).

Yes, but the question is whether this change will affect an ironman game that was started with EU IV v1.3 (i.e. the WC achievement had a different definition when this game was started).

 

[desiriel]

Never used Ironman myself for these same (foreseeable) problems. But I also think that PI made a good point to offer as much free content as possible. You can't be unhappy when a publisher offers you such things for free nowadays. Matter is that maybe all the new colonial mechanics as a whole should have been reserved for the DLC and the rest implemented in the vanilla.

 

[Konair0s]

You can't be unhappy when a publisher offers you such things for free nowadays.

Oh, come on. I am tired about this argument. It is just a 10$-20$-30$ thing for a computer game, not a Lamborghini. I am glad that someone saved their school dinner money, but "free" does not automatically mean "good".

 

[quikesan]

Hi,

Exactly the same thing happened to me. In 1680, playing as Spain I owned all America from NY down to Argentina (Canada is British). My finances were such that I was earning about 20 ducats per month.
Then, the 1.4 happened with its colonial vassals crap and my empire became a piece of ####. My finances are now that I loose 50 ducats per month. All the Adm points that I spent in coring all freaking America are now completely useless, and I cannot recruit a single unit in America (since I don't own provinces there anymore). So, apparently, now colonizing America its completely pointless, because once you have 5 regions in a colony area, they become a nation that sucks your power and protection at a ridiculous price, and will irremediably become independent at some point. So, it seems to me that now colonizing is pointless.
When I found out after unclicking pause.... I almost throw the computer out of the window.

Of course, I'm open to be convinced that the new colonial system is better, but it seems to me that it makes colonizing America totally unattractive and not worthy.

I will try to disable the colonial vassals through modding (deleting colonial areas file, or increasing the number of regions for a vassal colony to emerge). Do you think this could break something, or disable other 1.4 features?

Apart from the new colonial system, the rest of the 1.4 patch looks good.


cheers

 

[Bergioyn]

I gave up on Ironman after series of cloud-autosave issues cheating me of achievements (the main reason I played Ironman), but I agree about the colonial nations being a bad direction to go. It'd be fine if it was optional (lessens the micromanagement needed) but seeing half of my empire just taking off immediately after unpause sucked really bad eventhough it wasn't an Ironman save.