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unmerged(29041)

Amnistiado por viejuno
May 12, 2004
5.496
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[size=+1]The cost of historical colonization for Spain:[/size]​

The conditions for this test were as follow:
1) Spain held all her European possessions at each time. Navarra from 1512, Low Countries and French-Comte from 1516, Milan from 1535, Netherlands was released in 1590, Rousillon lost in 1640, etc. This means my income was higher than what SPA AI usually gets.
2) Explorers and conquistadores were used extensively to reduce the cost of colonization. The AI never does that.
3) Provinces were considered terminally colonized when short one colonist from city if they had positive growth. Over the course of a few years they reach city on their own. That means 9 colonists if no natives, or 8 colonists if friendly/neutral natives. The AI tends to colonize all the way to city if it has not forgotten about the colony.
4) Trading Posts were established previously only if low chance of colonization, and pushed up several levels only if very low chance of colonization or very negative growth in the province.
5) Colonization was given a high priority, just below promotions, and on par with conversions. Therefore the amount of money dedicated to colonization diminished when governors became available, and when conversions were under way.

Given all the above, I consider that the cost of colonization for the AI is around 20% higher than the one reported here.
Code:
year expense colonists completed colonies (number of colonists)

1493	102	2	0
1494	142	4	0
1495	134	5	0
1496	126	5	0
1497	152	4	0
1498	131	5	0
1499	199	5	0
-----------------------------------
1490s	986	30	0
-----------------------------------
1500	205	6	0
1501	271	7	Tortuga (7)
1502	229	7	Antigua (10), Barahona (10)
1503	122	3	0
1504	193	6	0
1505	220	5	Guadeloupe (14)
1506	0	0	0
1507	187	4	0
1508	137	3	0
1509	135	3	0
-----------------------------------
1500s	1699	44	4
-----------------------------------
1510	255	6	Guantanamo (6)
1511	152	3	Puerto Rico (12)
1512	147	3	Moron (4)
1513	194	4	0
1514	174	4	0
1515	216	5	0
1516	202	5	Aires (11)
1517	256	6	0
1518	257	7	0
1519	241	7	0
-----------------------------------
1510s	2094	50	4
-----------------------------------
1520	232	5	Havana (14)
1521	234	5	St. Thomas (14), Isthmus (12)
1522	155	4	0
1523	252	6	Dominica (9)
1524	236	6	0
1525	266	5	0
1526	259	5	0
1527	257	5	0
1528	280	7	Cartagena (9)
1529	355	8	Barbados (10)
-----------------------------------
1520s	2526	57	6
-----------------------------------
1530	322	7	0
1531	300	6	0
1532	269	5	Tobago & Trinidad (10)
1533	339	6	Tehuacan (10)
1534	290	5	0
1535	417	6	0
1536	260	4	0
1537	390	6	0
1538	452	7	Caribe (12)
1539	417	8	Cuyuni (19)
-----------------------------------
1530s	3456	60	4
-----------------------------------
1540	346	7	Guatemala (12)
1541	392	8	Mazatlan (8)
1542	286	4	0
1543	283	5	Yarumal (16)
1544	216	4	0
1545	210	4	0
1546	205	4	Honduras (11)
1547	255	5	0
1548	239	4	Nicaragua (10)
1549	251	4	0
-----------------------------------
1540s	2683	49	5
-----------------------------------
1550	265	5	0
1551	254	4	Guyana (13)
1552	0	0	0 (unhappiness event)
1553	0	0	0
1554	171	4	0
1555	158	3	0
1556	246	6	0
1557	228	4	0
1558	325	8	0
1559	161	6	0
-----------------------------------
1550s	1808	40	1
-----------------------------------
1560	290	5	Yaraguai (20), Mosquitos (11)
1561	384	6	0
1562	421	6	0
1563	495	7	0
1564	472	8	0
1565	430	7	Parana (12)
1566	449	7	0
1567	432	7	0
1568	408	6	0
1569	505	8	Campeche (11)
-----------------------------------
1560s	4286	67	4
-----------------------------------
1570	194	3	0
1571	306	5	0
1572	301	5	Tocuvo (24), Yucatan (15), Valparaiso (9)
1573	130	2	0
1574	339	6	Maracaibo (18)
1575	111	2	0
1576	145	4	0
1577	112	3	Luzon (13)
1578	61	4	Copetonas (12)
1579	103	3	0
-----------------------------------
1570s	1802	37	6
-----------------------------------
1580	161	3	0
1581	272	5	0
1582	285	7	0
1583	87	1	0
1584	153	2	0
1585	216	3	0
1586	210	3	0
1587	268	4	San Matias (8)
1588	192	3	0
1589	222	3	0
-----------------------------------
1580s	2066	34	1
-----------------------------------
1590	202	3	Talca (9)
1591	140	2	0
1592	140	2	0
1593	166	3	Mindoro (11)
1594	129	3	0
1595	160	3	0
1596	178	4	0
1597	305	4	Chubut (9)
1598	302	4	0
1599	231	4	0
-----------------------------------
1590s	1953	32	3
-----------------------------------

Statistics for 1500-1599:
Total money spent in colonists: 24373 ducats
Average money spent in colonists per year: 243.7 ducats
Total number of provinces terminally colonized: 38
Average cost of colonizing one province (including partially colonized provinces in calculation): 595 ducats
Estimated average cost of colonizing one province for the AI: over 700 ducats
Average number of colonists required per province: 12 (12.5 for the AI)
Average speed of colonization in this test: 1 province every 2.6 years
Maximum speed of colonization if unlimited money and perfect DPs: 1 province every 1.7 years
Speed required to colonize 77 provinces by 1700: 1 province every 2.5 years

Comments: By spending all non-essential money in colonization, I was barely able to keep up with historical colonization during the 1500s. I was running a good economy, with controlled inflation, although short on manufactories, as I dedicated that money to colonization. This was done at the expense of not getting involved in wars. I was supposed to be fighting France in Italy, and the Ottomans in the Mediterranean but I kept out of alliances and peaceful. I did fight the rebels in the Low Countries. My trade was as always much better than for the AI. The AI is also commonly dragged to alliances wars, and wastes money in a thousand things.

Conclusion: The AI is chronically short on money for colonization. To prevent the player from colonizing the entire world, colonization has been made too expensive for the AI. The AI needs to raise 700 ducats per province that it is supposed to colonize, and this comes to about 280 ducats per year for Spain between 1500 and 1700. I seriously doubt that it can raise much more than 90-120 ducats per year for colonization, given initial census tax and AI priority for expenses. This estimate fits well with the observation of AI colonization, that is between 1/2 and 1/3 of required to be historical. The problem is going to be made more acute with the increased number of provinces in the new map, as the cost is not going to be reduced. This situation can be extended to Portugal, England, and to a lesser extent to France and Russia.

Possible solutions:
A) Reduce the cost of colonization by half. I don’t know if it is possible. I know climate and natives affect, and we do not want to change those.
B) Provide the required funds.
C) Accept that colonization will never be historical and expect the situation to worsen with the new map.
 
Great analysis. Is the problem similar for other nations, or are most other nations capable of handing their historic duties?

If Spain alone is the problem, then I'd suggest we put in events to help Spain. Aside from simply giving money/colonists, one simple approach would be events that give +500 population boosts to random American provinces. This might actually be better than giving money, since ducats could easily end up being spent on troops to support a useless war or somesuch. Sometimes population boosts would hit the wrong provinces, of course, but it would help.

Or boosts could be done more carefully/historically, giving events that hit specific provinces in specific timeframes that correspond to regions that were colonized without significant support of the crown.
 
Solution B will not work. Spain gets an event which gives it 10000d, and it tends to spend all that money on declaring itself the defender of the counter-reform faith, which can have no defender. So, if you want something fixed, A is the only option. C is just giving up.
 
There are random events to help ai boost colony levels, but like all random events, they must compete with every other random event.

As for helping specific nations, i'd like to see some tests for the other major colonizers before deciding on anything.
 
doktarr said:
If Spain alone is the problem, then I'd suggest we put in events to help Spain. Aside from simply giving money/colonists, one simple approach would be events that give +500 population boosts to random American provinces. Sometimes population boosts would hit the wrong provinces, of course, but it would help.

Or boosts could be done more carefully/historically, giving events that hit specific provinces in specific timeframes that correspond to regions that were colonized without significant support of the crown.

I'm fairly certain that Portugal will have much the same problems in colonizing their provinces in Africa and Brazil, but I can't speak for the English or anyone else. I need to run a test evaluating the effects of thinning out the horde of mid-15th Century explorers that Portugal currently gets and I can certainly take some notes on my colonization efforts.

I think a combination of doktarr's ideas about random events and targeted events (when justified) can materially aid in recreating the historic levels of colonization although we'll need to be careful in how many people we give out. I've already proposed several such events from IDLF's EP mod for Fernando Po and there's another for Luanda that we could also use after stripping out the structures that he bestows with such abandon.
 
doktarr said:
Great analysis. Is the problem similar for other nations, or are most other nations capable of handing their historic duties?
The conclusion is easily extended to other nations, because the cost is basically fixed at around 700 ducats per province fully colonized. I am sure Portugal is in trouble too, because it is a poorer country than Spain, even if I don't really know how many of her colonies should be TPs, which are much cheaper. I am also quite sure that England might be in trouble also, because it is a rather poor country and has a small window to colonize quite a lot. France is probably not in a lot of trouble, because it is one of the richest countries around and she doesn't have to colonize that much, but we can easily calculate it. Russia has a lot of time to colonize, and her colonization is much cheaper due to land contact. Her problems seem to be with jumping over Mongolia. But given that she never reaches the Pacific it is worth checking her out. Netherlands is probably the least affected of all.

I don't think it is urgent that we find a solution, we have lived with the problem for years, although it clearly worsened when the number of colonists was jumped from 7 to 10.

But it is important that we start to think about it, so we find the best solution. The problem is serious now, but it will become much worse with the new map. I did these tests about a year ago, and I have been thinking about it on and off since. I have mixed feelings about the issue, as I did not like IDLF approach that much. The big colonizers don't need any help to further dominate the game, they just need to colonize faster and cheaper. I wish the number of colonists required could be moddable.

In a way, the events that I wrote to help give a temporal direction to the player and get some key provinces, like Isthmus, colonized on time, were a limited test on possible solutions. Their main problem is that the event does not work if the province is a TP, and it is sort of wasted if the colony is fully built.
 
Fodoron said:
T

I don't think it is urgent that we find a solution, we have lived with the problem for years, although it clearly worsened when the number of colonists was jumped from 7 to 10.

Fodoron is correct here in that it will cost more to achieve a city , but what people fail to realise is the other greater concern.

TIME

with a change of 3 more colonists to form a city, it basically takes an extra 1 to 2 years, now multiply those years by every city that the POR (or others) need to colonise and they could be 50 years behind very quickly in comparing it to the historical times.

People will then blame lack of money or the AI files etc etc.

This is one reason I wrote my AI files for Portugal slightly ahead of historical times to reflect this. (if you get POR correct the others nations are easier)

my conclusion is either

1. can we adjust the parameters to reflect that 5 is enough to form a city.

or

2. increase the colonist from 100 to 200 for the same cost , so that only 5 trips is needed to form a 1000 population city.
this will save time and money. :rolleyes:
 
Toio said:
my conclusion is either

1. can we adjust the parameters to reflect that 5 is enough to form a city.

or

2. increase the colonist from 100 to 200 for the same cost , so that only 5 trips is needed to form a 1000 population city.
this will save time and money. :rolleyes:

I don't think either of these is moddable
 
Regarding solution A, we could cut the cost of colonising for the AI in half by having non-random province-specific AI events that boost the population of a colony by ~500. That way, a player still has to keep up the normal way, but once the AI owns a province it automatically gets half of the colony finished for it.

Code:
event = {
         id = xxx#provid
         trigger = {
                    owned = { province = #provid which = -1 }
                    ai = yes
                   }
         country = #Historical Owner

         name = "AI_EVENT"
         desc = " "
         style = 1

         date = { year = 1419 } #You could alternatively use the date of historical colonization
         offset = 30
         deathdate = { year = 1821 }

         action_a = {
                     name = " "
                     command = { type = population which = #provid value = 500 }
                    }
         }

After that, you'd just need a list of each province's historical owner and a lot of cyber elbow grease.

Aberration/Interregnum uses similar events for adding cores without impacting performance noticeably, so I don't think the volume of events would be a problem.
 
Reveilled said:
Regarding solution A, we could cut the cost of colonising for the AI in half by having non-random province-specific AI events that boost the population of a colony by ~500. That way, a player still has to keep up the normal way, but once the AI owns a province it automatically gets half of the colony finished for it.

Code:
event = {
         id = xxx#provid
         trigger = {
                    owned = { province = #provid which = -1 }
                    ai = yes
                   }
         country = #Historical Owner

         name = "AI_EVENT"
         desc = " "
         style = 1

         date = { year = 1419 } #You could alternatively use the date of historical colonization
         offset = 30
         deathdate = { year = 1821 }

         action_a = {
                     name = " "
                     command = { type = population which = #provid value = 500 }
                    }
         }

After that, you'd just need a list of each province's historical owner and a lot of cyber elbow grease.

Aberration/Interregnum uses similar events for adding cores without impacting performance noticeably, so I don't think the volume of events would be a problem.

Depending on preferences this could also be province-specific instead of nation specific (so that it is for all colonizers, not just the historical one) and it does not have to be AI only. Also the population boost can be adjusted to finetune the cost of colonization.
 
Reveilled said:
Regarding solution A, we could cut the cost of colonising for the AI in half by having non-random province-specific AI events that boost the population of a colony by ~500. That way, a player still has to keep up the normal way, but once the AI owns a province it automatically gets half of the colony finished for it.


After that, you'd just need a list of each province's historical owner and a lot of cyber elbow grease.

Aberration/Interregnum uses similar events for adding cores without impacting performance noticeably, so I don't think the volume of events would be a problem.
Just one problem. The province becomes owned when a TP is planted, the event triggers and is wasted, as TPs have no population variable to be modified. The issue is further complicated by AI colonization patterns, where a provinces can be a TP for ages and then be colonized by six colonists arriving in the same week, only to be left at that level for ages, or be completed over the next year.
It is worth trying, but I see the player benefitting a lot from his knowledge that the boost is going to come in X time. We want the exact opposite, as the player is capable of running an overheated economy and pay for unlimited expansion. I think the "AI only" would be the only alternative if we believe this is the most reasonable approach.
 
Fodoron said:
Just one problem. The province becomes owned when a TP is planted, the event triggers and is wasted, as TPs have no population variable to be modified. The issue is further complicated by AI colonization patterns, where a provinces can be a TP for ages and then be colonized by six colonists arriving in the same week, only to be left at that level for ages, or be completed over the next year.

Hmm...if we make it specific to the historical coloniser, could this be remedied by inserting a culture trigger? TPs, if I remember rightly, don't change the culture of the province as colonies do.

Actually, we could use a not trigger to fire the event when the province isn't the base culture, which would leave the events open to being country non-specific.

It is worth trying, but I see the player benefitting a lot from his knowledge that the boost is going to come in X time. We want the exact opposite, as the player is capable of running an overheated economy and pay for unlimited expansion. I think the "AI only" would be the only alternative if we believe this is the most reasonable approach.

I think that halving the cost of colonisation is too extreme for the player without seriously changing the way explorers and conquistadors are handed out. If, for example, England had too few explorers and conquistadors to start agressively colonising North America before the 17th century, it might be justifiable, but as it is colonisation for most countries is already too easy when player controlled.

I think there are three options here:
A) No help for the player
B) Help the player, but not as much as the AI (only raise the population 200, or something)
C) Help the player only in special cases (or hinder, say by boosting Quebec's population above 5000 if French colonised and captured by someone else, to stop it changing to the owner's culture)
 
Reveilled said:
Hmm...if we make it specific to the historical coloniser, could this be remedied by inserting a culture trigger? TPs, if I remember rightly, don't change the culture of the province as colonies do.

Actually, we could use a not trigger to fire the event when the province isn't the base culture, which would leave the events open to being country non-specific.



I think that halving the cost of colonisation is too extreme for the player without seriously changing the way explorers and conquistadors are handed out. If, for example, England had too few explorers and conquistadors to start agressively colonising North America before the 17th century, it might be justifiable, but as it is colonisation for most countries is already too easy when player controlled.

I think there are three options here:
A) No help for the player
B) Help the player, but not as much as the AI (only raise the population 200, or something)
C) Help the player only in special cases (or hinder, say by boosting Quebec's population above 5000 if French colonised and captured by someone else, to stop it changing to the owner's culture)
Actually Reveilled, that might be an excellent solution.

My personal inclination would be province specific events that boost population for any AI country and for the human nation that is the historical colonizer. Not every province should get them. The interior of Venezuela, Brasil, Guyanna, etc was colonized very late and with difficulties, and other areas were not colonized in EU2 period.
 
Fodoron said:
Actually Reveilled, that might be an excellent solution.

My personal inclination would be province specific events that boost population for any AI country and for the human nation that is the historical colonizer. Not every province should get them. The interior of Venezuela, Brasil, Guyanna, etc was colonized very late and with difficulties, and other areas were not colonized in EU2 period.

I would tend to agree, with some exceptions. Since you had to go all out to maintain Spain's historical pace, helping the player would probably be a good idea there, but particularly England, which can start its colonies a good century before it historically did, gets a large enough advantage there that I'm not sure help is needed.
 
Reveilled said:
I would tend to agree, with some exceptions. Since you had to go all out to maintain Spain's historical pace, helping the player would probably be a good idea there, but particularly England, which can start its colonies a good century before it historically did, gets a large enough advantage there that I'm not sure help is needed.
Actually we can add a date trigger for the date it was historically colonized. AI England suffers enormously to get the resources to colonize. As a player you can choose between early and expensive or historical and cheap.
 
Fodoron said:
Actually we can add a date trigger for the date it was historically colonized. AI England suffers enormously to get the resources to colonize. As a player you can choose between early and expensive or historical and cheap.

That sounds like a good idea.

My only concern there would be that player England would then use the early Explorers to snap up colonies in Africa, South America and Asia and then go for the North American colonies when it's cheaper. But I guess that's not much different from player Portugal stealing the New World from Spain.
 
Reveilled said:
That sounds like a good idea.

My only concern there would be that player England would then use the early Explorers to snap up colonies in Africa, South America and Asia and then go for the North American colonies when it's cheaper. But I guess that's not much different from player Portugal stealing the New World from Spain.
Ahistorical playing is not forbidden, just not encouraged ;)
 
Reveilled said:
That sounds like a good idea.

My only concern there would be that player England would then use the early Explorers to snap up colonies in Africa, South America and Asia and then go for the North American colonies when it's cheaper. But I guess that's not much different from player Portugal stealing the New World from Spain.

The english player would under the current setup never gain cheap colonies in africa. That is reserved for AIs and a human portugal (at least for those parts of Africa that should be colonized by Portugal)