Tinto Talks #25 - 14th of August 2024

[SaintDaveUK]

And once the charter is set up how does the actual migration work? Do pops only migrate to one location at a time? To all of them at the same time? Is the system weighted by climate, trade good or something of the like?

The focus is always on a specific target location until it flips, then it moves to another one. Currently it's weighted towards coastal locations of high population.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

With the granularity of of PC have you considered adding a “county” rank?

Yep there is a County country rank, the lowest of the low.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Will there be a way to simulate something like the Portuguese circumnavigation of Africa, which needed very small, one-location outposts? For most of colonial history, European powers didn't own whole provinces in Africa and Asia, only single locations as trade and military bases.

Just stop the colonial charter once you have your single location outpost flipped.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

How do you avoid that leading to eye-searing bordergore?

Just like real life: send in the marines

 

[SaintDaveUK]

That's only partially true tbh. Whilst indeed the bulk of conquests that happened in the 18th and 19th century could be construed as a conquest (but also local factions pledging allegiance to Britain in order to preserve their power and/or defeat a local rival), most of the colonization of asia and africa until then was based on the construction of small trading outposts that were beneficial for both parties.

Is there any way for European powers to establish these minor trading outposts without resorting to war (as often was the case), or at least without a full-blown conquest war?

Yes all of this is possible through diplomacy, trade, and buildings

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Will Norway be able to colonize Northern America early due to Greenland's proximity? Or does Greenland not count as Norway for the sake of exploration/colonization range due to Greenland & Iceland being a subject nation, and not direct ownership?

Do Iceland & Greenland count as colonial nations? Probably not, but would be interesting to know for sure!

Greenland and Iceland count as their own countries and nothing is stopping them from exploring and colonizing Canada before anyone else. Except their tiny tiny economies that won't be able to reliably sustain exploration missions, colonies, or even themselves, I guess.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Wait, you brought up something relevant. Can pops migrate to "empty" provinces ("going native", etc)? Will Greenland get worse with time with people assimilating into local tribes, going back to Scandinavia, or dying off, to the point the country is unsustainable? Would the locations owned by Greenland become tagless then?

If a location becomes 0 population, it will become tagless/uncolonised

 

[SaintDaveUK]

I’m already preparing for a “Greenland WC no war colonization only” run

Greenland is actually a great place to learn the way the game works, as its so hard to sustain yourself and it basically becomes a survival sim where every choice relating to food and population counts. Good luck with your WC!

 

[SaintDaveUK]

Didn't you explicitly mention expecting minorities as a way to boost a colony

Expelling minorities solves the problems relating to minorities being in your homeland by moving those problems to your colonies. Out of sight, out of mind.

 

[SaintDaveUK]

you might consider, instead of 0, the threshold to be 1000, just like the colonization threshold. If you have more than 1000 and met the %conditions, you control the location. If you have less than 1000, then you lose the control of the location

That's most of Iceland wiped on the first tick

 

[Pavía]

1. Does this mean that for instance as Spain I can colonize morroco even though morroco is fully owned already by other contries?

2. How does this work for Spain? This model of colonization works for England but not for Spain. Spain "owned" via claim most of america already without having to send thousands of people to leave there. In fact a lot of spanish lands in america were empty, there werent thousands of spanish per location. Thonkin of places like California, all of southern modern USA, and all of Argentina patagonia etc. Poking @Pavía

1. Only if the difference in power projection is big enough to allow you to colonize it. So it's probably going to be much faster to directly start conquering them, than waiting for the PP to grow so much.
2. There are ways of getting 'soft control' over a location and its resources without directly owning it (which is kind of what happened historically with the misiones and presidios in some of the most remote Spanish holdings in America). More about this the next week.

 

[Johan]

Nations that were colonized in this period were not colonized because they didn't have techs as good as the europeans but because they had lower population, population concentration and often lacked the means to push back the colonizers. Who can colonize who should really be a balance of power thing rather than a tech thing.

This system allows for it. You need to be able to move enough population over that you get close to a majority of the target location for it to flip. Not really something you would do in most places, except a columbian exchanged ravaged america, or later in the game where the european countries may have gotten a significant advantage.

Sure, getting a single location in west africa may be possible by 16th century, but with the coastal locations having about 8 to 15k pops in them, even with the very decentralized peoples living there then, would still require at least 40% of the pops to be your culture and religion, which is non-trivial to move in those amount, especially to areas with diseases killing you off.

Just colonising entire Ijaw in West Africa requires at least 60,000 pops moved there, not accounting for diseases and natives disliking it killing of someone. That is at least 50 years with all the techs of that age and a cabinet focuing on supporting it..

 

[Johan]

I really hope the landless countries are playable and "viable" (hard but not certain death).

We'll talk more about them next week.

 

[Johan]

One thing that came to mind: let’s say I’m france, and I’m at war with a England with many colonies, if my fleet were to fully blockade the uk, all of their coast’s blockaded, how would that affect their colonies and the trade that comes from their colonies? Can we fully cut an island nation from trade? Can we starve their colonies by blocking their overlord from sending stuff to them?

The speed of colonising depends a lot of maritime of your home region.

 

[Johan]

This seems easily exploitable. Surely a player can get their pp much higher than AI and basically colonize everyone no?

You need to be at least one age ahead to do it.

 

[Johan]

Can you create as many colonial nations as you like or there's a limit like, let's say, colonial regions?

one per province in theory

 

[Johan]

PS. questions:

1. As long as they meet the power projection requirements, can all coutries colonize? Or do they require some tech, law, etc?
2. Can landless countries colonize?
3. Considering the power projection requirements, is it expected that the major new world powers (Incas, Aztecs, Mayas) will be able or not able to colonize neighbouring countries at the game start?

1 - need advances for it that exists in the age of traditions
2 - no, they dont own land.
3 - expected, they will us the another great mechanic for painting maps, ie.. conquest!

 

[Johan]

With the granularity of of PC have you considered adding a “county” rank?

yes, thats the lowest one.

 

[Johan]

Is it possible for this action to target a specific minority within a province (eg send the Catholics of Liverpool to America, but not the Anglicans)? Or would it just send everyone in Liverpool to Roanoke without accounting for religion?

Actually, it will send any pop from it.

 

[Johan]

Fantastic system!!

Is there anything in the works for trade posts and their very different status compared to settler colonies?

Yes, there are other mechanics for those that will be talked about "soon"