• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Tinto Talks #25 - 14th of August 2024

Welcome to another Tinto Talks, the 25th one, the Happy Wednesday where we give you lots of information about our upcoming, still secret and unannounced game, with the codename of Project Caesar.

Today we delve into the mechanics of colonialism, another aspect of painting the map.

Power Projection
One important factor that has a big impact on the colonialism game is Power Projection. Each country has a power projection value, and it is primarily to allow a country to be able to exploit those with a lower power projection. Power Projection is very dependent on how advanced a country is, where each age has an advance that gives you about +10 of it. It is also modified by societal values, rank of the country and more. One important aspect is that the +10 advance for Age of Traditions is in the advance tree from the Meritocracy.

You do not gain Power Projection by doing specific actions, like in EU4, but it's entirely based on your country's current setup.

power_projection.png

Sadly, the “Sweden is properly balanced” modifier has not been developed yet..


Colonial Charters
So, how does colonization work in ‘Project Caesar'? Well, you colonize by starting a colonial charter in a province for an upfront fee in gold. Then each month some of the population will be moving from the homeland to the colonial charter, until all locations that can be owned are owned by you.

In almost all cases, there are people living in a location you want to colonize, so for you to be able to have a charter to flip to your ownership there are a few rules. A location needs to have at least 1,000 people living there, and a certain percentage of the population needs to follow your state religion and be of an accepted culture of your country.

colonial_progress.png

Progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged!

This percentage depends heavily on the difference in power projection of your country and the countries in the location. Yes, I said countries in plural, and next week you will understand what we are talking about. This has the implication that at the start of the game, Yuán could in theory start colonizing Europe, if it only had been closer and discovered. How the countries and pops already present in a location react to your colonization is something that will be clarified in a later Tinto Talks.

As long as you have a colonial charter, people from your owned locations will start moving to the locations in the colonial charter. The amount of people moving is rather low in the beginning of the game, but there are advances that will increase it in later ages. Societal values have an impact on it, and so does the distance to the colony.

One thing to take into account is that colonization does not magically create new pops out of thin air, and being able to create a huge colonial empire is not a feasible strategy as a low population country.

monthly_migration.png

Full speed ahead! Only 40 months per location to get to 1,000 pops!

Colonial Charters are not free, and moving people are definitely not free, and countries need to support them. The higher the population in the target province, the more expensive it is to colonize, the distance also has an impact, but colonizing in the same area or region as your capital is significantly cheaper. You can always cut costs to your charters, but that will also reduce the amount of pops moving every month.

colony_cost.png

Not too expensive, so we can easily afford it..


Colonial Nations
When a colonial charter is finished, and all possible locations in that province have become yours, you have multiple options for what you want to happen to that charter. If the province is close, and you think you can get decent enough control over it, you may want to just keep the locations as a part of your home country. You also have the option to have the province form a new colonial nation, or have it join an adjacent colonial nation.

Colonial Nations are a subject type that can not be annexed, but has a few advantages, or disadvantages depending on your point of view, in that while they start transferring less gold than a vassal would, they also grant some manpower and sailors, while also giving part of their merchants to their overlord.

To clarify, you can make colonial nations anywhere on the map where you can colonize.

Supporting the Colonies
If you feel that your charters or colonial nations are not growing enough, there are two tools you can use in the cabinet. Both of these become available from advances in the Age of Discovery

With ‘Supporting a Colonial Charter’ you will move pops from a province you decide upon and to the colonial charter you decided. The amount of pops getting moved depends on your current colonial migration capacities, so when you use it you can about double the migration to a specific

With the ‘Supporting Colonies’ you can move 100 pops every month from a selected province to a target province in a colonial nation subject. This can be useful when you want to boost a colony and you have overpopulated provinces at home, or when you think your country would be in a better situation if you could expel some minorities.

Restrictions on Colonization
There are several ways which can block other nations from colonizing certain places, including diplomatic treaties. At the start of the game, Norrland, Finland, Karelia and Kola are under the claims of Sweden and Novgorod who have divided the area between them.

We also have the situation ‘Treaty of Tordesillas’ where the New World will be split among two Catholic powers, causing lots of interesting dynamics.


Next week we will be back to talk about the difference between countries, and why owning locations is not all there is to life…

fun_map.png

And what is this teaser for next week about?
 
  • 181Love
  • 135Like
  • 7
  • 4
  • 3
Reactions:
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.
 
  • 97Like
  • 21
  • 12Love
  • 10
  • 3Haha
  • 3
Reactions:
If there is already a large native population in a province and you seek to turn this into a colonial nation with your culture and religion, is there a way of expelling, assimilating or otherwise dealing with the native population beyond what is available for minorities in your European locations?
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Arguably the British colonization of India was more of a traditional conquest than how we depict Colonial Charters, as the European administrators never outnumbered the locals.
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?
 
  • 9Like
  • 3
Reactions:
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?
 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
1. The condition of "requires certain amount of people with your state religion and culture" to colonise a province may be problematic in some case. Like what if you expelled heretics to the colony? Can't you finish it because it's mostlywrong religion even if it's thousands of your people? Or what if the country owning the province you try to colonise is independent from you, but it's the same culture and religion? Can you instantly get it?

2. As far as i understand it provinces of any country can be colonised as long as their power projection is small enough in comparison to the coloniser. Does this mean a county in Europe can colonise another county in Europe if it falls behind in tech greatly? Or an American native tribe can colonise other neighbour native tribes if they advanced fast enough?

3. Is there any type of population loyalty to a contry? Or is it just culture and they don't care about the country - no patriotism?

4. Why colonial nation can't be annexed? If you can grand land to your subject government that you yourself created why can't you revoke it? I mean it can take time and resources, also giving you land without any control, but it should be doable. Otherwise we will end up in eu4 situation again where to control everyone directly you have to set free colonial nation and re-annex it by conquest (with some additional steps, like moving capital).

5. Are there limit where you can set up your colonial nation?

6. Is AI making colonies not only in uncolonised land, but also in less advanced but highly populated counties? E.g. could AI Great Britain make their colonies in india by the end of the game to semi-historical state? In eu4 AI completely ignores India as overseas expansion option
 
Last edited:
  • 13Like
Reactions:
In almost all cases, there are people living in a location you want to colonize, so for you to be able to have a charter to flip to your ownership there are a few rules. A location needs to have at least 1,000 people living there, and a certain percentage of the population needs to follow your state religion and be of an accepted culture of your country.
1000 people sounds too much for small "village" locations. New Amsterdam(New York) had 1500 in the year 1655 and it was considered a city and not a village. But there were a lot of settlements besides New Amsterdam.

How will it work for Siberia? Upon arrival in an area occupied by a native tribe, the Cossacks entered into peace negotiations with them with a proposal to submit to the Tsar and pay tribute, but these negotiations did not always lead to successful results, and then the matter was decided by force of arms. The colonisation was sparse. Cossacs build their own fortresses "ostrog" for collecting tribute and that is it.

I think it would be better if only one location demanded 1000 people per province or even area. Then you can claim the entire region or even area (depending on pp or competition or it will give claims for your colonial neighbours or it will anger natives more and force more rebels or all of that). It will depict the creation of a main city and controlled territories. And then the population will flood into other locations in the region creating small villages (which can overgrow the first city sometimes)
 
Last edited:
  • 7Like
  • 3
Reactions:
I think mechanics should be slightly different for settler colonies and trading posts, where the colonial charter for trading posts is for one location and involves building military infrastructure like a fort and harbour

Otherwise I think you guys have nailed this

Edit: It seems trading posts are done via diplomacy which is good
 
Last edited:
  • 3
  • 1Like
Reactions:
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.
If two countries are colonizing the same province will they
focus in different locations? (Hopefully yes)
Also of you start colonizing a province and are somehow unable to reach one of its locations (say its an inland location and a different colonial power cut you off from it) will your colonization attempt be stopped?
 
What if you colonize a province where locations have less than 1000 native population? Will the majority culture switch to whatever was the biggest culture moving in? How will this work in case of places like Siberia or Finland?

Provinces don't have cultures pops do, there's no province culture to switch.
 
  • 3
Reactions:
Can you buy or sell colonial claims from other nations?
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: