• 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?
 
  • 182Love
  • 139Like
  • 7
  • 5
  • 3
Reactions:
Could independent organisatgions colonise, i mean let's say i play as England and decided that those Puritans should be discriminated, will they colonize americas by themselves, or could muslims in iberia try their chances in americas after inqusition (let's say it is happened after the discovery of americas this time), and how things like penal colonies work
 
  • 3Like
  • 1
Reactions:
So hypothetically France, should it get a lead in PP, could send it's faithful catholic, but non-d'öil speaking subjects to Northafrica by choosing province in Brittany and Occitania with the age of discovery cabinet action?
 
That was Conquest
The Spanish also colonized many areas that retained native majorities through their religious mission system, particularly with the Jesuits. Incl. Sonora, California, much of the American southwest, parts of the Amazon basin. The French also set up missions in the Midwest and Canada to colonize, and I believe the Portuguese in Brazil. Will there be any representation of this? I believe missions should also be less integrated into your country/CN, I don't believe they really payed taxes or contributed manpower though I could be wrong.
 
  • 9
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Let us suppose a Colonial Charter is set up by the Kingdom of England in Eastern America. Can OTHER major powers, say France, send their people to locations under the English Colonial Charter? Or suppose the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of England are competing for the same province in Southern Africa and both have Colonial charters there - will such a scenario be possible or the country with the greater power projection just end up owning the location themselves if they hit the 1000 pops goal faster? Will such locations have unique mixes of Dutch and English pops along with native southern African pops living in their borders, but still be owned by only one country?
 
You can't specifically choose to send religious minority pops, and the system is biased towards sending pops from true faith majority home locations. It would be a waste of time anyway as you need pops to be of your culture and religion for a colony to flip in your favour.
Not sure about the culture part either, as most of the Appalachian region was colonized by Scots-Irish (basically Scottish culture) rather than English people, and it still was considered part of colonial America and then the US, albeit pretty remote/autonomous de facto. Perhaps being of your culture group (or whatever equivalent you guys designed) would be easier to swallow.
 
  • 6
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I must say I'm not really a fan of colonies providing manpower and sailors to the overlord returning in Project Caesar. It was gamey in EU4 and is plain unrealistic. How can a pop essentially lost to my country contribute to a war effort from the other side of the world?
Maybe there could be an option where colonial nations don't contribute directly to the manpower and sailors pool, but instead allow the overlord nation to levy troops or ships, or hire mercenaries from the colony in case of an oversea war. Indeed colonial troops fighting in European wars in Europe is unhistorical for this period, and is only seen in modern wars.
 
What if two countries with the same primary culture and religion are colonizing the same province/location? How does it determine who gets what if the flipping is based on culture/religion
 
  • 6Like
  • 3
  • 1
Reactions:
Not sure about the culture part either, as most of the Appalachian region was colonized by Scots-Irish (basically Scottish culture) rather than English people, and it still was considered part of colonial America and then the US, albeit pretty remote/autonomous de facto. Perhaps being of your culture group somehow would be easier to swallow.
I would assume culture means accepted culture and not just primary culture
 
I must say I'm not really a fan of colonies providing manpower and sailors to the overlord returning in Project Caesar. It was gamey in EU4 and is plain unrealistic. How can a pop essentially lost to my country contribute to a war effort from the other side of the world?
I realize I'm a bit late but...

 
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Just stop the colonial charter once you have your single location outpost flipped.
So we can't choose specific locations to colonize? That seems strange. The Portuguese deliberately settled easily defensible and crucial for trading locations, leading to their dominance despite their rather small possessions. If you cannot choose which province to deliberately colonize, is it basically left to chance? Why make such a decision?
 
  • 11
  • 1Like
Reactions:
If the Treaty of Tordesillas is dynamic and do not necessarily involve Castile and/or Portugal, it wont be called 'Treaty of Tordesillas', but 'Treaty of [insert a relevant location of one of the two countries involved in the treaty]'. because it would not make sense to name it after a Spanish city if the treaty is signed by, for example, Poland and England.

Also, are colonial nations customizable in their name, can we choose their capital, and do they inherit the map color of their overlord?
 
  • 7
  • 3Like
Reactions:
I personally like to play somewhat closely to history. Will all non European start colonizing randomly across the world during the gameplay? I hope there is an option to play more closely to history in the game settings. I kind of liked the idea group for eu4, where you chose the path for your country.
 
  • 3
Reactions:
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.

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?
 
  • 5Like
  • 1
Reactions:
If the Treaty of Tordesillas is dynamic and do not necessarily involve Castile and/or Portugal, it wont be called 'Treaty of Tordesillas', but 'Treaty of [insert a relevant location of one of the two countries involved in the treaty]'. because it would not make sense to name it after a Spanish city if the treaty is signed by, for example, Poland and England.

Also, are colonial nations customizable in their name, can we choose their capital, and do they inherit the map color of their overlord?
Given that Valladolid will be Castile's starting capital you could probably set it to [a location in the same province than the capital of one of the signataries, different than the capital itself].
 
  • 4
Reactions:
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.
I’m already preparing for a “Greenland WC no war colonization only” run
 
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
 
  • 81Like
  • 12
  • 1Love
  • 1
Reactions: