• 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
  • 136Like
  • 7
  • 5
  • 3
Reactions:
As a Texan; I was wondering if we will finally see an accurate simulation of the Texas Revolution.

That being a nation inviting people from a different nation to settle unpopulated territory which then revolts and gains independence finally peacefully annexing back into the country where the majority of the pops that revolted came from.
 
  • 3Like
  • 1
Reactions:
Would be nice if to gain access to colonizing an area first you had to have a fully colonized location in said area.
I waht to know also if yoy expel minorities to the colonies do they get assimilated to the primary culture?
 
About how much work would it take for Mali to be capable of expanding down the unclaimed African coast? What would it take for it to colonize Brazil? Is there a significant gap between those capabilities?
 
  • 2Like
Reactions:
But for that province to become yours, you need to be administrating it. I guess it's done by control and different countries can have control in the same location
The assumption is once you have enough people in a location they control that location’s dominant settlement(s) and are administering themselves while loyal to you, meaning you now control that location. Once you’ve colonized all possible locations in the province you can either set up a colonial nation, or integrate it as a core territory.

As for local notables when you colonize you’re basically setting up your own notables with their own populations all of whom you can more easily control. So the general population matters because it’s about using your power projection in concert with local presence to forcibly take over a location, regardless of existing state structures or the lack thereof.
 
  • 1
  • 1Like
Reactions:
I got a feeling not only Europe will colonize America or other parts of the world, but the entire world will be colonizing, wish there was a historical option in the settings.

Edit: So now Aztec can just colonize Africa with ease
What even makes you think this??
most institutions spawn in europe meaning that europe will have higher pp than other continents, plus most of the other nations probably won't be exploring.

there's nothing in the dd to imply that the aztecs can colonize africa or any other place
 
  • 1
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Just so I understand correctly, if I cheat directly on Napoleon's tech level and uncover the map, could I start colonizing Sicily on day 1 as a Yuan, which would then belong to me after a while with a bit of luck without war?
 
About how much work would it take for Mali to be capable of expanding down the unclaimed African coast? What would it take for it to colonize Brazil? Is there a significant gap between those capabilities?
Looks like distance from capital, desease resistance, and native population are the main differences. So Mali would have relatively few issues with desease in West Africa as natives, and are relatively close keeping distance costs down, but have a large native population to overcome making colonization take a long time. By contrast Brazil presumably has a smaller native population (per-location anyways) but is much farther away and while the diseases are a smaller issue for Europeans than West Africa, Mali might find the situation reversed.
 
So just so I understand correctly, if I cheat directly on Napoleon's tech level and uncover the map, could I start colonizing Sicily on day 1 as a Yuan?
They can't colonise europe because they haven't discovered it so i assume the answer is yes.
at that point you'd probably be able to colonize the other parts of asia too
 
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.
 
  • 66Like
  • 13Love
  • 12
Reactions:
Looks like distance from capital, desease resistance, and native population are the main differences. So Mali would have relatively few issues with desease in West Africa as natives, and are relatively close keeping distance costs down, but have a large native population to overcome making colonization take a long time. By contrast Brazil presumably has a smaller native population (per-location anyways) but is much farther away and while the diseases are a smaller issue for Europeans than West Africa, Mali might find the situation reversed.
This sounds about right, but the work it takes for Mali to be able to expand down the coast is a big part of my question. It seems obvious that expanding down the coast would be easier, but is it more work to get to that point in the first place, or more work to go from colonizing the coast to colonizing Brazil? Is the bigger step getting the first capability or getting from the first to the second?
 
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.
So you can't colonize someone else just because they have 1 pp less than you, do I understand this correctly? How much more pp is needed to be able to colonize the location?
 
What even makes you think this??
most institutions spawn in europe meaning that europe will have higher pp than other continents, plus most of the other nations probably won't be exploring.

there's nothing in the dd to imply that the aztecs can colonize africa or any other place
Lets see what they bring, my worries is if it becomes more like civ than eu.
 
  • 2Haha
  • 2
Reactions:
LANDLESS COUNTRIES CONFIRMED

LET'S GOOOOOO
 
  • 4Like
Reactions:
If I and another country have a colony charter in the same area and I am still massively superior to the other country, can I continue to colonize its new colony?
 
Are Colonial Charters only be initiated by the player/ government for a country?

Can estates request or purchase charters to colonize on there own like many of the American(usa) Colonies?

Is there any mechanism that would allow colonists to ignore their overlords charters?

Can colonization of new land occur naturally without a charter? Like the Pilgrims of Plymouth. or some other type of refugee group?
 
I was sorta hoping to read some more detail about how colonies propagate rather than just going for an area and from there on location by location.

With so much granularity and location density in PC I have high hopes for an organically growing colony (as in multi location construct / colonial upstart nation).
Most titles kinda treat colonies like every spot is the same or the expansion is random at best.

What I mean with organical growth is something kinda similar as to how you got your control mechanic to work.
I would expect my colonists to go relatively wide along the coastlines first and then head up rivers, lakes, important passes or generally favorable locations.
Colonization was hard and people didnt make it harder for themselves if they didnt have to.


I think its fine to have an abstract "box" for where they expand as one colonial spot just doing long Chile over the entire Americas is also nonsense.

I guess in a perfect world you would put down your initial colony somewhere and then where it expands on its own works akin to how the control works while following the natural patterns i outlined earlier.

Hope to hear/read more at some point :)
 
  • 11
  • 1Like
Reactions: