A new colonial system is necessary.

[Phelan]

The rate of colonists depends on your number of ports and a couple other things, it's not fixed. And the people you send into the colonies don't just come from your own lands. This is not Victoria II, you don't play a nation state. Lots of people may be willing to take a ship to your colonies and live under your benevolent rule.

All you do as the state is you finance the ships and the organization of the colonial effort. You don't pick who should go, or where they should attract colonists from.

But somewhere they have to come from. The colonization-system in EU 3 creates populations in colonies out of nowhere. So if colonists are not from your own country but from a 'world-pool', this pool should be restricted. No more unlimited colonizing should be possible. Or it should at least be expensive to do so. Spending 15gp for a colony + upkeep is way to cheap.

 

[ANO1453]

But somewhere they have to come from. The colonization-system in EU 3 creates populations in colonies out of nowhere. So if colonists are not from your own country but from a 'world-pool', this pool should be restricted. No more unlimited colonizing should be possible. Or it should at least be expensive to do so. Spending 15gp for a colony + upkeep is way to cheap.

You underestimate the expenses. It is not cheap - it is expensive. A small nation is going to have problems sustaining more than a couple colonies - you better not have stab hits or be in wars for too long!

 

[Slaxl]

I think a grand change is in order. Instead of empty land for easy colonising I think every single province should be owned by a tribe or whatever. Add them all in, from the frozen wastelands of northern Canada, through the plains of north America, across through Africa and all the way through Australia.

Once you have that then the colonising system has 3 options.

1. EU3 style, nothing stopping you from sending an army in and conquering.
2. Build a settlement with your colonists in their land. Expensive, and if the natives like you they may trade with you, or if they don' t they may try and burn it down.
3. Build a trade station. Takes less colonists, maybe merchants, but gives more trade income. Can grow into a settlement, less annoying to natives, but they may still attack it.

If you go for options two or three then once you have a thriving settlement in a tribal lands it begins to convert them to your culture. You can either wait, or you can attack, like option #1, only this time you get less revolt risk because you have that powerful beacon of culture as the capital, inhabited by your own people, still converting the populace to your ways.

Or something like that anyway.

 

[vyshan]

I think a grand change is in order. Instead of empty land for easy colonising I think every single province should be owned by a tribe or whatever. Add them all in, from the frozen wastelands of northern Canada, through the plains of north America, across through Africa and all the way through Australia.

Once you have that then the colonising system has 3 options.

1. EU3 style, nothing stopping you from sending an army in and conquering.
2. Build a settlement with your colonists in their land. Expensive, and if the natives like you they may trade with you, or if they don' t they may try and burn it down.
3. Build a trade station. Takes less colonists, maybe merchants, but gives more trade income. Can grow into a settlement, less annoying to natives, but they may still attack it.

If you go for options two or three then once you have a thriving settlement in a tribal lands it begins to convert them to your culture. You can either wait, or you can attack, like option #1, only this time you get less revolt risk because you have that powerful beacon of culture as the capital, inhabited by your own people, still converting the populace to your ways.

Or something like that anyway.

I like this suggestion, it also can help repersent the fact that indgenous people often fought for the europeans. So I am France fighting England in north america. I ask several of my native tribes to join with me. Thus I could get a unit to form if they agree, representing the native soldiers who are allied and fighting on my side. Of course if I had poor relations with that tribe then they may join the english, and now I have to deal with more opposing forces.

 

[George LeS]

Multiple colony types are a fine idea; I miss the TPs from EUI/II (although they were too vulnerable). And certainly, there should be a population drain for colonists (no biggie).

In my own mod I've made colonization much slower, and natives more resilient. But then, I also have much more labor-intensive and chancier exploration.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

I think a grand change is in order. Instead of empty land for easy colonising I think every single province should be owned by a tribe or whatever. Add them all in, from the frozen wastelands of northern Canada, through the plains of north America, across through Africa and all the way through Australia.

Once you have that then the colonising system has 3 options.

1. EU3 style, nothing stopping you from sending an army in and conquering.
2. Build a settlement with your colonists in their land. Expensive, and if the natives like you they may trade with you, or if they don' t they may try and burn it down.
3. Build a trade station. Takes less colonists, maybe merchants, but gives more trade income. Can grow into a settlement, less annoying to natives, but they may still attack it.

If you go for options two or three then once you have a thriving settlement in a tribal lands it begins to convert them to your culture. You can either wait, or you can attack, like option #1, only this time you get less revolt risk because you have that powerful beacon of culture as the capital, inhabited by your own people, still converting the populace to your ways.

Or something like that anyway.

The EU2/EU3 thing with "natives" that you could attack was utter shit. It added nothing to gameplay. You just send a 5000 man squad to exterminate all the natives from California to Florida in 1540 and then sent your settlers in over the next two centuries, because natives would never recover.

I *so* hope they think of something better this time!!

 

[Evie HJ]

Yes, very much so. Attack natives was a big fat joke.

 

[alvaro]

I think one of the big issues with colonization is with discovery. One of the big questions is why go westward? In real life it was the spice trade. In EUIII it is because we know what lies beyond.

I think exploration should be "privatized" or "outsourced" to an AI expedition. The player could give a vague goal or region it would like to send the expedition but which provinces are discovered would be decided by the AI. One benefit I think a system like this would have is that a country would actually have to invest in each exploration rather than discover half the new world with a total cost of 150 ducats on explorers and conquistadors plus the maintenance cost.

I dont agree. I dont disagree either
I think that might work for english/protestant style of colonization maybe (india, dutch VOC, Bristol slave trade companies,...that sort of organization) but for portuguese and spanish, the real big players in the time span it doesn´t fit, me thinks. I do not discard your idea though, instead I think both systems should be in, so for instance, if you are quite a freetrader you go with that "privatized" colonization system and if you are quite mercantilist you have the other, or some other system that wiser people can come up with.
As an example, I know that Spain in late XVIII tried to expand her presence in Florida and the system was requesting this to the governor in La Habana and from there colonists were sent to San Agustin. Not sure how relevant this is but this system could be modeled by sending colonists to your "Cot" in a region and from there colonists sent more or less randomly based on how inviting coastal or adyacent uncolonized province may seem.

I´d love to see colonial ventures VOC-style as you say too.

 

[merserm]

Jolt speak the truth,
.
Europa is pointedly NOT a game for manipulating numbers. That's Victoria. Europa is about much broader strokes, and while there's room for improvement, taking options away from player to replace it with attempting to indirectly control factors that might (or might not) get the desired result would be horrible game design, for a game that's not about manipulating numbers (again, that's Vicky).

Realism should never trump game design.

This really sums up my thought on taking away player control.
I have Rome/CK2/HOI3/EU3/ and V2. The one I could never enjoy is Vicky 2 because the player has so little control.

While the OP suggests that the current colonial system is boring to play; Setting up a charter company or sending out a conquistator and then waiting 50-100 yrs to see what happens sounds not just boring but aggravating as heck to me.

 

[Pwyll]

Its funny this topic started pre EU2 and it is still relevent today.

 

[alvaro]

I think a grand change is in order. Instead of empty land for easy colonising I think every single province should be owned by a tribe or whatever. Add them all in, from the frozen wastelands of northern Canada, through the plains of north America, across through Africa and all the way through Australia.

Once you have that then the colonising system has 3 options.

1. EU3 style, nothing stopping you from sending an army in and conquering.
2. Build a settlement with your colonists in their land. Expensive, and if the natives like you they may trade with you, or if they don' t they may try and burn it down.
3. Build a trade station. Takes less colonists, maybe merchants, but gives more trade income. Can grow into a settlement, less annoying to natives, but they may still attack it.

If you go for options two or three then once you have a thriving settlement in a tribal lands it begins to convert them to your culture. You can either wait, or you can attack, like option #1, only this time you get less revolt risk because you have that powerful beacon of culture as the capital, inhabited by your own people, still converting the populace to your ways.

Or something like that anyway.

no human player would ever colonize a province when you can just crush native´s countries.

I like trade stations. portuguese colonization are currently poorly simulated and may be used for strongholds in Europe like calais or gibraltar.

 

[Slaxl]

no human player would ever colonize a province when you can just crush native´s countries.

I like trade stations. portuguese colonization are currently poorly simulated and may be used for strongholds in Europe like calais or gibraltar.

There's always a way. Make conquered native lands give no tax, because who are you taxing? People who follow buffalo around? Give them massively increased revolt risk because why would they do what you say? You are not their buffalo god. Building a settlement or trade station gives you a way to make money from the province and settle the native into an agrarian rather than nomadic lifestyle. There are dozens of options, many different types of natives the world over, they could all have their own distinct best and worst ways of dealing with them.

 

[MrCrush]

Interesting suggestions indeed, I'd like to add a bit of my oppinion as well, I regularly play ROTW countries, the Inca mostly, what bothered me most is that they do hardly have the option to colonize in EU3 (only if you're lucky to have a coastal COT, which is very, very low).
The main problem here is that the Inca expanded from a mere city-state to a large empire in the period from 1438 to 1533.
Personally I would like to see more colonisation options for ROTW countries, however there should be strict requirements so that only in certain circumstances one of these countries can colonise.


I don't expect the whole system to be changed just for one country, but I would like to see at least some possibility that something like this could occur without having to bring in cheats.