Colonization 101 & other newbe questions

[VanilleMuffin]

Hi there!
And first of all congratulations to such a huge and active community (considering the small target group of the paradox-games)


After some very long time I gave EU2 another try and am encountering a few things I'm unable to answer myself with the help of the wiki and the forums:

everything regarding v1.09...

Colonies/TP/Exploration:

- I could use some advice on exploring, better go for quantity or quality?Is it (usually) advisable to completly explore/find all provinces in a region (sending explorer back & forth) OR just establish a colony for resupply and sail further along the coast(s)?

- What's the exact benefit of higher level TPs? I know of the lower chance to found new TPs if I got to many below level3, but anything else? The income ain't raising to much with higher level (e.g. level1: 1ducat, L3: 2d, L6: 2d) what I've seen until now.

- Are there any guidelines whether colony or TP is superior ('cept manpower), considering the costs to establish a 1000pop-colony. And is there any benefit before 1000pop ('cept resupply for ships)


Rebels:
As far as I've read, rebels gained much power against the human in patch, same maxMoral, same landtech etc. Which makes it very costly to deal with them, specially without a leader and depending on terrain. Waiting for attrition isn't to practical and sometimes doesn't really work, and waiting for them to take the province and move to plains or the like ain't a economical method either.
So any advise how to deal with them or how to weaken them a bit with modding?


Modding:
Yeah I know there is a modding-subforum, but I thought I could just ask it in this same thread aswell:
I made, or to be honest stole my first events of the AGCEEP-Mod, the dp-slider-reminder, changed the event-id to 6 digits, just to be safe and it worked fine until now.
there is just a small nuissance I'd like to change: Many vanilla-events force the game to pause till I click an option and I'd love to have that on "my" event aswell, but couldn't make out any difference which could cause that when looking at various other events. So if anyone knows that, please tell me!



Thanks a lot,
Muffin

 

[Flammehav]

For discovering new provinces along shore I will say it depends on several things.

First is tech lvl. If you are closeing on lvl 18 in naval tech, don't bother. When you reach lvl 18, you can see all coastal provinces with all ships, also non explorers.
Second is the location. Do you have a colony with a port nearby? If not it will probably be advantages to try and discover a province here where you can build a colony so you get a pit stop.
Third, have you explored many provinces that noone has coloniced yet or do you lack places to put your settlers? Also if you have many explorers like Portugal and Spain, you can have some explore new seasones while others go back and fort to try and discover new provinces.

It's a 10% chance of discovering a nearby province when entering a coastal seazone. I haven't got it documented, but it feels like I got a bigger chance of discovering a zone if therw is many provices adjecant to the zone.(10% pr undiscovored province?) So if you decide to go back and forward choose a zone with many provinces adjecant to it. Also if you got a port, and more zones adjecant to the zone, make your ship go in and out, that is a very fast way of getting many chances to explore new zones.

Higher lvl trading post have little advanteges. lvl 1 gives 10d, lvl 2 might give 13d. So it's better to start a new one. But ofcourse as of patch 1.07 you can't place unlimited amount of lvl 1 TP and colonies, though it was very fun haveing some 200-300 of them once, before the patch came

One thing to remember though is that if you higher lvl colonies it will allow you to place more lvl 1 TP. What the games does is add the number of all your colonies and TP, and then split the number on the amount of TP and colonies. If the number lower than 3 you get a deduction in the chance to establish a new one. You do get a few "free" TP/colnies though. How many depends on your monarch diplomatic or administrative rating(forgot wich one). So if you have a lvl 7 colony, you can add to lvl 1 TP, and those 3 will together not give a penalty.

For making a TP or colony into a real city you need 1000 people or 900+ if ther are natives. When deciding wich TP to evolve to cites chech the taxnumber. Many colonies only have 1-2, but some have 5-6. Chooseing a province with higer taxpower will not only grant you more tax as soon as the colony becomes a real city, but also make you able to create more manpower from the cololy. If you play MP a colony with a higer base tax will also be able to make higher lvl forts.

For TP I don't think there is ay difference, just take one with a high valued goods.

I can't see any advantage for haveing a lvl 5 colony compaired to lvl 1 though, exept, it makes it easier to make new TP/colonies and a slightly higer contribution to the CoT.

Rebels are a pain, they used to be much easeir to deal with in earlier patches, but the chance of them popping up was also ALOT higher. 12 times higher acctually as the rebel chance was for every month and not every year. Meaning a city with a 3% rebel chance had a 31% chance to rebell in one year. (that is only 10 times higher, but they can also rebell more than once a year). Or haveing 12 provinces with 3% ment you will have a rebell popping up approximatly every 2-3 months. Now if you have a big empire you would easily get 1-2 rebells every month when your WE starts to build up.

So they decide to make rebells thougher, but less frequent. I don't think you can weaken them without modding though. But if you don't play MP, do NOT lvl up your forts, exept in some provinces where the enemy is likely to attack. (They seem to attack the same provinces every time). Bigger forts= bigger rebell force. A minimum fort gives 6000-7000 rebells, a small fort gives around 13000 of them. I guess a lvl 6 fort would give 33000 or something.

Modding is not my strongest part so I leave that for the experts. I woul like to direct you to the FAQ forum though. There you can find in depth info on almost every aspect of the game. Be aware that some posts are outdated though, but most of the info is still valueble, if you just remember that some things have changed. (read the "read me" file for the patches that came out after the thread was made).

 

[Mats_SX]

Hi there!
And first of all congratulations to such a huge and active community (considering the small target group of the paradox-games)

Welcome to the forums, VanilleMuffin!

- I could use some advice on exploring, better go for quantity or quality?Is it (usually) advisable to completly explore/find all provinces in a region (sending explorer back & forth) OR just establish a colony for resupply and sail further along the coast(s)?

Unless you are exploring with 100+ ships (and thus avoiding attrition), you want to keep a chain of ports for resupplying your ships every once in a while. It depends a bit on what nation you are playing and how the situation in the colonies is, but in general you will not have many explorers and you want to explore as much sea as you can before he dies. In general, leave land exploration to your conquistadors, as they are more effective. Equip them with cavalry for speed. Often you can get the Spain or Portugal AI to lend you Military Access (if you have their maps) for resupplying, thus not having to make your own ports. But if you are them that doesn't work of course.

- What's the exact benefit of higher level TPs? I know of the lower chance to found new TPs if I got to many below level3, but anything else? The income ain't raising to much with higher level (e.g. level1: 1ducat, L3: 2d, L6: 2d) what I've seen until now.

The benefit is the value they send to their associated Centre of Trade. If you are a big trader (you should be in SP ), they are likely to give you a great return on a cheap investment. But they are only worth it in provinces with valuable goods (Sugar, Wine, Tobacco, Cotton, Furs etc). There is little excuse for a lvl6 tp in Fish or Grain provinces.
But if you are not a trader, a tp is good only for the bonus percents in making a colony there, the extra 10 people which might let you make it a city even in a bad location (with a negative population modifier) and to hinder anyone else to colonize there (most notably).

- Are there any guidelines whether colony or TP is superior ('cept manpower), considering the costs to establish a 1000pop-colony. And is there any benefit before 1000pop ('cept resupply for ships)

Any province outside your capital's continent or not land-connected to your capital will NOT provide manpower.
Alike the above, tps are only useful if you are trading. Colonies will add tax and more significantly production income. But they will also lower your tech-speed if they are developed to cities (and they are only really useful as such) and also raise stability costs. So if you are a small Netherlands or Sweden (or other small nation), you will gain a lot more from building TPs and trading from them, as that will boost your techspeed from income while not providing any higher costs.
But if you are a large Spain or Ottoman Empire, you should just mass out colonies wherever you can. The techspeed penalty stops at around 90 provinces, so anything above that will be beneficial only (save for stability, which also has a cap, but I can't remember where).

In SP in general, however, there is seldom much need to do hyperteching, ass you often outtech the AI easily anyway, so you might just want to pick off the best colonies and make them cities.

As far as I've read, rebels gained much power against the human in patch, same maxMoral, same landtech etc. Which makes it very costly to deal with them, specially without a leader and depending on terrain. Waiting for attrition isn't to practical and sometimes doesn't really work, and waiting for them to take the province and move to plains or the like ain't a economical method either.
So any advise how to deal with them or how to weaken them a bit with modding?

Usually, you should have enough money to deal with rebels. But if you don't, there are some tricks. Rebels spawn with not full morale, so if you can get to them before a month has ended, you have a higher chance of beating them. If there is a large rebel stack just on the brink of receiving attrition, march into the province so you arrive on the last of the month, then let it pass to the first and then retreat, thus causing the rebels attrition damage. Then do so again and again, until you feel you can defeat them. If they have taken a fort, and you have the necessary technology and infantry, do an assault as soon as you get to the province. Rebel fort morale is also lower initially, before a month has passed.
Otherwise, normal battle tactics apply; send in an initial army, then have another army join in after a couple of phases, getting morale up again. Then another one, if necessary.

Yeah I know there is a modding-subforum, but I thought I could just ask it in this same thread aswell:
I made, or to be honest stole my first events of the AGCEEP-Mod, the dp-slider-reminder, changed the event-id to 6 digits, just to be safe and it worked fine until now.
there is just a small nuissance I'd like to change: Many vanilla-events force the game to pause till I click an option and I'd love to have that on "my" event aswell, but couldn't make out any difference which could cause that when looking at various other events. So if anyone knows that, please tell me!

Haha, I didn't even know it was possible to make events that did NOT pause the game (outside MP). Interesting. I'll bet my hat that someone will answer this soon, though.

 

[unmerged(4344)]

On exploring, it depends on what you are trying to achieve. There are several goals for exploring that require different methods. The most common goals are:
* to find rich provinces to colonize/TP
* to find CoTs for trade
* to find and fully map countries, for conquest (i.e.: #1 goal for any game: Aztecs)
* to find sea zones with an eye towards later exploration
Generally, if you are trying to get to distant goals, then you'll want to use military access to get ports if possible, and also a few well-placed colonies where you cannot get MA. On the other hand, if you're trying to discover land, many of the best provinces are near each other, so you should concentrate on them.

Higher level TPs give more trade tax, and create more generated trade. This is in the wiki:
http://www.paradoxian.org/eu2wiki/index.php/Trading_post
Perhaps the emphasis on the TP's level is not as great there as it should be. In any case, the level of the TP is important in determining how much trade tax and generated trade it creates. (See those articles linked from the TP one.) You won't see a lot of difference on crappy goods, but then you should not generally be TPing wheat and sheep. You will see a difference on luxuries.

Similarly, higher level colonies also give more taxes (same as a TP), but in addition to trade tax and generated trade, they also get production (or gold). So, higher is better there, too. Also, the costs of colonization (and chances of success) increase with level, so you get the same incremental increase in income with less investment. So, if you're colonizing a province to begin with, you generally want to colonize it all the way to a city (or, possibly, a level 9 colony that you will let finish via pop growth).

As for when to TP vs colonize: generally, you want to TP when:
* your country is not rich enough to send all colonists
* province goods have high market value
* you have a monopoly in the CoT they'll send trade to
* you have a colonial monopoly in the CoT (that is, 75-100%+ of the trade)
* colonization of the province is hard/expensive
* it's inland, or otherwise hard for AIs to discover
* if you've got 100+ trade efficiency (and thus the +50% bonus)
you want a colony:
* when you are rich enough to send all colonists as colonization attempts
* if the province is easy/cheap to colonize
* when you need a port there
* when the province goods are high base value
* if other countries know about it, and you plan on wars
* when the province has a high base tax value
* when you want to colonize inland from a province (and not in Siberia)

 

[unmerged(4344)]

As far as I've read, rebels gained much power against the human in patch, same maxMoral, same landtech etc. Which makes it very costly to deal with them, specially without a leader and depending on terrain. Waiting for attrition isn't to practical and sometimes doesn't really work, and waiting for them to take the province and move to plains or the like ain't a economical method either.

I assume you have read the wiki on that:
http://www.paradoxian.org/eu2wiki/index.php/How_to_Handle_Rebels
...so let me just reiterate the more important points.
* rebels do not get the +1 fire/shock for high quality/offensive, so, get those.
* attrition is most certainly practical
* use probing
* use the maintenance trick
* use reinforcements to keep up morale
* letting them go can be costly, but nonetheless, it can still be cheaper than expending costly armies on them.

 

[unmerged(145825)]

The techspeed penalty stops at around 90 provinces, so anything above that will be beneficial only (save for stability, which also has a cap, but I can't remember where).

I have never heard of the city modifier for tech speed stopping anywhere, havent seen it in the economy FAQ.

 

[Emperor_krk]

I have never heard of the city modifier for tech speed stopping anywhere, havent seen it in the economy FAQ.

I would suppose he meant that it stops to grow, thus remaining the same as it was below 90 provinces (don't remember the other thresholds).

 

[Mats_SX]

I have never heard of the city modifier for tech speed stopping anywhere, havent seen it in the economy FAQ.

Good call. I checked it up, and it seems to have been just another delusion. I'll retract from that statement.

I would suppose he meant that it stops to grow, thus remaining the same as it was below 90 provinces (don't remember the other thresholds).

Aye, that is what I meant, but it would seem I was wrong.

 

[unmerged(4344)]

The "tech speed multiplier" has as one component an addend based on cities. The cities addend itself can be arbitrarily large, but the whole TSM is capped at 4.0. Thus, in effect the #cities is capped. See this:
http://www.paradoxian.org/eu2wiki/index.php/Technology#Tech_Speed_Multiplier

 

[Flammehav]

The "tech speed multiplier" has as one component an addend based on cities. The cities addend itself can be arbitrarily large, but the whole TSM is capped at 4.0. Thus, in effect the #cities is capped. See this:
http://www.paradoxian.org/eu2wiki/index.php/Technology#Tech_Speed_Multiplier

So 88 provinces then I guess wich is almost the same as 90.

 

[unmerged(145825)]

The "tech speed multiplier" has as one component an addend based on cities. The cities addend itself can be arbitrarily large, but the whole TSM is capped at 4.0. Thus, in effect the #cities is capped. See this:
http://www.paradoxian.org/eu2wiki/index.php/Technology#Tech_Speed_Multiplier

Sorry, I dont really understand this

So 88 provinces then I guess wich is almost the same as 90.

Excuse my ignorance, but how do we come to 88?

 

[Mats_SX]

The "tech speed multiplier" has as one component an addend based on cities. The cities addend itself can be arbitrarily large, but the whole TSM is capped at 4.0. Thus, in effect the #cities is capped. See this:
http://www.paradoxian.org/eu2wiki/index.php/Technology#Tech_Speed_Multiplier

Ah, I thought I was onto something.

 

[Mats_SX]

Sorry, I dont really understand this

Well, the TechSpeed Modifier in which the Cities Modifier is a part has a cap. The Cities Modifier does not have a cap of it's own, but when the TechSpeed Modifier reaches a certain value (4, according to Wreck), then adding cities to increase the Cities Modifier will have no effect, as the TechSpeed Modifier can not go higher.

And the number does not have to be 88. It's a bit dependant on the size of the other addends that are also part of the TechSpeed Modifier. For example, the cap would come sooner (in cities counted) for a Hindu nation than it would for a Reformed nation.

 

[unmerged(4344)]

Fail, I'm not sure how one could write it more plainly than is done at the wiki. But to put it a different way: all countries, if they get large enough, will hit a point where adding cities no longer increases their tech costs. If we ignore the Emperor of the HRE, and the tiny effect of having vassals (which is basically one city), then this #cities depends only on the state religion of the country:

 religion     religion_addend  #cities
 Reformed     -0.04             90
 Protestant   -0.02             89
 Catholic     +0.02             88
 Orthodox     +0.02             88
 Sunni        +0.02             88
 CrC          +0.06             86
 Shiite       +0.06             86
 Buddhist     +0.10             84
 Confucian    +0.20             80
 Hindu        +0.20             80
 Pagan        +0.50             68

 

[unmerged(145825)]

Fail, I'm not sure how one could write it more plainly than is done at the wiki.

Ok, I see now what the 4.0 represents. Funny this was never added into the FAQ.

 

[unmerged(4344)]

It's in the Economy FAQ; see section 4.4. The explanations are slightly different -- the FAQ caps the sum of the Religion, Cities, Vassal and HRE modifiers at 3.0, but then adds a base of 1.0x in elsewhere. Same result. I am hoping that you find my explanation clearer.

 

[unmerged(144242)]

Actually, your explanation is MUCH better, finally it's shown in a very clear way!

 

[Stoertebecker]

There was a thread about TP's vs. Colonies some time ago. The striking argument for me was: TP's may be better in provinces with furs or slaves if you control a large portion of the trade with that goods. The reason is: There are plenty provinces with those goods. If they don't get colonized, the offer will remain small, so they have a higher trade value.
As TP's don't raise offer, it's a cheap and effective way to get maximum income out of those provinces. Even more, as the basetax value of most slave- and fur-provinces have quite low basetax values.