How do I get to the New World?

[mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm]

I've just gotten this game and have only been focused on middle/eastern European nations so far (things within the HRE, Muscovy, Venice, etc).

Last night I started a game as Japan as a daimyo, united it around 1480, and got exploration ideas as my first ones. It's now 1503 and I've started expanding into Asia, however I really want to expand into the Americas (NA specifically) as well, but whenever I try and send my navy with an explorer, it always just ends up suffering high naval attrition. How can I get to the Americas as Japan?

[A Velociraptor]

Exploration range I believe is directly related to colonial range. So if you want to explore to america increase colonial range. Also with an explorer in the navy you must select the exploration mission from the missions tabe with the navy selected.

[crisselis]

Originally posted by A Velociraptor:

Exploration range I believe is directly related to colonial range. So if you want to explore to america increase colonial range. Also with an explorer in the navy you must select the exploration mission from the missions tabe with the navy selected.

So you dont control the explorer? He explore randomly?
Im new to the game as well , and I want to know

[A Velociraptor]

Originally posted by BuNnY:

Originally posted by A Velociraptor:

Exploration range I believe is directly related to colonial range. So if you want to explore to america increase colonial range. Also with an explorer in the navy you must select the exploration mission from the missions tabe with the navy selected.

So you dont control the explorer? He explore randomly?
Im new to the game as well , and I want to know

He will only explore if you select an exploration mission for him from the menu in the first column at the bottom ( the same one you send the ships to protect trade from). Select the area you want him to explore and he will go and explore there and then return when done.

[mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm]

Originally posted by A Velociraptor:

Originally posted by BuNnY:

So you dont control the explorer? He explore randomly?
Im new to the game as well , and I want to know

He will only explore if you select an exploration mission for him from the menu in the first column at the bottom ( the same one you send the ships to protect trade from). Select the area you want him to explore and he will go and explore there and then return when done.

I don't have a mission like you're saying (maybe b/c I only have up to Wealth of Nations DLC wise) but I can send him into terra incognita and I have a notification that says "explorer ready!" Is there an optimal ship to use when going into open sea? Or will they all just decay at the same rate?

[Rioz]

He does not have a mission as he does not have the dlc.

[crisselis]

Originally posted by =DRK= Duck:

He does not have a mission as he does not have the dlc.

Is Conquest of paradise the DLC you need?

[Edge]

Go east. Make a colony in Hawaii as a waystation. Colonize California.

[mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm]

Originally posted by BuNnY:

Originally posted by =DRK= Duck:

He does not have a mission as he does not have the dlc.

Is Conquest of paradise the DLC you need?

Looked it up and it's El Dorado.

[barkingamer]

Get admin level 5 and get "quest for the new world" ideas

Hire an explorer for your navy and a conquistador for your army through the "hire general" tab

Just keep heading west and don't forget to colonize a few provinces in the Atlantic(or attack Portugal, that's always fun)

Colonize cuba

Attack Aztecs

You have arrived at your destination

[mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm]

Originally posted by barkingamer:

Get admin level 5 and get "quest for the new world" ideas

Hire an explorer for your navy and a conquistador for your army through the "hire general" tab

Just keep heading west and don't forget to colonize a few provinces in the Atlantic(or attack Portugal, that's always fun)

Colonize cuba

Attack Aztecs

You have arrived at your destination

unfortunately you cannot reach the americas as japan via the atlantic. i already did however by going from the philippines to midway to hawaii to the california.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

For Japan you need to go through Alaska, if you're rushing it.

You'll need a minimum of Dip 7 and a colonial range advisor to reach (assuming you have the 3rd idea from exploration and have conquered the siberian tribes that were hopefully as close to shore as possible).

If you don't have El Dorado, you have to manually explore and you'll suffer attrition in any open sea tile or coastal sea tile that is out of your naval supply range (this can be extended via Fleet basing rights but none of the primitive nations in Amercia can offer Fleet-basing).

Use a Light ship (they're the fastest) and try to get a an explorer with as much manuvor skill as possible as it increases ship speed and reduces attrition suffered and just use small jaunts into unexplored territory and come back. Coast line is randomly revealed every time you enter the adjacant sea tile and may take several attempts entering and existing to full reveal the coast line.

If you have El Dorado, you can no longer manually explore and are bound by your colonial range to the furtherest you can explore, but your exploration fleets no longer suffer attrition on most exploration missions (except for Circumnavigate the Globe) and will completely explore every sea title and coastal province in range in the area you selected to explore.

[Surimi]

You need to take it slow and steady. Moving into unexplored territory is very slow, so you'll take a lot of naval attrition doing it, so you'll need to pull back and repair once your ships get too damaged to continue. Once repaired, you can sail back and may be able to explore a bit further.

However, the kicker is colonial range. Even if you discover the new world, you probably won't be able to colonize it immediately as Japan because the range at which you can send a colonist is capped by distance to your nearest cored province (the distance limit is determined mostly by tech but also modified by ideas and one advisor type). The shortest distance across the pacific is over the Bering strait, so you can do that quite early and colonize into Alaska. Otherwise, though, you'll need to island hop across the pacific and probably wait for your diplomatic tech to reach a higher level.

[panoz_kalafatis]

wait so as japan all i have to do is make the fleet and then click on the region (terra incognita) of the pacific ocean that america is roughly situated and then the fleet will go?

[panoz_kalafatis]

right now ive sent my explorers to all the potential choices for exploring (east chine sea, soutth pacific blah blah) except the circumnavigation (which is a death trap fon an east asian nation) and i have uncovered basically all of the western hemisphre up to the point of roughly hawai (still tera inco) where a perfect vertical line of terra incognita begins..... do you tell me that i could have just clicked on this terra incognita with my fleet selected and then the fleet would have explored just like it did pre el dorado???

[kaiyl_kariashi]

no.

If you lack El Dorado, you manually explore with near complete freedom but suffer attrition.

If you have El Dorado, you auto-explore via missions, and ONLY via missions.