Best Colonies?

[Fr3ddy]

Which are the most profitable colonies to colonise?

[Ghastly_Grinner]

I think Canada would be your best bet to start then move down from there

[DeadRabbit]

France

[Kapika96]

Mexico & Peru.

They have all the gold!

[TOPSON (OG)]

Ndkz

[TOPSON (OG)]

Sjsj

[Marquoz]

The best choices for England are the Caribbean and the 13 colonies region of North America. The Caribbean is full of high development provinces and can steer trade to Manhattan. The 13 colonies aren't as rich on a per province basis, but there are more provinces there in total, and they can steer trade from Manhattan to the English Channel. And while trade is where the real money from colonization is found, another plus of the Caribbean is that it's a great jumping off point from which to invade Mexico, whose gold mines and treasure fleets are also useful (as well as its trade, of course).

[Radene]

Originally posted by Kapika96:

Mexico & Peru.

They have all the gold!

One time I overdid it, and it made my economy implode to hyperinflation.

Like the real-world Spain.

[PeGa]

The main advantage of colonial nations is the buffs that the mother country gets when your colony grows to ten provinces. Gold fleets can only be useful if you pump the province's gold for production yourself. Otherwise, the colonies are useless, they don't fight you, they steal your trade, and they regularly find themselves in situations where you have to provide them with military / economic assistance.

[Blims!]

That depends where your main trading port is. For example if you're playing Portugal and have Sevilla as main trading port you won't have much use of Canada since you cannot transfer trade to your main trading port Sevilla.

Don't forget to colonise Africa and create trade companies, especially Cape to get another merchant.

[erneiz]

Originally posted by Radene:

Originally posted by Kapika96:

Mexico & Peru.

They have all the gold!

One time I overdid it, and it made my economy implode to hyperinflation.

Like the real-world Spain.

How did you manage that? In my recent Spain game I had ALL the New World for myself as colonies and inflation was negligible (Ate Portugal, fractured France, and bullied England every time they tried crossing the Atlantic). With all those provinces to convert on top of me always having 8 cardinals I never ran out of Papal Influence to perpetually run all the Papal blessings which included inflation reduction. With all those money I can also always roll for an inflation advisor. Which I can then promote to level 5 and just directly reduce inflation if it comes to that.

[Marquoz]

Originally posted by Blims!:

That depends where your main trading port is. For example if you're playing Portugal and have Sevilla as main trading port you won't have much use of Canada since you cannot transfer trade to your main trading port Sevilla.

Before he edited it, his post said "as England." I don't know why the OP made that change.

[Kapika96]

Originally posted by erneiz:

Originally posted by Radene:

One time I overdid it, and it made my economy implode to hyperinflation.

Like the real-world Spain.

How did you manage that? In my recent Spain game I had ALL the New World for myself as colonies and inflation was negligible (Ate Portugal, fractured France, and bullied England every time they tried crossing the Atlantic). With all those provinces to convert on top of me always having 8 cardinals I never ran out of Papal Influence to perpetually run all the Papal blessings which included inflation reduction. With all those money I can also always roll for an inflation advisor. Which I can then promote to level 5 and just directly reduce inflation if it comes to that.

If you had all of the new world that probably contributed to inflation not being an issue. Gold increases inflation based on how much income you get from it relative to your total income. So if you'd be rolling in money regardless you get barely any inflation.

I've never had an issue with Spain either, you're usually too big as them for it to matter. But I have had crazy high inflation playing as the Aztecs and the like.

[Simca]

It's not a colonial area, but I always like to get to Southeast Asia's island areas quickly. Brunei, Pasai, Malacca, Sulu, and the other SEA island kingdoms are complete pushovers when compared to the might of a European colonial power, and you can take huge swaths of land from them quickly with only having to place 2-3 colony provinces to get claims/cores. Additionally, trade companies there are insanely profitable because almost half the provinces are high price goods like Spices.

Specifically, capturing Tidore and Ternate is possibly one of the biggest single province gold gains in the entire game because they are both Spice producers that have unique flat bonuses to Local Products Produced. Put them into a trade company immediately and then build the two trade company buildings that give +production efficiency and the special 1000 ducat building that gives +10% trade value to the region.

When fully built out properly, Tidore and Ternate can give 8 ducats a month almost each, which is insane for your economy when you get there early. It's also easy to fabricate claims on both with a single colony - just colonize the empty connecting island between the two.

[BGR]

if you want a super colonial focused game, start as england and abdicate henry the ♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥. hopefully you get good adm and dip pips. then take explor, take 3 ideas and then focus on getting dip tech 7 (colonial range buff) then go straight for carribbean. make sure the first province you colonise is either on hispanola or cuba. otherwise if another nation colonises you will lose the wars they start as troops are ususally spawned and kept near capital. Make sure you get all of carribbean. carribbean is unprofitable at first however coffee boom makes them insanely powerful for trade in the carribbean trade node. Then go straight for south africa and create charter company. Boom, if you have both carribbean and south africa you will be getting 300 ducats per month by 1600

[Simca]

Remember to always prefer nodes with high base development and/or trade bonuses, but specifically, the entire colonial strategy I usually go for is:

1. Buy a province in Ivory Coast using the Charter Company option (if available, not sure if that's DLC locked). Later in the game, build the +50% Trade Steering unique trade company building here and dominate the node with light ships, ensuring nearly full control of all of the ducats from Africa and Asia to your choice of European end node.

2. A province in Cape of New Hope. It doesn't steer, so it isn't worth going insane here, though it can ♥♥♥♥ over other people's colonial range hops if you get here very early.

3. Massachusetts or Manhattan, whichever is bordering more Native American tribes. Fabricate claims on them and attack them, annexing them and then coring four of their provinces. I usually build 5 infantry in the colony once it is done. Combined with your starting province, this will form a colonial nation without placing any further colonies. Continue to attack Native American tribes, now using your new 'Concede Colonial Eastern America' peace option to take huge swathes of land very quickly (for some reason they don't consider it annexation...). Don't bother placing further colonies in this region. Your new colonial nation will handle that, and their starting position will be so insanely strong you can have them win any colonial wars for what's leftover easily.

4. As many as you can get in the Caribbean. grumpygorrila is right - this is pretty key - and the AI loves to lose colonial wars here so it's harder to get later.

5. Cartagena. Directly bordering Cartagena to the southeast is the four-province nation of Musica. Conveniently, this is exactly the number of provinces you need to core to form a colonial nation in Colombia. This is extra great because Cartagena is a trade center province. It's literally win-win!

6. Xicaque. This is my preferred province of choice for jumping off into a Colonial Mexico conquest spree. It can be better to start this early. The AI colonizers will usually wait on Mexico until later, ironically, the problem is actually development. If you wait, the Native Mexican nations will consolidate their development, which is actually somewhat bad. Fully formed/conquered Colonial Mexico when done late-ish (say, 1650) can have over 900 development. Their Liberty Desire level will be insane until you can get to the Splendor ability in the Age of Revolution to limit Liberty Desire from development level.

7. A mix of colonies and conquering in Brazil and La Plata.

8. Chitimacha (i.e. New Orleans). Later on, after some tribes have consolidated, this should be bordering or nearly bordering some Native American tribes. Depending on their location, you may have to use a mix of colonies and conquering to form the colonial nation.

9. A single colony placed in Colonial Peru next to Inca/Cusco/whoever. War them and steal all their gold provinces and annex all their neighbors. This will actually take a bit of an army usually.

10. Some stuff in Canada/California/Cascadia/Alaska. As usual, use native provinces as free cores to count towards your colonial nation formation, then immediately move on to the next area. Put more priority into Canada if your nation uses the North Sea or Bordeaux trade nodes. Otherwise, Canada's not super important right now. The provinces there are pretty awful.

11. Take intermediary islands as needed to get to Southeast Asia. (If you're built up in Brazil enough, you can just go through Hawaii.)

12. Take the island between Tidore and Ternate and then annex both.

13. Hawaii. This single province will let you control the majority of the Pacific trade node.

14. Colonize Australia.

15. Take huge swaths of Southeast Asia, India, Africa, and even Japan or China as you desire. Obviously, you can sort of go nuts here as you're finally at a point where your Aggressive Expansion gains are spread out enough that you can be in a state of constant war all the time, limited only by your transport ships, your army movement (although do be warned that colonizers will get AE gains if they put a colony near your conquest sites), and rebellions from overextension.

This is just what I do and what works for me. I haven't watched a ton of videos or guides on the subject, though I have played a metric crapton of EU4. Also, I don't always do this in the same order; it varies based on what the other colonizers are doing. If I see them expand into a colonial region, I usually move to match so that I can make my colonial nations declare colonial wars on them later to get the territory back.