The problem with colonies

[GeneralZaphod]

Not sure how wide this scope goes, but I know this has been a problem for years. Experience with this game comes at a massive time cost as I have learned. Anyway, when colony under me is formed not only have I no option to join its wars, which I would, but it doesn't even let me enforce peace most of the time as it says "can't enforce peace between two junior partners in a war". https://steamcommunity.com/id/generalzaphod/screenshots/ Right after Japanese Australia formed, two wars broke out, no option for enforce peace is available with any involved in the war. The two leads have enforce green, but both say that above. I am the senior partner, but I am not in the war. Anyway, this seems like a broken mechanic and permits me zero way of maintaining my colonies.

[Malvastor]

Is your colony being attacked by natives or by another country's colonial nation?

[GeneralZaphod]

Australian nomadic tribal nations. in 4 of the 6 nations at war, I have a truce with 4 of them. Wondering if that is having an effect.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

probably. you need to be able to declare the war on them to enforce peace.

Are the ones you have a truce with the ones you can't enforce on?

Normally the junior partner message means two of your colonies are fighting each other, which you can't intervene on.

Or there's a different war-leader than the one you're attempting to target.

[GeneralZaphod]

To clarify what I would prefer to see: Colony acceptance should be a choice, not a forced issue into one of 3 types of colony, other than a 4th of "change nothing". I have always hated this mechanic and it has been around for a long time now. If you do enforce this, at least make sure I can always, no matter what, defend said colonies.

[grotaclas]

You should be able to enforce peace on the country which attacked your CN even if you have a truce. Did you maybe try to enforce peace on a secondary participant of the war? You can only enforce peace on the attacking warleader. Or are you maybe a subject of some kind(e.g. tributary or daimyo)?

[GeneralZaphod]

Originally posted by kaiyl_kariashi:

probably. you need to be able to declare the war on them to enforce peace.

Are the ones you have a truce with the ones you can't enforce on?

Normally the junior partner message means two of your colonies are fighting each other, which you can't intervene on.

In this case no, it was all small tribal nations. I think the green enforce nations were simply the war initiates. It seems like a minor design limitation. A reasonable fix may simple be that if a colony forms under a parent, it should inherit the parents truces. A better fix would be to allow the parent to always be called into any defensive war it chooses to participate in considering the AI seems to always have that advantage.

EDIT: Just want to add that the colony system of forced colonies, IMO, is by far the worst decision ever made in EU4. I think this was added on the first major release after the initial and I hated it since. It sucks to capture 5 gold mines in one war, only to have the AI give them immediately to some punk-ass Ai controlled semi-dweeb that gives me but a fraction of it.

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by GeneralZaphod:

I think the green enforce nations were simply the war initiates. It seems like a minor design limitation.

Do I understand you correctly that you were able to use enforce peace against all countries which declared the war against your CN, but not against their allies? That's not much of a limitation, because if they accept the peace, the war would end for all participants. And if they don't accept, you join the war and become the warleader on your side.

Originally posted by GeneralZaphod:

It sucks to capture 5 gold mines in one war, only to have the AI give them immediately to some punk-ass Ai controlled semi-dweeb that gives me but a fraction of it.

If you have one of the DLCs which give treasure fleets, you get all the gold income from your CNs.

[Malvastor]

In my opinion you're getting more from a CN than you would from having to own all that stuff yourself (especially taking states/GC into account). You still control the land, but your CN expands for you and builds armies and navies at its own expense that fight for you in wars. You can even sic them on their neighbors without having to get involved yourself. Or you can keep an army over there, fight wars against your CN's neighbors, and take whole swathes of land without having to spend a single admin point on coring. You get control of trade in your CN's nodes, plus merchants to push it home with, plus regular lump sums of gold if your CN has any. What's not to love?

[RCMidas]

Originally posted by Malvastor:

What's not to love?

The very concept of not having complete control over lands and peoples that exist solely because you have permitted them to for your and your nation`s greater glory! ~ George III, probably

Hence the colonial revolts.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

to be honest they're aren't going far enough.

You shouldn't be able to control anything directly outside of your pretty much capital region.

Colonies work in the Americas fine, but trade companies and other foreign conquests shouldn't be under your direct control either.

Keep in mind...it's not till like half-way into the Victoria 2 that even the trade-companies came under direct control of their nations, and even then they were functionally puppets, just that they answered more directly to the crown than they did as charter companies.

The Crown is just a share-holder in the company (and not even a major one, I mean sure 8-15% is a lot for a single entity but that's not solid majority), and while they can ask for stuff the board still has to approve it and can say no or ask for further investment if they feel it's outside of their current means or beyond what the Crown's shares warrant.

(Trade-Companies function similar to colonies but are much more economically focused, they don't join conflicts outside of their trade charter region and provide increased local productivity based on their share of held territory within the charter region and give 100% of their trade power to their suzerain. They supply a fixed "tariff" based on the amount of investment the crown provided when the company was chartered, requiring an upfront payment in ducats based on the size of the share, between 5-25% equal to 1 year of income per 5%, the charter company gains these funds as it's starting treasury)

And foreign conquests (anything on a different continent from your capital, otherwise it's becomes vassal instead) should be Protectorates, rather than a personally held territory. functionally similar to colonies, in that they can attack and do other stuff on their own within their region, while kicking back value to their suzerain and aiding them on conflicts (Protectorates automatically join any war declared in their region by their suzerain but must be specifically called for other offensive wars. Protectorates will not automatically join defensive wars and need to be specifically called. Protectorates can call for aid in defensive wars (-30 opinion for saying no for 10 years), and the suzerain can choose to join offensive wars lead by their protectorates at any time.


Which is a hard cap on how much territory you can directly control. Your capital region doesn't count, while your territory outside of your capital region has a limit on the amount of development (after autonomy adjustment) you can directly control after which it needs given to a subject to manage or you suffer corruption from overstretching your nation.

With this cap slowly increasing over time as tech improves so that you can integrate some of your vassals that are closer to your heart-land or if you're a relatively small/tall nation, you can scattered a lot of personal holdings to key provinces for your trade-network and still be able to maintain direct control over it.