what to do with colonists after all provinces are colonized?

[Maximus]

Just wondering what, if anything, one can do with colonists after it's all colonized?

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

You can assign them to one of your owned provinces, it blocks you from building anything in that province while they're there but gives them a random chance (scaling inversely with the province's current dev cost, including all modifiers to it) to add a random point of development to said province each year. It's not much, but hey, it's better than the "literally nothing" they give you by being unassigned.

It's called "Promote Settlement Growth" and there should be a portrait-shaped button for it near the top of the province window.

[Maximus]

I was entirely unaware of this. Thanks TIC

[hesperonis]

If i have an excess of diplo points, i will culture bank a bunch, dump the idea group to get a partial refund and then pick a better diplo idea

[RCMidas]

Expansion is good to keep just for the -10% Territory Autonomy, as that applies to Trade Companies and can help make them even more profitable to full states. And yes, you heard that right. Properly set up, a Trade Company can be more profitable than an actual state area.

[Prince_of_Uranus]

Ditch Expansion/Exploration unless you need it for policies. Settlement growth is very unnoticeable, and if you're in a world conquest run, this feature actively harms your progress by unnecessarily filling up the government cap.

[Scr(A)tch]

Originally posted by Prince_of_Uranus:

Ditch Expansion/Exploration unless you need it for policies. Settlement growth is very unnoticeable, and if you're in a world conquest run, this feature actively harms your progress by unnecessarily filling up the government cap.

Just develop you capital state area.

[Sharpie The Dragon]

Switch out ideas, especially exploration for something more useful.

[Bandit_6]

I keep them around to dev certain provinces for awhile then ditch the idea groups, since the possible dev craters after 10 total dev and by late game i'm rolling in mana and cash anyway.

[Prince_of_Uranus]

Originally posted by Scr(A)tch:

Originally posted by Prince_of_Uranus:

Ditch Expansion/Exploration unless you need it for policies. Settlement growth is very unnoticeable, and if you're in a world conquest run, this feature actively harms your progress by unnecessarily filling up the government cap.

Just develop you capital state area.

Ehrm, no, because if you play optimally, your capital province had had infractructure expanded at least twice by that time in the game for institution development purposes if not anything else, and if you've done that, it is not free anymore.

[Scr(A)tch]

Originally posted by Prince_of_Uranus:

Originally posted by Scr(A)tch:

Just develop you capital state area.

Ehrm, no, because if you play optimally, your capital province had had infractructure expanded at least twice by that time in the game for institution development purposes if not anything else, and if you've done that, it is not free anymore.

The capital state reduction applies to the whole state, not a single province, and the expanded infrastructure increase is easily negated with courthouses/statehouses.

The actual governing capacity taken by the provinces there should just lie at the bare minimum of 1% + flat expanded infrastructure penalty.

[Prince_of_Uranus]

Originally posted by Scr(A)tch:

Originally posted by Prince_of_Uranus:

Ehrm, no, because if you play optimally, your capital province had had infractructure expanded at least twice by that time in the game for institution development purposes if not anything else, and if you've done that, it is not free anymore.

The capital state reduction applies to the whole state, not a single province, and the expanded infrastructure increase is easily negated with courthouses/statehouses.

The actual governing capacity taken by the provinces there should just lie at the bare minimum of 1% + flat expanded infrastructure penalty.

I'm not arguing that, but back to the original discussion: explo/expansion has a total of SEVEN ideas that literally do NOTHING after there's no more provinces to colonize. Unless you need them for specific policies I don't see any value in keeping them around, period, The extra development in the capital area doesn't do anything noticeable either at this stage of the game - remember, I specifically pointed out earlier that it's a world conquest scenario. It's dopamine boost when you get the popup and that's it. Doesn't do anything that helps with the run.

Before you start going "well yeah but Expansion has minimum autonomy in territories and overall some nice bonuses yada yada yada" I have to remind you to consider the opportunity cost of those nice bonuses vs whatever idea group wasn't picked instead. In a direct comparison even something mundane like Economic beats Expansion after colonizing is done.

[Scr(A)tch]

Originally posted by Prince_of_Uranus:

Originally posted by Scr(A)tch:

The capital state reduction applies to the whole state, not a single province, and the expanded infrastructure increase is easily negated with courthouses/statehouses.

The actual governing capacity taken by the provinces there should just lie at the bare minimum of 1% + flat expanded infrastructure penalty.

I'm not arguing that, but back to the original discussion: explo/expansion has a total of SEVEN ideas that literally do NOTHING after there's no more provinces to colonize. Unless you need them for specific policies I don't see any value in keeping them around, period, The extra development in the capital area doesn't do anything noticeable either at this stage of the game - remember, I specifically pointed out earlier that it's a world conquest scenario. It's dopamine boost when you get the popup and that's it. Doesn't do anything that helps with the run.

Sure you can totally dump Exploration and/or Expansion if you have power to invest in another group.

Some countries have colonists in their national ideas though.

[RCMidas]

WC scenarios still make Expansion good to keep. You get a merchant, same as Economic. You get another diplomat, more tariffs, more trade power, reduced CN liberty desire. Unless you formed a nation like Australia or Canada or USA or something that prevents you from creating CNs, those features will help more than pure Economic.

Especially since money is the least important of your resources by the time you're finishing up a WC. More tax in the late game is barely noticeable, though the Inflation and Interest Reductions are both quite nice.

Besides, in a WC scenario, what could you possibly NEED to have instead of Expansion by the time you want to swap it out? Decades, if not centuries, before everything is colonised, you are already functionally unstoppable in any WC.