Moving Capital to New World.

[Aksolotli]

So let's say i play Portugal. Colonized Rio de Janeiro and move Capital there. Does it mean i will get all those land by direct control?

[Marquoz]

Yes, and you'll be far weaker as a result.

[Marquoz]

To expand on that, you'll miss out on all the bonus merchants that colonial nations give you, which will greatly reduce your income. You'll also eat up your GC directly ruling the Americas instead of spending it on Africa, India, China, and so on.

Colonial nations are good.

[Azunai]

You can't just move your capital to a colonial region directly.

There's a workaround for it, though. You can move it to some of the islands that belong to america but not to the colonial regions and then from there to a colonial region.

[grotaclas]

Originally posted by Azunai:

There's a workaround for it, though. You can move it to some of the islands that belong to america but not to the colonial regions and then from there to a colonial region.

It's not as easy as that, because the conditions are that you can only move your capital to a colonial region if your current capital is the only stated province on its continent and that it does not border any of your other provinces. So if you use an island in north america as your intermediate capital(e.g. Bermuda), you won't be able to move to a colonial region in north america, because both your intermediate capital and your new capital need to be stated. You can move from north america to south america and vice versa. But you can just as well use an intermediate capital on any other continent as long as it fulfills the conditions.

[grotaclas]

Besides the merchants, you also get the advantage that your colonial nations can colonize on their own(sometimes subsidies are needed to get them started). And if they are a crown colony, you get 30% of their manpower and 30% of their force limit. That's usually more than you could get out of the provinces if you own them yourself, but don't state them. But stating and full coring them costs GC and admin power which you can better use for provinces in the old world.