My colonial nations never ask for help. Is this normal?

[Mickey0815]

In previous games, my colonial nations asked me for help when they were about to lose a war. But in my current game they don't.

I (Netherlands) had a colony in the new england area. I conquered the territory from an independent USA and reduced the USA to one province (New York).

A few decades later this colony attacked a nearby portugues colony. I didn't pay much attention to their war, because i fought my own wars in the old world at the time.
Suddenly they lost all their territory except one province. The portuguese colony forced them to give all the cores back to the USA.

They lost almost all their territory but didn't think they needed help from their mother nation. This is ridiculous. Why didn't they call me into the war, when they were clearly losing to the portuguese colony?

I had another big colony in Canada and 70k troops idling there. I could have crushed the Portuguese in no time, if my stupid colony had only said a single word.

[Palmirinha do Hotdog]

You could have intervened. If I recall correctly, if it is a war between colonial nations, the colonial power in either side can intervene freely for his own colony.
You'd drag Portugal in there too, though.

[Kitten Food]

Colonies do not ask for help. In your previous game, what really happened was that the overlord of the other CN stepped in, which called you into the war automatically. Here is exactly what wars in the CN areas include (via wiki):

Colonial nations can form alliances and declare war with the Native states. Their ability to declare war is restricted with the Natives in that a colonial nation must border the native nation before being able to declare war, even when a colonial nation has a casus belli such as Colonial Conquest: an Eastern American colonial nation can declare war for any casus belli with their neighbors, but not Aztecs or Inca unless it borders them directly.

A colonial nation can declare war with other colonial nations loyal to a different power, but two colonial nations that share the same overlord cannot declare war with each other: Castilian Brazil can declare war on Portuguese Brazil, but not Castilian La Plata, for example. A colonial nation can only take provinces where it has claims on, and is unable to demand others. The exception is that a colonial nation can still demand total annexation if the combined war score is less than 100%.

However, a colonial nation is unable to declare war on any other state on its own. Further, two colonial nations under different overlords cannot go to war against one another if the overlords are allied to each other.

Unlike in a traditional Vassal relationship, the mother country is not automatically involved in these wars, even if the Colonial Nation is the target of a Native or other colonial nation. If the war is going badly for a colonial nation, however, the mother country can try to put a stop to it before everything gets out of hand. The imperial power can try to enforce a peace settlement on the power that is threatening the subject colony. If the target of this request refuses, then the imperial power will join that war – as will the mother country of any other involved Colonial Power.

If a regular established country declares war on a Colonial Nation, the colony is treated like an ally or vassal and the mother country is automatically called into the war.

Hope this helps and clarifies what you can do differently next time.

[Mickey0815]

Thank you, that helped a lot. So i should have stepped in on my own. My mistake was, that i thought that they would call me in, when they are in trouble.

One more question: If the colonial powers decide to support their colonial nations, can they call in allies?



Back to my game:
My only problem now is, that USA is in an alliance against me, together with Portugal, Poland-Lithuania, Austria and the few remaining german and italian minor states. Spain is on my side. Netherlands, Portugal and Spain are the only colonial powers, since i took out France and England.
So i would have to start a world war in order to get back my colony.
It would be the two strongest powers and their colonies against the rest of the western world. Diffucult decision.