Europa Universalis IV

Europa Universalis IV

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Slower Colonization
   
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Feb 6, 2024 @ 9:31pm
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Slower Colonization

Description
This mod slows down colonization to make it slightly more historical.

The largest single change is that I've changed the AI weighting for the Exploration idea group. The AI now won't pick Exploration before 1481, so you no longer have Spain and Portugal halfway through colonizing the Caribbean before Columbus sets sail.

Settler growth in general has also been lowered: a lot of base modifiers have been nerfed. The upshot is that colonies take longer to complete. To compensate, colony maintenance has been slashed in half, to 1 gold per colony. However, colony maintenance now increases back up to 2 gold per colony as you progress through diplomatic tech.


Q&As:

Does this mod work with all DLC?

It should, but because I don't own most DLC, I can't be sure.


Is this mod compatible with other mods?

That depends on the mod. There are a few potential sources of incompatibilities:

1: Because I couldn't figure out how to overwrite individual idea groups, I had to overwrite ALL the generic idea groups to implement the altered AI weighting for exploration. If you have a mod that also alters national ideas, you may have to make some fixes.

2: To implement changes to settler growth, I had to manually overwrite the values in each diplomatic tech– which means I technically overwrite vanilla diplomatic techs. Since I didn't touch anything else, it should have no effect on actual gameplay but may cause problems with mods that alter diplomatic tech.

3: I overwrite some defines.lua values. This isn't likely to be a problem, since most of them are colonization-specific.


Is this mod complete?

Not even close. Right now it's in alpha, and even that's highly charitable. I hope to keep working on it, but I can't make any promises beyond that.


Is this mod balanced?

Probably. Colonization in the base game isn't particularly broken to begin with: it's just wildly ahistorical in its speed, and for the most part this is just nerfs.


Can I change or fork this mod?

Sure, just credit me if you do.


KNOWN BUGS:
* The are two slightly different "Charter Colonies" Parliament Issues. This is mildly annoying but should have minimal impact on gameplay, as the AI is weighted to never choose the duplicate.
* The increase in colony upkeep doesn't show up in the tech sidebar, though it should show up on the individual tech cards.
3 Comments
mtegui Nov 20, 2024 @ 6:51am 
great mod but it has one issue, the colonialism institution spawns way too late, making tech ridiculously expensive. Maybe colonialism could spawn earlier without the requirement to own a fully completed colony in the new world
not a starburst  [author] Mar 13, 2024 @ 1:13pm 
@Pionier: Thanks for the feedback. I will look into changing the AI weighting.

That said, I'm not sure what you're describing is ahistorical. In 1550, Americas were barely settled. Only the Spanish controlled large portions of it, mostly by conquering the Incas and Aztecs (and their neighbors). In EU4 that's represented by events and conquering claims that missions give you, not so much by sending out colonists.

The AI often struggles with actually conquering those claims, but that's not something I'm confident I can fix, unfortunately.
Pionier Mar 12, 2024 @ 4:46am 
I like the idea of this mod. Colonization seems to go too fast in most vanilla games compared to real life.
I tested this mod several times and the result is: It's overkill, to the point where the Americas are barley settled by 1550.
If you would make sure that European AI colonizers pick Exploration and Expansion as their 2nd and 3rd ideas, I think this mod would be closer to historical colonization.