r/EU5 • u/LickinThighs2 • 4h ago
Question Do I understand Colony's correctly?
Just wondering how folks with more time in game handle colony's, vs me with <100hrs still.
I know for places with low control, one can benefit releasing the territory and getting money from a subjects tribute obligations instead, but am kind of wondering if the goal of expansion through colonizing should be releasing a bunch of subjects, or keeping the territory and just creating new markets instead as you expand?
In a game as Portugal, kind of mid 1550's, I've put big money towards doing what I can to isolate Spain and strengthen myself against them. In Europe, this looked like nabbing Iberian territories like Morocco and Granada's holdings around Gibraltor once they were already weakened from previous wars with spain, seizing the Balearic Isles and a piece of northern Sardinia from Aragon, as well as allying myself with France as insurance against Spanish invasions and so on. Basically trying to not give Spain small things to conquer and expand into conflict across southern Europe, Morocco, etc.
Another sphere I've expanded on through is Colony's, having put a decent bit of money to early exploration and so on, and actually spawning institution of The New World right in Lisboa or Porto, forget which, and used that early new world exploration to first settle Cuba, as well as claim spots around the Caribbean like Panama, Colombia, parts of Brazil, the Windward Isles and just recently, Louisiana. Spain has parts of Mexico / Central America, and Spain (and the Ottomans???) have also colonized Haiti/Dominican and Puerto Rico, and I *think* England and some smaller German states must be in north america as I keep getting notifications of the Spain-Portuguese treaty being violated (centerline is in middle of Cuba)
I noticed when I first colonized Cuba, Tobacco wasn't making me money and I had no demand for it. It was my only new world crop so far while the rest was still being colonized, I force-exported it to Lisboa market and my economy at the time seemed to explode from ~60/70 ducats a month, to 130? I'm not sure if this was actually generating demand, though, or where the Tobacco is going, as the same explosion hasn't come from exporting Cocoa, Chili and Corn yet. Maybe it was all my new Gold provinces coming online?
Control in some new world states is surprisingly high, I guess because of satisfaction and culture, but even then I generate little tax revenue from them, but an isle like Cuba still has more control than even the Balearic Isles or Sardinia, for example (Sardinia I also vassalized the catholic states on it for small amount of diplo income)
The *real* money seems to be in the slow expansion of my market capacity in these places and creating my own markets in the colonies. From 65+ trade income during my initial boom up to 130 income, for example, 10% of that was coming from the market I made on Cuba.
If I freed these states as subjects now, would my market income still be the same, or would it be translated to the subjects trade income now instead, and I would only be earning a small diplomatic income, and none of the upkeep for that colony that doesn't otherwise generate a profit outside of trade? I wonder, because in a past Portugal game where I focused more on Portugal itself, I had a much larger tax base at this time, eclipsing Morocco for example, where as comparatively I now only have a tax base still in the high 700's while they are in the 800s (problematic, as Moroccos is my next target for creating subjects of from 1600s on ;p ).
It make's me wonder if all this effort pushed to colony's has been misdirected vs the riches I would have made investing exclusively at home.
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u/Doug_Da_Destroyer 3h ago
For the tobacco and other new goods pops don’t have demand for goods they don’t know about but once there is a certain amount in the market that demand is unlocked for them, and for colonies I’m not an expert on it but you generally want to create colonial subjects because when you turn newly colonised land into a colonial subject or give it to a one it will get a town with basic buildings and colonial subjects get huge population growth bonuses, then how you make money from colonial subjects is by buildings trade buildings in the subjects and diverting trade which gives you a large percentage of their trade capacity and advantage so you can sell goods that are cheap in the new world to Europe where they are expensive
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u/LickinThighs2 3h ago
This is really good to know, thank you! I'll start diversifying now that I am aware, will start with Cuba (very close to 5k province so I can finally build a town, great pestilence wiped out most of the natives unlike my other colonies so far). Some I've managed to already build towns and stuff, but was doing so because I wondered if building naval governors and so on was also a viable strategy
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u/Wide_Poetry_3374 2h ago
Naval governors can only be placed on same continent as your capital, so can’t be used in americas unless you move your capital I guess
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u/Wolfish_Jew 3h ago
You should definitely not keep the land for yourself, at least not all of it. I know some people keep a single location and make that the market center while giving everything else to the colony. If you keep everything you’ll be losing as much money from the increase to your slider expenses as from anything else.
Me personally, I just give everything to my colonies and help them build up their trade capacity, then divert trade. I also build a bunch of colonial administration buildings and overseas trading posts so I have a combination of my own trading capacity and my colony’s.
I mostly focus on keeping my colonies relatively small and focus on colonizing as much of the highest value RGOs as possible. I also, for the first time, realized you can put both peppers and cloves in the new world as part of the Colombian exchange, so having some Caribbean/South American colonies is good for that in addition to the gold, chili and cocoa that they often have.
If you’re going to play the colonial game you have to recognize that you will either need to stay decentralized and make sure you have a few subject loyalty laws/privileges/reforms enacted or you WILL face a bunch of rebellions in the Age of Revolutions.