EU4 - Full Colonization and Trade Company Guide (No DLC & Full DLC 2020)

Here's a revamp of the previous colonization guide. One that's hopefully more useful and better prepared.

00:00 Introduction
00:56 Beginning
02:02 Exploration
03:41 Colonization
09:23 Colonial Subjects
13:17 Trade Companies
15:55 Strategy

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General mods I use:

[Quarbit]

Thanks for watching! Don't forget to subscribe🔔 for more guide videos in the future, and dropping a like👍 is hugely appreciated!
Addendum (will be added to):
Expelling is a useless mechanic and doesn't actually change original province culture or religion.
The Treaty of Tordesillas will only fire if you have a good relationship with the pope!

[drg_Oakblood]

5:33 - also the expel minorities also no longer makes the original province your state culture and religion. All it does now is make the colonization free for the cost of some dev. Really not worth it in the long run if you can afford to run the colony. (except for the achievement)

[brandonlyon]

I’m still not a fan of the fact colonial nations no longer convert natives anymore. Converting culture I might somewhat understand (though personally they should try to focus on converting there own colonial culture rather then by random event), but it’s ridiculous that Inca and Nauhata religions still exist well into the 1800’s because of the stupid religious tolerance thing they are forced to have now.

[someinsignificantguy]

I guess the biggest advantage of colonial nations is, that tey can expand by themselves

[kaeios]

2 more things to consider:
1. If a colonial nation doesn't colonize, there is an interaction with the colony called "block settlement growth". Then it wont use it's colonists to develop it's provinces.
2. If you don't want to be bothered with native uprisings, Armies have an interaction called "attack natives". It will kill all natives which means no uprisings and when the colonist finishes the colony, it get's your primary culture and religion. This is also true for trade company colonies, so no conversion or assimilation is needed, but it will of course reduce the added production.

[kemita]

As a noob with almost 5000 hours into EUIV, I can say that this guide is good. I've finally understood how Trade Companies work.... So... Thank you for this video!!!

[noxtrin]

If you combine the French idea (-50% native assimilation and -50% uprising) and the Colonial Expansion policy (20+ settler increase and -50% uprising) can you then take the native repression for the +20 setter increase without natives rising up?

[eddyheaddrascal]

There is one way I know to "fix" colonial nations colonizing out of their colonial zones:

While you have two formed colonial nations: colonize the provinces that border each other on both sides of the colonial zone at the same time. Doing so will "set" the border for the two colonial nations in that area. Their own provinces will stop them, so no matter how fast either one colonizes, one can't expand too fast towards the other, because they're already touching.

There is also an event that makes one colonial nation cede up to 5 provinces that aren't in their colonial zone to the other colonial nation of yours.

[joshschat]

The pope won't give treaty of tordesillas to excommunicated nations, learned that the hard way as tuscany

[テッラリア]

Portugal is so broken, you can reach Malacca before 1500 and explore entire world. You just have to attack with no cb and vassalize someone from Madagascar and boom – road to Malacca opened.

[Owlrider]

While generally true that trade company regions benefit you a lot more than colonial nations, there are still times when you will want to create colonial nations. As a colonizer nation like Portugal for example colonizing the New World is very easy and since most of the colonizers remain Catholic locking down the Caribbean and Brazil colonial regions greatly hampers the AI from competing with you in the New World. Moreover if your play style is more laid back and building tall rather than painting the map with your color you don't necessarily want to invest that much into your military nor declare war on the other colonizers to steal their colonies away. Don't get me wrong, it's very possible and even easy if you know what you're doing, but you can choose a different play style if only to alleviate the boredom of using the exact same blobbing strategy in every single campaign. So in that regard colonizing the New World can be worth it. Moreover the fact that colonial nations colonize on their own is important, as for the investment of 5(or maybe a few more to give your colonial nation a head start) provinces you will ultimately get a heck of a lot more for free. Also if your own colonial nation is strong it will make wars against other colonizers with weaker colonial nations easier as you can just focus on Europe and let your big, strong, colonial nation dominate the AI's weaker one. At the end of the day though it's true, and sad to be honest, that colonial nations are so much weaker than trade company regions as a whole.

[BlueViper]

I'm not sure if this was something I was doing wrong but I noticed when I Expelled Minorities it never changed the culture or religion of the province I was expelling them from.

[OlujaDoTokija]

Great tutorial, it explained a lot! Can you please make one about personal unions (how the inheritance works and stuff)?

[Rachitoi]

Good vid! I like collonizing, i saw that u adviced to take key provinces for good trade development BUT i prefer fast and agressive way: i "hunt" provinces with adiacent natives for very fast way. In my latest run i formed 5 collonial nations in the same time with others struggling for one. I started with Brazil near Potiguara tribes, landed 2 colonies there, conquered 3 moved south to Plata and to Colombia near natives as well. As for Colonial Mexico i just landed one colonist, fabricated the claim, took 5 provs, cored them and formed Col Mexico before finishing mine. Why i rush things?! Cuz its easier to form Colonial Nations, usually they start colonizing with 2 colonists, so If u have more colonies more land u get and u can focus on going east without involving more in new world.

[SubSpace-bsfr]

A few notes:
1. If you colonize a province adjacent to a core province of yours {In trade company regions} it will become primary religion and culture. (Say Kumasi colonizes the gold coast, it will become said culture and religion of Kumasi)
2. If natives rise in a province with a population bellow 1000, instead of an army of 500 infantry, it will ALWAYS autocorrect to a 1000 infantry stack.
3. The Tready of Tordesillas will be granted to a CATHOLIC colony, this means that the overlord can be ANY religion as long as the colonial subject is Catholic. (IE: Andalusia sends minorities to cuba and gets their foreign provinces to be Catholic, thus spawning a Catholic nation as Religion and Culture are based on highest dev province in said colonial region.

If you have any corrections or questions simply ask me!

[jangajdos]

You deserve more attention on the YouTube dude.
Nice guide.👍👌

[clouder]

I wished you explained the trade company buildings.

[bjornaert]

In my Spain run I rushed Mexico and Peru and let Portugal do the rest, since you get a PU over them. Then I colonized the important parts of west Africa and the cost of South Africa and a charter company in coromandel by 1525

[Determinor]

I think you kind of skipped over the stacking snowballing effect of having as many colonial nations as possible. There are 12 trade regions and 10 are relatively easy to form in the new world. Just by taking 10 colonial nations to 10 provinces, you get 50% bonus trade, lots of force limit, and most importantly, 10 merchants. If you're only collecting on the home trade node, using all 10 to steer trade nets you 100% trade power. Add that all up and you have a net 150% trade income increase.

Also, I plan to make some small guides and the first on my mind is an aggressive colonial nation forming guide. Can I link your guide when I make min? Mine will mainly be about strategy while yours is full explanation of the topic.

[frizzykid]

Just want to add one QOL thing to the trade companies you didn't mention, you can click the trade node and there is a button that you can click that will turn all applicable provinces in that node into trade companies.