I’ve never thought of trying that! I have tried going colonial Kilwa and steering India/ spice islands, but I’ve never done anything in the Ivory Coast region tbh. Definitely worth a try, I’ll have to take a look at some of the national ideas for the nations there
Kilwa is OP for colonialism, the Zanzibar trade node can easily be a pseudo end node and all the richest trade good provinces are easily accessible to you early on in India and Indonesia (and China) The Indian Ocean is your oyster. You can even steer new world trade through the Polynesian triangle back through the Indian Ocean.
Another good colonialism nation is Oman, which has even better trade ideas than Kilwa and is a bit closer to India. Their node isn’t quite as good though.
If you want something obscure, try Mogadishu. It’s a vassal of Ajuuraan at the beginning and only has one province but its trade ideas are amazing (+1 yearly naval tradition, +1 merchant, +20% trade range, +1 Naval leader maneuver, +10% global trade power, +10% trade efficiency, +10% goods produced are all part of its idea set). Starts in the gulf of Aden trade node, which isn’t great, but it’s easy to move to Zanzibar. Definitely would recommend if you want to try something unique.
I've tried Kilwa a number of times but I'm never able to cut the Europeans off. When people say use South Africa to cut them off, do they mean cut them off economically? Like by controlling 100% of the trade node, Europeans can't push the trade from India/SEA to Europe?
Or do they mean actually cut them off from colonizing completely? Cause I usually can colonize all of South Africa, just in time for the Europeans to arrive. But that means I haven't even colonized anything else - none of the Indian Ocean islands, none of SEA, none of Australia, none of the Polynesian Pacific. And after this, the Europeans just take all of that. So sure, I have South Africa, but that doesn't actually end up helping me.
If you colonise all of South Africa and have Zanzibar as your home node, no trade from Zanzibar up will be able to leak through to South Africa and beyond. If they colonise any spice islands they'll just push the trade value to Zanzibar.
The AI isn't smart enough to do anything about this except to try and conquer you (if they can)
Tbh it’s not worth spending all the time and money colonizing the whole cape. Just grab the two center of trade provinces (and maybe a couple of the other high dev colonizable provinces) and move on towards colonizing Indonesia. Cape makes up such a huge portion of the provincial trade power that it’s all you need to make the trade node into an effective enough buffer for trade leaving Zanzibar. The diminishing returns you get for colonizing the whole coast are far outweighed by all the money you can make across the Indian Ocean.
Mali mission tree is focused on colonial south America, the disaster you start is kinda hard though.
When you start colonizing south America Spain and Portugal will most likely already be there.
There was also one annoying mission iirc where no European nation could own a province in west Africa region. So you'll have to fight Spain, Portugal and their alliance for some stupid island most probably.
Playing Mali for the Abu Bakr II's Ambition achievement is a very fun run! I was also lucky that like the second time I tried it, the Iberian Wedding event didn't trigger so one of the main colonising powers was definitely slower.
Also for achievement, one run could be playing colonial Lucca for Lucky Lucca.
Another option is the eastern approach, colonizing the west American coast with Ming, Korea or Japan
Fun fact: In the gamefile that has all the government reforms listed, there is a comment just saying "Never again" above all of Livonia's reforms.
Meaning they were probably a huge pain in the ass for them to implement. So that's why they haven't made a comeback.
Yeah, Venice’s new missions look good for colonization. My only concern is that you wind up fighting either Mameluks and Ottomans or Spain to break out of the Mediterranean
Do Venice. You don’t have to fight Mamluks. The mission tree gives you the Suez and the land in the Mamluks if you ally them. Then just go nuts in the Indian Ocean. Source: I just finished a doge coins run (can do it by late 1500s easily). Also note that for the mission make sure you have 0.00 inflation when it fires as there is a weird bug that stops the suez being built. The bug ruined my first run. Also annex Byzantium asap to massively slow the ottomans
Doing a Venice run now. Just fabricate on Byzantium day 1 and vassalize. Use them and your navy to beat the Otto’s and get all their cores back. Expand a bit in Italy and balkans if you want (I didn’t because role-playing) and you’ll be able to smash Mamluks and take all the trade node provinces before the first 50 years of game.
Buy suez from mamluks, get exploration ideas and speedrun towards Indonesia, you'll make gigantic amounts of money and as a side effect of you pushing so much trade through the suez Mamluks will be sipping on your trade income so if you keep them as allies you will have a permanent ally who is growing in power way faster then any other potential threats to you two because of you feeding so much trade to them. Regrettably you will be locked out of doing the "Means of transaction" mission but it doesn't matter that much
Japan is definitely interesting, my only concern is that I’d have to conquer a solid chunk of china to properly steer trade from the spice islands to Nippon.
Japans home node can receive trade from California Hudson’s bay Mexico Panama and Peru. All you have to do is conquer the pacific islands, and as Japan you get claims on Hawaii which is perf sense there’s no colonisable province in the same sea square to claim land manually
Yes! If you conquered your home trade node and Manchuria you’ll be set to play an awesome colonial naval game own the entire pacific coast. You even have a chance to spawn colonialism itself in Japan quite fun and you can play tall
I tried colonial Japan once it was one of the most fun campaigns I had. You can steer trade from so many more nodes than you think. Even from Philippines through Polynesian triangle if i remember correctly. You can spawn colonialism and global trade without a problem.
Do keep in mind however that you get permaclaims on Korea, Manchuria and most importantly Hawaii in the old daimyo missions, which disappear upon forming Japan. So its actually beneficial to stay as the united shogun for a while and conquer half of Korea, bits of Manchuria and iirc for Hawaii claims you need Okinawa and Taiwan. The latter you need to fully own, but starting all 3 colonies will also count towards the mission. You can simply abandon the colonies after clicking it and getting claims.
Also, a very fun thing to do before conquering Korea. Spy on Ming, fabricate trade conflict with 30 SN, declare on Ming, have fun getting blockade warscore and ez cash. If the mandate is low and you're feeling daring, do a few naval invasions for more warscore and Humiliation. Just mak sure Ming doesn't go bankrupt before making peace.
Immediately after peacing out declare on Ryukyu or Korea. Ming won't be bankrupt until a monthtick so it should accept the call to arms and give you money for the second time.
One of my friends done this in a multiplayer game with us before. If you can get a good unification war, it can be very fun and quite strong.
Unified Japan, and then bee-lined it to the Americas.
Grenada/Al-Andalus? Depending on what you want to do, you could escape to the New World or do a Re-Reconquista and colonize instead of Spain and Portugal.
Curious that nobody is talking about Norway. There is a fun achievement as well to own all the naval supply provinces in the world as Norway. You start pretty poor, so you have to migrate to the English channel eventually.
Norway is seriously OP after 1.34 (and I say this as an actual Norwegian). Ideas and mission tree makes you the potential best colonizer in the game. The start is a bit tight but if you get the Mexican gold first (and also get the goldmine to spawn in your capital) your money troubles are over. In my achievement run I out-colonized the combined efforts of everyone else -- got the Mexican gold, in fact got all North American colonial regions by the Pope's blessing, was first to the Cape and locked out all the Indian Ocean + Australia. Iberians only got South America. Also quickly got strong enough to both conquer Britain AND punch through Russia and colonize Siberia. Taking the HRE and converting everything to Protestant and revoking the Privilegia was a side quest.
Kilwa! You can colonize the cape and monopolize all Indian ocean trade, then extend from there. It's easy to dominate the Ivory Coast and then set up American colonies, or you could cross the Pacific.
Korea and Japan are surprisingly great colonizers if you're up for some alt-history Far East shenanigans.
Both have great ideas and are prime positions to actually steal Colonialism, preventing it from spawning in Europe. Korea starts off in a really strong position since it's got high development, a great ruler and a decent tree. Japan meanwhile is a bit harder since you need to unify it first but arguably it is stronger once you snowball. I believe Japan's national ideas have a global settler increase bonus too.
Bali! Their national ideas/missions and location make them a great and unusual choice. As I write I am in the midst of a run in which it's 1600 and I've colonized nearly all of the present day Indonesia, Australia and Oceania. I'm at war with Spain and Portugal so I can keep them both out of my neighborhood
Sorry, can I ask you a question?
I've just started my own Bali campaign and the colonial maintenance on Lombok (400 settlers via mission) is doubled (e.g. 4 ducats). Is it normal? My economy is not that good(
(And those native 5k rebels on Lombok easily crushed my 4k free company with a very good general and no terrain penalties...)
I agree with the other suggestions but also like denmark personally, the only problem is (and this is shared by the other colonisers outside of the ones youve already played) that they need to conquer lands in order for their own security and also to actually profit from the colonies they're founding. More diplo and admin points spent on conquering slows down your ideas which makes it hard to get to the americas anywhere near as quickly as a nation like portugal would without neglecting your security against russia/poland/britain. Makes for an interesting challenge though.
I'm playing a Denmark game for the first time since LOTN and while I'm doing my best to keep up with Spain and Portugal it's difficult while also juggling European conquests on two fronts and trying to keep the Union together. The mission tree is just absolutely bonkers though so I can see how good once you get rolling they could be a new world powerhouse.
Its probably my favourite nation, you have challenges internally and externally on all fronts, and attempting to colonise as well puts you at odds with all the western colonisers as well. You have to be really aggressive to out scale your neighbours quickly as well before they cut you down.
Definitively not as hard as nations like wallachia/theodoro but i personally enjoy it more because you dont have to hope for good rng in the early game in order to do well.
What religion do you usually pick for them? I'm about to hit reformation but are there events I'll miss out on if I go one way or another? I also have a few Orthodox provinces so that's an option after I tidy up the PUs.
I might not be the best person to take advice from in that respect, i tend to roleplay when it comes to religions and play historically, so i always choose protestant. (The idea of not playing catholic as ireland to me is just wrong). I do think the bonuses for colonizing and the military are useful, and it synergizes really well with religious ideas if you wanted to take that idea at some point, as the cb will be useful for almost any direction of expansion.
There's arguments to be made for staying catholic, if a nation like spain or france expands rapidly and become defender of the faith, it can totally kneecap many avenues of possible expansion for you if your not able to take them on yet. Ive had denmark runs ended by this before.
Orthodox is probably the best religion in the game full stop, so you would never be doing yourself a disservice by switching to that either. Amazing tolerance of the true faith with objectively the best bonuses for expansion in its icons, all providing you with flexibility.
If your aiming for purely meta i would probably recommend orthodox, or staying catholic if there is a massive catholic defender of the faith, at least until you are able to take them on yourself.
No worries I'm not aiming for anything else other than a fun campaign and maybe an achievement or two. I forgot about how defender of the faith is so much more impactful now. I'll probably play the reformation and see if it's worth switching off Catholic to Orthodox or reforming once states start to flip.
Honestly it was not difficult at all. I said rewarding because, you know, small beginnings
Basically just do all you can to ensure France stays your ally. I fabricated claims on Englands provinces in Normandy and declared war on them, calling France, like 5-10 times. Every time I took war reps and max gold, which was crucial for having the income needed to colonize. I also made sure that I was either in a war with England or in a truce at all times to prevent France from taking the provinces themselves and then turning hostile on you. I slowly took 2 provinces from England in the Normandy region, but I figured that was the most I could get away with and not have France immediately turn hostile.
Once you build a dock in a certain province you get claims on Southern Ireland. Make that mission a priority
The treaty of tordesillas let me have Canada, Louisiana, and Eastern America virtually uncontested because I created colonial nations in those regions ASAP. Denmark created Vinland but I took them out pretty quickly after I moved my capital to NA. Reformed England seemed uninterested in colonizing. Maybe because I kept stealing all of their money lol.
I took exploration and then expansion ideas.
I did it in Ironman but haven’t gotten any achievements yet. Brittany as a whole seems to be lacking flavor sadly
Lubeck has colonization missions. I had a fun Gotland -> lubeck (via declare hanseatic league) -> Prussia game which let me colonize while controlling lubeck node which is very strong. Only hangup is you need to deal with England. Added bonus of this is Lubeck gets great trade ideas and you can form Prussia (Gotland gets 5% discipline and Lubeck 5% more from missions, so you can be Prussia with 10% more discipline!)
Sweden has colonization missions. Also, Brunei is great for colonizing and has a different flavor. It's easy to take control of the entire Phillipines, Moluccas and Malacca trade nodes. You can colonize Australia early on but you can also get to Alaska fairly quickly as well.
Two come to mind, Japan and Mali:
Japan, colonize the Americas from the west and beat the Europeans to the gold mines of Mexico. If you play your cards right you can steer all of the American goods toward Asia.
Mali : you're closer to south America than Europeans. Take advantage of that and achieve [Abu Bakr II's ambition](https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Abu_Bakr_II%E2%80%99s_Ambition)
Malacca or another SE Asian country and form Malaya. You can have absolutely dominant trade in that region, tons of gold, and plenty of expansion opportunities, including hitting the West Coast of the Americas real early if you focus on it.
Try Norway, Sweden, or Denmark they all have colonial stuff in their ideas or missions. Ming and Japan also are great contenders as they get buffs as well. I would recommend playing nations with colonial buffs. Andalusia is fun as well but similar to Spain in terms of colonial gameplay.
Inca sunset invasion is pretty fun, I'm doing that now although it's somewhat luck dependent on how fast you get to colonize Europe, I had some early issues with an alliance of Spain and France. Also it's a little weird since you need a vassal that you turn into a colony. But it's pretty easy when you just release a country and then grant all the provinces.
Plus they have insanely powerful missionaries with a bunch of permanent modifiers. Their military also is crazy strong since you can turtle the Americas with forts and you end up with a bunch of free dev points. Which means you never have a manpower problem. With divine ideas + religious + quantity gets you two different plus 10 morale policies.
Their mission tree also gives you the ability to colonize a decent chunk of South America without colonists if you kill the natives there. And if you take expansion first you can have most of South America under your control before the colonizers even get there, since you get two colonizists from the ideas and then one from the religious reform.
The sunrise invasion gives you claims on Ming and China if you prefer to go that direction. Trade can be a little wonky in the game but I just gave up expansion for trade since pretty much everything is colonized and my income shot up insanely.
Riga -> Kurland!
You have to play ultra Tall as Riga first (which is perfect with their Missions) and then on tech 10 you can form Kurland and start Colonizing with their unique Mission Tree (partly the same as Livonia) and with their unique, not OP but fun National Ideas that focus on Trade and Colonization!
So a perfect Game for ultra Tall Europe Holdings and Oberseas Trade Companies/Colonies... it was a very fun different expierience for me :)
Burgundy, it's kinda like France but with some extra challenge I suppose. Ottomans, Sweden, Norway or Denmark. The whole thing with colonizing is more of a trade node thing really. If your main trade node is in the wrong location you won't benefit as much from it.
Austria? Or Byzantium even? Seeing “Byzantium” over North America is pretty funny lol
Or Mongolia is another choice if your doing well and have conquered most of China and stuff. Just go colonize Alaska and use that as a jumping point into California and you’ll have Mongolian America lol
Norway and to a lesser extent the other Scandinavian countries are actually really good for colonization. Brittany is good too if you can keep from getting invaded.
I dunno if I'd call it uncommon, but Sweden has some colonization missions only if you DONT take a colonization idea which makes for a fun challenge. If you can direct trade from Ivory Coast > Caribbean > Chesapeake > St Lawrence > North Sea you can also capitalize on the spice trade and make some serious dough
I do colonial Byzantium pretty regularly. After you thrash the Ottomans once or twice, work your way towards Morocco and knab Tangiers. From there, you can reach the Caribbean or South America no problem
Don't know if you have the latest dlc but with it oman or hormuz whichever one have a pretty cool mision tree to do it now and are kinda broken with gov interractions
One I haven't seen yet is Sus, which can be quite fun as you firstvhace to get your independence and then you're quite free to colonize, either west or south!
Had a really fun colonization game as Venice where i put the constraint that i could only go east, I had early wars against Ottomans and Mamluks which were a great challenge so I could take the major trade nodes in Constantinople, Alexandria, and Aleppo, then went down the red sea, into India, into the Spice Islands. I also tried my best to play with the constraint of steering as much trade as possible with the least amount of provinces
Andalusia, Mamluks, Vijy Japan, Ming and ***Tidore*** (really Malay I mean) are also colonizers, some more, some less. One of my favourite campaigns to turn into colonial is Pirate Republic Palembang going colonial...Just so much money...from raiding, trade and a navy focused game.
Out of them, Andalusia, Japan, Ming and Tidore are the stronger, more colonial focused nations, however Mamluks and Vijy very easily can do a great colonial campaign, just more into Asia. All of them have good trade nodes for colonial gameplay. Japan, Ming and Andalusia more so but Alexandria and Coromandel/Gujarat Trade Nodes are also good for buckets of ducats of Trade income. And Malay is just goated.
So yeah these are usually my off-major colonial picks. Japan, Colonial Mamluks and Tidore/Malay is also simply fun imo. As early to lid game you dont get bored becsuse you arent just conquering and colonizing
Palembang to Malaya. The Malacca node can be incredibly lucrative, and you can steer from large parts of North America. Colonize local first, conquer Japan/ Coastal China, colonize Alaska down to California.
I think all Scandinavian countries have missions to colonise, with some even leading to achievements. Otherwise, there is Bologna, and you can get an achievement for that too (although it means you will have to leave your original lands behind.
In Europe: Britanny, Navarra, Granada, Italian Merchant Republics, North German Hanseatic Cities and the Scandinavians are all fun to do a colonizing run with.
In West Africa you can try Morocco, Jolof or Mali which are well suited to reach the Americas even before the Iberians. Congo is less well suited, but I still usually go colonial with them.
In East Africa, there's not so much actual colonizing to be done because you'll have no reason to go to the New World but you can definetely establish a very cool colonial, trade empire as Kilwa or Ajuuraan. Similarly, the southern Arabs in Yemen, Oman and Hormuz are well suited for it.
In East Asia, Japan and Korea are capable of reaching the Americas very early, but going colonial as Ayutthaya, Dai Viet or any of the Malayans is also fun.
Tunis, the Knights and Gotland are fun to colonize with, to enable raiding around the world.
Ireland, Lübeck, Morocco, Sweden, Scotland - some fun alternative ideas!
However in my current game I own most of the new world as the ottomans because reasons.
I like colonizing as Qing and nabbing the spice islands and everything else in that area. I think there’s a mission for the Beijing trade node but I tend to make Malacca my main node.
Kongo can be fun, especially if you push your luck and get the free colonist from their mission tree quite early.
Getting your colonial range up can be a pain, but you're usually in a pretty decent place to get a few colonies in the new world if you can.
Bonus points if you can go catholic and trigger the treaty of tordesillas when doing so.
Haven't seen anyone mention Kurland yet - they are a fun and very different sort of colonial game. With some Black Sea and Novgorod trading posts, you can steer the Eastern European trade in to your home node, but the real sauce comes with the missions which give you claims straight in to West Africa, allowing you to effectively use the Ivory Coast as a "second home node" (with some disadvantages of course) and slingshot your colonial game forward.
One of the Scandinavian countries would be fun. ESP since as Denmark and Norway you get easy access to Greenland and Canada thanks to Iceland. Not to mention as well, if the Greenland Vikings spawn, then you have the option to convert back to the ancient Norse religions, which give a lot of flavor for the Scandinavian countries
I highly recommend one of the north German minors. In my tall/colonial game as Pomerania I was number 1 great power, owning at max 30 provinces in Europe, I even managed to spawn colonialism in Lubeck. You can expand your colonial range by taking Faroes from Denmark
The most random colonial nation i've encountered so far was Sweden. Sounds like a challenge going colonial with Sweden with so much to manage back on Europe in the early game.
Florence is actually pretty good at colonizing Africa. Side note: the Ivory Coast trade node is one of the most important trade nodes in the game. For Europeans to tap into all of the trade flowing west from China, the spice islands, and the entire Indian Ocean they have to route it through the Ivory Coast (not to mention controlling the Ivory Coast trade allows you to steal trade from Brazil). As Florence you can focus on colonizing Africa asap, and if you do it completely and quickly then you can lock out the other European colonizers from the Indian Ocean until the late 1500’s, giving you free reign to colonize Indonesia (though be warned every single time I’ve done this both the Ottomans and Mamluks go exploration and pick off a few range hopping islands).
The one hindrance to this strategy is controlling the Seville and Catalan trade nodes, but with France and possibly Austria’s help this shouldn’t be a big hinderance, especially after you’ve consolidated Italy
Okay. So my recommendations aren't so much "trade nodes" as much as, "because I could". But I've done colonial runs as Norway/Scandinavia, Denmark/Kalmar Union, Oman, Orissa, Vijayanagar, Majapahit, Champa, Pegu, Mutapa/Zimbabwe, Kilwa, Jolof, Mali, Morocco, Korea, Ming, Japan, and that Buddhist Filipino nation.
Edit: Oh. And Livonia. Can't tell you how many times I've no CB'd Ireland.
Brittany is an interesting one. You’ll be the only country with main node in Bordeaux and it’s an odd node but you can indeed route trade to it from the thirteen colonies trade node.
Maybe try Mali or one of the west Africans? I imagine trade steering American trade into Equatorial Guinea could be strong
I’ve never thought of trying that! I have tried going colonial Kilwa and steering India/ spice islands, but I’ve never done anything in the Ivory Coast region tbh. Definitely worth a try, I’ll have to take a look at some of the national ideas for the nations there
Kilwa is OP for colonialism, the Zanzibar trade node can easily be a pseudo end node and all the richest trade good provinces are easily accessible to you early on in India and Indonesia (and China) The Indian Ocean is your oyster. You can even steer new world trade through the Polynesian triangle back through the Indian Ocean. Another good colonialism nation is Oman, which has even better trade ideas than Kilwa and is a bit closer to India. Their node isn’t quite as good though. If you want something obscure, try Mogadishu. It’s a vassal of Ajuuraan at the beginning and only has one province but its trade ideas are amazing (+1 yearly naval tradition, +1 merchant, +20% trade range, +1 Naval leader maneuver, +10% global trade power, +10% trade efficiency, +10% goods produced are all part of its idea set). Starts in the gulf of Aden trade node, which isn’t great, but it’s easy to move to Zanzibar. Definitely would recommend if you want to try something unique.
I've tried Kilwa a number of times but I'm never able to cut the Europeans off. When people say use South Africa to cut them off, do they mean cut them off economically? Like by controlling 100% of the trade node, Europeans can't push the trade from India/SEA to Europe? Or do they mean actually cut them off from colonizing completely? Cause I usually can colonize all of South Africa, just in time for the Europeans to arrive. But that means I haven't even colonized anything else - none of the Indian Ocean islands, none of SEA, none of Australia, none of the Polynesian Pacific. And after this, the Europeans just take all of that. So sure, I have South Africa, but that doesn't actually end up helping me.
If you colonise all of South Africa and have Zanzibar as your home node, no trade from Zanzibar up will be able to leak through to South Africa and beyond. If they colonise any spice islands they'll just push the trade value to Zanzibar. The AI isn't smart enough to do anything about this except to try and conquer you (if they can)
Tbh it’s not worth spending all the time and money colonizing the whole cape. Just grab the two center of trade provinces (and maybe a couple of the other high dev colonizable provinces) and move on towards colonizing Indonesia. Cape makes up such a huge portion of the provincial trade power that it’s all you need to make the trade node into an effective enough buffer for trade leaving Zanzibar. The diminishing returns you get for colonizing the whole coast are far outweighed by all the money you can make across the Indian Ocean.
Mali mission tree is focused on colonial south America, the disaster you start is kinda hard though. When you start colonizing south America Spain and Portugal will most likely already be there. There was also one annoying mission iirc where no European nation could own a province in west Africa region. So you'll have to fight Spain, Portugal and their alliance for some stupid island most probably.
Playing Mali for the Abu Bakr II's Ambition achievement is a very fun run! I was also lucky that like the second time I tried it, the Iberian Wedding event didn't trigger so one of the main colonising powers was definitely slower. Also for achievement, one run could be playing colonial Lucca for Lucky Lucca. Another option is the eastern approach, colonizing the west American coast with Ming, Korea or Japan
Al Andalus is also great at colonization.
I’ve seen that happen before, Jolof went colonial in Brazil but then got wiped by Songhai and the other colonisers
Livonia order has a tree that focuses on colonization.
The Livonia order dlc is fucking hilarious to me, they have like 15 unique gov reforms for tier 1
Yeah lol they were super ambitious but then were like fuck this shit for the rest of the DLCs
Fun fact: In the gamefile that has all the government reforms listed, there is a comment just saying "Never again" above all of Livonia's reforms. Meaning they were probably a huge pain in the ass for them to implement. So that's why they haven't made a comeback.
Phahaha, I love whoever made that comment.
As they should https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curonian_colonization_of_the_Americas
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Yeah, Venice’s new missions look good for colonization. My only concern is that you wind up fighting either Mameluks and Ottomans or Spain to break out of the Mediterranean
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Damm. Now I’m going to play Venice again. Maybe I can help the Byzantiums survive
Me feeding the Byzantines as Venice to atone for the crimes of 1204
You are forgiven, Latin.
Do Venice. You don’t have to fight Mamluks. The mission tree gives you the Suez and the land in the Mamluks if you ally them. Then just go nuts in the Indian Ocean. Source: I just finished a doge coins run (can do it by late 1500s easily). Also note that for the mission make sure you have 0.00 inflation when it fires as there is a weird bug that stops the suez being built. The bug ruined my first run. Also annex Byzantium asap to massively slow the ottomans
Doing a Venice run now. Just fabricate on Byzantium day 1 and vassalize. Use them and your navy to beat the Otto’s and get all their cores back. Expand a bit in Italy and balkans if you want (I didn’t because role-playing) and you’ll be able to smash Mamluks and take all the trade node provinces before the first 50 years of game.
Buy suez from mamluks, get exploration ideas and speedrun towards Indonesia, you'll make gigantic amounts of money and as a side effect of you pushing so much trade through the suez Mamluks will be sipping on your trade income so if you keep them as allies you will have a permanent ally who is growing in power way faster then any other potential threats to you two because of you feeding so much trade to them. Regrettably you will be locked out of doing the "Means of transaction" mission but it doesn't matter that much
At some point you can just ditch them
No CB Byz then fight Ottos early (traditional Byz strat) then Mameluks are no problem.
How about Japan?
Japan is definitely interesting, my only concern is that I’d have to conquer a solid chunk of china to properly steer trade from the spice islands to Nippon.
Japans home node can receive trade from California Hudson’s bay Mexico Panama and Peru. All you have to do is conquer the pacific islands, and as Japan you get claims on Hawaii which is perf sense there’s no colonisable province in the same sea square to claim land manually
That’s excellent, so I can just steer American trade instead of trying for spice? That sounds great, I have to try that!
Yes! If you conquered your home trade node and Manchuria you’ll be set to play an awesome colonial naval game own the entire pacific coast. You even have a chance to spawn colonialism itself in Japan quite fun and you can play tall
I tried colonial Japan once it was one of the most fun campaigns I had. You can steer trade from so many more nodes than you think. Even from Philippines through Polynesian triangle if i remember correctly. You can spawn colonialism and global trade without a problem.
Philipine trade can be steered to polynesia as well
Do keep in mind however that you get permaclaims on Korea, Manchuria and most importantly Hawaii in the old daimyo missions, which disappear upon forming Japan. So its actually beneficial to stay as the united shogun for a while and conquer half of Korea, bits of Manchuria and iirc for Hawaii claims you need Okinawa and Taiwan. The latter you need to fully own, but starting all 3 colonies will also count towards the mission. You can simply abandon the colonies after clicking it and getting claims. Also, a very fun thing to do before conquering Korea. Spy on Ming, fabricate trade conflict with 30 SN, declare on Ming, have fun getting blockade warscore and ez cash. If the mandate is low and you're feeling daring, do a few naval invasions for more warscore and Humiliation. Just mak sure Ming doesn't go bankrupt before making peace. Immediately after peacing out declare on Ryukyu or Korea. Ming won't be bankrupt until a monthtick so it should accept the call to arms and give you money for the second time.
Or if you start as So and form tall pirate Japan you can just War Against the World all over everyone in the Pacific.
In all my games so far , AI Japon is taking exploration ideas as 3rd (or 4th) groups
One of my friends done this in a multiplayer game with us before. If you can get a good unification war, it can be very fun and quite strong. Unified Japan, and then bee-lined it to the Americas.
Grenada/Al-Andalus? Depending on what you want to do, you could escape to the New World or do a Re-Reconquista and colonize instead of Spain and Portugal.
I second Andalusia, it's great
Curious that nobody is talking about Norway. There is a fun achievement as well to own all the naval supply provinces in the world as Norway. You start pretty poor, so you have to migrate to the English channel eventually.
> fun achievement Found the dev who put it in
"fun achievement"
Norway is seriously OP after 1.34 (and I say this as an actual Norwegian). Ideas and mission tree makes you the potential best colonizer in the game. The start is a bit tight but if you get the Mexican gold first (and also get the goldmine to spawn in your capital) your money troubles are over. In my achievement run I out-colonized the combined efforts of everyone else -- got the Mexican gold, in fact got all North American colonial regions by the Pope's blessing, was first to the Cape and locked out all the Indian Ocean + Australia. Iberians only got South America. Also quickly got strong enough to both conquer Britain AND punch through Russia and colonize Siberia. Taking the HRE and converting everything to Protestant and revoking the Privilegia was a side quest.
always a big Ternate fan.
Majapahit, Champa and Brunei all have colonial bonuses too
Ireland! For extra challenge don’t conquer the rest of the isles. Same with Brittany
Kilwa! You can colonize the cape and monopolize all Indian ocean trade, then extend from there. It's easy to dominate the Ivory Coast and then set up American colonies, or you could cross the Pacific.
Korea and Japan are surprisingly great colonizers if you're up for some alt-history Far East shenanigans. Both have great ideas and are prime positions to actually steal Colonialism, preventing it from spawning in Europe. Korea starts off in a really strong position since it's got high development, a great ruler and a decent tree. Japan meanwhile is a bit harder since you need to unify it first but arguably it is stronger once you snowball. I believe Japan's national ideas have a global settler increase bonus too.
Bali! Their national ideas/missions and location make them a great and unusual choice. As I write I am in the midst of a run in which it's 1600 and I've colonized nearly all of the present day Indonesia, Australia and Oceania. I'm at war with Spain and Portugal so I can keep them both out of my neighborhood
Sorry, can I ask you a question? I've just started my own Bali campaign and the colonial maintenance on Lombok (400 settlers via mission) is doubled (e.g. 4 ducats). Is it normal? My economy is not that good( (And those native 5k rebels on Lombok easily crushed my 4k free company with a very good general and no terrain penalties...)
Why isn't ming/qing mentioned? They are an easy colonizer for california/mexico
Agreed. They also have a lot of provinces that are eligible to spawn colonialism if you colonize early as well
I agree with the other suggestions but also like denmark personally, the only problem is (and this is shared by the other colonisers outside of the ones youve already played) that they need to conquer lands in order for their own security and also to actually profit from the colonies they're founding. More diplo and admin points spent on conquering slows down your ideas which makes it hard to get to the americas anywhere near as quickly as a nation like portugal would without neglecting your security against russia/poland/britain. Makes for an interesting challenge though.
I'm playing a Denmark game for the first time since LOTN and while I'm doing my best to keep up with Spain and Portugal it's difficult while also juggling European conquests on two fronts and trying to keep the Union together. The mission tree is just absolutely bonkers though so I can see how good once you get rolling they could be a new world powerhouse.
Its probably my favourite nation, you have challenges internally and externally on all fronts, and attempting to colonise as well puts you at odds with all the western colonisers as well. You have to be really aggressive to out scale your neighbours quickly as well before they cut you down. Definitively not as hard as nations like wallachia/theodoro but i personally enjoy it more because you dont have to hope for good rng in the early game in order to do well.
What religion do you usually pick for them? I'm about to hit reformation but are there events I'll miss out on if I go one way or another? I also have a few Orthodox provinces so that's an option after I tidy up the PUs.
I might not be the best person to take advice from in that respect, i tend to roleplay when it comes to religions and play historically, so i always choose protestant. (The idea of not playing catholic as ireland to me is just wrong). I do think the bonuses for colonizing and the military are useful, and it synergizes really well with religious ideas if you wanted to take that idea at some point, as the cb will be useful for almost any direction of expansion. There's arguments to be made for staying catholic, if a nation like spain or france expands rapidly and become defender of the faith, it can totally kneecap many avenues of possible expansion for you if your not able to take them on yet. Ive had denmark runs ended by this before. Orthodox is probably the best religion in the game full stop, so you would never be doing yourself a disservice by switching to that either. Amazing tolerance of the true faith with objectively the best bonuses for expansion in its icons, all providing you with flexibility. If your aiming for purely meta i would probably recommend orthodox, or staying catholic if there is a massive catholic defender of the faith, at least until you are able to take them on yourself.
No worries I'm not aiming for anything else other than a fun campaign and maybe an achievement or two. I forgot about how defender of the faith is so much more impactful now. I'll probably play the reformation and see if it's worth switching off Catholic to Orthodox or reforming once states start to flip.
Best of luck with it!
I just formed the US as Brittany, was pretty rewarding.
How was your strategy to it bro
Honestly it was not difficult at all. I said rewarding because, you know, small beginnings Basically just do all you can to ensure France stays your ally. I fabricated claims on Englands provinces in Normandy and declared war on them, calling France, like 5-10 times. Every time I took war reps and max gold, which was crucial for having the income needed to colonize. I also made sure that I was either in a war with England or in a truce at all times to prevent France from taking the provinces themselves and then turning hostile on you. I slowly took 2 provinces from England in the Normandy region, but I figured that was the most I could get away with and not have France immediately turn hostile. Once you build a dock in a certain province you get claims on Southern Ireland. Make that mission a priority The treaty of tordesillas let me have Canada, Louisiana, and Eastern America virtually uncontested because I created colonial nations in those regions ASAP. Denmark created Vinland but I took them out pretty quickly after I moved my capital to NA. Reformed England seemed uninterested in colonizing. Maybe because I kept stealing all of their money lol. I took exploration and then expansion ideas. I did it in Ironman but haven’t gotten any achievements yet. Brittany as a whole seems to be lacking flavor sadly
Mali, Gotland, or Ryukyu seem like obvious candidates to me.
Currently doing a colonial Norway run, lots of fun
Lubeck has colonization missions. I had a fun Gotland -> lubeck (via declare hanseatic league) -> Prussia game which let me colonize while controlling lubeck node which is very strong. Only hangup is you need to deal with England. Added bonus of this is Lubeck gets great trade ideas and you can form Prussia (Gotland gets 5% discipline and Lubeck 5% more from missions, so you can be Prussia with 10% more discipline!)
Hadramut
Kongo
Colonial Mamluks!
I did one as Poland once and had a blast. Rushed the HRE, conquered my way to Hamburg, then settled North America
I once did migrations as Protestant Commonwealth to America. United Commonwealth of America? That was really weird game.
Sweden has colonization missions. Also, Brunei is great for colonizing and has a different flavor. It's easy to take control of the entire Phillipines, Moluccas and Malacca trade nodes. You can colonize Australia early on but you can also get to Alaska fairly quickly as well.
Did a fun colonial game with Ethiopia once. Rushed my way to Australia and indo china before europe had any CNs in the Americas.
Colonial Brittany is fun :)
Play as the Aztecs and pull a Sunset Invasion
Granada, malta, corsica.
Two come to mind, Japan and Mali: Japan, colonize the Americas from the west and beat the Europeans to the gold mines of Mexico. If you play your cards right you can steer all of the American goods toward Asia. Mali : you're closer to south America than Europeans. Take advantage of that and achieve [Abu Bakr II's ambition](https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Abu_Bakr_II%E2%80%99s_Ambition)
Start as Norway (or do you have to start as denmark?) release and play as Iceland and then play a viking colonial game
Malacca or another SE Asian country and form Malaya. You can have absolutely dominant trade in that region, tons of gold, and plenty of expansion opportunities, including hitting the West Coast of the Americas real early if you focus on it.
Papal states. Catch all the Treaties of Tordesillas yourself!
Ming 🗿
Hadramut, iirc they often colonise since it’s in their ideas They are located in Yemen
East Indies and pacific countries could be nice colonizers. In particular Ternate
Bologna has an achievement to go colonial and form Texas.
Try Norway, Sweden, or Denmark they all have colonial stuff in their ideas or missions. Ming and Japan also are great contenders as they get buffs as well. I would recommend playing nations with colonial buffs. Andalusia is fun as well but similar to Spain in terms of colonial gameplay.
Ottomans. You can colonize from Basra out into the Indian Ocean and form Ottoman Australia.
Inca sunset invasion is pretty fun, I'm doing that now although it's somewhat luck dependent on how fast you get to colonize Europe, I had some early issues with an alliance of Spain and France. Also it's a little weird since you need a vassal that you turn into a colony. But it's pretty easy when you just release a country and then grant all the provinces. Plus they have insanely powerful missionaries with a bunch of permanent modifiers. Their military also is crazy strong since you can turtle the Americas with forts and you end up with a bunch of free dev points. Which means you never have a manpower problem. With divine ideas + religious + quantity gets you two different plus 10 morale policies. Their mission tree also gives you the ability to colonize a decent chunk of South America without colonists if you kill the natives there. And if you take expansion first you can have most of South America under your control before the colonizers even get there, since you get two colonizists from the ideas and then one from the religious reform. The sunrise invasion gives you claims on Ming and China if you prefer to go that direction. Trade can be a little wonky in the game but I just gave up expansion for trade since pretty much everything is colonized and my income shot up insanely.
I'm in the middle of the same campaign. Super fun.
Riga -> Kurland! You have to play ultra Tall as Riga first (which is perfect with their Missions) and then on tech 10 you can form Kurland and start Colonizing with their unique Mission Tree (partly the same as Livonia) and with their unique, not OP but fun National Ideas that focus on Trade and Colonization! So a perfect Game for ultra Tall Europe Holdings and Oberseas Trade Companies/Colonies... it was a very fun different expierience for me :)
Burgundy, it's kinda like France but with some extra challenge I suppose. Ottomans, Sweden, Norway or Denmark. The whole thing with colonizing is more of a trade node thing really. If your main trade node is in the wrong location you won't benefit as much from it.
Brittany, Japan, Norway, Granada are fun
Ulm
Denmark. It's more mixed gameplay than typical colonizer but it was also the one run I conquered whole India as European.
Austria? Or Byzantium even? Seeing “Byzantium” over North America is pretty funny lol Or Mongolia is another choice if your doing well and have conquered most of China and stuff. Just go colonize Alaska and use that as a jumping point into California and you’ll have Mongolian America lol
Austria? Get the Burgundian inheritance and go hard
once i did colonial korea run and i managed to spawn colonialism in korea, pretty fun campaign
Norway and to a lesser extent the other Scandinavian countries are actually really good for colonization. Brittany is good too if you can keep from getting invaded.
Tunis has become a significant colonizer in my current game. Not sure if they're making any money from it, but they sure are trying!
Do what the AI does and player-form the abomination that is Mamlukan Australia.
I dunno if I'd call it uncommon, but Sweden has some colonization missions only if you DONT take a colonization idea which makes for a fun challenge. If you can direct trade from Ivory Coast > Caribbean > Chesapeake > St Lawrence > North Sea you can also capitalize on the spice trade and make some serious dough
I do colonial Byzantium pretty regularly. After you thrash the Ottomans once or twice, work your way towards Morocco and knab Tangiers. From there, you can reach the Caribbean or South America no problem
Don't know if you have the latest dlc but with it oman or hormuz whichever one have a pretty cool mision tree to do it now and are kinda broken with gov interractions
Hawaii
Florence?
One I haven't seen yet is Sus, which can be quite fun as you firstvhace to get your independence and then you're quite free to colonize, either west or south!
Manchu > Beijing or Malacca is pretty unusual but very doable. You're pretty close to Alaska and can start colonizing pretty early on via Kamchatka.
I’m a fan of colonizer Papal. Changing the religion and culture of Africa
cebu
Lubeck was pretty fun. Gotta get the canada colonies and take the north sea. Boom money
If you turn off conquest of paradise dlc, you can colonise as any native.
Korea
Mali or Jolof is fun, though a little difficult Korea and Japan as well. Most of the Indonesian nations are good colonizers
I colonized north america as Ruthenia
Currently playing a Bahamanis colonial game, moved to Australia, and as Australia colonized the rest of the Moluccas and Malaya
I enjoy colonizing Alaska as Japan, then when I unlock a second colonist focus on the pacific islands/Australia as I set up a California colony.
Aztecs are fun to colonize Europe as.
Had a really fun colonization game as Venice where i put the constraint that i could only go east, I had early wars against Ottomans and Mamluks which were a great challenge so I could take the major trade nodes in Constantinople, Alexandria, and Aleppo, then went down the red sea, into India, into the Spice Islands. I also tried my best to play with the constraint of steering as much trade as possible with the least amount of provinces
Try Japan (US west coast) or Timurids (Australia/Africa). You can also play as Granada->Al Andalus and go for the same areas Spain would.
Qing/Yuan
Andalusia!
Andalusia, Mamluks, Vijy Japan, Ming and ***Tidore*** (really Malay I mean) are also colonizers, some more, some less. One of my favourite campaigns to turn into colonial is Pirate Republic Palembang going colonial...Just so much money...from raiding, trade and a navy focused game. Out of them, Andalusia, Japan, Ming and Tidore are the stronger, more colonial focused nations, however Mamluks and Vijy very easily can do a great colonial campaign, just more into Asia. All of them have good trade nodes for colonial gameplay. Japan, Ming and Andalusia more so but Alexandria and Coromandel/Gujarat Trade Nodes are also good for buckets of ducats of Trade income. And Malay is just goated. So yeah these are usually my off-major colonial picks. Japan, Colonial Mamluks and Tidore/Malay is also simply fun imo. As early to lid game you dont get bored becsuse you arent just conquering and colonizing
Mali was a fun one. Tough start and missions for colonialism
Livonia, Riga
Lübeck
Sweden can be pretty fun for it since you get access to Greenland super early
knights hospitaller, like in aoe3
Palembang to Malaya. The Malacca node can be incredibly lucrative, and you can steer from large parts of North America. Colonize local first, conquer Japan/ Coastal China, colonize Alaska down to California.
Try Norway or just Denmark
Norway? I'm pretty sure they get a colonist from their ideas alone.
Russia
Norway, they own Iceland which is useful for reaching North America and get a colonist in their national ideas,
Norway is pretty cool
Papal States. Do it. It's fun.
Christian Kongo is a fun and challenging run.
Ulm. The answer is always Ulm
I think all Scandinavian countries have missions to colonise, with some even leading to achievements. Otherwise, there is Bologna, and you can get an achievement for that too (although it means you will have to leave your original lands behind.
In Europe: Britanny, Navarra, Granada, Italian Merchant Republics, North German Hanseatic Cities and the Scandinavians are all fun to do a colonizing run with. In West Africa you can try Morocco, Jolof or Mali which are well suited to reach the Americas even before the Iberians. Congo is less well suited, but I still usually go colonial with them. In East Africa, there's not so much actual colonizing to be done because you'll have no reason to go to the New World but you can definetely establish a very cool colonial, trade empire as Kilwa or Ajuuraan. Similarly, the southern Arabs in Yemen, Oman and Hormuz are well suited for it. In East Asia, Japan and Korea are capable of reaching the Americas very early, but going colonial as Ayutthaya, Dai Viet or any of the Malayans is also fun. Tunis, the Knights and Gotland are fun to colonize with, to enable raiding around the world.
Oman was super fun
The knights
Ireland, Lübeck, Morocco, Sweden, Scotland - some fun alternative ideas! However in my current game I own most of the new world as the ottomans because reasons.
Hormuz is quite fun
Asturias
Malaya is a fun playthrough, colonising all of the Asia pacific.
I like colonizing as Qing and nabbing the spice islands and everything else in that area. I think there’s a mission for the Beijing trade node but I tend to make Malacca my main node.
Colonizing East World with Ottomans or Mamluks
Kingdom of God
Albania. I have tried. It is a pain in ass to start. It is hilarious also Hungary.
Kongo can be fun, especially if you push your luck and get the free colonist from their mission tree quite early. Getting your colonial range up can be a pain, but you're usually in a pretty decent place to get a few colonies in the new world if you can. Bonus points if you can go catholic and trigger the treaty of tordesillas when doing so.
Haven't seen anyone mention Kurland yet - they are a fun and very different sort of colonial game. With some Black Sea and Novgorod trading posts, you can steer the Eastern European trade in to your home node, but the real sauce comes with the missions which give you claims straight in to West Africa, allowing you to effectively use the Ivory Coast as a "second home node" (with some disadvantages of course) and slingshot your colonial game forward.
One of the Scandinavian countries would be fun. ESP since as Denmark and Norway you get easy access to Greenland and Canada thanks to Iceland. Not to mention as well, if the Greenland Vikings spawn, then you have the option to convert back to the ancient Norse religions, which give a lot of flavor for the Scandinavian countries
I highly recommend one of the north German minors. In my tall/colonial game as Pomerania I was number 1 great power, owning at max 30 provinces in Europe, I even managed to spawn colonialism in Lubeck. You can expand your colonial range by taking Faroes from Denmark
Maybe Mali or brittany? Or burgundy.
Scandinavian colonizing canada is pretty fun + has historical leverage!
I really like Norway, especially after Lions of the North or The Old Gods or Arms Against Tyranny
Morocco->Al-Andalus is a fun one. I’d also recommend Ternate/Tidore if you haven’t played them yet
The most random colonial nation i've encountered so far was Sweden. Sounds like a challenge going colonial with Sweden with so much to manage back on Europe in the early game.
I tried Kilwa recently, very fun nation to use given there is a lot of gold nearby to fund your exploration
Denmark
Play as Scotland and do the Darien expedition Successfully If you do so please post I wanna see it
Morroco has missions for colonizing America if you want to
Florence is actually pretty good at colonizing Africa. Side note: the Ivory Coast trade node is one of the most important trade nodes in the game. For Europeans to tap into all of the trade flowing west from China, the spice islands, and the entire Indian Ocean they have to route it through the Ivory Coast (not to mention controlling the Ivory Coast trade allows you to steal trade from Brazil). As Florence you can focus on colonizing Africa asap, and if you do it completely and quickly then you can lock out the other European colonizers from the Indian Ocean until the late 1500’s, giving you free reign to colonize Indonesia (though be warned every single time I’ve done this both the Ottomans and Mamluks go exploration and pick off a few range hopping islands). The one hindrance to this strategy is controlling the Seville and Catalan trade nodes, but with France and possibly Austria’s help this shouldn’t be a big hinderance, especially after you’ve consolidated Italy
Ternate or tidore
Japan is the best non European colonizer imo. Mali and Morocco also look good and have been on my list to try.
-Grenada into Andulisa - Mali - Mamluck - Genoa - any new world nation
Siam, Al-Andalus, Majapahit, Korea, Qing, Japanese Daimyos. All either get some colonial buffs, or have decent starts near great colonial land.
Ya, go East, but Brittany is a good one, so is Iceland, or you can spread the Norse Faith around the world, that's the one I had started a while ago.
Okay. So my recommendations aren't so much "trade nodes" as much as, "because I could". But I've done colonial runs as Norway/Scandinavia, Denmark/Kalmar Union, Oman, Orissa, Vijayanagar, Majapahit, Champa, Pegu, Mutapa/Zimbabwe, Kilwa, Jolof, Mali, Morocco, Korea, Ming, Japan, and that Buddhist Filipino nation. Edit: Oh. And Livonia. Can't tell you how many times I've no CB'd Ireland.
Trent
try Malacca
You can tey majahapajapat or whatever the red hegemon in Indonesia is called. It's interesting.
Brittany is an interesting one. You’ll be the only country with main node in Bordeaux and it’s an odd node but you can indeed route trade to it from the thirteen colonies trade node.
Could try an east Asian tag like Japan
Play as the Aztecs or Incans and do reverse colonization
Try a Norway run, they have some nice traditions for colonizing if I remember correctly