Let’s discuss Ideas...
In EU IV, Ideas come in two flavours: National Ideas and
‘normal’ Ideas. National Ideas are set, defined bonuses that are automatically unlocked as
you advance in administrative tech levels, and provide boosts that add
historical flavour to the game. So, Portugal’s National Ideas are maritime and
trade orientated, whereas Prussia would have a far more land-based militaristic
leaning. The major nations all have pre-defined, individualised National Ideas.
‘Normal’ ideas are also unlocked by advancing in
administrative tech levels, but are far more varied in scope, and enable the
player to ‘customise’ his country to suit his needs. All western nations start at admin tech level 3, and can
unlock tech level 4 at a cost of 600 administrative power. The amount of power needed can be
modified by various in-game factors, and indeed for us it is reduced by 5% due to Portugal’s university at
Coimbra. Tech level 4 unlocks the first National Idea (giving us a 10% production boost) and also our first ‘normal’ Idea
slot
In December 1450, we have enough admin power to increase to
level 4
This allows us to select a ‘normal’ Idea category, and we
decide to take the Exploration set. ‘Normal’ Idea groups come in three
different flavours: Administrative, Diplomatic and Military. Each Idea group
can be unlocked by spending administrative, diplomatic and military power,
depending on which ‘flavour’ of group it is. There are five groups per ‘flavour’,
for a total of fifteen groups. As you can therefore imagine, power is spent not only
to increase tech, but also to unlock Ideas, creating a trade-off system that
serves as a limiting and balancing agent within the game.
Why take the Exploration set? Two reasons... first, it is a
diplomatic power, which means that advancing in Exploration Ideas (via spending Diplomatic power) won’t limit
our Admin tech advance speed (which requires Administrative power). As you can see from the image below, we can unlock
further ‘normal’ Idea groups at Admin Tech level 7, 10, 14 etc, until we have
the ability to select a total of 8 Idea groups out of the 15 available.
Second, the first Idea in the Exploration set is Colonial
Ventures, which will give us a colonist...
We spend our 400 diplomatic power immediately to unlock
Colonial Ventures
And send off our first colonist to Africa, specifically the
Rio de Oro province in time for Christmas 1450.
“What?!?! Are you mad? I thought you were off to Cape Verde
and the New World”, I hear you shouting... well, I am... but not yet. You see
there is one problem... my colonial settler range is too low to enable me to
make the hop from Madeira to Cape Verde. Now, previously in the game, I would have been
able to ask Castile for fleet basing rights in the Canaries, and used their
province as the starting location for my colonist, thereby overcoming that range limitation, but in the latest patch they have removed that option, in
order to prevent players exploiting things in a daft way.... although it is the
equivalent of cracking a nut with a sledgehammer.
So, my options were to wait until I get some extra range
after I unlock some more Exploration Ideas (requiring a few years to save up
the necessary diplomatic power), or colonise Rio de Oro and use the range from
that province once it reaches 1000 inhabitants and becomes a normal town...
I opted for option 2... colonising Rio de Oro has a number
of benefits, most notably that it is sitting smack bang in a trade node (the
little buoy thing off shore). Owning Rio de Oro will help me to dominate West
African trade in a few decades time.
However, if you look closely at the bottom left of the
picture, you will notice that the local natives are tremendously aggressive
(giving them a much higher chance of rising up against my colonists) and the
province also borders on Morocco. Both of these things will come to dominate my
life for the next 5-10 years of gameplay...
In the meantime, however, we get a nice little bonus to our
colonial ambitions in July 1451, lasting 20 years.
Randomly, the Kongo allows our missionaries in, and starts converting to Christianity. We gain some Papal Influence and possibly a future ally in West Africa...
Less than a year after starting the colony... (am I allowed to say it? Oh, go on then...)
"My Lord, the natives are revolting!"
"I know, they smell awful...!"
Clearly, this is nothing that the Earl of Avranches can't handle, but still, losing men on a regular basis (we had attacks roughly every 9 months or so over a period of 5 years) takes a toll on the national manpower levels)
3 years along the colonisation process, and the Rio de Oro settlement has grown to almost 400 people. About this time we get notification of what 'special resource' the province will produce. In this case, it is the start of the West African slave trade. I've read a few reviews of EU4 in which the reviewer has criticized Paradox for its implementation of Western European exploitation of the developing world, but let's face it, you couldn't produce a game which accurately depicts the colonisation of the world without including the exploitation of the New World...
In late 1855, we save enough Diplomatic power to unlock the 2nd idea from the Exploration group, which will allow us to recruit explorers and conquistadors
That's all for now.... next time.... WAR!!!
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