Holland/The Netherlands and colonisation. (2024)

Kryndude said:

You won't be able to do anything meaningful with exploration as your first idea group unless you conquer land from Brittany or something. I suggest taking it 2nd.

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I'm playing tall, so no expansion outside of Lowlands (and maybe some neighbouring province what the Netherlands desired IRL) in Europe. 2nd it is then.

Blust said:

Why don't you want to take it as a first idea group ? You can take it as second if you want but first is manageable

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Because I most likely wouldn't have the range to colonise anything, it would be more beneficial, if the 1st idea group was economical, for example.

i think i picked exploration and expansion 2nd and 3rd in my holland/netherlands campaign. picking explo first would have been a bit of a waste since you get the 2nd group at tech level 7 at which point you also have the range to actually explore something meaningful.

i think i picked innovative as my first idea set in that run, but that was just for novelty (never used it early in a campaign before). wasn't a terrible pick, but clearly not optimal.

in hindsight i guess quantity might have been a good first pick - helps with the wars that will be required anyway to unite the low lands and also helps keeping a pontentially strong france (or other major powers at your doorstep) at bay. also offers some synergy for tall play - you'll pick economy sooner or later anyway if you play tall and that enables the eco+quantity policy that reduces dev cost.

Barbu said:

With tech 7 and the 3rd idea from exploration, your range will be fine. Taking it first is fine. You want to get a leg up.

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This. No need to mess around with France or Ireland or other conquests; just take Exploration, take the colonial range advisor, and get the diplo tech level with the range extension - you can reach the Caribbean islands from Holland just fine. Did just the same in my last game - high dev Netherlands, colonies, and no weird conquests required. Deport all the catholics and other malcontents you can find to make for cheap colonisation

Make sure to lay in every settler chance / native assimilation chance bonus you can (the native policy, estates, etc) as you'll be playing catchup with everyone else to a degree.

Terixis said:

Take colonization second and forget the new world and colonize west africa->cape->indonesia. Realize your destiny and found the Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie! No matter how valuable cocoa and sugar are they can't compete with all of India+SEAsia, just let the UK colonize the east coast and together you can steer a huge chunk of Caribbean to English Channel anyway.

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Agreed for the most part, top priority should be West Africa to ensure trade from Africa/Asia comes to your node rather than Sevilla/Bordeaux/etc. Anything in North America will end up in the Channel unless France gets extremely aggressive.

I do see value in grabbing a few nice pieces of Caribbean and North America, especially islands like Curaçao or Jamaica which are easily defended and give you safe naval bases and places to deploy a merchant. But CNs there are a luxury rather than a necessity.

Never. Exploration ideas suck! Take expansion instead and just steal maps from Castile, Portugal and England.

In that case either 2nd or 3rd idea group. No point taking it 1st, you won't have the range. Might be a struggle even as 2nd, but you can probably work out a way to get a CB with Denmark and pinch Iceland or something if need be. 3rd would be mainly if you want to take a different admin group 1st. Economic is fantastic if you're going for a tall Netherlands and Admin is great for wide. Religious/Humanist are both great too, but also significantly less important if you're planning on going tall.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! Now I'm feeling better, so I can reply here and finish my current campaign. I will start my Holland run later this week.

Hard to decide between economical and expansion as the first idea group. I could take Expansion as 4th, as well.

Yes. the main goal should be to reach the East Indies, but I won't abandon the New World, because the Netherlands had colonies there. I will only take what the Netherlands had and wanted to take IRL.

I will start my campaign tomorrow, any historical suggestions for colonial names? From what I'm reading, they weren't very creative and had a lot of New Hollands lol.

My planned colonial nations:
In Canada (just a few provinces) - In the game it's Nova Hollandia, so I'll keep this one.
Thirteen Colonies (not all of it) - New Netherland
Caribbean (most of the small islands) - Dutch West Indies or Dutch West India Company?
Colombia (just Guiana region) - Dutch Guiana?
Brazil (what they historically took from the Portuguese and maybe a little bit more) - Yet another ''New Holland'', any other names for it?
Chile (at least 5 provinces) - ?
Australia (and New Zealand?) - It's New Holland in the game, so I should probably keep this name for Australia.

Kapi96 said:

Never. Exploration ideas suck! Take expansion instead and just steal maps from Castile, Portugal and England.

In that case either 2nd or 3rd idea group. No point taking it 1st, you won't have the range. Might be a struggle even as 2nd, but you can probably work out a way to get a CB with Denmark and pinch Iceland or something if need be. 3rd would be mainly if you want to take a different admin group 1st. Economic is fantastic if you're going for a tall Netherlands and Admin is great for wide. Religious/Humanist are both great too, but also significantly less important if you're planning on going tall.

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You're relying on ai to colonise properly, when they wont

JacobiteJames said:

You're relying on ai to colonise properly, when they wont

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Not colonise, just explore, which they will. Portugal and England love sending their explorer lead ships everywhere they can possibly go, you just need to steal their maps once they do. You only need the coastal maps too, since as you have contact with a native country you can just trade some prestige for their inland maps (or steal again).

Korsjan Rīkis said:

So, I have formed the Netherlands now. How can I get their special government? I'm still a regular kingdom.

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Itll happen via event, give it time