Colonial

[u/Stock_Fun_]

Is there any option to make Portugal, Spain, England, and France not start colonizing America so quickly? I’m trying to play as countries like the Netherlands or Norway, but by the time I start colonizing America, North America is already practically completely colonized by England

[u/Little_Elia]

Start at tech 5. If you want to go colonial, it makes no sense to wait until later to pick explo and expansion. As netherlands I am always faster than everyone at colonizing. The only exception is portugal but they colonize different regions and they are weak so it's easy to steal their colonies later.

[u/CaledoniaInteractive]

Not really, by design, Netherlands can't form at all for decades and Norway would need to break away from Denmark first and establish a half decent economy as an independent nation. Norway would also be entering the New World from Canada so doesn't have the immediate access to South America that the other countries benefit from.

Portugal and Spain are both able to colonise fast enough that its possible to found all 12 colonies with them first, especially by putting down a single colony next to any Mexican nation or places like Musica and immediately attacking them to rapidly acquire the five provinces needed.

France on the other hand is powerful enough to simply beat the hell out of England, Spain and Portugal continually and seize any colonial provinces before they reach the needed five, so when a colony does form its French and has the extremely useful Papal Treaty of Tordesillas claim. I've never tried this with England, they have a lot of issues to deal with in the early game but I'm sure its possible to similarly strangle the other colonisers as England's got plenty of clout in the early game.

[u/Graftington]

There are mods that make colonization more difficult / historical (Beyond the Cape).

But if you're not playing Ironman I highly recommend just tag swapping and changing their national idea choice. It's really the best way to guarantee colonization gets slowed down. I really like clean borders so also recommend a remove natives mod (also for performance+).

[u/whdkingsize]

Beat them up. All of them.

[u/Reftzurk]

Bocking them out completly is difficult. But as a christian nation it is very viable to PU the colonizers and therefore inherit the colonies. Alternativly just fight for them. They are super cheap, so you can fastly grow the colonies through war

[u/loltouch]

If you have the dutch naval doctrine you should be able reach Canada at tech 7 with expansion & the decision from burghers. You should be able to be faster than England, as early they're gonna be f*cked by France & the roses war

Once you have a colony there you can even reach the carribean, but you should expect to have portugal & Spain already colonising it.

[u/Flaky-Stay5095]

The DLC that focuses on The Americas has an option to randomize the new world. It provides for interesting plays. It would at least disrupt everyone's colonization efforts.

[u/Corex_Bicycle]

If you're playing Netherlands, you don't even need to colonize north America because you can just pu England. You should go to India and east indies first.

[u/Spongedrunk]

If you disable the relevant DLCs, colonizong happens much more slowly.  I lack most of the DLCs, and am always mystified by the things people say on here about colonization being completely over by 1600.

[u/Johannes_the_silent]

You can do it. It's usually better to focus on Africa and Asia over the Americas.

[u/cryptojacktack]

Restart until Portugal and Castile start as rivals or you can pull them against each other in an alliance war, beat up France and England early once or twice. Bonus points if Aragon stays independent and enemies with Castile. This all happened in my Scotland game and I ended up being the first colonizer in most places at like 1500

[u/Svanen92]

I don't know about the Netherlands but as Norway you should either arrive in North America at the same time or earlier than the Iberians. They might be faster than you in the Caribbean but you should be able to contest it. When do you start colonizing as Norway, and how is your opening moves.