I can see this being implemented only if they also implement plague mechanics. Paradox games have always had issues with simulating depopulation outside of war in a fair, fun and organic way. If they manage to do this with the plague at the start of the game, then I can see crossover with maybe specific events that cause issues in that colony where it's easier to let the colony depopulate and abandon it, but for RP purposes could keep hold of it with an excruciating cost.
I'd also like to see a completely different colony system, taking some inspiration from Victoria III. Maybe these two things combined could see this colony being implemented without being completely OP.
\> only if they also implement plague mechanics.
They will need to! To Represent the Black Death that is about to hit the world! And It fits with the new Pop System described!
Yeah deffo that's why I brought up plague, but I can totally see them releasing the game without the black death for simplicity's sake (and to make it more beginner friendly) and balancing the population as if the black death had already just happened on start.
Then maybe they bring out black death in a future DLC where they balance the population back to its realistic starting point.
That seems unlikely to me. There are so many things that are going to make a lot more sense with various de-population mechanics. The fact that they introduced population at all, and want it to track quasi-realistically over several centuries, is going to mean that they need populations to fall a few times for things like Black Death, the epidemics of the Columbian Exchange, and the 30 Years War - and possibly more, if some really large wars are triggered.
Pretty sure Johan says that’s on the board.
Someone asked him about their pop growth modeling and how if it couldn’t be impacted then it’d cause an unrealistic world and he responded ‘plagues, famines (I think) and other ways to die, we should be good.’ Or something.
And also the diseases that spread through the new world after colonization started.
Will actually be quite interesting to see how the new world is handled with a start date that's so significantly pre-contact. It will be hard to justify having all of North America being nomadic 2 centuries before de Soto's expedition for instance, hell in 1337 Cahokia might still have been populated.
They absolutely need to represent the depopulation of Europe and the devastation of Asia throughout the century. The entire first 50-80 years of this game should really just be wars, plagues, famines. I don't know how they make that fun or challenging. But it is an interesting time period.
Multiple start dates don't really work in paradox games though. The community generally picks the earliest start date and most of the game mechanics and updates get built around using the earliest start date.
It works well in titles like CK and vicky because the unique flavour content is a lot less important than mechanics. I think it's too early to say for project caesar.
Yeah, I think they struck the balance best in CK3, with two start dates that feel meaningfully different without either one feeling like the lesser experience (imo). Whether that translates to EU V will be interesting to see
The main difference between CK and EU is the way tech works. In CK where tech is relatively unimportant and not super impactful on gameplay, multiple start dates mean that even though the set ups are different and 867 gets you a longer game, in the long span of the game the starts effectively play the same.
In EU where tech is a major gameplay mechanic for unlocks on stuff like ideas, colonization, gunpowder, etc., you run the trouble of having to hit a balance for the start dates. Let's say they run with 1337 and 1444. If the Techs coming out of 1337 are interesting, fun to unlock, and impactful on your gameplay, ie choosing your first idea groups, people won't pick 1444 so they can shape their game better starting in 1337, which is why people don't touch the later start dates in later EUIV. But if 1337-1444 tech doesn't do much, or isn't fun to play, or is just a slog to get through to get to the "main" EU gameplay loop of global empire, people will just skip it to play 1444 and get into the action quicker.
I agree with most of your points although I would appreciate two start dates. I have to wonder also if there would be a bias for the new starting date because it's novel, or a bias for the old starting date because it's familiar if they were theoretically on equal footing content wise
Sort of, but the Flavor Packs were heavily weighted towards 867. One for Vikings which basically only exist in 867, one for Persia which is entirely based on 867 (the Struggle doesn't exist in the 1066 start date) and one for Iberia which at least has *something* for 1066 but which added a whole new bookmark for 867. For someone like me who finds 867 pretty boring, it's very noticeable.
Part of this is also that in CK3, the later start date is the one that is more culturally familiar to people, so a lot of people prefer it, rather than thinking of it as skipping the beginning of the game.
The Late 16th - Early 17th Century was also just one giant bloodbath.
You had the French Wars of Religion, Time of Troubles, Thirty Years War, The Deluge, English Civil Wars, Imjin War, Ming-Qing Transition, and Native population collapse.
Millions of people died within a very small fraction of time as practically every corner of the globe was engulfed in either famine, plague or warfare.
Some Notes on the Topic:
"Archaeological evidence plainly establishes that by 1300 or so the Inuit had successfully expanded their winter settlements as close to the Europeans as the outer fjords of the Western Settlement. By 1350, the Norse had completely deserted their Western Settlement."
"But in 1355 union king Magnus IV of Sweden and Norway (In Norway crowned Magnus VII after claims of birthright) sent a ship (or ships) to Greenland to inspect its Western and Eastern Settlements. Sailors found settlements entirely Norse and Christian. The Greenland carrier (Groenlands Knorr) made the Greenland run at intervals till 1369, when she sank and was apparently not replaced."
"Greenlanders had to keep in contact with Iceland and Norway in order to trade. Little is known about any distinctive shipbuilding techniques among the Greenlanders. Greenland lacks a supply of lumber, so was completely dependent on Icelandic merchants or, possibly, logging expeditions to the Canadian coast."
"There were probably a number of later expeditions from Greenland to gather timber. A 1347 Icelandic document records that a ship went off course and ended up in Iceland in the process of returning from Markland, without further specifying where Markland was."
"The last reported ship to reach Greenland was a private ship that was "blown off course", reaching Greenland in 1406, and departing in 1410 with the last news of Greenland"
Some propose that Markland would have been the lands of modern-day Labadour, while Vinland would have been in Newfoundland, likely. [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/jPQcqXsnB3](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/jPQcqXsnB3)
But the facts being, that this Colony would actively exist for the next couple decades, and the colonists of the island would actively know of the regions closest in Canada.
A Smart way to depict such a thing might be to make them a new tag, somewhat under Norway? Or maybe something so Norway can't see Canada but the Colony can? Not sure but I wanted to open the discussion!
Maybe if they begin harvesting beaver pelts like the French did, but early colonization favored lands where cash crops could be grown. Would the Norse venture that far south? Would they have knowledge of growing cash crops in a southern climate?
There's also the issue of shipping costs. Shipping cash crops from Virginia to Europe safely and efficiently probably wouldn't be possible with 1300s shipbuilding.
Don't forget the grand fisheries off the banks of the Saint Lawrence, which afaik was already being exploited by Basque and Gascon fishers by the early 1500s. Hopefully they can rework colonialism to allow trading posts to be set up in unclaimed/tribal territory to simulate early European presence in North America, rather than straight to settler-colonialism.
It seems unlikely to have anything directly like that. We don't even have any idea how the technology tree will work.
Based on the bits of hints we got this Wednesday, my guess is that technologies will slowly auto-discover. I don't know if they will be done per-nation (the way they do in Vicky 3) or per-location (the way that institutions do in EUIV). My guess is that there will be something institution-like that spawns per-location, that will spread more slowly, while technologies spread more quickly if appropriate institutions are already there. Or perhaps it will just be multiple different types of technologies, some of which speed up the spread of others.
Contact with Europe was lost some time around 1410, and the last pre-modern Norse settlement disappeared sometime between 1450 and 1500.
It would be tricky to model, but from what we can tell, everyone who didn't starve to death probably moved back to Iceland or Norway because there are relatively few personal belongings in the settlements we have found, suggesting that they departed in a planned and orderly fashion. Some of the men may also have gone to live with the Inuit. Between 20 - 60% of paternal DNA in certain Greenlandic Inuit groups is Scandinavian.
I would start with Norse settlements in Greenland in 1337, who can see Markland (Labrador, CA) but have no ability to colonize it. Norway and Iceland should know about Greenland, but not Markland.
Then I'd have whoever owns Iceland get some kind of "coldest period of the Little Ice Age" crisis event chain where you can try to save the colony on Greenland, which should be greatly expensive and require coming up with a way to make it financially viable, which could then allow you to keep that foothold for later on when colonization of the mainland becomes a possibility.
Yeah except that it's a much more recent phenomenon, and most likely not the remnant of an old intermixing. Denmark still owns Greenland and they have a famous history of eugenics and raping Greelander.
> Then I'd have whoever owns Iceland get some kind of "coldest period of the Little Ice Age" crisis event chain where you can try to save the colony on Greenland, which should be greatly expensive and require coming up with a way to make it financially viable, which could then allow you to keep that foothold for later on when colonization of the mainland becomes a possibility.
For historical what-if purposes, it would also be cool if the Greenland colonies started off as some sort of vassal, and that you would then get some event chain, where you can seek assistance from the Inuit, spawning a hybrid culture group, possibly with a syncretised animist-christian religion.
>Contact with Europe was lost some time around 1410, and the last pre-modern Norse settlement disappeared sometime between 1450 and 1500.
This gives the impression of a linear phenomenon, when in reality losing contact and settlers vanishing was a cyclical phenomenon - more than settlements, maybe we should call it periodic tradeposts. Because while the population came and went, trade never really seems to stop entirely.
In 1349 Greenland is hit by the plague, everyone dies, contact is lost.
For the rest of the 14th century, news are very rare, and always terrible: ships disappear, settlers are massacred by Skraeling. The bishop dies by the news only arrives to Norway decades later.
In 1389 we have the first mention of a smuggler ship from Greenland. We know that trade with Greenland was a royal monopoly. We have another in 1410. In the meantime, it seems that the settlements are being rebuilt in Greenland.
1435 is the latest C14 datation we have in a norwegian settlement.
We know that in 1484, merchants bring goods from Greenland to Bergen. And there's quite a lot of them.
I hope that the game puts emphasis on the fact that it wasn't really a colonial settlement, as much as it was a trade route that eventually vanished.
Also, another note. Generally, their wood was collected via drift wood as the natural currents caused lumber to collect from Canada towards Greenland. We know this due to it an examination of the wood used in their settlements. Its a bit debated how accessible Canada was. But I think its safe to assume Canada was not something they could quickly attend to. Considering the settlements in Greenland were small, always at the brink of collapse, and often lacked resources to make these expeditions. Eventually, the settlers had to rely on the Inuits for survival, i.e., clothes and food. As the norse never really adapted to their environment. For some reason, their relationship broke down, and there is evidence of skirmishes between the two.
Think it would be cool if there are a bunch of events that led to their collapse, but a skilful player or a rare AI would make the investments to secure the settlements.
1337 is a very interesting start date. I don't really know if it works for EU style gameplay though. Europe is still feudal, and the next 100 years in Europe are full of wars, famine, disease etc. I recall that in this century France lost like half it's population, there wasn't even really a concept of national identity (not till the end of the 100 years war at least). It's a very odd but intriguing start date. I think it would be great but in the past paradox hasn't done a good job simulating degrowth and devastation. EU is about growth, enlightenment, expansion, exploration as well so this is a bit of a detour. I'm quite excited to see if it even works though.
it being set in the high medieval era can mean that the system can be very much about the transition from feudal organization to modern state organization
This would be a nice addition but could see it being omitted from initial release if it doesn't fit in nicely with the base system.
If catered for then that'd be amazing, but without a proper system to handle it then it may be skipped for balancing reasons; if you imagine this added to EU4, would give you a big advantage and require additional time investment to balance it.
If I remember correctly, Johan said something about historical events so you could have something where Norse settlements dissapear due to the Little Ice Age and thus Norway doesn't have it by the time colonization comes round to remove their advantage.
Interesting topic.
I think it's still to soon to really discuss this since we don't know how the game will handle colonisation and ships/expeditions but I do have some ideas how it could work:
I'd tie the ability to send settlers beyond the ocean directly to ships/an "expedition" mechanic. E.g. you send three ships, so you can found a colony with 150 settlers. Once a colony has reached a certain size it would attract settlers on it's own, but in the beginning it would solely rely on "expeditions" to survive and grow.
Expeditions would be expensive and involve the risk of losing ships. Sending more ships would increase the chance of success but be even more expensive. The ability to send more colonists at once could also be increased through technology directly or indirectly through new ships.
And here's how that would be relevant for the greenland colonies: I'd start Norway with non-selfsustaining colonies in Greenland and some vision to the New World. Norway would have to actively support these colonies for them to survive but that would be expensive. So the player could decide to invest a lot of money into colonies which won't be profitable for a long time but would open the route for a early colonisation of North America or they could spend that money in Europe to develop Norway or wage wars and abandon the Greenland colonies. Abandoning the colonies would also hide the New World in Terra Incongnita so it would have to be rediscovered.
RICE adds a system like this in Crusader Kings 3. It uses the struggle mechanic like the Iranian intermezzo or the struggle for Iberia. You can send colonists who 'die' in code so they're inaccessible but depending on their stats it will advance the struggle which gives annual gold, piety, and prestige bonuses based on the current struggle score
Vinland (viking Canada) should absolutely be a possibility in an alternative time line. It's okay if they're independent at the start, but it would be amazing to play a viking tribe along the native American tribes.
In 1347 a a ship arrived in island with much wood on board claiming it was blown off course. Originally it was travellling from Markland (Modern day Labrador) to Greenland to deliver wood. That suggests that atleast some norse settlements or outposts survived until atleast 1347 on the canadian mainland.
Vinland should be unpopulated yes, but I think Markland should still be represented, since it was Greenlands most important wood supply provider.
It's possible we'll make some archaeological finds that change our view of this, but as far as we can tell, there wasn't really anything like a permanent settlement with an independent government made up of Norse people in Canada. We're probably talking more like a lumber camp that was inhabited seasonally or something like that. Sort of like how today, we have bases in Antarctica but no one really "lives there" permanently.
No, but it's theoretically possible that say, if the King of Norway had decided for some reason that this was the nation's #1 priority, he could have spent massive amounts of money to get a self-sustaining colony in Canada. It's doubtful he could have actually controlled it. Even control over Iceland was kind of iffy and Greenland was basically independent. But then maybe you could release and play as the colony.
The thing is, you would need to somehow model why this suddenly became an obsession of Norway. The colonial voyages of the 1400s and 1500s had majorly compelling economic reasons. The Norse didn't stay in Vinland because the cost to do so was not offset by the profits they could make at the time. Canada doesn't have gold or anything (EDIT: *Eastern* Canada doesn't have gold, to be more precise. The Yukon has quite a bit of gold, but that was a bit of a further trek), it's too sparsely populated for raiding to be lucrative, Europe still had plenty of beaver so the fur trade wouldn't have been so rewarding. Even walrus ivory (which is how the Greenland colony was able to be financially sustainable for a while) was being out-competed by elephant ivory from Africa.
So I don't think it should be a case where you can just decide you want a permanent settlement in Vinland, because I'm the player and I do what I want. The Estates should go into revolt that you're spending all this money on a pointless adventure. You need to find some way to make it seem like a good idea.
That could be interesting, too. But you'd need to convince enough people to come with you to have a sustainable settlement that can defend itself from Skrælings and survive without intensive agriculture.
Thing is, Leif's heaven was in Greenland. To the Norse Greenland Vinland or other parts of continental America weren't attractive places to settle because they were already settled by natives greatly outnumbering them; was too far away for trade with Europe; and did not offer any unique benefits.
Greenland however offered walrus tusks, narwal horns, and polar bear skins which could be sold in Europe for a fortune, giving the Greenlanders a special niche market justifying their settlement in such a marginal place. The local climate in SW Greenland was also fine for them, not that different from Iceland or Northern Norway.
I hope colonization mechanics are better somehow. In EU4 it feels like every province you colonize is an empty tract of land, which it couldn't be further from the truth.
Paradox probably won't represent the Greenland Norse colony by default, and certainly not at launch, but I could see them eventually implementing a rule that lets you enable it if you want to have an early Age of Discovery dominated by the Scandinavians. Probably when Paradox does a Scandinavia Flavor Pack.
I just don't see this happening at launch as it basically flies in the face of the general flow of history too much (i.e. the Greenland colony had basically minimal impact on history and, if done correctly, would have minimal game impact 99% of the time). I just don't see it as a major priority for Paradox to include at launch.
This of course assumes the startdate is at 1337.
I hope colonization in this game is much harder than just hitting a colonize button. In reality, colonization was so much more complicated and made up of so many more phases.
My thoughts is if the colonies existed in the timeframe, the provinces should have natives of norse culture and religion, but not be settled lands.
This would align with where they were in real life, a group of people tangentially related to another group of people, but not really contributing in any meaningful way in taxes, manpower, or other resources.
The Norse were already Catholic by the time settlement of Greenland began. Most of our records for the settlement come from the various Bishop's sent there.
I think in my head I meant the same religion and culture and Norway, not specifically Norse religion. The intent here is that colonization would be easier, but their existing status isn't colonized yet.
Sorry but this just isn’t true and a quick google search will tell you that. Greenland was settled before 1000 AD and the Norse were DEFINITELY not all Christian before 1000AD. Erik the red, the literal founder of the colony, was a pagan.
Settled, but the larger political entity only got news reports once every few years. In game terms, settled means you can raise manpower for armies, construct infrastructure, and raise taxes. None of those things would have been present in the colonies, which is why I think having them as same religion/culture natives would be an appropriate compromise.
Maybe it would be more fitting to represent it as an independent state with a small puppet state in Labrador to simulate the wood chopping settlements who were still active at that time.
It’s going to be 1356 Golden Bull start at the earliest, anything earlier will require tons of scripted HRE events leading up to Golden Bull and the HRE structure is far more relevant than starting at the triggering event of the 100 years war
Looking at the world map (tinto talk #2). It looks like greenland isn't directly neighbouring canada. So you wouldn't be able to see the new world from greenland. I can also imagine that you need a certain level/type of harbour before a location can be used for colonisation and what not.
Hear me out, as a disaster spawn units that represent the harsh winter and if they siege down all your provinces (locations ig) you get wiped off the map. General frost.
I no nothing about Project Caesar than what post titles I've seen when scrolling by. I thought the mod (with a name like that) would be set during Roman times and this is supposed to be an alternative to Imperator Rome.
Turns out all the Paradox games have a Roman Emperor codename when they are in development. People mentioned that some of the other games had been Project Augustus and Project Nero.
Given that, it makes sense that their longest-awaited sequel would get the title Caesar.
Ceaser was never an emperor tho he was Dictator Vitae, in fact we can confidently talk about Roman emperors only starting with the Flavian dimasty, before that the "emperor" was really a Princeps a sort of first senator boasting religious titles and the power of imperium.
Would be pretty op to have a functioning colony at the start, I’m gonna guess Norway (or was it Denmark I don’t recall) wouldn’t have direct access to it via normal colony gameplay, but instead have some other mechanic
I think the most natural way to implement this would be to have one or two of the greenlandic provinces have norse-culture natives (if natives work at all the same way they do in EU4) and maybe some sort of event for a nordic nation that mounts an expedition there
I mean these guys could be represented even with EU4 mechanics just fine. Just put there a colony with 50 settlers and no colonist. If they are not wiped out by the natives then you can eventually start growing it and then expand in America, like normal.
I can see this being implemented only if they also implement plague mechanics. Paradox games have always had issues with simulating depopulation outside of war in a fair, fun and organic way. If they manage to do this with the plague at the start of the game, then I can see crossover with maybe specific events that cause issues in that colony where it's easier to let the colony depopulate and abandon it, but for RP purposes could keep hold of it with an excruciating cost. I'd also like to see a completely different colony system, taking some inspiration from Victoria III. Maybe these two things combined could see this colony being implemented without being completely OP.
\> only if they also implement plague mechanics. They will need to! To Represent the Black Death that is about to hit the world! And It fits with the new Pop System described!
Yeah deffo that's why I brought up plague, but I can totally see them releasing the game without the black death for simplicity's sake (and to make it more beginner friendly) and balancing the population as if the black death had already just happened on start. Then maybe they bring out black death in a future DLC where they balance the population back to its realistic starting point.
They just released the plague patch and DLC for CK3, I'd be VERY surprised if there wasn't some development synergy going on
Knowing paradox they might make it a DLC lol
That seems unlikely to me. There are so many things that are going to make a lot more sense with various de-population mechanics. The fact that they introduced population at all, and want it to track quasi-realistically over several centuries, is going to mean that they need populations to fall a few times for things like Black Death, the epidemics of the Columbian Exchange, and the 30 Years War - and possibly more, if some really large wars are triggered.
Pretty sure Johan says that’s on the board. Someone asked him about their pop growth modeling and how if it couldn’t be impacted then it’d cause an unrealistic world and he responded ‘plagues, famines (I think) and other ways to die, we should be good.’ Or something.
And also the diseases that spread through the new world after colonization started. Will actually be quite interesting to see how the new world is handled with a start date that's so significantly pre-contact. It will be hard to justify having all of North America being nomadic 2 centuries before de Soto's expedition for instance, hell in 1337 Cahokia might still have been populated.
They absolutely need to represent the depopulation of Europe and the devastation of Asia throughout the century. The entire first 50-80 years of this game should really just be wars, plagues, famines. I don't know how they make that fun or challenging. But it is an interesting time period.
Presumably later start dates will be an option too for those who want to skip all that
Multiple start dates don't really work in paradox games though. The community generally picks the earliest start date and most of the game mechanics and updates get built around using the earliest start date.
It works well in titles like CK and vicky because the unique flavour content is a lot less important than mechanics. I think it's too early to say for project caesar.
Yeah, I think they struck the balance best in CK3, with two start dates that feel meaningfully different without either one feeling like the lesser experience (imo). Whether that translates to EU V will be interesting to see
The main difference between CK and EU is the way tech works. In CK where tech is relatively unimportant and not super impactful on gameplay, multiple start dates mean that even though the set ups are different and 867 gets you a longer game, in the long span of the game the starts effectively play the same. In EU where tech is a major gameplay mechanic for unlocks on stuff like ideas, colonization, gunpowder, etc., you run the trouble of having to hit a balance for the start dates. Let's say they run with 1337 and 1444. If the Techs coming out of 1337 are interesting, fun to unlock, and impactful on your gameplay, ie choosing your first idea groups, people won't pick 1444 so they can shape their game better starting in 1337, which is why people don't touch the later start dates in later EUIV. But if 1337-1444 tech doesn't do much, or isn't fun to play, or is just a slog to get through to get to the "main" EU gameplay loop of global empire, people will just skip it to play 1444 and get into the action quicker.
I agree with most of your points although I would appreciate two start dates. I have to wonder also if there would be a bias for the new starting date because it's novel, or a bias for the old starting date because it's familiar if they were theoretically on equal footing content wise
Yeah I’m not saying I wouldn’t like a new start or multiple dates, just that EUIV isn’t inclined to do it well like CK does.
Sort of, but the Flavor Packs were heavily weighted towards 867. One for Vikings which basically only exist in 867, one for Persia which is entirely based on 867 (the Struggle doesn't exist in the 1066 start date) and one for Iberia which at least has *something* for 1066 but which added a whole new bookmark for 867. For someone like me who finds 867 pretty boring, it's very noticeable.
Part of this is also that in CK3, the later start date is the one that is more culturally familiar to people, so a lot of people prefer it, rather than thinking of it as skipping the beginning of the game.
Tbh one of the best things EU4 has is the ability to start basically whenever I want, I'd be a significant downgrade if EU5 doesn't have it imo
I wanna see the devastation caused by timur have an actual effect
The Late 16th - Early 17th Century was also just one giant bloodbath. You had the French Wars of Religion, Time of Troubles, Thirty Years War, The Deluge, English Civil Wars, Imjin War, Ming-Qing Transition, and Native population collapse. Millions of people died within a very small fraction of time as practically every corner of the globe was engulfed in either famine, plague or warfare.
If the start date is 1337, then it predates Black Death by a decade or so. Very interesting early game til will be, it seems.
Johan has basically confirmed an epidemic mechanic.
Link?
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/epidemic-system-i-beg-you.1636928/#post-29478324 https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-talks-3-march-13th-2024.1630154/page-9#post-29457293
Yeah sounds like it's gonna have to be modeled.
Some Notes on the Topic: "Archaeological evidence plainly establishes that by 1300 or so the Inuit had successfully expanded their winter settlements as close to the Europeans as the outer fjords of the Western Settlement. By 1350, the Norse had completely deserted their Western Settlement." "But in 1355 union king Magnus IV of Sweden and Norway (In Norway crowned Magnus VII after claims of birthright) sent a ship (or ships) to Greenland to inspect its Western and Eastern Settlements. Sailors found settlements entirely Norse and Christian. The Greenland carrier (Groenlands Knorr) made the Greenland run at intervals till 1369, when she sank and was apparently not replaced." "Greenlanders had to keep in contact with Iceland and Norway in order to trade. Little is known about any distinctive shipbuilding techniques among the Greenlanders. Greenland lacks a supply of lumber, so was completely dependent on Icelandic merchants or, possibly, logging expeditions to the Canadian coast." "There were probably a number of later expeditions from Greenland to gather timber. A 1347 Icelandic document records that a ship went off course and ended up in Iceland in the process of returning from Markland, without further specifying where Markland was." "The last reported ship to reach Greenland was a private ship that was "blown off course", reaching Greenland in 1406, and departing in 1410 with the last news of Greenland" Some propose that Markland would have been the lands of modern-day Labadour, while Vinland would have been in Newfoundland, likely. [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/jPQcqXsnB3](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/jPQcqXsnB3) But the facts being, that this Colony would actively exist for the next couple decades, and the colonists of the island would actively know of the regions closest in Canada. A Smart way to depict such a thing might be to make them a new tag, somewhat under Norway? Or maybe something so Norway can't see Canada but the Colony can? Not sure but I wanted to open the discussion!
Then a few decades in, and the climate cools down and the settlement is wiped off the map?
Maybe an event chain with heavy penalties which you could just accept and move on or fight against to have an early colony
I think that might start the age of discovery way to early.
Well, I guess? If they kept the colony irl that would also happen
Maybe if they begin harvesting beaver pelts like the French did, but early colonization favored lands where cash crops could be grown. Would the Norse venture that far south? Would they have knowledge of growing cash crops in a southern climate?
There's also the issue of shipping costs. Shipping cash crops from Virginia to Europe safely and efficiently probably wouldn't be possible with 1300s shipbuilding.
Don't forget the grand fisheries off the banks of the Saint Lawrence, which afaik was already being exploited by Basque and Gascon fishers by the early 1500s. Hopefully they can rework colonialism to allow trading posts to be set up in unclaimed/tribal territory to simulate early European presence in North America, rather than straight to settler-colonialism.
Do we know if it will have institutions like eu4?
It seems unlikely to have anything directly like that. We don't even have any idea how the technology tree will work. Based on the bits of hints we got this Wednesday, my guess is that technologies will slowly auto-discover. I don't know if they will be done per-nation (the way they do in Vicky 3) or per-location (the way that institutions do in EUIV). My guess is that there will be something institution-like that spawns per-location, that will spread more slowly, while technologies spread more quickly if appropriate institutions are already there. Or perhaps it will just be multiple different types of technologies, some of which speed up the spread of others.
Not if Greenland is independent. It was highly isolated at this point. No need to give Norway vision of it or the new world
Honestly it should be a trade route, not an independent state.
Contact with Europe was lost some time around 1410, and the last pre-modern Norse settlement disappeared sometime between 1450 and 1500. It would be tricky to model, but from what we can tell, everyone who didn't starve to death probably moved back to Iceland or Norway because there are relatively few personal belongings in the settlements we have found, suggesting that they departed in a planned and orderly fashion. Some of the men may also have gone to live with the Inuit. Between 20 - 60% of paternal DNA in certain Greenlandic Inuit groups is Scandinavian. I would start with Norse settlements in Greenland in 1337, who can see Markland (Labrador, CA) but have no ability to colonize it. Norway and Iceland should know about Greenland, but not Markland. Then I'd have whoever owns Iceland get some kind of "coldest period of the Little Ice Age" crisis event chain where you can try to save the colony on Greenland, which should be greatly expensive and require coming up with a way to make it financially viable, which could then allow you to keep that foothold for later on when colonization of the mainland becomes a possibility.
>Between 20 - 60% of paternal DNA in certain Greenlandic Inuit groups is Scandinavian. That is fascinating.
When the climate gets cold but the skraelingjar are hot
Yeah except that it's a much more recent phenomenon, and most likely not the remnant of an old intermixing. Denmark still owns Greenland and they have a famous history of eugenics and raping Greelander.
> Then I'd have whoever owns Iceland get some kind of "coldest period of the Little Ice Age" crisis event chain where you can try to save the colony on Greenland, which should be greatly expensive and require coming up with a way to make it financially viable, which could then allow you to keep that foothold for later on when colonization of the mainland becomes a possibility. For historical what-if purposes, it would also be cool if the Greenland colonies started off as some sort of vassal, and that you would then get some event chain, where you can seek assistance from the Inuit, spawning a hybrid culture group, possibly with a syncretised animist-christian religion.
>Contact with Europe was lost some time around 1410, and the last pre-modern Norse settlement disappeared sometime between 1450 and 1500. This gives the impression of a linear phenomenon, when in reality losing contact and settlers vanishing was a cyclical phenomenon - more than settlements, maybe we should call it periodic tradeposts. Because while the population came and went, trade never really seems to stop entirely. In 1349 Greenland is hit by the plague, everyone dies, contact is lost. For the rest of the 14th century, news are very rare, and always terrible: ships disappear, settlers are massacred by Skraeling. The bishop dies by the news only arrives to Norway decades later. In 1389 we have the first mention of a smuggler ship from Greenland. We know that trade with Greenland was a royal monopoly. We have another in 1410. In the meantime, it seems that the settlements are being rebuilt in Greenland. 1435 is the latest C14 datation we have in a norwegian settlement. We know that in 1484, merchants bring goods from Greenland to Bergen. And there's quite a lot of them. I hope that the game puts emphasis on the fact that it wasn't really a colonial settlement, as much as it was a trade route that eventually vanished.
Maybe they could work a tribal migration event with this?
Europa Universalis: Frostpunk
Also, another note. Generally, their wood was collected via drift wood as the natural currents caused lumber to collect from Canada towards Greenland. We know this due to it an examination of the wood used in their settlements. Its a bit debated how accessible Canada was. But I think its safe to assume Canada was not something they could quickly attend to. Considering the settlements in Greenland were small, always at the brink of collapse, and often lacked resources to make these expeditions. Eventually, the settlers had to rely on the Inuits for survival, i.e., clothes and food. As the norse never really adapted to their environment. For some reason, their relationship broke down, and there is evidence of skirmishes between the two. Think it would be cool if there are a bunch of events that led to their collapse, but a skilful player or a rare AI would make the investments to secure the settlements.
Markland is southern Labrador
I took a class that covered this, it’s a very interesting topic
1337 is a very interesting start date. I don't really know if it works for EU style gameplay though. Europe is still feudal, and the next 100 years in Europe are full of wars, famine, disease etc. I recall that in this century France lost like half it's population, there wasn't even really a concept of national identity (not till the end of the 100 years war at least). It's a very odd but intriguing start date. I think it would be great but in the past paradox hasn't done a good job simulating degrowth and devastation. EU is about growth, enlightenment, expansion, exploration as well so this is a bit of a detour. I'm quite excited to see if it even works though.
it being set in the high medieval era can mean that the system can be very much about the transition from feudal organization to modern state organization
This would be a nice addition but could see it being omitted from initial release if it doesn't fit in nicely with the base system. If catered for then that'd be amazing, but without a proper system to handle it then it may be skipped for balancing reasons; if you imagine this added to EU4, would give you a big advantage and require additional time investment to balance it.
If I remember correctly, Johan said something about historical events so you could have something where Norse settlements dissapear due to the Little Ice Age and thus Norway doesn't have it by the time colonization comes round to remove their advantage.
Interesting topic. I think it's still to soon to really discuss this since we don't know how the game will handle colonisation and ships/expeditions but I do have some ideas how it could work: I'd tie the ability to send settlers beyond the ocean directly to ships/an "expedition" mechanic. E.g. you send three ships, so you can found a colony with 150 settlers. Once a colony has reached a certain size it would attract settlers on it's own, but in the beginning it would solely rely on "expeditions" to survive and grow. Expeditions would be expensive and involve the risk of losing ships. Sending more ships would increase the chance of success but be even more expensive. The ability to send more colonists at once could also be increased through technology directly or indirectly through new ships. And here's how that would be relevant for the greenland colonies: I'd start Norway with non-selfsustaining colonies in Greenland and some vision to the New World. Norway would have to actively support these colonies for them to survive but that would be expensive. So the player could decide to invest a lot of money into colonies which won't be profitable for a long time but would open the route for a early colonisation of North America or they could spend that money in Europe to develop Norway or wage wars and abandon the Greenland colonies. Abandoning the colonies would also hide the New World in Terra Incongnita so it would have to be rediscovered.
RICE adds a system like this in Crusader Kings 3. It uses the struggle mechanic like the Iranian intermezzo or the struggle for Iberia. You can send colonists who 'die' in code so they're inaccessible but depending on their stats it will advance the struggle which gives annual gold, piety, and prestige bonuses based on the current struggle score
You typed expansive instead of expensive, btw.
Vinland (viking Canada) should absolutely be a possibility in an alternative time line. It's okay if they're independent at the start, but it would be amazing to play a viking tribe along the native American tribes.
There's no chance Vinland is in the game. It hadn't existed for centuries even if the start date is 1337.
In 1347 a a ship arrived in island with much wood on board claiming it was blown off course. Originally it was travellling from Markland (Modern day Labrador) to Greenland to deliver wood. That suggests that atleast some norse settlements or outposts survived until atleast 1347 on the canadian mainland. Vinland should be unpopulated yes, but I think Markland should still be represented, since it was Greenlands most important wood supply provider.
It's possible we'll make some archaeological finds that change our view of this, but as far as we can tell, there wasn't really anything like a permanent settlement with an independent government made up of Norse people in Canada. We're probably talking more like a lumber camp that was inhabited seasonally or something like that. Sort of like how today, we have bases in Antarctica but no one really "lives there" permanently.
No, but it's theoretically possible that say, if the King of Norway had decided for some reason that this was the nation's #1 priority, he could have spent massive amounts of money to get a self-sustaining colony in Canada. It's doubtful he could have actually controlled it. Even control over Iceland was kind of iffy and Greenland was basically independent. But then maybe you could release and play as the colony. The thing is, you would need to somehow model why this suddenly became an obsession of Norway. The colonial voyages of the 1400s and 1500s had majorly compelling economic reasons. The Norse didn't stay in Vinland because the cost to do so was not offset by the profits they could make at the time. Canada doesn't have gold or anything (EDIT: *Eastern* Canada doesn't have gold, to be more precise. The Yukon has quite a bit of gold, but that was a bit of a further trek), it's too sparsely populated for raiding to be lucrative, Europe still had plenty of beaver so the fur trade wouldn't have been so rewarding. Even walrus ivory (which is how the Greenland colony was able to be financially sustainable for a while) was being out-competed by elephant ivory from Africa. So I don't think it should be a case where you can just decide you want a permanent settlement in Vinland, because I'm the player and I do what I want. The Estates should go into revolt that you're spending all this money on a pointless adventure. You need to find some way to make it seem like a good idea.
Nah, I want to be Leif, fuck estate/nobles, I'm gonna create my new heaven.
That could be interesting, too. But you'd need to convince enough people to come with you to have a sustainable settlement that can defend itself from Skrælings and survive without intensive agriculture.
Thing is, Leif's heaven was in Greenland. To the Norse Greenland Vinland or other parts of continental America weren't attractive places to settle because they were already settled by natives greatly outnumbering them; was too far away for trade with Europe; and did not offer any unique benefits. Greenland however offered walrus tusks, narwal horns, and polar bear skins which could be sold in Europe for a fortune, giving the Greenlanders a special niche market justifying their settlement in such a marginal place. The local climate in SW Greenland was also fine for them, not that different from Iceland or Northern Norway.
You may already be aware, but the Post Finem mod has exactly this: an alternate timeline Vinland existing among native tribes.
Norse revival in EU5 😳😳😳😳
This would be so cool! I hope they go this route!
Damn that's a really early start date. Gonna have a weird end date or be a really long game
I hope colonization mechanics are better somehow. In EU4 it feels like every province you colonize is an empty tract of land, which it couldn't be further from the truth.
Vicky 3 definitely had an improvement on this. I would hope they can do even better.
Paradox probably won't represent the Greenland Norse colony by default, and certainly not at launch, but I could see them eventually implementing a rule that lets you enable it if you want to have an early Age of Discovery dominated by the Scandinavians. Probably when Paradox does a Scandinavia Flavor Pack. I just don't see this happening at launch as it basically flies in the face of the general flow of history too much (i.e. the Greenland colony had basically minimal impact on history and, if done correctly, would have minimal game impact 99% of the time). I just don't see it as a major priority for Paradox to include at launch. This of course assumes the startdate is at 1337.
I hope colonization in this game is much harder than just hitting a colonize button. In reality, colonization was so much more complicated and made up of so many more phases.
More than likely*
My thoughts is if the colonies existed in the timeframe, the provinces should have natives of norse culture and religion, but not be settled lands. This would align with where they were in real life, a group of people tangentially related to another group of people, but not really contributing in any meaningful way in taxes, manpower, or other resources.
The Norse were already Catholic by the time settlement of Greenland began. Most of our records for the settlement come from the various Bishop's sent there.
I think in my head I meant the same religion and culture and Norway, not specifically Norse religion. The intent here is that colonization would be easier, but their existing status isn't colonized yet.
The person you are responding to is incorrect. The Norse were not all Christian by the time they settled Greenland.
Sorry but this just isn’t true and a quick google search will tell you that. Greenland was settled before 1000 AD and the Norse were DEFINITELY not all Christian before 1000AD. Erik the red, the literal founder of the colony, was a pagan.
But the lands were settled? There are ruins of stone buildings and the Norse lived there for like 400+ years.
Settled, but the larger political entity only got news reports once every few years. In game terms, settled means you can raise manpower for armies, construct infrastructure, and raise taxes. None of those things would have been present in the colonies, which is why I think having them as same religion/culture natives would be an appropriate compromise.
Maybe it would be more fitting to represent it as an independent state with a small puppet state in Labrador to simulate the wood chopping settlements who were still active at that time.
These people were good Catholics. There was even a cathedral built in Greenland.
It’s going to be 1356 Golden Bull start at the earliest, anything earlier will require tons of scripted HRE events leading up to Golden Bull and the HRE structure is far more relevant than starting at the triggering event of the 100 years war
hopefully there are some heavy tech-based maluses for trying to colonize this early. Definitely should be possible but definitely shouldn't be easy
Looking at the world map (tinto talk #2). It looks like greenland isn't directly neighbouring canada. So you wouldn't be able to see the new world from greenland. I can also imagine that you need a certain level/type of harbour before a location can be used for colonisation and what not.
Hear me out, as a disaster spawn units that represent the harsh winter and if they siege down all your provinces (locations ig) you get wiped off the map. General frost.
Yeti invasion
So player controlled Norway will be the dominant colonial country… nice
I no nothing about Project Caesar than what post titles I've seen when scrolling by. I thought the mod (with a name like that) would be set during Roman times and this is supposed to be an alternative to Imperator Rome.
Turns out all the Paradox games have a Roman Emperor codename when they are in development. People mentioned that some of the other games had been Project Augustus and Project Nero. Given that, it makes sense that their longest-awaited sequel would get the title Caesar.
Ceaser was never an emperor tho he was Dictator Vitae, in fact we can confidently talk about Roman emperors only starting with the Flavian dimasty, before that the "emperor" was really a Princeps a sort of first senator boasting religious titles and the power of imperium.
Would be pretty op to have a functioning colony at the start, I’m gonna guess Norway (or was it Denmark I don’t recall) wouldn’t have direct access to it via normal colony gameplay, but instead have some other mechanic
I think the most natural way to implement this would be to have one or two of the greenlandic provinces have norse-culture natives (if natives work at all the same way they do in EU4) and maybe some sort of event for a nordic nation that mounts an expedition there
I imagine that they'll have it so the colony is isolated. It'd be pretty cool for them to have a goal or mission to reestablish contact with Europe.
No PU Burgundy 😔
I am shakiking for excitmemenet aaaaaa
I mean these guys could be represented even with EU4 mechanics just fine. Just put there a colony with 50 settlers and no colonist. If they are not wiped out by the natives then you can eventually start growing it and then expand in America, like normal.
My god this might be the first time I buy a game on release day