Is there any point to not slaughtering all natives?

[Allemand]

When a colony reaches level 7 the native population is assimilated into it. Thus, you would jump from 700 population to maybe several thousand or more. This would enhance the colony's worth. However, until you get to that point, the natives are problematical. They reduce the chance of each upgrade being successful, and there is the chance they will wipe out the colony.

If you put sufficient troops in a colony while it is growing, to guard against the colony being wiped out, it may be worthwhile to leave the natives. There is a page in Huszics FAQ at the EU Home Forum that gives the colonization success percentages. It's a useful guide, showing how the chances will vary depending upon continent and the makeup of the native population.

I have to say, I just wipe them out most of the time. In rare instances I try to keep them. You also have to consider how badly you want the colony to succeed. If it's going to be your first port in a new area, then it might be too important to take a chance with natives.

[RobRoy]

Once your colony grows so that its "city" has 700 population, it becomes a full-fledged province. At that point all the remaining natives get enslaved or suddenly migrate of their own free will to the province's economic centers, resulting in a significant increase to the "city" population. This will only work with very low and low aggression natives, maybe medium. There is always a risk that they'll revolt and massacre the settlement, though. Kill off all aggressive natives ASAP, because they most certainly will massacre your settlements, well before you can grow a city.

[SnowFire]

Is there any point to not slaughtering all natives?

As the title says. Sure, you don't want to leave cleaned-out provinces for your enemies to settle, but as for your own nation, are there any benefits to colonizing a place that still has natives in it? I was under the impression before that perhaps you could "convert" them and get extra colonists easily, but I've never bothered trying. So, can you do that, or are there any other reasons to keep natives alive?

[Bolo]

I had a French army of 2000 troops, 1000 cavalry and 10 cannons take on and beat a native army of over 40,000 in indochina.... It was nuts...

[Savant]

Bolo -

Those odds seem about right.

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'Blood will run'

[Ramo]

Not in India or Indochina (and Africa?)... Their "nationalism" (independent of agressiveness) factor makes assimilation impossible (although it would've been nice getting those 20,000 natives integrated into your colony ). But in the Americas, don't massacre populations if you can avoid it...

[Par4]

In India there are about 5 provinces on the coast with a medium rating, I colonize those, trading posts in the others. later, when I'm flowing with colonists, I try to colonize those sometimes. Always with a military guard. Defeating Hydrabad and the other nation there is pretty easy with a about 3 colonies in India, and you get provinces of about 30-100k people each.

[SnowFire]

Ramo: Well, in India, at least you'll get a substantial bonus to your population. In the Americas, who cares about an extra 200 people? Have you seen the population to monthly income chart, by the way? You really have to crank your population up in order to get any real bonus in income, passed the almighty 700 mark...

[Par4]

One thing I've notice in the Americas, is that the aggressive rating changes from country to country. I played a game as Sweden today and got maps from France and England, and all of the provinces were low and lowest. I think went and played a game as England then loaded that game, and the provinces were more like low, medium, low, extremely high, low, high.

Anyway having all colonies start off at over 1000 population is pretty nice.

And maybe its just the IGC, but I don't see many 200 indians anymore, almost all of Canada is 500s-1500s and America is mainly 500s with a few 1000-2000s spread out.

[Seneca]

It's not very nice though, is it?

[Victor Galis]

I have once assimilated high hotility natives. It's very possible, it just takes a lot of patience, a large army, and many colonists. The province in question was Da Nang. I think I got about 7,000 or so free people. I've done medium assimilations a lot. One time I got 23,000 or so people in Santal(North East India). It's very nice having large colonies But nothing compares with annexing Japan. I recommend that to every true imperial power. For a measly 80-100k troops you ccan get millions of new subjects (with no nationalism even). I had a colony in Mekong where I built a shipyard and raised 50k troops, landed that and took half Japan, then built reinforcements and ended their little trade embargo against everyone.

[Par4]

Wait until your guys change into the guys with guns, unless you have a good general

I lost an army of about 120 to the Japanese commander of about 100, it was disgusting, he caught the retreating cannon before they could return to the transports...

[Victor Galis]

Oh yeah... this was after I maxed tech out I didn't get a large enough Asian base of operations until about 1680, and the tech maxed out in 1695... I then had more money on my hands than I knew what to do with, and also a need for new provinces in which I could promote mayors to governors to cut my inflation.

[Ramo]

Snow:

Vary rarely do natives get integrated into your colony in Asia (Da Nang seems to be an exception). There's no point in stopping your ethnic cleansing operations in the old world .

Of course, a 200 pop. increase wouldn't be very beneficial; but if it's in a low agressiveness territory, why prevent it?

[Par4]

Also you only need to get colonies up to lvl 6 for assimiliating natives, saves 1 colony