Some observations and thoughts on the same, based on a standar map epic game.
Colonial expenses kick in when you have more than two cities on a landmass other than the one your capital is in. They are precisely twice as much as the "distance from capitol" expenses.
I read somewhere that they should kick in on a landmass where you don't have A capitol - not THE capitol. Banking on this, I colonized another landmass and built my Forbidden City there. As expected, my second capitol did not show any colonial expenses, because the distance from capitol is zero, but all the other cities kept bleeding the expenses out, altough at a reduced rate since a capitol was so much closer.
I would expect that, by building a second seat of government on the second landmass, this would become more or less like the mother country. Would it be possible to mod the game so that this is actually the effect? That would mean that one could have at most 3 continents as "home", if owning Versailles.
On a second though, I do not really think that the "continent" should be the colonial discriminator. You can have a large enough island just one coast apart from your capitol, and a group of cities there will be colonies. A better discriminator could be the connectivity of your boundaries - that is, any city connected to the capital through your territory (on land OR sea) is not a colony, while a city on the same landmass which is not (or not yet) connected to the capitol will be counted as a colony. Possilby with a maximum distance factor, making all the cities too far from the capitol be conted as a colony. This distance could also grow with the discovery of new "bureaucratic technology" (paper, bureaucracy, constitution, communism).
This would make some historical sense: Greek cities in southern Italy and Crimea always remained colonies (although powerful ones), and Roman outposts in Gaul were too, until the romanisation of the land (expansion of cultural borders = inglobation within the Limes).
A similar argument would apply with English controlled territories in France during the 100 Years War. They were not colonies so long as France did not have a comeback at national identity with Joan (an expansion of cultural borders which cut the English out, so to say). The last English outpost was Calais, which was then strangled by the further expansion of French culture (becoming a colony) and then eventually lost to culture flipping.
Or think about Denmark - most of the country (the Jutland) would be a colony, because the Capitol is on a island - and closer to Sweden, which the Danes ruled from time to time, all or in part.
Finally, had Great Britain granted full citizenship status to the North American colonies (no taxation without "representation", i.e. a second capitol in game mechanics - unfortunately they already built it in Scotland and the French beat them to Versailles) then there would have been probably no revolution...
Colonial expenses kick in when you have more than two cities on a landmass other than the one your capital is in. They are precisely twice as much as the "distance from capitol" expenses.
I read somewhere that they should kick in on a landmass where you don't have A capitol - not THE capitol. Banking on this, I colonized another landmass and built my Forbidden City there. As expected, my second capitol did not show any colonial expenses, because the distance from capitol is zero, but all the other cities kept bleeding the expenses out, altough at a reduced rate since a capitol was so much closer.
I would expect that, by building a second seat of government on the second landmass, this would become more or less like the mother country. Would it be possible to mod the game so that this is actually the effect? That would mean that one could have at most 3 continents as "home", if owning Versailles.
On a second though, I do not really think that the "continent" should be the colonial discriminator. You can have a large enough island just one coast apart from your capitol, and a group of cities there will be colonies. A better discriminator could be the connectivity of your boundaries - that is, any city connected to the capital through your territory (on land OR sea) is not a colony, while a city on the same landmass which is not (or not yet) connected to the capitol will be counted as a colony. Possilby with a maximum distance factor, making all the cities too far from the capitol be conted as a colony. This distance could also grow with the discovery of new "bureaucratic technology" (paper, bureaucracy, constitution, communism).
This would make some historical sense: Greek cities in southern Italy and Crimea always remained colonies (although powerful ones), and Roman outposts in Gaul were too, until the romanisation of the land (expansion of cultural borders = inglobation within the Limes).
A similar argument would apply with English controlled territories in France during the 100 Years War. They were not colonies so long as France did not have a comeback at national identity with Joan (an expansion of cultural borders which cut the English out, so to say). The last English outpost was Calais, which was then strangled by the further expansion of French culture (becoming a colony) and then eventually lost to culture flipping.
Or think about Denmark - most of the country (the Jutland) would be a colony, because the Capitol is on a island - and closer to Sweden, which the Danes ruled from time to time, all or in part.
Finally, had Great Britain granted full citizenship status to the North American colonies (no taxation without "representation", i.e. a second capitol in game mechanics - unfortunately they already built it in Scotland and the French beat them to Versailles) then there would have been probably no revolution...
