Silly Side Effect

[5cats]

Of beating up Euros early on, or later even (but less so then).
I complained that it's too easy to beat up your fellow Euros early on. A free town, and a Hardy Pioneer (thanks France!) are too much for this cat to resist! Esp there's no adverse effects! By the time the colony settles down (3 turns) the Euro will usually make peace with you, and cough up their maps to boot!
However, there's one side effect: native lands! When your newly 'liberated' colony re-grows it's radius, the natives accuse you of stealing their land! Lolz! You get more negative reaction from Natives than from the country you've attacked, eh?
Well, I think it's funny. Montezuma's more concerned about Quebec than the King Of France? Oy!

Another side-effect of this: if you capture a small colony and it blows itself up, you can plunk down a new settlement on the ruins, on the same turn, without angering the natives! The tiles around it are still considered Euro-owned. Useful for those 2nd and 3rd conquests.

 

[Oerdin]

I usually wait until the Euros have 2-3 towns of size 3 (usually around 50-70 turns in) then I start to take down all the colonies close to me. It's cheaper then building my own, I get free goods, and more importantly I get pops.

 

[5cats]

True! That's always fun too. AI Euros also build things much faster, more free stuff for capturing their towns!
The Natives still get angry though. I had the Aztec go from cautious to war when I clobbered a British colony. The land it sat on was 99% Aztec, so it was like I'd invaded an Aztec camp! oops!