AH Challenge: Make Brittany a colonial power

I was thinking about this during a Brittany game in EU4, and I thought "what if Brittany managed to colonize parts of the New World?"
 
I was about to say, just have them take Exploration Ideas and you're all set :D

An alternate ending to the Hundred Years' War might free up Brittany long enough to look into expansion--if France stays decentralized it would give them some breathing room
 
yeah, i think the difficult part is making (and keeping) them independent. they're well placed to be a colonial power and have a good maritime tradition. with a far enough back POD I could even see thsm becoming a rough portugal-analogue
 
First you need a less Francophille nobility, Perhaps Arthur I became king instead of John lackland and have the duchy more close to England.
 
Well, most of the French pirates were from Saint-Malo in Brittany. If the duchy manages to stay independent colonial ventures are pretty obvious consequences as I see it.
 
If they're independent into the 1600s, you just need one duke with an obsession. If courland tried it, so could brittany.
Courland wasn't a colonial power, it just had colonies. To be a "power", you need to have those colonies be more than just a few tiny settlements in a few islands.

So not the best comparison.
 
Courland wasn't a colonial power, it just had colonies. To be a "power", you need to have those colonies be more than just a few tiny settlements in a few islands.

So not the best comparison.

There's no set definition of 'power', which is why the question is restated simply as 'what if Brittany managed to colonize parts of the New World'.

The point was that the difference between a country with colonies and one with out is almost entirely desire. If a country's leaders want to have colonies they will, even if like Italy they have to go to war to get them, even if like Sweden they are tiny and undefended, even if like Scotland the country can't afford them, even if like Courland or Brandenburg the attempts don't stick, even if like malta they have to borrow someone's elses.

To get a European country colinising the new world, you just need them to be independent, have sea access and have a leader who wants to.

If a country as far away from the north sea as Courland can attempt to build colonies in Africa and the new world than obviously Brittany (which is about the same size but closer) could too. That isn't me saying that Brittany = Courland but merely making a point about the role personality plays in these things, given that courlandian colinisation was just one man's dream.
 
Another possibility is that the region becomes a bastion of Protestantism with a heavy Huguenots predominance, OTL existed several Huguenots pirates and before even French crown they had created their own colonies, another interesting factor would be the revitalization of the Breton language with masses and the bible published with native language.
 
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