The mechanics | Colonization EU IV Guide

Last update: 11 May 2016

Colonization provides you with peaceful means of expanding your territory. The first centuries on EUIV is the period of breakthrough geographic discoveries in the history of man so, it is only natural that, by default, it makes a significant element of the game. What you can discover, and then seize in the name of King, God and Country are, among others, African Coast, India, Oceania and, above all both Americas with plentiful gold and other riches. Once the tape goes up, the race is on. The early bird catches the worm.

To be able to even think of joining the race, you need a colonist, Most countries can only have three of those. All of them require an appropriate idea - 2 from Exploration and 1 from Expansion. Furthermore, due to the national ideas, Spain, Norway and Russia wil receive an additional colonist, which results in the total of four for these countries.

Even if you only have colonists, this will do no good, if you do not discover new lands yourself. To discover new lands, you need to obtain either and explorer or a conquistador. Only they can set out into Terra Incognita to explore it. The explorer travels by ship and he can explore new waters, whereas conquistador can set out into the depths of the land. To gain access to them, you need the Quest for New World idea, from Exploration. So, as you can see, if you are going to join the conquest of the world, the Exploration group is absolutely necessary, because otherwise you simply will not be able to discover the unknown lands. If you do not have explorers, nor conquistadors, you can only hope that when you learn about new lands through the mouths' word, they will not be colonized yet, and you still will be able to send out a colonist, but this is a thing that you cannot base your colonial empire on. As you discover new lands, remember about the right selection of the army. Use only the fastest units to be able to discover new lands as quickly as possible before the leader is consumed by exhaustion. When it comes to explorers, always use the lightest ships.

The mechanics of the colonization itself is very simple. You dispatch a colonist to a land that has not been colonized yet and, after enough time has passed, he will establish a colony. And...that is basically it. Unlike in the case of the previous Europa games, the colonist will always succeed and he will always establish a colony. Then, the colonist may remain in the colony, just like in the screenshot, to speed up the development of the colony. He can also be sent elsewhere to start establishing another colony. Once the colony reaches the population of 1000, it will turn into a city.

At the very beginning, a colony has only the population of 10. In the province tab, you can find information about annual increase (or decrease) of the population. This value depends on the current level of financing the colony from the budget, as well as on modifiers e.g. Land of Opportunity from Exploration provides +33, and a province situated in the tropics has a modifier of -10. The colonist's presence does not increase population directly. He provides a chance, expressed in percents, that he can make new people settle in a given area. The chance depends on the situation of the colony, its natural resources, culture and religion. Colonies also expand faster if they border a city so, clustering them together will speed up the general development.

Due to the limited number of colonists, you will have to choose carefully your next moves. You need to decide if you want to develop your current colony, or to move ahead to colonize another land which will threaten the existing colonies with the extended process of turning into a city(which is connected with larger expenses, the risk of being attacked by locals and the possibility of losing a colony in a war). In general, first select the richest provinces and those that will produce the most expensive and the most important goods, e.g. to seize control over trade with strategic goods and profit from the bonus that follows.

While colonizing, you should also pay attention to the locals. Each one thousand of locals, which is left alive at the moment of transition into a city (population of 1000) will be included into the population count and will increase the base tax income by 0.20. In theory,, this will allow you to create an entirely new city, which will start with the population of 5000 or 7000. Still, locals can be irritating. They have two main indicators - aggressiveness and ferocity. The former, marked with the small axes, indicates the probability of their attacking your settlement, where the latter, marked with the bows, indicates a bonus to the damage inflicted by these locals. You need to keep in mind that locals with high ferocity level can quite easily put even the best of the European armies if they outnumber you, or even when the numbers are even. If there are troops stationed in the region, you can order them eradicate locals but, this will set back the development of the city later on. If you can afford this, the best solution is to keep your troops in the colony, which will have locals let you be and protect the citizens of the colony from the attacking locals. Then, at least some of the locals should make it into the newly-created city before they die.