Colonist
From EU2Wiki
A colonist is a state agent which can be sent to establish or expand a colony or trading post.
Each country may store up to 6 unused colonists at any time, and these automatically generate into your stockpile according to various factors (listed below). A new colonist can be generated at the beginning of any month. They are indicated in the status bar across the top of the map screen, by a number located next to a blue ship icon.
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How to Use Colonists
Colonists may be dispatched on the standard map screen, by right-clicking on the province and choosing the appropriate menu option, or on the send colonist screen in colonization map mode (accessible by clicking the small blue ship in the left-hand-side interface), which will display the chances and costs, as well as any Treaty of Tordesillas concerns you may have.
Sending Colonists
Colonists may be sent to any vacant province you have access to for colonization, or any trading post, colony or colonial city that you own and control. However, in all of these cases you must have "colonization access" to the province to be allowed to send any colonists there.
A country always has colonization access to a province if it has a land connection to the province via its own cities. Otherwise, it must have a "sea connection" to the province: it must own a port with a land connection to the capital, and one the following must be true:
- the province is coastal
- the province is not coastal, but has a land connection via owned cities to an owned coastal city.
There are two exceptional regions on the map for colonization access.
- All provinces bordering the Great Lakes (in America) count as coastal.
- The rules for land connections are relaxed in Siberia, so that you can trace the land connection through colonies and trading posts as well as cities.
Once dispatched, colonists generally take several months of construction to produce a result, which may be successful or not. During construction you can see the "man chopping wood" icon on the map.
Upon a successful colonization of an empty province, a new colony with 100 population is created there, owned by the sending country. Upon a successful addition to a colony, its population is increased by 100, and it may turn into a city if is populous enough. On failed attempts natives may rise up in the province.
Sending Traders
When you send a colonist to a vacant province, you have the option of using it as a Trader, establishing a trading post instead of a colony. This is much cheaper than colonization, and is sometimes used to claim territories intended for future colonies. Traders may be sent to any vacant province, or any trading post up to level 5 that you own and control. However, in both cases you cannot send traders without "trading access". You have trading access to any province that you have colonization access to. In addition, for trading access you can trace land connections through owned colonies and trading posts.
Upon success in a vacant province, a trader establishes a level 1 trading post. Successfully adding a trader to an existing trading post increases its level by one. On failed attempts, natives may rise up in the province.
Levels
Colonies and trading posts have a series of "levels". Trading posts have levels 1-6. Colonies have levels 1-9, reached by rounding their population down to the nearest hundred (colonies of 199 or less are level 1). Upon reaching a population of 1000 (or 900 with natives present), a colony becomes a city.
How to Get Colonists
Colonists are gained by the following factors:
- The base rate for getting colonists is none, that is, 0 per year.
- Fixed modifiers based on state religion.
- Variable modifiers based on the positions of the Naval/Land, Free Trade/Mercantilism, and Narrowminded/Innovative domestic policy sliders. Naval, Free Trade, and Narrowminded settings increase colonists, while Land, Mercantilism, and Innovative decrease them.
- +1 per year if you own a shipyard.
- +1 per year if you are a "frontier country", meaning that you can trace a land-only path from your capital to a colony, trading post, or vacant province.
- Colonists can also be gained or lost by event. Several random events exist which give four colonists at a time.
- You get one colonist whenever a new conquistador or explorer is created, whether from leader files or as a random event.
It is not possible to lose colonists by having "negative gain" (unlike missionaries). However, note that colonists can be lost by event.
Countries which are not "frontier countries" do not receive colonists unless they own a port province. This is often the case with Central European powers such as Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary.
