Colonies

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Colonies are created by sending colonists to provinces that are currently not owned by any country. Once a colony reaches 1000 inhabitants, be it by natural population increase and/or additional colonists, all natives turn into productive citizens and the colony becomes a full-fledged city. You will also gain a core on the province in question 25 years after your first successful colonization attempt on that province, provided you maintain continuous ownership (i.e., if the colony is destroyed by natives or seized by an opponent in the interim, the clock resets to zero).

Contents 1 Colonisation 1.1 Colonist placement chance 1.2 Colonist cost 1.3 Colony growth 1.4 Natives

[edit] Colonisation

To build a colony you need to send colonists - each of them increasing the number of inhabitants by 100.

[edit] Colonist placement chance

• Base chance: 35%
• Prestige rank (-10% to 10%)
• Colony level multiplied by 4 (0% to 40%)
• Native aggressiveness multiplied by 3 (-3% to -27%)
• Monarch administrative skill multiplied by 5 (5% to 45%)
• Production efficiency divided by 5
• Tropical province: -10%
• Not controlling an adjacent province: -5%

Lucky AI nations get an additional 10% placement chance.

[edit] Colonist cost

• Base cost: 20 ducats
• Very easy and easy difficulty modes: -50% and -25% respectively
• Colony level multiplied by -2 (0% to -20%)
• Non-coastal province: +10%
• Tropical province: +20%
• Not controlling any adjacent provinces: +15%
• Inflation

[edit] Colony growth

• The colony growth percentage appears to be growth per decade. (If it were a yearly number, a colony with e.g. 910 colonists and 10% growth would get 91 colonists in one year, and become a colony about as fast as you can send a colonist!)
• An easy rule of thumb is that when a colony is over 900 citizens, it will have a little less growth per year than the growth rate shown, if it's taken as a straight number. For example, if your colony has a rate of 13%, it will add about 12 colonists per year. This is because while the growth percent is for a decade, the colony has nearly 1,000 citizens. 1,000 / 10 = 100, so the percent can be taken as a fairly straight number. Also: If your colony is close to 1,000, you can save a colonist and let it grow to be a city; use this rule of thumb to see if it'll do it fast enough for your taste.

[edit] Natives

• Land troops via port (if coastal) to avoid the potential native-revolt trigger.
• Natives have a chance of revolting if troops enter the province by land, if a colonist fails, and, lastly, there is a small chance they will simply revolt without any trigger. All three chances are based on their Aggressiveness (Agg). Natives with an Aggression of 0 never revolt; Agg 9 natives revolt if you sneeze.
• If natives revolt and you have no troops, or if you lose a battle against them, they will kill a number of colonists roughly equal to their number divided by 10. For example, if 600 natives successfully revolt, your colony population will decrease by about 60. (Not tested versus Ferocity.)

• If attempting to expand quickly versus other nations, triage your approach:
  • Don't worry about native provinces with a large number (3k+) of very Agg natives (6 or 7+). The AIs are very poor about guarding their colonies. If there are a large-ish number of Agg-ish natives, AIs often eventually lose the colony (or maybe you can grab it in a war). Heck, it's great if they waste their colonists on provinces like this. So totally ignore these until you've locked up most of the triage provinces (below), and can get back to them at a more relaxed time.
    • A loophole in the above rule is when a foreign nation has worked so hard on a difficult province, that it comes to have few high-Agg natives left. If the nation loses their colony and you see it doesn't have many natives left, see the fourth bullet (below).

Unfortunately, you can't see the number and Agg of natives once another nation has started a colony. So unless you remember it, you won't know how likely their colony is to fail. Or you could check a saved game; Search for the name of the capital of the province in the savegame.

• Do worry about nice provinces with natives of very low aggression. AI nations also go for these first and usually colonize them successfully, even if the natives rise up a time or two. Almost all provinces that have low-Agg natives, have few of them (1k or less). Put one colonist and no troops on these provinces a.s.a.p. - and that's all, while you're quickly expanding. Worry about guarding it if you have the resources; the chance that the natives will rise up, or do much damage if they do, is low.
• In between are provinces with moderately Agg natives of moderately large numbers. Once you've got all the nice, low-Agg provinces locked in (above), address these "middling" provinces: Choose the nicest one, put down some guard troops, and develop it intensively (keep sending colonists until it's 1k+). Then move the troops on to your next middling provincial conquest.
• Nice provinces with a small number of Agg-ish natives (~2k or less) should be handled by:

1) Placing troops there who start to hack at them,

2) Immediately send a colonist to "lock it in" (prevent other countries from trying to colonize),

3) Kill off the natives before the colonist arrives (the percent likelihood is measured as of the start of the month that the colonist arrives, not when it is first dispatched), and finally,

4) When doing this, always keep a spare colonist ready to ship off, in case your "lock" colonist fails. This will keep AIs from stealing the juicy province you just cleared of Aggy natives, which they're delighted to do.

5) Of course, these provinces only need one colonist (if you're triaging a quick expansion), since they no longer have any natives that can rise up. Your troops can move on, now that the natives are gone.

The reasoning for the above approach is that, while a small number of Agg natives will give the AI some trouble, the AI might be able to protect the province all the way to a city with the one troop he usually lands. Meanwhile, a small number of Aggy natives hurt colonization chances disproportionately to their number. (Natives lower your chance only based on their Agg, not on how many there are.) So, provinces with a small number of Agg natives should be handled by killing them all, while keeping the province locked with an incoming colonist. Your chance of colonization success shoots up (27% for Agg 9!), there's no more natives to worry about - and you've got it locked in.

Note that, unless you have a very high chance (80%+) of successfully colonizing provinces with a lot of high-Agg natives, they will usually have risen up so many times that there will be few natives left by the time your colony becomes a city. So why not kill them off to start with, and turn it into a city that much faster? Colonists that fail (due to lower chances of success) are colonists that could have helped you turn more colonies into cities, at provinces with a higher chance of success.

A bonus to this approach - of leaving a lot of colonies with just one colonist for a long time - is that by the time you've locked up everything you can, and get back to focusing on these 100+ years later, 1) they will immediately core when they become a city (the timer started when the first colonist arrived), and 2) they often have a high 1xx residual (e.g. 136 colonists). This means that they are likely to be over 950 or even closer to a thousand when your ninth colonist arrives. If it has a reasonable growth rate, you can just let time push it into a city (especially if there are no natives there), and use your colonists to build up other colonies. Dealer's choice. FWIW, the Build flag (hammer and saw at top of window) will let you know when they become a city.