In general, a province will be revealed to a country if: Discovery of individual provinces will occur based on contact with other nations.Russia, colonial nations, nations with the Offensive-Expansion: The Pioneer Policy, and potentially custom nations have national ideas that make this discovery instant. Undiscovered land provinces have a chance per month to be discovered by owners of adjacent provinces (typically taking 3–5 years).Conquistadors with high army tradition have a chance to discover adjacent provinces.When the move completes, the army either enters the province, or discovers that movement is blocked and stops moving either way, the province is revealed. Movement into the province takes just as long as if it was being explored with a conquistador. This can be done by clicking to move the army into a suspected province within the terra incognita the army will begin to move regardless of whether they are able to complete the move. While at war, armies can enter all enemy provinces, even those hidden by terra incognita, assuming movement isn't blocked by forts or blockades.Norway, Iceland, Samoa and Tonga have national idea allowing to recruit explorers and conquistadors and allows them to explore without taking Exploration ideas.A handful of countries (notably Portugal) have an explorer in 1444 despite not having the idea these leaders cannot explore in ocean provinces until Quest for the New World is unlocked. The “Quest for the New World” idea, the first idea in the Exploration idea group, is required to hire explorers and conquistadors.These are special military leaders that are given pips as though the country had 80% as much tradition as it really does, in exchange for being able to explore. A conquistador is required to explore on land (unless the country is at war see below), and an explorer is required to explore at sea.That said, the following factors are true regardless of DLC:

How a nation goes about exploring depends on whether El Dorado is enabled or not. Discovering these areas is essential to finding provinces to colonize. It was last verified for version 1.33.Īlthough some uncolonized provinces may be visible at the beginning of the game, much of both land and water is covered by terra incognita. Please help with verifying or updating this section. a means of pacifying the natives (troops to guard it, or policies to lower their aggressiveness).Ducats to cover maintenance of the colony (which rises quadratically if the number of colonies exceeds the number of colonists).an empty province to colonize (either adjacent to a core province, or within colonial range of a port).A special case is Russia with the Third Rome DLC, who can establish certain colonies without a colonist.a colonist (from national ideas, idea groups, a Parliamentary issue, or a religious reform).However, for many other nations, overseas states can sometimes be very profitable. Western technology nations will most likely prefer to make trade company provinces if possible instead of creating new overseas states, due to the bonus trade power and the ability to ignore religious differences. However, provinces in overseas colonial regions should not be made into states, as the provinces are eventually ceded to the new colonial nation. The type of subject nation created depends on its location in the world.Īny nation can benefit fully from overseas territories, even very distant ones, if they choose to make that territory into a state. This is accomplished primarily by creating colonial nations, which are AI-controlled subject nations that will produce their own military and navy but will provide trade power and other benefits to the colonizer, and creating trade companies, which are semi-autonomous provinces that provide substantial trade bonuses in trade nodes that the colonizer can control. This is because colonized territories overseas can provide large boosts in trade income to the colonizing nation, as well as provide staging points for naval and land warfare around the world. The main benefit of colonialism is to improve the income generation and military logistics of the colonizing country. 9 Seven Cities of Gold and the Fountain of Youth.4.3.5 “Natives Encountering our Colonies”.

4.3 Important modifiers to colony growth.

Europa universalis iv world map