Welcome back to another exciting development diary for Europa Universalis V. This week, we’ll be diving into one of the most iconic and transformative aspects of the era: exploration and colonization. From the first daring expeditions into the unknown seas, to the rise of sprawling colonial empires and global trade networks, this system aims to capture the ambition, risks, and rewards of charting the wider world.
Between the 15th and 19th centuries, nations across the globe set sail in search of wealth and opportunity. Driven by the hunger for exotic goods like spices, gold, furs, and sugar, these voyages reshaped the balance of power and laid the foundation for the first global economy. In EU5, we want players to feel that same pull of discovery and ambition as they expand their horizons beyond their home markets and feel the risks and rewards associated with it.
With the pop and character systems, exploration and colonization in Europa Universalis V reaches a new level of depth and immersion. From who leads your expeditions, choosing which states will populate your new colonies, choosing which locations you own directly and which you will let a new colonial nation control, and eventually the trade between your colonies and your homeland, will shape your nation’s long term fortunes
Castile into Spain playthrough with New World Domination in the the early 1700s
Exploration
Exploration in EU5 is about more than simply revealing the map, it’s about opportunity, ambition, and risk management. The ability to explore depends on your nation’s technological advances, maritime presence, characters, and pops. An advanced sea-farring nation will be able to chart safer, faster, and more ambitious expeditions, while reckless adventurers may risk lives and resources in pursuit of glory.
Exploration and colonization are part of the new geopolitical tab in EU5. It's in this page that you can see all possible explorations, all ongoing colonizations, and all possible places you can settle. This page also tells you your colonial range, the value that determines how far you can explore and colonize.
Exploration of Portugal in 1501 in the Geopolitics page
Colonial range has a base value of 1000 then gets increased by advances, some of these advances are unique to some nations such as Portugal however any nation can explore and colonize in EU5, mainly after the age of discovery and embracement of the New World institution. The higher your colonial range value, the further you can explore and the further you can colonize.
The Oversea Exploration advance, available in the Age of discovery, increases colonial range by 1500 and allows open sea exploration
To do an exploration you can select a variety of locations determined by your colonial range and your closest port, including ports owned by subjects and allies. You then choose the port in which the exploration voyage launches from and assign a character to undertake the exploration. All types of exploration have an initial cost in ducats and either sailors or manpower depending if the exploration is on sea or land
Exploring the Gulf of Mexico will have an initial cost in ducats and sailors to begin.
Once you choose the place you want to explore, a character to lead the expedition needs to be selected. This character is taken from your nation’s pool of characters but can also be historical explorers such as Columbus or Magellan, acquired through events. After that the voyage will need to be prepared, requiring materials to be able to set sail such as lumber, naval supplies and liquor. Without the proper resources, the exploration preparation will halt, stopping until the proper resources are available in the market in which exploration is setting sail from.
The required goods needed to begin the exploration to the Gulf of Mexico
Once your nation has prepared an expedition, the voyage will set sail into the unknown. The exploration’s duration depends on two main factors:
Distance of the exploration compared to your nation’s naval range. Naval range increases with advances such as the Naval Ambitions advance in the Age of Discovery.
Terrain of the region being explored, whether its harsh open seas, coastal waters, or rugged inland areas.
The time it takes to complete an exploration action is then calculated by comparing the total exploration cost against your nation’s monthly Exploration Progress. By default, exploration progress begins at 0.05 per month, but it increases with advances, government reforms and the skill of your explorer. During the Age of Discovery, nations also benefit from a flat +0.25 exploration progress, reflecting the surge of ambition that fueled early voyages of discovery.
Exploration Progress of Exploring the Gulf of Mexico as Portugal in 1501
Modifiers for all nations during the Age of Discovery. For nations with colonial ambitions, this would be the age to start your colonial empire
Exploration is never without risk. While an expedition is underway, a variety of events can occur that influence its progress. These can range from favorable winds and unexpected discoveries that speed up exploration, to storms, or disease that will slow the exploration.
In the most severe cases, explorations may suffer devastating setbacks. An explorer might perish, or the voyage could fail entirely, forcing you to reconsider its plans for overseas expansion.
But the consequences of these events are not confined to the expedition alone. They can ripple back home, shaping the societal values of your nation. These events might inspire curiosity, ambition, or even religious zeal, while disasters can sow caution, disillusionment, or resistance to further overseas ventures.
An exploration event while exploring the Indian Horn as Portugal
Don’t trust the Seagulls
Unlike EU4, new terrain is not discovered until the exploration is completed and the voyagers are back home. Giving access to new explorations and in the case of land being explored, new access to colonization opportunities.
This system ensures that exploration in EU5 is not just about sending out ships. It’s about timing, preparation, and weighing risks against rewards. Choosing when to explore, the level of characters you send out to do your voyages and how much of your nation’s resources to dedicate to it, will shape the speed at which you uncover the wider world.
Colonization
With new lands discovered, the next step is establishing colonies. Through the Colonization Tab in the Geopolitics Page, you can review all potential colonial charters available to your nation. Any uncolonized territory within your colonial range can be targeted for settlement, provided you have the ducats to start the colonial charter and ducats to maintain it. Colonial charters are done on a provincial level, with a colonial charter completing when every location is fully colonized in any given province.
Available Colonial Charters for Portugal in 1509, each new colonial charter will cost 200 ducats to start and have a monthly maintenance cost depending on how many colonial charters are active.
Colonization, however, is no simple undertaking. It is a process that is both costly and time-consuming, demanding that pops from your homeland uproot their lives and migrate to distant frontiers. When setting up a colonial charter, you choose which province these new settlers will come from.
Pops from Portugal leave to find new opportunities in the colonies. Those fools…
The difficulty of colonization varies greatly depending on the land itself. Regions with dense native populations will require far more time and investment to claim compared to sparsely inhabited areas. Similarly, location modifiers such as harsh climates, limited arable land, or the presence of diseases like malaria, will slow colonial progress and increase the risks for settlers.
You can also increase the speed in which you colonize by increasing your Colonial Migration. Colonial Migration determines how many pops leave from your homelands to settle in your colonial charters. This value can be increased by advances in technology, laws, government reforms, having more outward societal value and increasing Maritime Presence in the region in which you are sending settlers from. But it also can be decreased by distance from the region you are sending settlers from and having more inward societal value. The Outward vs Inward Societal value bar gets activated in the Age of Discovery.
Monthly Migration to a colonial charter as Portugal in 1509
Outward Societal Value
Inward Societal Value
In Europa Universalis V, colonization is a serious investment of ducats, pops, and time. And like any investment, it carries risk: the rewards of overseas expansion may take decades, or even centuries, to fully materialize.
Resources in EU5 are fixed and tied to each location (outside of the unique historical situation of the Columbian Exchange). This means that every settlement decision matters. Choosing where to start colonial charters can be guided by the Resource Gathering Operation (RGO) available in any given location. Whether it produces furs, sugar, gold, silver, cocoa or other valuable goods; prioritizing high-value locations can give your nation a significant long-term advantage.
This system naturally encourages patterns of historical colonization. Regions rich in resources are likely to become hotspots of competition, while less valuable lands may remain untouched until later centuries. Investing early also gives certain nations powerful advantages: for example, Portugal can establish its foothold in Brazil for its gold and gems, while Spain may choose to push aggressively into Mesoamerica to seize its wealth.
RGOs of Brazil
RGOs of Meso-America
Founding a colonial charter in Europa Universalis V does not instantly grant exclusive ownership of a territory. Instead, multiple nations can target the same province, creating a colonial race where rival powers compete to establish dominance. Locations within a contested charter may be divided among competing colonizers.
Victory in this race comes down to the nation being able to send the largest number of pops to the province of the colonial charter first. The first will eventually secure control and complete the colonial charter; however, the story does not end there. Pops sent by rival colonizers are not erased, they remain in the settled colony, contributing to its growth and character.
This means colonies that were contested during their founding may end up with a diverse and multi-ethnic population, shaped by the contributions of multiple nations. Such diversity can lead to unique opportunities and challenges. This also means contesting a charter later than others can lead to lost pops in control of another nation.
Portugal and the Papal States compete to colonize the province of Temne with Papal states getting a head start due to starting their charter first. But with Portugal's current colonial migration, they may come out on top
That's going to be one ethnically diverse province!
This colonial competition can come to a head for Catholic nations during the Age of Discovery, triggering one of history’s most famous compromises: the Treaty of Todesillas.
This situation can be triggered once two competing Catholic nations in the new world begin completing colonial charters in the Age of Discovery. When this happens, a dynamic situation fires where both nations may petition the Pope to arbitrate the dispute. By leveraging influence within the Church, each colonizer can attempt to secure exclusive claims to vast swaths of territory overseas.
Importantly, this event is not locked to history. While Spain and Portugal famously divided the world in our timeline, your campaign might see entirely different outcomes. If, for example, France and Portugal are the leading Catholic colonizers, the situation could result in the Treaty of Lisboa, the Treaty of Havana, or another name tied to the powers involved.
In this campaign, its Sweden and Portugal who are divvying up the New World
In order for a colonial charter to complete, at least 1000 pops must be present in every location in the charter and you need 36% of the pops in every location to be either your primary culture or an accepted culture and 36% of the pops to be your nation’s religion. That means a location with 20000 natives will take much longer than a location with 200 natives to colonize. When the location is colonized, those natives will become tribesmen pops, a pop class that's harder to promote compared to peasants.
When a colonial charter is completed, the new lands officially come under your nation’s authority but what you do with them is entirely up to you. EUV offers several options for how to manage freshly colonized territories, each with its own strategic implications:
Create a New Colonial Subject – Establish a semi-autonomous entity that governs the territory on your behalf. If the region has low market access, this also creates a new market, helping the colony develop economically.
Play as the Colonial Subject – Step into the shoes of your new colony, guiding its growth and carving out a unique destiny separate from its mother country. Similar to the first option, if market access is low, a new market center is created.
Integrate into an Existing Colonial Subject – If the new province borders one of your existing colonial subjects, you may fold it into their domain, strengthening and consolidating their power.
Retain Direct Control – Keep the land as part of your core empire, allowing you to exploit its resources directly but also requiring more active management and of course less control.
Colonial subjects in EU5 are not restricted to the New World. They can be established anywhere across the globe reflecting the truly global reach of empire-building during this era.
The choice is yours…
Depending on where you colonize, sending pops to your newly established colonies may be necessary to fully utilize the resources there. You can do this through the Send People to the Colonies cabinet action, unlocked as an advance in the Age of Discovery.
In fertile but barely populated locations, population growth will be faster than back at home, leading to huge population growth opportunities that you can also increase with the settlement building. This building is not limited to colonies but requires a location to have below 5% population capacity, a requirement that will be more prevalent in new world locations.
Settlements are great for population growth in newly created colonies; however once the location goes above 5% population capacity, this building is automatically deleted
Every nation can colonize in EU5, whether you are playing as Portugal or the Shogun of Ashikaga, the option and opportunity is there. If you find AI non European countries colonizing to be immersion breaking you can set AI colonization to only European nations in the game rules when starting a campaign. This does not impact achievement eligibility.
Colonial Subjects and Colonial Trade
Deciding whether to directly control newly colonized land or to establish it as a colonial subject is a fundamental strategic choice in EUV. Both approaches carry benefits and trade-offs, shaping not only your empire’s strength but also its stability.
Directly controlling grants your nation full sovereignty over their resources and output. However, distance comes at a cost: far-flung provinces are harder to control. Direct rule is best reserved for strategically vital locations or compact colonial holdings.
Creating a subject places authority in the hands of a local colonial government, which operates with its own national capital closer to the territory. This alleviates the burden of direct administration while still ensuring your empire benefits from its colonies. Overlords can directly build buildings and roads in their colonial subjects, and can increase their RGO levels. Directly investing in their colony to not only increase their colony’s wealth but the overlord’s as well.
Viceroyalty of Brazil in a Portuguese Campaign in 1510
Colonial subjects provide their overlord with the following contributions:
2.5% of monthly income from all sources.
Monthly manpower and sailors to reinforce your armies and fleets.
33% of their trade advantage and trade capacity, representing the integration of their markets into your own. (Can be increased by an additional 50% at the cost of 33% subject loyalty).
Loyal colonial subjects will join all offensive and defensive wars of their overlord.
Access to actions such as siphon income and press sailors, giving short boosts of ducats or sailors.
Colonial subjects are not passive entities, either. They possess their own Cabinet and can enact cabinet actions, focusing on local development and control. This makes them semi-autonomous partners within your empire. Useful allies, but also potential rivals if their loyalty is strained.
Although the market of Anace is owned by Portugal’s Colonial Subject, Portugal can still extract their gold and gems to their own home market.
With the new interconnected systems at play in EUV, development in the New World is designed to be a gradual and organic process. Colonies do not instantly transform into bustling cities or economic hubs. Instead, growth unfolds over time, shaped by when and where colonization begins.
Regions that are colonized early will naturally develop earlier, gaining population, infrastructure, and trade connections before their later-settled counterparts. This reflects the historical pace of change, where the earliest colonial footholds became centers of wealth and power, while more remote or less desirable lands lagged behind until much later.
As your campaign progresses, you will see the world evolve dynamically, with colonial regions rising and falling in importance, just as they did historically. Your decisions on where to invest first will leave a lasting mark on the geopolitical and economic landscape for centuries to come.
Development of Americas in 1337
Development of the Americas in a England to Great Britain campaign with Great Britain, Spain, France and Portugal colonizing in 1762
If you want to know more about two situations relevant to colonization, The Colombian Exchange and Colonial Revolution, check out Tinto Talks 79 here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/tinto-talks-79-3rd-of-september-2025.1857843/
And make sure to check out the accompanying feature video on our YouTube channel found here:
And of course another Chapel Comic!
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