Colonising
Colonizing is one of the methods of gaining a new city in Grepolis. It is a peaceful method and does not involve the need to attack or defend the city in order to take it. Colonizing is also known as founding because you are building a new city from the ground up. Unlike other aspects of the game, colonizing is not dependant on the World Settings. It will be done the same way, regardless of world speed or if it is conquest or revolt.
Colonizing Prerequisites
Before you can colonize, there are three basic requirements which must be met first. They are: Buildings, Units, and Culture.
Buildings
| Building | Title | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
|
Level 22 Academy (at least) | Required to research Colony Ships |
|
Level 20 Harbour | Required to build Colony Ships |
Units
To found a city you require a Colony Ship (also referred to as a CS). This unit is built in the Harbour, and becomes available once it has been researched.
| Unit | Name | Cost |
|---|---|---|
|
Colony Ship | 10,000  10,000  10,000  170  0 
|
Culture
The final requirement is that you must have sufficient culture points or CP to take on a new city. When you begin the game, you will have 1 open city slot for your second city which will not require CP, but each one after that costs culture points.
Anchor Points
As your city grows and you begin to explore the map more, you will notice that there are empty spaces on some of the large islands and the smaller islands. These Anchor Points are places where a player may found a new city. There are two types of Anchor Points. The first are found on the smaller islands, and the second are located on the large islands. What all players should be aware of is that once you choose a spot to colonize and the city is being created, you cannot raze the city and start somewhere else.
Small Island Anchor Points
You will likely have come across the smaller islands in your local ocean when you first started the game. These islands are unihabited and are dotted all across the oceans. Many of them are located near to the larger islands. Colonizing on these islands can prove more difficult as there are no farming villages to gather resources from. Because of this, your new city will be dependant on its resource mines and trade from your other cities.
Large Island Anchor Points
These anchor points appear after a player has deleted their account, or before the island has filled up. Usually it is because of players deleting, or ghosting their account. These spots are more favorable for starting a new city because unlike the small islands, you will have access to the farming villages on the island and so you can focus on creating more troops instead of building higher level resource buildings. You can still trade with your other cities to help speed up the building of the city though.
The Process of Colonising
Once you have met all the requirements, it is easy to begin founding your new city.
- First find a suitable place you wish to colonise. It is preferable to find a location relatively close to your first city so your Colony Ship doesn't have to travel too far. Note that if it's more than 48 hours from the CS' base city, you cannot colonise.
- Begin by clicking on your selected site and going to the "Found a new city" tab.
- Select the units you wish to sail to the city. In addition to the Colony Ship you will need to send both land & sea units to escort the Colony ship (this is not optional). Remember that Transport Ships or Fast Transport Ships are needed to send the Land units.
The units sent along escorting the Colony Ship are just to accompany the ship in the voyage, once the city has been founded those troops will not be available to be used by the new city as they still belong to the city that created them (you can summon them back by clicking in your Agora then clicking the tap labeled "Outside").
- Once you are done press the Establish City button and your fleet will set sail.
Depending on the distance between your cities it may take a while for your fleet to arrive. Once they do arrive you will receive a report, and the troops aboard your Colony Ship will automatically begin constructing the first buildings in your new city; this will take 24 hours (no matter what speed), and the resources for the building are included in the cost of the Colony Ship.
When the construction is completed you will be alerted in the City Overview.
Congratulations - you now have a second city!
Your New City
A city created by Colonizing will start out with 778 points and will have:
- Timber camp: level 15
- Quarry: level 15
- Silver mine: level 12
- Senate: level 10
- Farm: level 10
- Warehouse: level 10
- Wall: level 2
- Cave: level 2
- Barracks: level 4
- Agora: level 1
The only troops in the city will be those that arrived with the Colony Ship as escorts. They are considered support troops, and will not be available for use in that city.
Colonizing as a tool in Grepolis
Colonising is sometimes frowned upon as a way of getting a second city by Veteran players, This is because some may feel that you can gain a much larger second city by conquering, at the expense of a few day wait. However, by colonising, you are guaranteed a second city. Other players feel that by the time they are able to conquer a city (as they need an academy lvl 28, research conquest, a rather large land & sea army and a suitable target) they can get a Founded city up and running.