Kampfinsel

Kampfinsel Handbook — How to Play & Wiki

Colonization

A colony ship is not a boat -- it is the coffin of the old homeland and the cradle of the new.

TL;DR: Colonization is the endgame expansion mechanism.

- You need a harbor at level 15 and advanced Sail research

- The colony ship is consumed upon successful landing

- The target must be weakened militarily first

Prerequisites #

Colonization is not for beginners. You need:

Building a colony ship devours immense resources and takes a long time. It carries settler collectives, not soldiers -- troops travel aboard warships. Upon arrival it is deliberately run aground -- from its planks the foundation of your new Main Building is built.

The Process #

Colonizing an inhabited island typically unfolds in two waves:

Wave 1 -- Weakening: You send warships, troops and catapults to shatter the defenses. The Main Building must be reduced to level 1 or lower — once your troops have won the land battle, catapults can also damage the Main Building.

Wave 2 -- Colonization: A second fleet carrying the colony ship, an escort and reserve troops. If the target's Main Building is down to level 1 or lower and your colony ship survives the battle, you must also win the land battle for the island to change ownership.

Even uninhabited islands can be colonized, but they still have a base defense -- you need troops regardless.

The main island of an active player is off-limits here — it can never be colonized; only their secondary islands are a valid target. So send a spy ship before every colonization attempt: the spy report shows you the defense — and also whether the island is the target's main island.

Who can be colonized? #

Not every island on the map is a valid colonization target. The short version:

Remember: a player's main island is not untouchable. It stays protected while they merely slumber — and also when the admiralty has barred their account. Whoever strikes their own colors, or stays away too long, releases it in the end as well.

What Happens to the Target Island? #

After a successful colonization:

What Happens to Your Fleet? #

After a successful colonization, the surviving escort ships return to your origin island -- unless you ticked the box when sending that your escort ships move along: then the new island becomes the Home port of your surviving warships, and they stay there as its own fleet. From the new island they can only attack or colonize after a waiting period; the more ocean borders they crossed, the longer it is, and the report tells you the hours. That only works if, apart from the colony ship, nothing but warships without cargo sails along; otherwise all of them return home, and the report tells you why. The colony ship is consumed on landing, and your troops become the garrison of the new island. Without the tick, the fresh colony therefore starts without any fleet: plan a separate transfer of ships once the island belongs to you.

After an account is deleted, the target island may remain as a ruin. Your fleet then faces its defenses and can conquer it; success consumes the colony ship. If the target island has actually disappeared, the entire fleet returns intact with its colony ship.

It can also happen that someone beats you to it: if the target is colonized or conquered while your fleet is in transit — because another captain was faster or the island changed hands in the meantime — your fleet arrives to face the new owner and their defenses: there will be a fight. Only if attacking the new owner would not be permitted under the protection rules does the admiralty abort the landing and the fleet returns home intact, colony ship included.

Conquest Takeover #

A conquered island does not start from nothing. The weary people leave behind their workshops and their stores. But conquest damages the infrastructure -- the warehouse loses levels too, and whatever exceeds its shrunken space spoils in the upheaval of the takeover. Not everything survives the transition.

Lore consequence: It pays to conquer large, well-developed islands -- even after the conquest losses, substantial infrastructure remains. Young colonies, however, often crumble entirely. Those who would rise in the world should choose their targets wisely.

Strategy #

Keeping track of your islands #

As your empire grows, one island is no longer enough. The island list shows you at a glance whether each of your islands has construction, research, troop training or shipbuilding underway — and warns you when enemy fleets are approaching. You can see where action is needed without opening each island one by one.

The island overview also shows troops, ships, the storage level in percent and whether something is being built on each island -- and it can be sorted by "finishes in", storage level or ocean.

Behind every active icon you also see the remaining time as a live countdown: for construction until the building is finished, for research until the next result. Training and shipyard show the end of the whole queue — an estimate that shifts if you upgrade the barracks or harbor in the meantime. The times are a guide, not a promise.

Below every island there is also the line "Fleet · Send · Fetch": "Fleet" opens this island's fleet form, "Send" its trade form, and "Fetch" your supply island's trade form with this island as the target. You do not switch your active island for any of it; the supply island itself has no "Fetch".

If you hold at least two islands, the link "Gather Troops" there leads to the page where you pull the ships and troops of several islands together on one. The gathering page shows the available islands and room at the destination.

If your realm keeps growing, an achievement family of its own is waiting for it: bronze once you hold thirty islands at the same time, silver at fifty, gold at a hundred -- a mark on the wall, no advantage at sea.

Integration and Limits #

The Admiralty needs time to integrate each new island after a successful colonization. That is why your colony account only fills up bit by bit: you can build a new colony ship at any time, and the colonization fleet may set sail as soon as a colonization permit is ready; when the next one arrives is shown in the harbor and in the fleet order. The waiting time per permit grows with the size of your empire -- an experienced governor takes longer to administer new subjects than a young captain does. Exactly how long depends on how many islands you hold after the colonization: up to four islands at most roughly two to two and a half days, with five to nineteen islands at most three to four days, from twenty islands on at most five days. The harbor shows your exact waiting time. If your waiting time gets shorter, that applies at once; if it gets longer, only from your next departure.

If your wait runs out while you are away, that time is no longer wasted: you collect colonization permits in stock -- the harbor shows how many at most. Every colonization fleet uses one permit when it sets sail; with two permits, two fleets may set sail one after the other, even from the same island.

Your colonization permits sit in your colony account. It has slots, from left to right: two normal ones and one gift slot. In the harbor next to the colony ship and in the fleet order, a colored bar shows you every slot -- filled or empty --, and below it you read when the next permit arrives.

There is one exception: take an inhabited island from an awake captain in a higher league -- or from your own league, provided they hold at least ten percent more points than you -- and your harbor cheers and lays a new keel at once -- you receive a colonization permit as a gift in your colony account, and the battle report tells you so on the spot. If your colony account is already full, none is added. A captain who slumbers or has lost the helm brings you the island, but no additional colonization benefit -- and the battle report tells you that too. Downwards, or against a captain of your league who is roughly your equal, it does not count, and neither do ownerless islands, Old Empire ruins or empty slots. Between the same two captains the waiver only works once in thirty days -- both directions counted together --, and overall the Admiralty grants you at most three waivers in thirty days. It never counts against members of your own alliance, nor against alliances yours holds an alliance or a non-aggression pact with -- and not against your opponent while the two of you are in a feud and your alliances are not at war. It changes nothing about the cost of colony ships or the number of your colonies -- only the permit is given.

A treasure homecoming and a strike upwards do not rule each other out: each of these gifts puts its own colonization permit into your colony account, as long as a slot is free there.

A successful colonization gives you the island and the stock its damaged warehouse can still hold; the return trip brings no plunder. The additional colonization benefit and a bounty only count if your opponent was active on arrival. Protection, by contrast, follows the state: a slumbering captain stays protected by an alliance and by a non-aggression pact -- inside your own alliance no longer, once he has slept for more than a week; a rudderless captain is fair game even across pacts. That a pact protects while your own alliance does not has its reason: a pact is a promise to a foreign alliance, and its whole worth lies in the partner group being safe -- over a comrade in your own ranks the alliance itself keeps watch.

The same holds the other way round for you: if you lose an inhabited island to an opponent yourself, you receive a colonization permit as a gift -- the battle report tells you so. If your colony account is already full, none is added. There are two exceptions: if the conquest counts as a strike upwards for your opponent, only they get a permit -- each conquest brings at most one gift. And if you lose the island to your feud opponent while your alliances are not at war, there is no gift; there the feud's own reckoning applies.

If you lose an inhabited island to a captain outside your alliance and have not requested deletion, you receive a rebuilding voucher: your next colony ship becomes much cheaper. The voucher never expires; you see it in the battle report, in your messages and in the harbor next to the colony ship. You never hold more than one at a time. The price before the voucher takes your island count and previous ship construction into account; the harbor shows the current price.

The price of a colony ship grows with your empire and previous ship construction. Not every past build increases it permanently; the harbor shows the current price: at some point the shipyard asks for more gold than your warehouse can even hold -- what stops you then is not your production, but the room in your stores. That is why the warehouse can be expanded up to level 40; each of those levels is expensive and slow, but it keeps the way to further islands open.

Newly charted oceans stand under the Admiralty's special protection. For a time after an ocean is opened, colonization from foreign waters is not permitted -- local governors may expand freely. Attacks and trade remain unaffected. When you dispatch the fleet, the game tells you how much longer the grace period still runs. It lets new oceans form their own neighborhood before established empires intervene from outside.

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