The colonization logic has been taken from this document. The idea includes the following concepts:

• Wilderness: A county in the map that it's not populated and can be colonized. This is how it's also localized the specific holding of the region (wastelands_holding). This lands have a -100% debuff of everything: gold, development, levies, garrison and character traits and skill points. Also, it does not have any courtiers or guests or possibility to have then. There is only a leader (that is invisible and shows just the background of the countryside).
• Surrounding land: Any land that is next to any of your provinces
• Colonization: A character interaction to incorporate a surrounding wilderness to your realm

The idea behind colonization is being able to define lands in the map that are open to be populated but were abandoned on the game start (wild lands, ruins, etc). A good example of these lands may be some regions of Enedwaith, Eregion, Eriador, Druwaith Laur, Andrast, or even de Lonely Mountain before the dwarves come.

• Swanfell (to be removed, was just a test)
• Odharn (to be removed?)
• North of Mirkwood: ergiwio, noralmanna, berafeld, edricsborg,
• Parts or Mirkwood populated by spiders
• Brown Lands
• Surroundings of Gundabad
• Some areas in Rhovanion

• Andrast - Parth iaur, An Cosa Bras...
• Enedwaith

• Cannot be played

• An attempt to ride triggers a truce to both human players and AI
• An attempt to attack triggers a truce to both human players and AI
• A wastelands_holding gives 100% debuffs to almost everything (gold, develoment, levies, garrison, etc)
• A specific culture called wastelands is assigned
• A specific culture called religion_wastelands_pagan is assigned
• A specific government called wastelands_government is assigned
• Character title prefixes (Lord, Lady...) and land prefixes (Barony, Lordship...) are removed
• The character name is "Wilderness". The final string shown is Wilderness of [COUNTY]
• It starts with 0 gold, 0 faith, 0 prestige
• It starts with 0 courtiers, 0 guests, no court, no spouse and no possibility to assign people to the court.
• The leader has invisible portrait;
• The leader has no family;
• The spouse is prevented from being rendered;
• The leader has prolongues life;
• All CB are blocked

• No COA

wastelands_color defined, that is {0 0 0} (black)

• Transparent color

There is a new button when you click on any barony of the county, named "Colonize".

• You need to be a top liege (to prevent vassals from colonizing)
• Any of your provinces should be a surrounding land
• It needs to be in your diplomatic range
• You need 500 gold
• You only can colonize once in a while

If any of these conditions is not met, the Colonize option will be disabled.

• You incorporate the county to your realm
• You lose 500 gold

You get a trait during three years with the following efects:

• Your prestige is increased by 0.25 a month (you are mighter than before);
• Your development growth is reduced by 25 (you need to move people from your current lands to the surroundings);
• You lose attraction (you are considered a colonizer);
• You can't colonize any other surrounding area for several years;

• Faith shift: if moves from the Wilderness Pagan faith to yours;
• Culture shift: if moves from the Wilderness culture to yours;
• Government shift: if moves from the "No Government" government to yours;
• It joins your realm;
• The wastelands_holding is destroyed;
• A settlement_holding is created;
• Obstacles are not removed, and should be removed by the player.

After colonizing the Wilderness, it will be automatically added to your realm with a settlement_holding. Obstacles from the Wilderness are not removed and should be cleared by the player.

Obstacles add debuff. Cleaning the debuffs will remove the debuff for that specific obstacle.

After removing all obstacles, your holding will automatically switch into the primary holding of your government (Castle, Tribe).

Wilderness and Settlement holdings are not enabled to anyone.

• A new goverment has been created to reduce all possible AI wariness. It also debuffs the characters to 0 skills.
• Most of the character interactions I have seen have been hidden (war declaration, sway, hook, marriage, faith conversion, etc etc etc).

1. \LotRRealmsInExileDev\common\flavorization\lotr_title_holders.txt: look county_wastelands. Add your counties there, in titles. Example: titles = { c_swanfell c_odharn c_byrig }
2. Go to LotRRealmsInExileDev\history\provinces\, look for the the file where your province is included (example, for Swanfell, it was 00_k_enedwaith.txt, for regions in Greenwood it will be 00_e_greenwood.txt.
   • If you are creating a new region, create from scratch an entries for each of your baronies, as usual.
   • Then, find the number of your provice/s and/or name.
3. For the main barony of each county, set:

3263 = {    #Elenfen (b_elenfen)
holding = wastelands_holding
culture = wastelands
religion = faith_wastelands_pagan

buildings = {
     bear_den    # Example of obstacle
     spider_nest # Example of obstacle
  }
}

If you want, you can attach that configuration to a specific date, for example:

3263 = {    #Elenfen (b_elenfen)
    culture = lasgalendrim
    religion = faith_eldar
    holding = elven_holding
    7033.1.1 = {
		culture = wastelands
		religion = faith_wastelands_pagan
		holding = wastelands_holding
        
        buildings = {
            bear_den
        }
	}
}

4. For the rest of the baronies, not the main one set holding = none and no obstacles.

3263 = {    #Elenfen (b_elenfen)
   holding = none
   culture = wastelands
   religion = faith_wastelands_pagan
}

6. Go to LotRRealmsInExileDev\history\titles\ and find the title file your county belongs to. In case of Swanfell, it was 00_e_enedwaith.txt' . If you are creating a new region, proceed as usual first. Then, look for the c_[county]and make sure you setholder = k_wastelands_holder, change_development_level = 0andgovernment = wastelands_government`

Example:

c_alcisbaurg = { # Aid Vidugavia's history here
	6922.1.1 = {
		holder = k_wastelands_holder
		change_development_level = 0
		government = wastelands_government
	}
}

7. Make sure you remove the COA if it's hardcoded and not randomly generated, by commenting its code in LotRRealmsInExileDev\common\coat_of_arms\coat_of_arms\[your_area]_coa.txt

8. Restart the game completely for the changes to take effect.

• Report a bug here
• Report a suggestion here