Immigrants
Immigrants is a late-game technology that provides 100 population of housing support and, in Definitive Edition, improves unit throughput. It is a large Coin investment intended to ease a housing and production bottleneck without increasing the civilization’s maximum population cap.
Research profile
- Age
- Industrial Age (Asians and Native Americans) *; Imperial Age (Europeans and Mexicans)
- Research location
- Town Center (Asians and Native Americans) ; Capitol (Europeans and Mexicans)
- Research time
- 30 seconds
- Coin cost
- 2,000
- Effect
- Supports 100 population; Unit train time -10%, spawn time -5% (does not stack with the Imperial Age train time bonus)
Population and production effects
The technology costs 2,000 Coin and takes 30 seconds to research. It supplies housing for 100 population; this reduces the need for Houses or equivalent buildings but does not raise the normal population ceiling. Definitive Edition also gives −10% unit training time and −5% automatic spawn time. The training reduction does not stack with the Imperial Age training-time bonus.
How to read the bonuses
Asians and Native American civilizations other than the Lakota can research it in the Industrial Age at the Town Center. Europeans and Mexicans reach it in the Imperial Age at the Capitol. Exact access follows the civilization’s rules.
Civilization access
Research it when housing construction or sustained unit production is limiting the plan and the economy can spare 2,000 Coin. The earlier Industrial Age access for eligible Asian and Native American civilizations can make the production benefit available sooner; for Europeans and Mexicans it is a late Imperial investment. Compare its cost with the army upgrades and shipments that would otherwise use that Coin.
Housing is not a population-cap increase
The 100 population support replaces housing capacity that would otherwise come from Houses or civilization-specific equivalents. It does not change the match’s normal maximum population limit. Players who are already at that cap still need to respect the cap even after researching Immigrants.
Training time and automatic arrivals
The Definitive Edition training reduction applies to unit production, while the spawn-time reduction affects automatic arrivals. The 10% training bonus does not stack with the general Imperial Age train-time bonus; use the applicable rule rather than adding the percentages together. These are throughput improvements, so they matter most when production buildings remain active and the economy can fund the resulting queues.
Budgeting the housing support
Immigrants is a researched capacity effect, not a shipment: it does not deliver Villagers or troops and does not raise the normal population ceiling. The 100 support can reduce the need to reserve building space and construction time for additional Houses as the population grows. Because it competes for 2,000 Coin, choose it when the housing relief and continuing production benefits matter more than another immediate military or economic purchase.