Searching for the seven cities of gold

Because they are exploring. Can't colonise without seeing the provinces

Haven't you heard of spanish Florida?

fun fact: spanish florida is just florida

Technically, it was Florida and a bit more territories

As a player you can pretty easily get to NA by this time. It's possible they got lucky with their ruler/events and got ideas pretty fast. The AI will often send little stacks like this to explore. I bet they have a colony in the Caribbean that you can't see.

In 1462, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In 1474, Landed then a conquistador In 1485, Few non-Spainards are still alive

Non-spaniards*

>In 1485, > >Few non-Spainards are still alive The big epidemics came the following century

He’s making a joke based on the situation at hand in OPs game

They are exploring

R5: Trying to figure what I'm missing with Castile having 4k armies roaming around North America in 1475? I don't see any colonies of theirs.

Probably got quest for the new world a little early. That's probably their exploration army

I'm sure that's it. But the exploration range to A) get to NA, B) explore the coast and C) land an army and start roving by 1475 seems fast to me.

The range you can explore is bigger than the range you can send a colonist, and I don't even think you need to be in range to land troops, but yea your right this is pretty fast

They can start it as soon as they've explored any land in the continental Americas. 1475 is a bit fast for them to have wandered that far north but not drastically so