colonizing help pls..

Basically you find a province with a life rating that you can colonize (life rating minimum decreases based on certain technologies, mainly Machine Guns is what brings the LR minimum below most of the provinces, and a few other things like medicine) and then set a national focus there, then just wait. You used to be able to set a unit there to speed up the colonization but I believe this was removed in a patch a while ago(I've been too busy to play for a great long while but I still enjoy reading about it).

It's pretty simple. Africa is a great place to hit once you can.

Machine Guns plus Nationalism and Imperialism, actually. Make sure you've researched enough of the naval base techs to have a high enough naval range from bases you have built to actually reach the areas you want to colonise. Putting troops there does make colonisation faster - this was added back in.

Good areas to colonise are around Nigeria, the Congo, Kenya and Uganda. Borneo is also a good target, if you can reach it.

Or you can just be cool and subjugate a bunch of already-existing uncivilized nations. Who doesn't like to bully small places?

...He means conquer. Or sphere.

There is not really much of a step-by-step guide to colonizing, however I can give you all of the information required. I will be dividing the information into a few subsections, based on the date/technology.

1.) Game Start:
At this point, you can colonize basically nothing. Since your ability to colonize is determined by your minimum life rating, almost all of the unclaimed land is uninhabitable. The only exceptions being some regions near Portuguese East Africa. Since Portugal will begin to colonize these regions fairly early, the only option would be to fight Portugal for their East African possessions. However, they may lose secondary power status, allowing you to pick them up later.

The only real option at this point is to take land from uncivilized nations to use as a base to grow a colonial empire from. Since the war system is different between the two versions of this game, I cannot be of much help, but I can list some good targets.
-Algeria has several iron mines, but will be quickly influenced by France.
-Johore has precious metals, but will be quickly influenced by the UK.
-Brunei has a chance to have oil producing territories in the late game, and allows you to colonize Asian regions which may contain oil.
-Oman's African territories are easy to take and provide a good foothold into Eastern Africa.
-Egypt's Dumyat region guarantees that the Suez Canal will be yours, but it is not the best economically.
-Transvaal is civilized, but if conquered will become a state which contains precious metals. It also allows you access to regions which can be colonized by 1850

Also, be sure to build naval bases in these regions. They increase your colonization range.

2.) Medicine:
After researching medicine, you can get an invention which lowers your life rating by 5. This allows the following regions to be colonized:
-One region in Bali (Dutch East Indies)
-The two islands near Madagasgar
While these regions are worth very little, medicine is a requirement for later colonization.

3.) Nationalism and Imperialism-1850
Since this lowers your life rating by another 10, several regions become habitable.
-Regions in Africa to the north of Transvaal can be colonized. One province can contain precious metals.
-A region in the north of Sokoto can be colonized. This does, however, require you to conquer them.
-There is a small region near southern Egypt which can be colonized, either now or after you discover medicine.
These regions are worth slightly more than the ones unlocked through medicine, but do require conquests.

4.) Machine Guns-1870
At this point, everything becomes habitable, provided you have Nationalism and Imperialism, and Medicine researched. The regions which able to be colonized must either connect to your colonies by land, or be close enough to a naval base. Regions can be colonized by selecting them, entering the national focus menu, and then selection colonize. My recommendation would be to colonize a wide area, ignoring the regions within. If you simply colonize all of the coastal regions and areas which border other countries, you can colonize areas within it at your leisure.

http://s1168.photobucket.com/albums/r487/ZombieMedic17/?action=view&current=v2_1-1.jpg
This is a link to a screenshot of my game. I am playing as Newfoundland. In this game I conquered Transvaal and took Oman's territories. The regions which make up my border were the first which I colonized, and this left a large, uncolonized area. Since nobody else could touch these regions, I slowly colonized them later. I did this with one national focus, so it should be a bit easier as Sweden.

I hope this helps, and I apologize if it is a bit wordy.

Correct me if I am wrong but researching medicine doesn't necessarily lower the life rating it gives you an invention "X against malaria" which lowers the life rating.

I used x because I can't remember what the term used there is.

Prophylaxis - it means preventative treatment.

You can also gain or loose colonies to other countries with the "place in the sun" option for war. Every time you colonize you get a bunch of prestige (I think around 50). Colonies give you a couple of events, such as penal colonies. And once they become states their people can work in factories making you money.

One slightly gamey but effective way to get a strong foothold in Africa is to attack Egypt for Dumyat and Amsara regions (assuming Ethiopia hasn't taken it) and then attack Ethiopia for Ngele or the other region. They border liferating 35 provinces which can give you the upper hand in east Africa.

I managed to go from Krakow to GP in one year throu making Austria attack Portugal, reaserching Romantisicm, thus making me a Secondary Power. Portugal has some uncolonized places in Africa with 25 Liferating.