Ships per colony
In the EU4 wiki, I read that to avoid certain penalties you should have one heavy or light ship per colony dedicated to that colony; the penalty being a function of the ratio of ships so allocated to the number of your colonies.
However, what does that mean?
Do I need a ship in the coastal area of each colony?
As a variation of (1), if colonies are under the administration of a viceroy or such (named colonial area, eg "Spanish Brazil"), do I need (number of colonies in named area) ships anywhere in that area? (Eg, patrolling)
Do I check how many of my colonies contribute to a trade node, and assign at least this number to that trade node?
Or do I simply need to have n heavy or light ships in my navy if I have n colonies (independent of where the ships are)?
Any insight appreciated.
Edit: more precisely, this applies to overseas provinces, of which colonies are only a typical example; and this is in the chapter on tariffs.
Pictures about "Ships per colony"



How many ships can you have on a colony cosmic encounter?
There is no limit to the number of ships a player can have on a colony. The four ships per colony is just during setup: Set Up Warp, Planets, Ships, and Colonies: Players place their planets in front of them, stacking four of their ships on each of their planets.Life in a Space Colony, ep2: Colony Spaceships
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Mücahit inci, Mohan Nannapaneni, Zey, Asad Photo Maldives
