I liked the idea in Frontier of Steel to use colonies on a group of islands to get away from some of the problems often encountered in PBEM's.

I think some of the ideas are worth looking at with the aim of maybe running PBEM down the line.

Why would people be trying to colonise these islands from Cerilia?

There could be benefits for each human group trying to colonise the area. What sort of benefits would Rjurik get for example? A bonus season at the start of the game and or first choice of colony site might be an example due to using longships.

There could be types of colony. Sponsored and free men for example. There could be benefits and drawbacks to each option. Sponsored could get a bonus in gold but what would the drawback be. Maybe limited trade would be an idea.

Each player could begin with a gold amount to buy ships, colonists, equipment, etc.

If someone wanted horses they would have to import a horse resource.

What sort of locals and environments should there be? Goblins, sidhe or something new?

Maybe it was colonised at the height of the anuirian empire but the old colonies are mysterious ruins.

I would like to see what sort of ideas the community comes up with.