At the end of the day, institutions are simply things your country needs to 'embrace' to unlock access to very useful technology. You really can NOT do a whole lot without these technologies, so you really need these institutions in your country.

Institutions spread a bit like diseases do. They appear in a very specific location, and then over time spread across the entire planet. The farther you are from where they appear, the longer it takes to get them.

Once an institution spreads enough throughout your country, you can pay stability and gold to embrace it. You can do this early on while about ~20-25% of your country has it, but it will be cheaper if you let it spread more throughout your country first.

You can of course just passively wait for institutions to appear in your country naturally. But if you live far away from the places they appear, it is going to take a long time. Ideally you want to get institutions as quick as you can so you can unlock the powerful technologies before other dirty inferior countries do so you can lord over them all.

So here is what you can do to maximize institutions getting to you:

• 1) Make sure you have established your OWN market. ( One you yourself have set up based in your own country! )
  
• 2) Import items from markets where countries inside that market have institutions embraced already. The more areas that have them at 100%, the more you'll get from an import!
  
• 3) If possible, also sign docking agreements with those countries, this will speed it up by ~10%, but only if you are importing from them!

**Note that the MORE markets that you are importing from, the MORE growth you will need. But the AMOUNT you're importing does NOT matter. So you can import one unit of something each market has an abundance of to maximize growth!

To make sure you can make this good imports , just see that it's something the market you're importing from has a healthy surplus!



Also note that at the market center, you will want buildings that boost the spread of institutions so the incoming institutions from those foreign markets grow even faster. Early on these are going to be things like libraries and later universities. Some eastern cultures can also utilize Confucian schools/academies.

This is best way to get institutions to you without waiting for them to passively spread. Although passive spread IS increased by several factors. Namely the higher the literacy, the faster the spread from neighboring friendly countries that have the institution. Note that sharing the same sea zone also counts as bordering!


Now, if you are very, very, very far away from markets with these institutions you are going to have to do every modifier you can to try and boost trade range. But some countries will simply be too far, and then there is nothing you can do. The issue is boosts to trade ranges come from the tech you GET from these institutions to begin with!