Games of Yore: Colonization
Sometimes I indulge in a few reminiscences of the games we old geezers played way back in the last millennium. This time it is: Colonization!
Colonization sounds like Civilization and that is no coincidence. It was made by Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds.
Instead of guiding a civ through thousands of years, you just start with a bunch of settlers – english, french, spain or hollandse – that are just arriving in the New World.
Each of the 4 nationalities has a small bonus, but in the end they are not that different.
Gameplay
You land (hopefully on a good spot, with fish and usable land and a timber spot, if possible an iron ore spot, too) and tell your settlers to found the first colony in the new lands.
Then its your turn to make sure everyone has something to eat and to get the first lumber out of the woods – you will need to build a lot of buildings.
It will not be long until the natives show up. At start they are very friendly and give you goods you can trade with your homeland. Which is important, because that is the only way to get money!
But of course you should not forget that someone “sponsored” you – The King will be expecting you to pay him back. First not much, but then…
But you still need to get money and can’t do anything against the king. Except boycotting his taxes which is not very helpful at the start.
Your first priority in the early game is to get more settlers into your realm. You can do this by getting “volunteers” from Europe, driven by religious unrest. Every colony you have produces one cross, which symbolized religious freedom. Your settlers can work in a church to produce more of them and such increasing settlers.
Of course you will get less goods to export and less money this way – which is another way to increase population. You can just buy settlers, or even better (and a lot more expensive) specialists who can double most productions.
So with time come more settlers and contact to the other 3 nations. Your colonies grow and so does the unrest in the natives. Instead of presents you will get raiding parties. You can prevent this (for a time) by trading or sending missionaries (who will also recruit converts for your settlement), but not forever. You need big colonies which the natives fear.
But then, in the end, you will have bigger problems then natives. Your Majesty needs more money, more and more, and when the taxes raise above 50% it gets hard to make a good profit. So there comes a time when…
Independence
The king is not amused! Independence? Never!
When declaring yourself free, you will be attacked by a powerful loyal force of soldiers. (As time goes with increasing number, paid by your taxes!) You will need every musket and every artillery you can muster to defend your colonies!
But whoops! We forgot something!
To declare Independence at least 50% of your colonists must support that! So you need Freedom Bells. Lots of them. It’s normal for big colonies to have two or even three specialists working in your town house just for that, even after building a printing press and newspaper!
Those bells also allow you to recruit founding fathers, who give (partly immense) bonuses.
Also very important: Depending on the % of your or the kings supporters, a force attacking a colony gets a bonus! 30% are loyal to the king? The Kings forces get 30% bonus! Booh!
But whatever the king does, we will win! Hurray!!
Re- and Fanmade
Colonization is one of my all-time favorites because it concentrates on trade and production, and perfect usage of your settlers, not on fighting. A lot of other people like it too, so when there came a Colonization stand-alone based on Civ 4 that was cool! But you don’t need to buy that. If you want an old-time Colonization experience (just better graphics), you can get it with freecol
:)
One of my top favorites games ever, hell I was just playing it yesterday!
Haven't played it for more then a year, time to make a round I guess ^^