Well, this game always takes me back. Something I don't about much on this forum is how my father was the guy who really got me into gaming. He's also the PC gamer in my family, and his favorite type of games are 4x Games. Empire was my first foray into the genre, but Colonization was the first proper entry I ever played.
Sid Meier's Colonization is the odd middle child in Sid Meier's groundbreaking Civilization, and the superior sequel, Civilization 2. As such, it tends to be forgotten, since it's the games that came afterward that really popularized the franchise. Yet, you can tell from some of these screenshots, that this is the game that really solidified some of the rules and UI that made Civ 2 such an addictive game.
Colonization has you choosing one of four European Nations, and set off to colonize the New World. You'll start colonies, befriend local Native American tribes who will often help you, build industry, kill off said Native Americans when they start to protest about your rapid expansion into their territory, meet the other European colonies and quickly descend into the same relationship you had with them back in Europe. Build alliances, build a trade between the Old and New Worlds, and eventually decide you don't need your parent nation and revolt for your independence and suddenly build alliances with all those other people you were probably just fighting with a few turns back. So the game is a surprisingly accurate portrayal of the history of the Americas with one major historical omission concerning a very robust and popular trade that would take another century to sort out, and even then, we're still feeling the ramifications of it today.
If you've played any entry in this genre from back in the day, there isn't a lot that is different. You build cities, name them something stupid (I was a comic book nerd at the time, so all of my cities were named after X-Men, and I was Charles Xavier) try to figure out trade, transform colonist into specialist (think settlers and engineers) who can help till the land and build roads to increase productivity. You'll also build up your military to deal with hostile Native American tribes and the other three European colonies. The whole goal is to build up your society to be strong enough, so you can finally declare your independence and fight off the mother country until they concede.
Instead of wonders of the world, you collect "Founding Fathers" who are usually associated with early colonial history, such as Benjamin Franklin, Ponce de Leon, and Hernando Cortez. These will give you special bonuses to your units and cities, as well as boost your overall score. The game does a pretty good job of trying to be pretty historically accurate as is it can be on the matters, with many of the Native American tribes being decently researched and giving the player a wide selection of historical figures who left their mark on the Americas that stems from all four major powers. Of course this is a pretty old game, so things get left on the floor and the map you utilize is traditional random from the series, so it can be odd to be far north on the map and running into the Aztecs from a geography standpoint, but this is a game first and foremost.
Probably the biggest element that is unique from the Civ series, besides the conditions for winning, is the interaction with Europe. You'll need to develop trade lines with your parent nation and keep tabs on the resources you send back as supply and demand changes. You can also use these contacts to not only gain resources you normally can't get a hold of because the damn English refuse to trade with your Portuguese ass, and it's a great way to bolster your colonies population as you acquire more people from Europe willing to come to the colonies to gain new opportunities.
It's a great game overall, and I had a lot of fun trading tips with my friends in middle school about it. I know Civ 4 introduced an expansion based around this game, and while looking up stuff for this entry, it seems the game may have recently gotten a minor remake. So if you can, check it out. It was a fun and quirky game about one of the more controversial points in history.
Last edited by Wolf Kanno; 03-11-2023 at 07:13 AM.
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