Sid Meier's Colonization

The game is enjoyable and striking a balance between expansion, defence, and native relations is well balanced. There is a way to play to go for extreme high scores but for people who just want to win the war of independence, there are many styles that can work, even at Viceroy difficulty. So why did I rate it 2 stars? The game is beset by bugs and limitations that are incredibly frustrating until you understand them and work out ways to deal with them. First of all the myriad bugs will do odd things to you that can cause you serious problems depending on what happens and when. Then there are the limitations such as the hard limit on units you can have on the world map. I believe it is 256 which sounds like a lot, but on higher difficulties you will need a large military since the King's forces are very large. When you hit this limit a lot of strange things can happen which involve losing cargo and unit production, which is a massive hit if you spend £5000 on a Frigate only for it to not appear. There is also a limit on Colonies but this is relatively high and I never came anywhere near it. The limitations can be worked around once you understand them but that contributes to the final problem...micromanagement. There is no unit grouping so you'll be moving units one at a time and dealing with the limitations adds to the slow drag that the late game becomes. There is also no unit naming so keep a pen and paper handy to keep track of what everything is doing. There is no way to view European commodity prices when trading with the natives which again leads to needing a good memory or, in my case, avoiding it entirely. Despite it's problems this is a game which certain people will love but for most the problems will be too frustrating. Worth it at the price just to read the fantastic manual with the overview of the people and history of the period including the awesome art. The reference card and in game Colonizopedia have many errors and can't be trusted.

Many youthful hours went into this game, while the game seems easy enough to understand, there is a certain depth to this game that not many games since have truly matched. Together with several other turn-based games Colonization has a very high "One-More-Turn" feeling when you look at the clock and it is 10:00 pm and when you look again it is suddenly 2:00 am. As with other similar Turn-Based-Strategy games of the era in the late game managing your colonies can become a bit stale.

clunky and old... there are better versions of this game

ty

You can play this game forever.