Sid Meier's Colonization

While the graphics on this game may be dated, as one would expect of many GOG games, the game mechanics behind those graphics is not at all dated. This is a very solid game that can easily satisfy you night after night. Value for money, at the price GOG has this game now, you would be hard pressed to find better. I spent months with this game when it was first released. I have gone back to it on a few occasions over the years to re-experience it. If you have not yet experienced it, and you are the sort who enjoys deep strategy games, by all means buy this game.

The game is very good, I spent many hours with it at the time. But this version sold here is the ugly DOS version put in a wrapper. And when I say ugly it really is, compared to the Windows 95 or Mac versions that existed. Graphics are not what's most important for this kind of games but it is so much pixelled that I find it visually confusing when you begin to have many things on reports. In short, I don't understand why they rehabilitated the ugly DOS version although a Windows 95 (and Mac) version with way better graphics and controls for the same game existed. This puts a real down to my rating.

I still have the floppies and the box of this somewhere. I remember the day I bought it and it's beautiful box, opening the box and looking the blue 3.44 disks, 3 IIRC. One of my all time favourite games, not just turn based strategy games. A game based on the Civilization "engine", which IMO far surpassed its parents. You begin as the head of the colonial forces of your European country of choice (*out of four) and proceed to colonize the new world. Deal with the other powers and the various native American tribes. Bribe, fight, talk, trade, whatever you wish. The final goal of each game is to manage to gather enough populace support, and the economy and military to back it up, and declare independence from the nasty European royalty. When you do the Royalty will not just accept it, but send huge forces to teach you a lesson. You then need to fight, trade,etc till you gain the independence for good. How exactly you do it, it is up to you. Great graphics and music for its time, still good enough, though pixelated obviously, graphics. The music remains top notch. The game in general is IMHO perfect. Get it, I know I will get it again. Oh, if you haven't played a Civilization game (it's possible!), perhaps you have played Gold of the Americas by SSG. I am not saying they are very similar, but if you did and liked it, you are going to love Colonization!

I first encountered this game at a friends house, who had "aquired" a CD full of games (wow, a CD!) and one of them was Colonization. We booted it up and tried to learn the gameplay. At a first glance, it looked really complicated (we were about 9 years old at the time) but got into it really quickly. At that time I had already played the first Civilisation, but I found it a bit too hard with all the maintenance costs. Colonization on the other hand was much easier to manage, but still pretty hard to beat. It was perfect. I loved exploring, hoping to find new indian tribes, trading with them (or destroying them), locating new places to grow special crops and turning them into new items. The whole trading system was great and well balanced. I always felt that I was really colonizing a new world, with all its rewards and difficulties. It made it challenging, but rewarding all the way through, no matter what you faced. It just never got dull. A lot of games I've played (old and new) have some functions or features that could be used, but never are because they're just not that important. In this game, I've used every feature, and beaten it with every European nation as they all have different strengths which are all useful. What kind of colonizer do you want to be? Do you want to befriend and trade with the locals, to earn gold and resources (and slaves, unfortunately) or do you want to go on the warpath and destroy every village and rivaling country as you meet them? Or maybe a mix of them both? You can play in any fashion you like, and still beat the game. I really love that. But I really love this game overall, so you should really try it if you haven't!