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Colonization feels more like just another mod for Civilization 4 then it feels like a separate game. It only offers one mode of play, and in my opinion, does not have nearly as much replay value as most civilization products.It is very similar to Civilization 4, and is still fun. I enjoy it, but I still play Civilization 4 much more often.
The Founding Fathers have different contributions as well ranging from the ho-hum to the WTF to the actually practical. I played the original Colonization up until this one came out on a DOS emulator. The 2nd thing was it took me a while to figure out how to get to the settlement screen. I literally played the original game until it was completely worn out twice.The new game is good with great graphics and smoother play style. 2 things that I did not like about it was that the Founding Fathers play was changed and of course there are more, they do different things and you have to gather different kinds of resources to get them. It is different assigning resources to the settlements and it is just awkward working with it.I will still play the game and will enjoy it tremendously. Those are just minor issues that I have with the game.
SecuROM can interfere with the operation of hardware, specifically disc drives.4. Buyer beware - the product description does not describe some importantaspects of the game:This game secretly installs copy-protection software called SecuROM which can cause many problems for your computer, some of which are:1. SecuROM can interfere with the proper operation of software.5. When installing the game the user is not informed that SecuROM is being installed.2. SecuROM denies administrators full access to their PC, and blocks theadministrator from editing certain parts of the registry.3. When the game is uninstalled SecuROM is not uninstalled - it remainspermanently on your computer.6. The manner in which SecuROM runs on your computer is similar to that of malicious software called malware, and many people do indeed consider SecuROM to be malware.
I had long been hoping for an updated version of Colonization that provided national borders, better graphics, and streamlining of trade.This is not that game.We now have cultural influence, but it ruins the game.I am an accomplished Civilization IV and Colonization player, but the mechanics in Civilization IV: Colonization seem to work differently.For instance, I founded a colony, then some turns later the French founded a colony near mine.I experienced moderate growth in mine, while they experienced unrealistically rapid growth in theirs.This lead to my colony's resources being slowly but surely taken over to the point my colony was worthless.Presumably I need to play it much longer to learn the exact rules for culture, but after all the other problems I couldn't be bothered.Most annoying are the graphics. Very stupid.The soundtrack was one of the best aspects of the original. Very muted and lacking in character. So brown you can't tell what's what. Presumably the people writing this version didn't have the time to get it right and just took some shortcuts. Worst are the resource graphics, which are just a dark brown charcoal smudgy outline on a lighter brown paper. Everything is brown. Not so in this one.
Some of the pictures bear no resemblance to the item they're supposed to portray. It takes me out of the zone when I have to stare and squint just to see what I'm looking at. I miss all the old fiddle ditties and American colonial songs.Lots of little things are now done in the Civilization way, and this detracts from the experience. Either that or they were limited by the Civilization IV engine.And to top it all off, it uses SecuROM copy protection, which is known to be invasive and cause problems on some computers.I ended up wishing I'd never installed the game, and would advise you not to either.
I avoided wars with neighboring colonies or Indian tribes. Instead, I've put dozens of hours into this game and can't win even at the easiest level. I had fought off one wave of the empire's attackers and made a dent in the second, when time ran out. I finally created a grid where I can pencil in numbers - in the lumberjacks column I can note 2 for Baltimore, 1 for Jamestown and 1 for Plymouth because I need them there - as well as note which cities need tools or guns imported to finish a project. If you were ever a Sim City nerd, you'll love this one.
I grew my colony a little slower, got each city finely tuned, coordinated production of tools, guns and horses as best I could. But, come on, against 170. Not perfect, mind you; the terrain allowed little ore mining, permitting little tool production. If the king has 30 ships, I'd need about 60.So the game is flawed. I was up to 50 percent Rebel Sentiment, enough to declare independence - Rebel Sentiment functions like Culture in regular Civ IV - at least a hundred turns before game end, and I had only started promoting Rebel Sentiment relatively late. Regular Civ IV doesn't require as much followup at the city level - in it, you can queue up your projects, shift your workers around to fine tune production, food or gold, or just get a city to crank out the same thing repeatedly. (Note: the king's force got up to 300 units before I quit the game). No matter, I would have lost anyway; the empire had a bottomless pool of forces compared to mine.The game I've got going at the moment, I've done everything right.
I've played 8 or 10 games now at the easiest level; an experienced Civ IV player, I should have begun winning at the easiest level almost as soon as I figured out the system of labor and specialists, of cities producing tools and horses and cash products. Also, it must be noted that since you can't make Man O'Wars, you need at least two ships, a Frigate and a Ship Of the Line, to sink each Man O'War combo transport and warship coming you way. Yes, Colonization is fundamentally flawed. At the easiest level.
Maybe I shouldn't have refused a tax hike, suffering a tool embargo. I've got about a dozen cannon and soldiers; I could create about 10 dragoons right now. I have 5 ships. I had another review written, but after reading some already posted, with which I agreed, I decided mine needed revising. It's also flawed in its punishing you for building cities or actually doing anything with them. What's sad is that it's so much fun to build the cities. I keep starting new games despite the fact that I can't win these. Here's a suggestion I haven't seen in other reviews: Keeping track of your cities' growth and fixing their various imbalances is complicated enough that I personally can't do it without taking handwritten notes.
Colonization's cities require constant fiddling, and that's really much of the game.Building the empires is fun. I have only launched the revolution once - the game's ultimate goal, where the colony you built breaks away from the mother empire. Once they get rebalance this game it'll be even better. All no matter: the Empire at the moment has a force of approximately 170 ships, soldiers, dragoons and artillery. I could really put the heat on buying guns and horses and ships, crank my tool production as high as possible so I could make more guns, and outfit my soldiers. The city screen might include a memo field where you could do this, or a grid like I created.
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