America, Land of the free, home of the brave. Or actually, at you will find out when your own pilgrim fathers first shuffle nervously ashore in the new world, home of the braves.
Colonization is the eagerly awaited Sid Meier instant classic, and is, in the broadest possible terms, a themed, specific version of one of his earlier efforts, Civilization.
Just as in Civilization, your units (or colonists) must forge an empire, building cities, exploiting natural resources and defending themselves against the envy of less happy lands. The tactics are very different, though - you can easily be taken in by the familiarity of most of the game mechanics, but don't be fooled - this is not just Civ with new graphics, this is a completely new experience.
Each of the colonial powers starts with a different advantage. The English get a load of new colonists, the Dutch get a trade advantage, the French are better at getting along with the natives and the Spanish are better at killing them.
The trading aspect is much more important to Colonization than it was in Civ. There is no wealth derived from taxation - all taxes go straight to the king. To make money to buy more ships, recruit specialists from
Europe or import necessary resources (particularly early in the game, when you are not able to produce things lor yourself) you have to have something to sell, and that can only come from farming, mining, or manufacturing in your colonies.
Trade is a major part of this game which means you must send wagon trains scurrying backwards and forwards across the continent, ferrying goods to port or raw materials to factories. This could have been tedious, but you can set up automatic trade routes which are like railways in Railroad Tycoon - a series of stops, with loading and deliveries specified at each stop.
This can bring you into conflict with other powers in the area and the indigenous inhabitants - the Indians. Several tribes are represented, each with slightly different characteristics and abilities. There are the Incas and the Aztecs, with huge, rich cities; the rather primitive but friendly Tupi; the violent (when aroused) Iroquois and the plains Indians, the Apache, Cherokee and Sioux.
This is one example of the way the game really separates into two diverging paths, depending on the strategy you use. You can be friendly with the indians - trade with them, establish missions, learn skills from them - or burn thoir villages, murder their women and children and steal their gold (which can be a tempting option, especially as a raid on a rich village can produce more wealth than several years of hard trading).
The trouble with trying to be friendly is that the methods you need for colonising the continent put you at odds with the taboos of the natives. They are all over the place, so you can't put up a road or chop down a forest without upsetting someone. But if you do try to keep on their good side, they won't raid your villages, steal cargo from wagon trains and generally make nuisances of themselves. If your missionaries (and sometimes your muskets) manage to instill in them a fear of God and light cavalry, friendly indians will flock to your colony and can be persuaded to exact extreme vengeance on your foes.
Indians can also be a very cost-effective way of training up colonists. The majority of malcontents setting sail for a new life in the colonies have no skill or trade. Some are only good at thieving and some are "indentured servants", which is a polite way of saying 'slaves'. Since the game is quite honest about how the colonists abused the trust of natives and robbed their land, it seems a bit odd they didn't own up to exploiting native Africans too.
Anyway, a trained sugar planter, for example, can produce more sugar per field than a novice, or a slave, or indeed a lumberjack or farmer. There are five ways of getting an expert to tend your cane: train one up (expensive), wait for one to emigrate by choice (may take a while), get him trained by some friendly indians (if there are any nearby, and if they are friendly), teach him in a school or college (requires an expert teacher) or just leave him to it and hope he acquires the skill (wait a very long time). If you can get skilled colonists, it can make all the difference.
Of course, once you have manufactured your goods they still have to get back to Europe for you to make a decent living. On the high seas your Merchantman could fall prey to pirate ships, sponsored by enemy nations.
You can get in on the act too, though, and run your own privateers, looting and pillaging European cargo vessels without having to declare open war on another nation. It is a rather risky business, as players of Meier's own Pirates! will no doubt remember. But money alone won't buy you success.
The idea of the game is to settle a new, independent continent between 1500 and 1800. If you don't declare independence you won't get a decent score. You can't turn traitor until over 50% of the population want to become a nation of ingrates, and even when you do, you'll have to fight off a large number of the King's lackeys in a final, fitting end-phase. Terrific stuff.
An astounding difference between this game and previous MicroProse efforts is its Amiga-friendliness. You can play Colonization in a variety of different screen modes, or on top of your Workbench if you so wish. I even managed to use EGS software with the Rainbow III card to shift the display on to an 800x600 VGA display, no problem. The windows can all be moved around or shunted backwards and forwards, and the main screen can be resized, albeit only slightly. This makes the game much more playable - it's a marked improvement on the PC version.
Sid Meier is a hero for many, not just because his inspired games are excellent, but also because in spite of the breadth and depth of titles like Railroad Tycoon and Pirates!, they all run on an A500 in 1Mb. How is it possible? It takes talent, I guess. Actually, Sid can't take all the credit, because the Amiga version was actually written by Scott Johnston.
The big thing people whinge about these days is how long the computer takes to make its move. Even in the latter stages of this game, the computer movements only take about a fifth of the time of your own. It's not as though you have to wait around anyway, because the calculations are usually broken up by several messages about new cargoes being ready, ships arriving in port, Indians ambushing your wagon trains - that sort of thing.
The game is a rich and varied Gestalt of top colonial activity. Strategies must bo divined with care, and constantly modified to ride the chaotic rapids of the thousands of interacting elements in this opus of creative genius. Perhaps. Or it could just be a damn fine game.
Colonization is a follow up to the more famous Civilization from Microprose as well. Instead of being a complete civilization you are instead trying to colonize what we today call America. Whether you are playing as the French, Spanish, Dutch or English you have to find a good spot to start your colony and then build up your new base in the new world. The race is pretty much starting here since every turn wasted can be expensive as it's very important that you build and grow your colony as fast as possible and expand in all ways you can.
Money is probably the most important factor in the game (when isn't money important?) so you should always focus on bringing more gold for your colony. There are several ways to earn money. You can produce products like tobacco; cotton etc. and sail back to Europe and sell them or trade them for other products like guns. You can also trade products with the natives you meet and of course plunder both them and the other nations. That can give quite a lot of gold as well but is also a bit more dangerous as you are then open to attacks from those in the future. Furthermore you can also grow your colony by teaching the natives the European religion and turn them over to the Christen religion. That will increase your relationship with the native tribes and make everything a bit better. Of course you will get more towns and you have to defend those so it's essential to have military ready to defend your towns as well.
The game ends when only one nation is left or, and this is the main goal in the game, when your colony is strong enough to declare it's independence. Once you have declared it you should be to receive some "expected" visitors from your home country, as they will not allow this. If you defeat them you have won your independence and your colony is now ready to be built up as a nation and the game then ends. Colonization offers many hours of gameplay as you can both play the game as the real world looks like or a random generated map. If you are tired of Civilization, Colonization is a good game to play for a while instead. Overall a very good game and all fans of the business and strategy genes would find this game interesting.
This MAY only be able to run from the HD version, but you can try it in its usual mode (running from disks). Also, you will see the workbench screen, just open the disk and install/play the game from there.
How to run this game on modern Windows PC?
People who downloaded Colonization have also downloaded:
Colonization for Windows, Eye of the Beholder, Settlers, The, Dune 2, Populous 1, Cannon Fodder 2, Wings, Elite 2: Frontier
©2013 San Pedro Software Inc. Contact: 
, done in 0.020 seconds.