Subtitled "Conquest Of The New World". A four player strategy game in which you took the role of either England, France, Spain or Portugal and set about exploring and conquering the New World: America. This game was historically accurate so if you want to win, best be Spain :-). You had to look after your colonies, explore unknown regions and invade other players territory.
When I first started up Gold of the Americas - The Conquest of the New World, I couldn't help but remember Colonization, one of the most known and most loved games about the Colonial Age. In itself, though, Gold of the Americas is almost nothing like Colonization. The emphasis clearly lies on the strategic elements, which I will explain later on.
The game features four peoples to choose from, you can either invite three friends and play with them on one computer, or you let the computer take over the others. The former of the two is not to be recommended, because you cannot honestly expect your friends to come back again and again and again to play with you. Because it does take a long long time to conquer the New World.
As I was saying, the strategic elements of the game are the most important ones. This means that you have to be smart about allocating your resources, managing your trading, and organizing your people's moves.
Gold of the Americas has some nice features that make it interesting, like the ability to hire Pirates to work for you and annoy your opponents. Also, you don't just play until the declaration of Independence, you can decide the continent's fate for hundreds of years. Try and do that in real life.
Graphically, the game is not too interesting, it mostly has boring 16-colour EGA graphics, and the gameplay is not too exciting, either. In short, Gold of the Americas will probably only appeal to those that can confidently call themselves "Hardcore" Strategy nuts. 3 of 5 points from me.
One of the few SSG classics that are not based on World War II, Gold of the Americas is an excellent strategy/conquest game set in the Americas. Unlike better-known games of this gene (e.g. Sid Meier's Colonization, Pirates!), GoA emphasizes strategic-level decisions and diplomacy over tactical-level colony management.
The gameworld consists of North and South America, divided into 31 land and 4 sea areas. There are 7 types of units to choose from (Armies, Colonists, Trading Ships, Warships, Privateers, Slaves and Explorers), all of whom are crucial to success. You play one of the European powers vying to control the New World: Spain, Portugal, England and France. Your mission, in game terms, is to end the game with the highest amount of Victory Points (VPs) at the end of 30 turns (equivalent to 300 years); at the end, you get 1 VP for every colony level you have.
Being a strategic-level game, there is no movement of units as such in GoA: everything is "placed" on the map. Ships stay at sea unless they are moved, and all armies and warships only last 1 turn (10 years), so there is no way to build up a huge fleet or invasion force-- all your decisions must be made in the context of the current turn, and how to maximize the use of these transient units. Trading is simple: you just place your trade ships in any sea area you wish, and hope that your Competitors don't sink them or Privateers don't loot them.
The hallmark of GoA which makes it much more historically accurate than other Colonial-era games, is the taxation module. True to history, you have two coffers in the game: the main Treasury and your Secret Funds. Taxation is assessed as a percentage of your previous turn's earnings (which goes directly into Treasury). The failure to meet your tax bill results in less interest from the King, which in turn results in less resources you receive from him (armies, etc.) Trading, raids and exploration all have the potential to add funds to your Secret Fund, which you can use for whatever you want. If you let it build up too high, you will rouse suspicion form the motherland, which might mean a visit from the King's Auditing Department, which is very unpleasant :) Needless to say, careful management and allocation of the two coffers are crucial to winning the game with high VPs.
Overall, GoA is a great strategy game that is both historically accurate and addictive. Perfect for fans of SSI's No Greater Glory, and SSG fans in general. SSG's famous AI does not disappoint-- it is one of the best AIs you'll find in this type of game, bar none.
Colonization of the New World. Choose between one of the colonial empires (England, France, Spain or Holland) explore the unknown lands, colonize, fight the natives, conquer enemy colonies... You can even employ privateers to sink and plunder enemy cargo ships. True masterpiece of its kind.
How to run this game on modern Windows PC?
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