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What Colonization is missing
So I took a break from Col shortly after the game came out--and I did try multiple times to absorb the "fun" from the game. The economic game is very compelling, and very close to the original while taking it and improving important aspects to streamline the experience. I played at least two dozen different games -- not including restarts in the first 5 turns (which amasses dozens more). I did not finish a single one because the end-game is revolting. I *REALLY* wanted to like this game and play it into the ground.
A number of the fundamental aspects of the game are very good: economics, discovery, the player reward structure for investing in their colonies.
However, one of the four tiers of this 4x game is severely lacking. And that's the combat portion. It falls flat because this game explicitly discourages the player from combat. Attacking a native village brings the entire nation upon the player. Building up active military forces directly limits the player's ability to win or even progress in the game. The King's forces are incredibly overpowering to the player. The end-game is completely non-intuitive.
Even the payout from military conflict is also extremely limited. Unlike Civilization, the conqueror does not obtain additional cities from conquest of native cities. The payout for conquering those cities is generally small and not equivalent to the military forces spent in conquering them. Warring against the European powers is significantly less attractive the later the game progresses. It's also generally lopsided.
The game needs to do more to encourage the player to build a military - and use it! The original colonization penalized the player less for wiping away individual native settlements, challenged them more when they did, and paid out more. It also did not harshly penalize the player for stockpiling military units for the inevitable conflict with the King.
A number of the fundamental aspects of the game are very good: economics, discovery, the player reward structure for investing in their colonies.
However, one of the four tiers of this 4x game is severely lacking. And that's the combat portion. It falls flat because this game explicitly discourages the player from combat. Attacking a native village brings the entire nation upon the player. Building up active military forces directly limits the player's ability to win or even progress in the game. The King's forces are incredibly overpowering to the player. The end-game is completely non-intuitive.
Even the payout from military conflict is also extremely limited. Unlike Civilization, the conqueror does not obtain additional cities from conquest of native cities. The payout for conquering those cities is generally small and not equivalent to the military forces spent in conquering them. Warring against the European powers is significantly less attractive the later the game progresses. It's also generally lopsided.
The game needs to do more to encourage the player to build a military - and use it! The original colonization penalized the player less for wiping away individual native settlements, challenged them more when they did, and paid out more. It also did not harshly penalize the player for stockpiling military units for the inevitable conflict with the King.
Assuming you ever let them get established, later on you can grab well-developed towns (though they can be difficult to defend unless you dump them before or at independence). Privateers can rob them blind, and privateer/merchant combos sometimes capture incoming colonists. In other words, there are plenty of reasons to go to war. [In AoD II those wars won't be as lopsided, but may be more necessary because rivals can and will beat you to independence if left undisturbed.]
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