Colonization wannabe - Conquest of the New World

[The Kaiser]

I have this game gathering dust on my shelf. Couldn't get into it at all, ugly graphics, weird semi real-time control system. Although that chess-like combat phase was pretty well worked out. Apart from that bit the rest of the game was pretty awful IMHO.

Give me Colonization anyday.

[The Rusty Gamer]

Well, you've got to have patience to get the first settlement started, there's some pottering around with the settler to find a suitable spot but there is a quick start scenario where you start with a colony already built. It's worth trying building up a colony to the fourth level if you haven't tried it yet. It's fun and absorbing.

[Kassiopeia]

I played Anno 1602 before getting Colonization and when playing Colonization I could clearly see that Anno had taken much influence from Colonization. Anno isn't that thorough, but has charming graphics for a game from early 1999 and it's general sentiment is very pacific.

[Qilue]

This is the first thread I've ever seen on this forum about Conquest of the New World. Finally I can pass on my experience.

The flatter the colony site the better since you can then put more buildings in the available area.

Buy 2 goods asap as you need this to build your first commerce building. They will cost you 60 gold, but you'll be making 'millions' later from exports to Europe. You also need goods to get a colony above level 2.

During early game, you can trade unwanted extra food to the natives for desperately needed wood and minerals.

Desert is more productive than grassland.

Explorers are limited by how many taverns you have, however you can have unlimited leaders. As a kind of 'exploit', build leaders with all points in movement and then use the 'explore' hot key. They aren't quite as good as level 4 explorers though but you can have as many as you want.

Never ever ever trust the AIs. They usually have armies on their way to destroy you at the same time they are offering a peace treaty.

I've found the best army to start is 12 (6 foot, 3 horse and 3 arty) and use the rest of the leader's points for attacks with any remainder into morale. Once you can raise better leaders, go up in multiples of 4 (16 - 8 foot, 4 horse, 4 arty) but don't scrimp on attacks.

Some kind of leader and regulars are always better than militia with no leader for colony defence.

Best attributes
Admiral - better ships
Conquerer - more troops allowed per fort
Craftsman - more gold when exporting to Europe

Research, research, research, research and more research. Spend every spare gold piece on this. The problem though is you are limited to 99,999 gold per area (there are 7) so you may end up having to to build more academies. In more than a few games, I was spending over 2 million per turn on research.

The armies your mother country sends during the independance war aren't very big, but they are quite good.

That's all I can think of right now, it's been a few years since I last played it.