thoughts on colonization

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by El_Cid

lol - colonisation was 'just a game', which i did enjoy( i loved the music on the amiga version - excellent),

Yes. I still hum some of the tunes today.

[Sandman]

I didn't like Colonization. Maybe by the time I got it, the graphics and general interface were too archaic, although I enjoyed Master of Magic, and I played that even later.

The micromanagement was relentless, and the game seemed to have a pretty slow pace. Distressingly random combat, as well.

[Quillan]

I preferred Civ to Colonization, although I think it was a great game. I used to explain it this way: every game of Civilization starts exactly the same, but goes so differently that you never play the same game twice. Every game of Colonization starts wildly differently than every other game, but they all turn out the same in the end. I found that a bit boring after a while.

[Elok]

It won't run on my new(er) PC...

WRT the natives, I think of it as a cold hard reality that it IS more profitable to exploit than befriend in many cases. Once you've adapted to the new world, there's little benefit in befriending them, and aside from their technological inferiority their demise isn't much different from run-of-the-mill backstabbing as found in any game of Civ.

Besides, at least in Colonization they don't lose over half their numbers to disease instantly.

[Skanky Burns]

You do get a penalty in the form of a lower score for each native settlement you destroy, though.

[El_Cid]

Thats true - there was that. Still as Elok points out in the overall balance of things it was a game where it just made more sense to be aggressive towards the natives than try to get along - which is of course what happened in the real world.

Still the nice thing about Civ is you can create the illusion of trying to create a peacefull world(by not making unprovoked attacks) - and it kind of works. I usualy only ever attack in self defence, and as you grow more powerful in the game you can aford to take the risk of leaving yourself open to attack - the civ that foolishly does that is soon stamped upon real hard.

In Colonisation(maybe the clue is in the name?!) you cant really play that kind of game. I tried to be as nice to the natives as i could, but eventualy someone would be selling them guns and they would start to cause problems - so out comes the bible and the gun. It seems you cant live peacefuly together without destroying thier native culture

I've been meaning to find all those amiga tune versions and keep them in my winamp folder - i've now reminded myself to do that

[Verrucosus]

I'm not sure whether you are entirely correct about Indian strategy. I've played a number of games where they didn't give me too much trouble and no reason at all to attack them.

These things can help:
- play the French
- pick Pocahontas
- keep your colonies medium-sized and a bit away from their villages (you don't need to have that many colonies anyway to succeed in Colonization)
- send missionaries early on (turning criminals into missionaries works very well with the guy that makes every missionary an expert)
- never retaliate when they attack
- trade, trade, trade (with collapsing prices and rising taxes, European trade becomes less profitable, so the Indian becomes comparatively more attractive despite the low initial prices)

Verrucosus

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by El_Cid
Thats true - there was that. Still as Elok points out in the overall balance of things it was a game where it just made more sense to be aggressive towards the natives than try to get along - which is of course what happened in the real world.

Still the nice thing about Civ is you can create the illusion of trying to create a peacefull world(by not making unprovoked attacks) - and it kind of works. I usualy only ever attack in self defence, and as you grow more powerful in the game you can aford to take the risk of leaving yourself open to attack - the civ that foolishly does that is soon stamped upon real hard.

In Colonisation(maybe the clue is in the name?!) you cant really play that kind of game. I tried to be as nice to the natives as i could, but eventualy someone would be selling them guns and they would start to cause problems - so out comes the bible and the gun. It seems you cant live peacefuly together without destroying thier native culture

I've been meaning to find all those amiga tune versions and keep them in my winamp folder - i've now reminded myself to do that

I had numerous games were I was peaceful and freindly with the natives..

In fact, the only natives which were really tempting for me to kill were the Inca's/Aztec's because they gave a LOT of silver

JM

[pg]

IIRC the dos version is pretty much unplayable if you are used to today's mouse driven UIs(which I am). The windows version is really great though. I know it'll run on Win98SE if you install that WinG dll.

[El_Cid]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
I'm not sure whether you are entirely correct about Indian strategy. I've played a number of games where they didn't give me too much trouble and no reason at all to attack them.

These things can help:
- play the French
- pick Pocahontas
- keep your colonies medium-sized and a bit away from their villages (you don't need to have that many colonies anyway to succeed in Colonization)
- send missionaries early on (turning criminals into missionaries works very well with the guy that makes every missionary an expert)
- never retaliate when they attack
- trade, trade, trade (with collapsing prices and rising taxes, European trade becomes less profitable, so the Indian becomes comparatively more attractive despite the low initial prices)

Verrucosus

@Verrucosus and Jon Miller

Those are great tips
I didnt like sending missionaries or even trading much with them - i wanted to be able to have no impact on the Indian way of life. Misplaced guilt? dont know why - maybe because of films like 'Little Big Horn' :shrug:

I'm listening to the music right now - i love the track Cornwall, and the military 'horn+pipe' tracks are great imho

[CapTVK]

For the fun of it I´ve tried a game of colonization again. I usually tend(ed) to play nice but this time I started on a continent with lots of Inca/Aztec settlements and they started to get agressive early on. So when i found a couple of treasures I armed up with a couple of mounted troops and artillery and started to clear out my territory. The gold you received for Inca settlements was insane, 7-8k gold on average! With that sort of money you simply cannot lose. Troops, ships, guns, rushbuying improvements...the money keeps flowing in. Penalties for destroying indian settlements fall by the wayside.

[Snotty]

kill the indians, then laugh all the way to the bank.

There were some indians that would trade you silver, but I tended to mine that aggresively anyway so the price was low

[CapTVK]

Well, I´ve been playing a few hours on and off and now. The aztecs and inca´s have rather large empires with LOTS of settlements and I´m up to +100k in gold. With that kind of money, who needs silver mountains and fountains of youth?

I´m glad colonization wasn´t intended as a MP game. The one who start next to the Aztecs and cracks the first settlement wins, it basically is clear sailing from then on. Any losses can easily be recouped with your growing gold reserves.

[CapTVK]

On a side note Freecol is coming along nicely, around 0.60 we should have the basic version of Colonization.

http://www.freecol.org/

[Verrucosus]

Originally posted by CapTVK
The one who start next to the Aztecs and cracks the first settlement wins, it basically is clear sailing from then on. Any losses can easily be recouped with your growing gold reserves.

How much time do you think could be justified to spend looking for the Aztecs or Incas before settling down?