updated previews...

http://pc.ign.com/articles/890/890527p1.html
http://e3.gamespot.com/story.html?sid=6194086&pid=946846

nice screenshots...

http://www.gamed.nl/view/43390

If you could post direct here I'd really appreciate it, a lot of people who are in work cant access those sites

@ RedRalphWiggum

I suppose it's disallowed / illegal to post full articles from other gaming sites as it is not done as far as I can see by the moderaters of this site, so I won't do that.

Some quote's about what's new...

There are now historical maps as well as randomly generated ones, so if you want to redo the American Revolution with a map of the United States you can. There are two leaders for each of the four playable factions in the game (Spain, England, the Netherlands, and France), and one of them is John Adams.

there are now 52 founding fathers in the game, and these are sort of like Wonders of the World in a Civilization game in that they can each give a very special power. For instance, having Betsy Ross will boost your garment production significantly.

The new game, like the original game, will be turn-based, and will unfold over the course of 300 turns as you explore the new world under the banner of an imperialist European power.


And since the game has a limited timeframe of 300 turns, you can't decide to declare independence with only 10 turns left, since you simply won't have enough time to turn away the tide. The demonstration version we watched declared independence at about turn 225, which may or may not have been premature, since we had only 55% of our colonies' popular support, and not nearly enough ships and soldiers to turn away the attacks of the king.

and the screenshots...


http://www.gamed.nl/messages/78204.jpg

http://www.gamed.nl/messages/78205.jpg

http://www.gamed.nl/messages/78206.jpg

http://www.gamed.nl/messages/78207.jpg

Wow...it really makes Civ4 look horrible, even though its not that old.

Thats great to see the city view.

I can't wait for this game to come out, what a great idea to remake an older game..

A few more oldies that I would like to see remade:

- Masters of Orion 1
- X-COM UFO Defense

AJK

Well, we can see the game ain't finished from two facts. 1- Two colonies founded next to each other 2- The fugly colony interface where I can't tell a church from a forgery...

Wow...it really makes Civ4 look horrible, even though its not that old.
Just wondering, how hard (or easy) will it be for the modding community to get these ocean textures into civ?

Well, we can see the game ain't finished from two facts. 1- Two colonies founded next to each other 2- The fugly colony interface where I can't tell a church from a forgery...
1- This is intentionally, don't ask me why, i read it somewhere on this site
2- The big cross didn't give it away yet? (okay the buildings themselves look similar, but the big icons and tekst field with numbers in green or red are quite obvious to me)

Most likely the terrain graphs ( including the water ) will be easily portable to Civ IV....

But I'm not too keen of the city interface... too brown for my taste ;)

Well, we can see the game ain't finished from two facts. 1- Two colonies founded next to each other 2- The fugly colony interface where I can't tell a church from a forgery...

Two Colonies next to each other is intentional...You can do that in Colonization..Why would you want to? could be many reasons but a main 1 would be just to use those cities for deffencive purposes..not all areas on a map are good to build things at..some city placement areas are totally worthless, but could make good deffencive positions(or fort if you will) areas:)

The City Screen interests me most, particularly the list of raw materials and finished goods at the bottom of the screen. It looks identical to the materials available in the original game.

For people who may never have played the game, it may be useful to know what the various raw and finished goods are. I haven't played the game in years myself, but I'll take an initial stab at it. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Starting from the left end of the row are:

Food
Lumber (Timber?)
Silver ?
Cotton
Furs
Sugar
Tobacco
Ore
Cloth
Coats (Fur Coats)
Rum
Cigars
Tools
Muskets
Horses
Trade Goods

Production wise, food increased your population. Lumber and tools were used to construct your buildings. Tools furthermore could be used to equip pioneers to cut down forests and improve the land (e.g. farms), as well as be converted into muskets by the Gunsmith. Cotton could be converted into cloth, furs transformed into coats, sugar could be turned into rum, and tobacco into cigars. Silver got you a lot of cash, and trade goods (if I recall correctly) were usually bartered to the Native Peoples for raw goods.

Hope this helps those who are just getting interested in the game. As I said earlier, please comment if I have any of this wrong.

And it looks now like a teacher will produce books...

Cool graphics. The interface looks a bit clunky.

And it looks now like a teacher will produce books...

There was actually a teacher profession hidden in the original Col, that never made it into the finished game. You could alter a save game to get one though - even if he didn't do very much good. This could be a concept they had planned for originally, scrapped for some reason and decided to bring into the remake.

A few more oldies that I would like to see remade:

- Masters of Orion 1
- X-COM UFO Defense

Seconded!

wow, I need a new computer.

The city interface could use some work, It's too hard to tell which building is which, the orginal had it done very well.

Two Colonies next to each other is intentional...You can do that in Colonization..Why would you want to? could be many reasons but a main 1 would be just to use those cities for deffencive purposes..not all areas on a map are good to build things at..some city placement areas are totally worthless, but could make good deffencive positions(or fort if you will) areas:)

In the original Colonization you couldn't have colonies next to each other. It always seemed to me to be a safe assumption that Sid and company were trying to avoid a Panama Canal situation. Unlike Civ4, back in the day you could send units up in the mountains, but (in Col at least) you couldn't build a city there. If you take a close look at Central America in the Americas map in Col, there are a grand total of two tiles that touch both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They are both mountain peaks. So between the "no-colonies-next-to-each-other" and the "no-colonies-on-mountains" rules, there was no way to "bridge" the Isthmus and create a canal four centuries too early.

As far as the forts issue: I don't know if this is what you had in mind, but I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope that in the new Col you can have little fort outposts instead of having to grow a city to size 10 in order to build a fortress. I loved the original Colonization. Still play it sometimes. But that rule always drove me crazy, that in order to even build a stockade you had to have a growing colony- and once you built the stockade it was stuck there for all time. I don't think there's anything historically inaccurate about having, say, a roving carpenter and blacksmith team up out in the woods for a few turns and knock out a little outpost for your soldiers. Or heck, even have a pioneer do it.

Just my two cents. Okay, I guess all that rambling was more like six or seven cents.

Oops, missed a point. Yeah, I saw the same thing about being able to put colonies next to each other in the new Col, I'm just not sure why they did it that way.

Uh, eight cents, I guess.

http://www.gamersglobal.com/news/1122

Old news really.

One new thing I hadnt read. If a dragoon/cavalry unit loses a battle it dies. :(

The new game, like the original game, will be turn-based, and will unfold over the course of 300 turns as you explore the new world under the banner of an imperialist European power.

And since the game has a limited timeframe of 300 turns, you can't decide to declare independence with only 10 turns left, since you simply won't have enough time to turn away the tide.

I read that earlier (although it didn't click at the time) and I wonder if the basic timeline has changed from the original. That wouldn't be too surprising except that from looking at all the reviews, they're trying to keep most of the gameplay the same as before.

Kay. In the original, you started in 1492, one turn per year. Then in 1600, it went to two turns per year. If you hadn't declared independence by 1800 the game ended, and then you had until 1850 to win the war.

Unless my math is all farbled up, that's 608 turns total. Does anybody know if they simplified it to one turn per year from 1500 to 1800, end of story?

I'm also curious about the 300 turns, it seems like too short. It's about you're getting into year 1696 in original colonization. I think it is not very easy to declare independence in 1680 in original col and then fight a WoI. Basically you can get your colonies up in 1680 but your Tory population is very high for this time.

Well I was hoping for an amelioration to the city screen... but we'll see... since it is rumored to be out in September which to me... is a bit early.

Hmmm and I was also hoping to get a bit more out of E3 - 4 screenshots and two-three lamentable updated previews ?

Interisting screenshots. Most interisting to me is the city screen. Talking about the city creen..... Some things seems to be new:

Horses now seems to need a colonist for growing (There is a colonist icon next to the stable).

Colonists can be locked.

Teachers are producing books (like mentoied abouve by someone)

I wonder, what kind of building there are on the buttom line next to fure traders shop and armory. One may be the custom house, and the other one? Maybe both right bottom icons (building + fence) represent the fortification?

edit: I see, one is the warehouse.....

Teachers are producing books (like mentoied abouve by someone)
Which will probably increase the educational level of some colonists.

Game looks great even though I did expected more from the E3 show...

A new Gamespy preview of Coloniation 2 got out : http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/civilization-game-untitled/891987p1.html

In it, we learn that everyone of the 52 founding fathers will only chose one of the four players - making it impossible for two nations to share the same founding father (and its benefits).

A new Gamespy preview of Coloniation 2 got out : http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/civilization-game-untitled/891987p1.html

In it, we learn that everyone of the 52 founding fathers will only chose one of the four players - making it impossible for two nations to share the same founding father (and its benefits).

So the founding fathers are like world projects? I mean when you get a father then you cannot lose him. But I hope that the custom house is now available without a founding father or it would be very powerful if you get it and the others will not.

I can't tell a church from a forgery...
That's absolutely normal. It's called clarity of mind. ;)

:( oh, thanks...

still no explanation for the lack of Portugal?

1) 300 turns doesn't cut it. I've recently played DosCol in a DOSBox and can tell you a good game is going to take well over 300 turns. Doing 1 turn per year doesn't make much sense, since technically, the US WoI only would have lasted 8 turns... makes no sense.

2) Portugal isn't in it because of many factors, among them that the King of Spain and the King of Portugal were the same person during a good swath of the game. The four powers in the game fit very well - you could swap the Netherlands with Portugal, but since they got in first, that is just the way this one is gonna go.

Venger

still no explanation for the lack of Portugal?

The lack of Portugal in the game makes perfect sense. The 4 powers chosen all had a serious stake in the new world because they were all trying to figure out a way to get AROUND it to get to the Indian Ocean. The Spanish, French, English, and Dutch really could have cared less for this New World initially; it was just a big obstacle of land getting in the way of where the known wealth in the world was concentrated.

Right before Columbus made his famous 1492 journey, Portugal's Diaz and DiGama had found a way around Africa's southern tip, which allowed them access to the Indian Ocean and all its wealth, without having to cross the vast deserts, stretches of land, and bandits. The Pope, in order to preserve the peace between powers, gave Portugal a monopoly on the South-African trade route, and none of the other powers of Europe were allowed to use it. In fact, this is the exact reason that Columbus sailed for Spain, and not Portugal. Columbus didn't sail to prove the world was round, he sailed because Spain wanted a route to the wealth Portugal had managed to find, and had some spare troops left over from the Reconquista that needed a distraction.

Thus, Portugal had zero need or desire to try and find a western trans-Atlantic route to India, because they'd already found one to the south. So while the rest of Europe was fumbling around the new world, setting up waypoints, and searching the land for some kind of quick access to India, Portugal was content to leave the rest of them to waste their money in the new world while it made Bank in the Indian Ocean.

It wasn't until Cabral "got blown off course" to the eastern shores of Brazil that Portugal really played any -direct- role. Their INDIRECT contributions, such as Portolan Maps, and the Caravel, and Henry's School of Navigation were invaluable assets used to find and explore the new world, but their direct involvement was not until much much later, after the other four powers realized there was wealth and power to be had from the New World, that they couldn't get to India because the New World was too dang big, and decided to colonize to the point that they were well established and had control over most of the New World.

The lack of Portugal in the game makes perfect sense. The 4 powers chosen all had a serious stake in the new world because they were all trying to figure out a way to get AROUND it to get to the Indian Ocean. The Spanish, French, English, and Dutch really could have cared less for this New World initially; it was just a big obstacle of land getting in the way of where the known wealth in the world was concentrated.

Right before Columbus made his famous 1492 journey, Portugal's Diaz and DiGama had found a way around Africa's southern tip, which allowed them access to the Indian Ocean and all its wealth, without having to cross the vast deserts, stretches of land, and bandits. The Pope, in order to preserve the peace between powers, gave Portugal a monopoly on the South-African trade route, and none of the other powers of Europe were allowed to use it. In fact, this is the exact reason that Columbus sailed for Spain, and not Portugal. Columbus didn't sail to prove the world was round, he sailed because Spain wanted a route to the wealth Portugal had managed to find, and had some spare troops left over from the Reconquista that needed a distraction.

Thus, Portugal had zero need or desire to try and find a western trans-Atlantic route to India, because they'd already found one to the south. So while the rest of Europe was fumbling around the new world, setting up waypoints, and searching the land for some kind of quick access to India, Portugal was content to leave the rest of them to waste their money in the new world while it made Bank in the Indian Ocean.

It wasn't until Cabral "got blown off course" to the eastern shores of Brazil that Portugal really played any -direct- role. Their INDIRECT contributions, such as Portolan Maps, and the Caravel, and Henry's School of Navigation were invaluable assets used to find and explore the new world, but their direct involvement was not until much much later, after the other four powers realized there was wealth and power to be had from the New World, that they couldn't get to India because the New World was too dang big, and decided to colonize to the point that they were well established and had control over most of the New World.

The thing is though, Portugal was still a major power, just in a different part of the world. So what would have happened if Portugal didn't find the southern route, and ended up in the New World also? The whole point of Civilzation(and Colonization) is to play out an alternate history. At the very least, someone needs to mod Portugal in.