What's RIGHT About Colonization

The ONLY game that give you the feel of achieving Independence !

This is the very essence of the game

Another thing I like:

I haven't noticed a production penalty for too many Loyalist/Tory colonists in a colony

tour86rocker said:

Another thing I like:

I haven't noticed a production penalty for too many Loyalist/Tory colonists in a colony

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That's a strange one anyhow, they are not greedy? It's a market economy after all not communism, they're not working for you.
Heh wait a minute..

tour86rocker said:

More good things:

-Indians standing around don't impede your units' movement

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Yeah, that is good. I used to have to place a dragoon on EVERY inch of road to allow for late game movement.

Also, I like the new cont. congress.

I like everything in the game except for This

I think the game is awesome. I played the original like a fanatic when I was younger, and still remember it as a great game. The fact that I have a remake to play now is a dream come true. So what do I like about this version?

It's as easily moddable as Civ4, so I know that the community will be tweaking it with lots of options.

The graphics are extremely good for a turn-based strategy title - when I look into the monitor I really feel like I'm looking down at a little landmass with colonies, not a gamey abstraction. Plus, the water looks great.

Believe it or not - I like that I've been having such a hard time winning. It's what keeps me coming back. I refuse to play in an exploitive way or break the game mechanics to win, so I keep on fine tuning things.

Love the way the game pushes you into conflict with the natives. They always have the best settlement spots - which, as a non programmer, is impressive to me that they figured out how to randomly generate all this stuff and have it work.

Multiplayer is a lot of fun - although, I mainly bought this for single player.

I like the personalized touch of working with individual colonists more than the impersonal feel of dealing with abstract cities and empires for a change.

The founding fathers are also a lot of fun to collect. I have to say, though, my strategy consists of "get the ones I think are historically cool like Ben Franklin". Good thing I play single player.

I think the game is pretty damned cool right now, and already a couple mods have come out that I've been using that tweak it to more my preference of game speed. I see a good future for it. The first one was a quirky title with touchy subject matter and a cult following - looks like the remake is no different. I'm ok with that.

Two things I like about the new game that everybody else seems to hate.

"The map's too small."

I thought the old map was too big. You'd send your scout off and pretty much know you'd never see him again. So much landmass you would never, ever play on. Historically accurate, I suppose, but kind of a drag.

"The Europe screen is ugly."

Amazing how many people seem to want some pictures/animations. I like the new Europe screen. All information, no fluff.

I love this game. Sure, there are some flaws and bugs, but this game has me hooked as much as the original Colonization did way back when. Three things in particular I like about the new game:

1. The flow of the game is great. You start building little churches and a fledgling economy; later you start to process goods and trade them; still later you start to invest in guns and horses; your firebrands start building printing presses and circulating newspapers; and you can have a "Fort Nassau Tools Party." I feel genuine pride when I declare independence. And I like the all-hands-on-deck nature of the war -- I like seeing my expert lumberjack head into battle side-by-side with an indentured servant.

2. The economic sim alone is enough to keep me hooked. Sure, sometimes I wish it lasted longer, which is why I'll try Marathon one of these days.

3. The kiss-my-ring animation. It is delightfully infuriating.

tenhole said:

Two things I like about the new game that everybody else seems to hate.

"The map's too small."

I thought the old map was too big. You'd send your scout off and pretty much know you'd never see him again. So much landmass you would never, ever play on. Historically accurate, I suppose, but kind of a drag.

"The Europe screen is ugly."

Amazing how many people seem to want some pictures/animations. I like the new Europe screen. All information, no fluff.

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Agree on both counts.

Beside a lot of annoying bugs and bad game decisions, there is only one way to win the game. It's completely counterintuitive, but once you know it, it's ridiculously simple. And then the game becomes less interesting than tic-tac-toe, because everything except gearing up for the war of independence has been removed or dumbed down. That's how I feel, at least. If you who post in this thread enjoy it, that's nice for you, but my game disc is back on a shelf in the closet.

The silliest defence of all is to tell people to play on Marathon if they want a long game. The king's tax demands are completely unbalanced in marathon.

Can't you play a custom game with different victory conditions -- e.g., only a "Time" victory? Or Time plus independence -- just leave out Europe victory?

Grotius said:

Can't you play a custom game with different victory conditions -- e.g., only a "Time" victory? Or Time plus independence -- just leave out Europe victory?

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That would be nice, but the king would still turn up and demand taxes. However, this is something that could easily be tweaked in a patch.

Gliese 581 said:

I just want to be able to lose..

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In all fairness, even the wonderfully balanced Civ IV has ways you can cheese out and force an unrealistic victory on the hardest difficulties, e.g. tiny map quechua rush.

And the original Colonization was very forumulaic and easy to crush on Viceroy setting once you really knew the game.

I don't think it's the end of the world for a strategy title like this one to require a little restraint on the parts of its players in terms of exploitation.

As much as I dislike a few of the changes from the original Colonization, this is a challenging strategy game if you refuse to cave in to the easy exploits. For me, the main thing I don't permit myself is letting my foreknowledge of the way the WOI is going to be fought permeate into the way I manage my colonies through the better part of the game. I manage the game first and foremost as a colonial economic simulation, and then deal with the consequences when the REF comes through.

Yzen Danek said:

In all fairness, even the wonderfully balanced Civ IV has ways you can cheese out and force an unrealistic victory on the hardest difficulties, e.g. tiny map quechua rush.

And the original Colonization was very forumulaic and easy to crush on Viceroy setting once you really knew the game.

I don't think it's the end of the world for a strategy title like this one to require a little restraint on the parts of its players in terms of exploitation.

As much as I dislike a few of the changes from the original Colonization, this is a challenging strategy game if you refuse to cave in to the easy exploits. For me, the main thing I don't permit myself is letting my foreknowledge of the way the WOI is going to be fought permeate into the way I manage my colonies through the better part of the game. I manage the game first and foremost as a colonial economic simulation, and then deal with the consequences when the REF comes through.

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Perhaps but it's another thing to win on CIV deity on a standard sized map with 6 opponents. I don't think even the best player in the world has 100%. So far in col2 it seems you are certain to win on the highest difficulty with any leader on default map size and # of opponents. That's not good..

Edit: Besides it ties in to strategy.. it's not the kind of exploit where you use clear bugs, like selling the AI resources they already have in CIV before that was patched. Those you could simply avoid as bugs. In Col2 it has to do with very basic fundamental designs of the game and avoiding them would be to play with one hand tied, consciously making bad choices all through the game in order to not exploit the weak mechanics.

I think this game's badass.
I actually *like* that I lost my first game. Col1, as incredible and life-changing as it was, was a bit too easy once you knew what you were doing [as someone mentioned before] so I think it's great that the king really gives you something to worry about this time, especially since the rival AI's don't seem to know what guns are for, at least in vanilla anyways.

Here are some new features of the game that I absolutely love:

Pioneers: Instead of having to constantly requip your pioneers with tools, now you just pay gold. Awesome.

Civ4 Battle System: I always hated the "kill a dragoon and get a soldier, then get a colonist" system. Now, there is a reason to make ordinary soldiers (get attack bonuses and defense bonuses).

Frankly, with the modability of the Civ4 system, we can probably add back in some of those features we miss from the original game. I really can't complain about it.

Öjevind Lång;7341450 said:

If you who post in this thread enjoy it, that's nice for you, but my game disc is back on a shelf in the closet.

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So let me see if I get this right: You don't like the game. You put it "on a shelf int he closet" (not a wise place to put your games) and are done playing. But you're not done complaining. You are still going to give your time to complaining, even though you're not giving any time to playing.

There are lots of places to talk about how you hate the game, but you are so ticked you even have to post in a thread titled "what's right" what you think is wrong. like you missed the other 30 threads on what's wrong with the game! Why not put the complaining on the shelf with the box. take deep normal breaths . . . it's just a game.

As for the tax rate being messed up -- don't pay taxes. Build a big warehouse extension and sell to europe. 50% less to Europe is better than a 51% tax.

Öjevind Lång;7341450 said:

Beside a lot of annoying bugs and bad game decisions, there is only one way to win the game. It's completely counterintuitive, but once you know it, it's ridiculously simple.

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I will continue to disagree with you that yours is the only way to win the game. I play an 'intuitive' game, by which I mean I amass liberty bells as fast as I can right from the start. I use statesmen, printing press and newspapers, and because of the head start this gives me in political points I pretty much have the pick of FF and I choose those that give me even more liberty bells so I can collect even more FF. I usually end up with over 30 and that gives me all sorts of military and economic benefits.

The only downside to this strategy is a very large REF. But by the time I declare I have a very strong military with free promotions and the independence % bonus. I find I can routinely clear each turn's landing for only one or two losses so my colonies are never threatened. In fact if anything the WoI is the most routine and the least interesting part of the game for me.

I have won with the slow buildup for liberty bells strategy mroe than a few times. If anything, this is just more evidence you can have many different approaches and still be successful.

I have gotten used to playing on Normal mode with fewer turns as well, something I never thought possible. With Dale and Snoopy's fix, I love the game. Anybody who hasn't tried it with the Dale and Snoopy's patch should really consider that before disparaging the game on the boards.

The point isn't that you "can" have many different approaches and be successful, you "can" beat Civ IV by spamming 1,000,000 warriors and slowly beating down your enemies, but there is no reason for you to do that and no one does. The problem is the game incentivizes NOT playing it. It incentivizes a style that is akin to the complexity fo a flash game...

Sure I suppose I could intentionally make poor decisions in a strategy game, and I have even done this in past strategy games where appropriate, but that only works to a certain extent and for a lot of people really ruins the fun.

As for what this game got right, the interfaces other than the LACK of a trade interface are good, and the graphics are excellent. It doesn't crash.

unfortunately until the game design and balance elements are fixed it doesn't hold any interest...