I believe nobody, Sid Meier included, ever planned CivCol to gather so many followers like it did. Maybe that is the reason that the game became an underdog from the word go. I played (a lot!) another Sid's remake: Pirates! And i enjoyed the remake even more than the original back then, even if the remake was heavily 'consollized'. It was a great game, with many new fun features that the skinny original game never had. Not so for CivCol. I absolutely love the graphics, the improved Civ4 engine, the animations, sounds, everything. Only the 'normal' game seems quite un-fun to me, mostly because of certain silly parameters one must obey to have at least some chances of winning the end-game slaughter. I find it irritating that i must plan my whole game form turn 1, and if i miss an appointment ot three, i must consider myself screwed for that game... I am new to the game, i suck so badly, that i need 100 turns only to organize my colonies and to start making guns and cannons, for example. 140 turns later, i am *supposed to* be able to declare independence. It's like a big friggin Damocle's sword hanging from the ceiling above my head all the time killing a vast portion of 'fun-factor' from the game. Given enough patience, time, and many many games later, i will probably find it cool and amusing to play the game in that 'hectic' way, but by then, i might well migrate to some other, noob-friendlier game. Don't get me wrong: the game has terrific potential, but i fear more than one new player will scorn the game because of that 'zomgTheREFisComingImSoDead!' gloomy feeling..