Hello all,
just recently acquired the new version of Colonization as a dedicated fan of the old Sid Maier (and turn based strategy in general). After a couple of learning games to get used to the variations from good old Colonization I just finished my first game on Explorer/Western Hemisphere Huge victorious with my all time favorite Netherlands. And will attempt to judge the game comparing it to its original.
Improvements
Few. Too few may be. The interface and in game management is a bit better, but only so far, as the old game was really outstanding in this respect. It is especially annoying that easy to implement automation features did not make it into gameplay, such as a patrol order for privateers or frigates ... Graphics has improved but quite honestly - I don´t care as a dedicated strategy lover.
Biggest noticeable improvement is the change in warfare in the war of independence - instead of digging in into cities with incredible amount of cannons behind fortress walls you HAVE to slug it out in the wilderness. This IS more true to history and simply more fun - the old game was outright boring during revolution.
The balance is a bit better now (a bit more challenging) as well by means of downsizing treasury gains (you could earn between 3.000 and 7.500 gold in the old version visiting goody huts - and after de Soto ensured. This made the old game essentially won by as early as 1650) and by the fact that you rarely will get all founding fathers (which everyone could in the old version). That the fountain of youth is gone adds to the challenge as well - this one was the single most overpowered feature of the old Colonization.
The cultural borders feature is an improvement in one respect as well - it gets rid of the blocking European units on your roads which riddled the old game up to the point that you started a war to simply get rid of these intruders.
Degradations
Some. Most noticeable the passive natives. While the native alarm system in the old version more or less forced you to battle it out at least to get rid of the native settlements near your own, in the new version the natives just happily concede settlements after you closed the cultural border. Even worse - if you refuse the handover of settlements the relations decline!
The education system is broken in the shipped game, you have to manually change the xml code to avoid the completely unlogical "feature" of the increasing education costs. The inability to train veteran soldiers is annoying but bearable.
The Colonizepedia - which was one of the shining features of the old game, well explaining each and every aspect of the game - has deteriorated as well in quality. I found features on the board not mentioned in the poor manual neither the online help of the game. Bad quality.
The shipbuilding and shipbuying feature is of no real use in any respect. The amount of royal warships in revolution makes it simply impossible to challenge the Royal Navy, which in the old version you could do with frigates only because the coastal fortress cannons helped a lot against ships. This is counterintuitive - why did they add the possibility to build the expensive "Ship of the LIne" then?
Let me add the as well passive and mostly incompetent European competitors - they stop after 3 cities and get either waxed by the natives or in the war for independence - always.
Overall my impression is that the AI scripts have been worsened as well - this is the case with most modern strategy games, where all is put into graphics and nothing into AI challenge.
Irrelevant
In the boards a lot of people complain about the size of the Royal Forces playing the game as designed - aka accumulating bells over time. Sorry guys, but this complaint is unfounded and simply a result of poor gameplay. I had to start revolution outnumbered 1:10 (40 cannons and some soldiers against 420 royal ground units), 1:5 the first day after revolution and after about 20 turns the odds were 3:1 in my favour. The war of independence should´nt be easy but the in game struggle nowhere near resembles the real struggle of the United States founders ...
Conclusion
For 20 Euro - the price I bought the game in its original German shipping box - the game might be bought. But it is borderline. The very few improvements in fact simply don´t justify a buy, neither did they justify a new release. Looks like Maier has spent his whole creativity (or Brian Reynolds may be) on the original Civ and the original Col, where arguably the latter was the even better and more complete game compared to Civ I. Thus I will enjoy the old Colonization here and then over the next years - it´s a true sign of an excellent game when the temptaion to run it even justifies an investment of time and effort in DOS-environments
. The new version is not really bad, but measured on its predecessor utterly disappointing. Thumbs down.
Regards,
Thorsten
just recently acquired the new version of Colonization as a dedicated fan of the old Sid Maier (and turn based strategy in general). After a couple of learning games to get used to the variations from good old Colonization I just finished my first game on Explorer/Western Hemisphere Huge victorious with my all time favorite Netherlands. And will attempt to judge the game comparing it to its original.
Improvements
Few. Too few may be. The interface and in game management is a bit better, but only so far, as the old game was really outstanding in this respect. It is especially annoying that easy to implement automation features did not make it into gameplay, such as a patrol order for privateers or frigates ... Graphics has improved but quite honestly - I don´t care as a dedicated strategy lover.
Biggest noticeable improvement is the change in warfare in the war of independence - instead of digging in into cities with incredible amount of cannons behind fortress walls you HAVE to slug it out in the wilderness. This IS more true to history and simply more fun - the old game was outright boring during revolution.
The balance is a bit better now (a bit more challenging) as well by means of downsizing treasury gains (you could earn between 3.000 and 7.500 gold in the old version visiting goody huts - and after de Soto ensured. This made the old game essentially won by as early as 1650) and by the fact that you rarely will get all founding fathers (which everyone could in the old version). That the fountain of youth is gone adds to the challenge as well - this one was the single most overpowered feature of the old Colonization.
The cultural borders feature is an improvement in one respect as well - it gets rid of the blocking European units on your roads which riddled the old game up to the point that you started a war to simply get rid of these intruders.
Degradations
Some. Most noticeable the passive natives. While the native alarm system in the old version more or less forced you to battle it out at least to get rid of the native settlements near your own, in the new version the natives just happily concede settlements after you closed the cultural border. Even worse - if you refuse the handover of settlements the relations decline!
The education system is broken in the shipped game, you have to manually change the xml code to avoid the completely unlogical "feature" of the increasing education costs. The inability to train veteran soldiers is annoying but bearable.
The Colonizepedia - which was one of the shining features of the old game, well explaining each and every aspect of the game - has deteriorated as well in quality. I found features on the board not mentioned in the poor manual neither the online help of the game. Bad quality.
The shipbuilding and shipbuying feature is of no real use in any respect. The amount of royal warships in revolution makes it simply impossible to challenge the Royal Navy, which in the old version you could do with frigates only because the coastal fortress cannons helped a lot against ships. This is counterintuitive - why did they add the possibility to build the expensive "Ship of the LIne" then?
Let me add the as well passive and mostly incompetent European competitors - they stop after 3 cities and get either waxed by the natives or in the war for independence - always.
Overall my impression is that the AI scripts have been worsened as well - this is the case with most modern strategy games, where all is put into graphics and nothing into AI challenge.
Irrelevant
In the boards a lot of people complain about the size of the Royal Forces playing the game as designed - aka accumulating bells over time. Sorry guys, but this complaint is unfounded and simply a result of poor gameplay. I had to start revolution outnumbered 1:10 (40 cannons and some soldiers against 420 royal ground units), 1:5 the first day after revolution and after about 20 turns the odds were 3:1 in my favour. The war of independence should´nt be easy but the in game struggle nowhere near resembles the real struggle of the United States founders ...
Conclusion
For 20 Euro - the price I bought the game in its original German shipping box - the game might be bought. But it is borderline. The very few improvements in fact simply don´t justify a buy, neither did they justify a new release. Looks like Maier has spent his whole creativity (or Brian Reynolds may be) on the original Civ and the original Col, where arguably the latter was the even better and more complete game compared to Civ I. Thus I will enjoy the old Colonization here and then over the next years - it´s a true sign of an excellent game when the temptaion to run it even justifies an investment of time and effort in DOS-environments
. The new version is not really bad, but measured on its predecessor utterly disappointing. Thumbs down.Regards,
Thorsten
) for Civ4:Bts).
)
) even with the status quo.
