[Col] Civ Video Series Ep 02 - Colonization HD Tour + Col Fan Games, Mods & Scenarios

Blake00 · Nov 3, 2021

Civilization Genre HD Video Series:
Welcome to the second episode in a huge video series years in the making where I show you how to play each classic Civilization genre game (including spinoffs like Colonization) in 1080p HD, while showing off some of their best scenarios and mods along with their interesting and sometimes very different console conversions, plus also trying to play as the Barbarians in each game too. Naturally this second big main episode is about Sid Meier's Colonization!

I'll also be looking at fan games and naturally at some point I'll get to the more modern Civ games that don't require any tricks to play in HD and will still tribute them too of course! In many cases there's simply too much to cover in one main episode so I'll also be making special extra bonus episodes to compliment the main episodes in the series, so stay tuned!

Main Episode 01 - Civilization 1
Main Episode 02 - Colonization (You are here!)
Main Episode 03 - Master of Magic (Delayed)
Main Episode 04 - Civilization 2 (Coming soon)
Main Episode 05 - Civ2 Test of Time (Coming less soon)
Main Episode 06 - Alpha Centauri (Coming less soon)
Main Episode 07 - Civ Call to Power (Coming next year)
Main Episode 08 - Call to Power 2 (Coming next year)
Main Episode 09 - Civilization 3 (Coming next year)
Main Episode 10 - Civilization 4 (Coming next decade)
Main Episode 11 - Civ4 Colonization (Coming next decade)
Main Episode 12 - Civilization 5 (Coming next century)
Main Episode 13 - Civ Beyond Earth (Coming next century)
Main Episode 14 - Civilization 6 (Coming next lifetime)
Main Episode 15 - Old World (Coming next lifetime)
Main Episode 16 - Humankind (Coming next lifetime)
Misc Episodes - Civ Fan Games - FreeCiv, FreeCol, FreeMars & More (Coming very soon)

Main Episode 02 - Colonization HD Tour:
Main video on playing Col in HD with mods & scenarios:
Years in the making this is a huge video tour showcasing the classic Sid Meier's Colonization in HD! This is the second main episode in a huge series showing people how you can play classic Civilization genre games in HD on modern systems using some of the best enhancement mods out there. I also take some time in this video (prob way too much sorry haha) to show Col fans what other cool options are out there these days such as similar games to Col, fan made Col games, some of the best Col mods for Civilization games, and finally I also show you our attempts to play as the normally unplayable Natives slot.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoAYn5LGq60&list=PLZqnaGtTZxFbq3F5R6lqzyVvYzg9tRBPY

(Make sure you expand video to play in full screen HD!)

Video Chapters:
00:00 Video Series Introduction
00:49 Colonization Tour Introduction
04:01 Colonization today & it's legacy via other games!
- 04:11 Civ 4 Colonization sequel & it's mods (Future Ep Preview)
- 04:56 Colonization fan communities
- 05:23 FreeCol Colonization fan project (Bonus Ep Preview)
- 06:42 Treasure Fleet fan game (Bonus Ep Preview)
- 07:19 FreeMars Scifi Colonization (Bonus Ep Preview)
- 07:42 Colonization mods for Civilization games (Bonus Ep Preview)
- 08:28 Mods for Civ 4 Colonization (Future Ep Preview)
- 08:42 Other games similar to Colonization
09:09 My attempts to play as natives (Bonus Ep Preview)
09:55 Sid Meier's Colonization in HD Tour
- 10:59 Differences between DOS & Windows Colonization
- 13:17 Early game example in HD
- 15:38 Mid game example in HD
- 17:02 How I'm playing in HD (full instructions below)
- 17:50 Mid game example in HD continues
- 18:32 Late game declaration example in HD
- 20:06 End game victory example in HD
21:30 Final thoughts & future video series plans

Video Notes:

If everything looks too small then you're probably viewing this video on a small screen or phone. Colonization has built in zoom controls you can use or you can lower the Windows XP resolution inside the Virtual Machine and the game will resize to fit.
Sorry it takes so long to get to the actual game the video is about. I just really wanted to let Col fans know about all this other great similar stuff out there! Not to mention try to rebuild the community!
If it feels a bit choppy and slightly schizophrenic that's because '3 different Blakes' worked on it haha! Basically I made the video in 2018, then came back to it in 2019 and added lots of stuff, and then came back to it again in 2021 and deleted a bunch of stuff & added even more new stuff lol! I tried to intermix and smooth out the transitions between old and new footage as best as I could so hopefully it's not too bad.

Bonus Video Episodes for Colonization:
Colonization Bonus Ep - How to play as Natives:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMh1vzXFzps&list=PLZqnaGtTZxFbq3F5R6lqzyVvYzg9tRBPY

Colonization Bonus Ep - FreeCol HD Tour:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSfj_G4kA9g&list=PLZqnaGtTZxFbq3F5R6lqzyVvYzg9tRBPY

Colonization Bonus Ep - FreeMars HD Tour:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuUMmh82ROo&list=PLZqnaGtTZxFbq3F5R6lqzyVvYzg9tRBPY

Colonization Bonus Ep - Treasure Fleet HD Tour:
COMING SOON!

Colonization Bonus Ep - Civilization 2 Colonization Scenarios:
COMING SOON!

Colonization Bonus Ep - Civilization 3 Colonization Scenarios:
COMING LESS SOON

Colonization Bonus Ep - Civilization 4-5-6 Colonization Scenarios:
COMING NOT SO SOON

Colonization Downloads & Guides:
Links for all games, mods, scenarios, editors & other stuff mentioned in videos:
If you've seen some of my other threads then you'll know I've been working tirelessly to find and rescue old scenarios & mods (including Col themed ones) for Civ games and arrange hosting on multiple sites to ensure they're preserved. So hopefully in the years to come when people watch my videos and come to this place none of these cool creations below will have disappeared!

Spoiler Click to expand :

How to play in HD on modern systems guide:
Now you can see below how I did it and play Col in HD yourselves!

Spoiler Click to expand :

Colonization Website Tribute Page:
As part of this huge series I'm also making tribute pages with HD pictures and extra info for each game in a big new WIP Civilization & Colonization series section on my retro gaming website Blake's Sanctum (be warned - the sites navigation is full 90s retro too lol).
https://blakessanctum.x10.mx/Games/CivColSeries/

Main page screenshot:

Colonization Tribute screenshot:

AyCe · Nov 5, 2021

Cool that you are doing this stuff, but the videos are very "noisy", too much going on for someone who hasn't seen it before. You show 4 screenshots from 4 different games at the same time, with text overlaid (that doesn't always have a good background), it's a bit too much input if you are also trying to follow the narration and look at the provided images. Narration does not always match what is shown on screen. There seems to be more intro/outro than necessary, and of the actual game, you don't show that much, only the very start, and the extreme endgame. What about all those lovely inbetween things like finishing your first factory, establishing a raw material->production->shipping network, scouting the world, attacking the AI, being attacked by the AI, the colonies slowly growing&infrastructure improving, founding fathers instead of techs...

But it's great that you show all those related games, I'd prefer it a bit more organized looking though. Reminds me of that old fan website you mentioned, colonization.biz, that one was chaotic! (or the wonder movie for the Longevity Vaccine)

Blake00 · Nov 5, 2021

AyCe said:
Cool that you are doing this stuff, but the videos are very "noisy", too much going on for someone who hasn't seen it before. You show 4 screenshots from 4 different games at the same time, with text overlaid (that doesn't always have a good background), it's a bit too much input if you are also trying to follow the narration and look at the provided images. Narration does not always match what is shown on screen. There seems to be more intro/outro than necessary, and of the actual game, you don't show that much, only the very start, and the extreme endgame. What about all those lovely inbetween things like finishing your first factory, establishing a raw material->production->shipping network, scouting the world, attacking the AI, being attacked by the AI, the colonies slowly growing&infrastructure improving, founding fathers instead of techs...

But it's great that you show all those related games, I'd prefer it a bit more organized looking though. Reminds me of that old fan website you mentioned, colonization.biz, that one was chaotic! (or the wonder movie for the Longevity Vaccine)

Yeah I saw this coming as you've touched on a number of known issues I warn people about in the notes section...

Unfortunately you hit the nail on the head of the biggest problem I just couldn't find a way around. You say I rushed through a lot of content making it hard to follow but then you say my intro was too long lol, so as you can see I was stuck between a rock and hard place. There was a lot of things I wanted to mention but it all got way too long so I had to speed things up bit. But the end result is still something that's too long and is now rushed. The only real idea I had was to move a lot of that stuff to the end of the video but as a fellow creator you'll know that most people on youtube don't stick around to the end of videos so its important to get the things you want said out there in the beginning. That's why I put the timeskip links in to cover my butt a bit! If people just wanna skip to the game footage then they can. But yeah that first half of the video is not great and I must have done like 50 friggin passes on it trying to improve things but I kept finding new cool Col reated things I wanted to mention making the problem worse lol. I haven't done it with any of the other videos in this huge Civ series I'm making so its just this one thankfully but it is a shame I couldn't get the delivery of this one quite right. I also worked on and off on the video for 3 years with big gaps inbetween so it's like 3 different Blake's worked on it haha, so yeah it's a bit chaotic and schizophrenic lol.

However I should point out that you don't see the words "let's play", "longplay", "gameplay" or "playthrough" in the video title because it's not that, there's already heaps of videos out there doing that. I just wanted to show people what the game was like in HD (as many casual fans out there only know about the DOS version) and then talk about where things are at these days for Col fans. So I started thinking about some of the other Colonization universe/franchise general knowledge problems... Eg a lot of Col fans feel like its a forgotten franchise and crave a similar experience and may not know about all the different ways they can get such an experience so I wanted to to get the info out there. There are also some great fan projects that really need some support and are not getting much (FreeCol appears to be finally dying this year from dwindling support, and I'm sure @DragosP feels that he didn't get the support on Treasure Fleet that he hoped for), and there's some great Civilization scenarios related to Col that people don't know about that I'll be covering in other videos so I wanted the cross content plug. In fact a lot of the content in the first half of the video will be covered in more detail in other bonus videos so thats why it's rushed as its more of a 'trailer' for other videos I'm making and other important content. Clearly the plugs worked as I see you've also watched the hidden unreleased play natives bonus video and joined one of the social media groups too haha.

But anyway yes I could have shown some more Col midgame footage but I didn't want the video to blow out and get even longer than it already was.

I never combined 4 completely different games together into one picture, I only did it for games within a series as I know it would take too much time to individually go through all the Anno games and other series with 4 or so entries. It sucks but yeah they a casualty of the 'intro too long vs intro too rushed' problem.

Hmm I can only think of 2 parts where what was on screen wasn't a perfect match for what I was saying which were the Civilization Col scenarios bit where I inserted some extra Civ2 scenarios at the very very last min which I didn't know about when I did the audio so it threw out the Civ2 and Civ3 scenario bits a bit. And I think there's a bit at the end where I did some inserts but cbf re-filming the audio as its the end and like I said above most people are gone by then anyway haha.

So yeah what more can I say other then that I'm sorry as this video definitely the weak link in this huge series I'm doing as its by far the most chaotic and the most re-edited by an indecisive me over 3 years. And after years of work on it I just did not want to have to redo the whole darn thing. In the end despite the rough delivery there's a lot of great content in there, a lot of great info for Col fans and so I believe it was way more good then harm so it's released and it is what it is lol. Hopefully this post explains it's weaknesses a bit more and why I did what I did.

And yes that old website is a friggin chaotic mess haha, but I can't take the blame for that one.

.

AyCe · Nov 5, 2021

Appreciate the feedback to the feedback. I wouldn't call myself a video creator, and personally I watch videos completely without skipping through if they interest me, or I don't watch them. Props for the timestamps though, love it when people use that feature.

Yes, you're right that it's not a letsplay or even just showing the game (review?) so the lack of progression is not too bad, but I think it would have made the video feel more complete. Maybe some moments of uncommentated gameplay to show off the HDness, a couple of seconds for each "period". Though... "just scale up the VM window"... but what can you do with these old games.

Being able to see almost the entire map at once is great, makes you realize that the map is smaller than it may seem when you can only view a tiny portion of it. Some end of turn footage that shows how it makes following AI movements and the like easier when you see more at once would have helped too.

I don't know what other people are looking for in a Col remake, but I don't like the graphics and UI of Freecol, for example. I basically want Col (the DOS version), but fixed/improved/multiplayer/and so on. Getting people's support is not an easy thing, and even if you want to support, you may not know how, or imagine the task differently than what it actually is ("I want to help design the game" -> "no, you need to make boring task XYZ" idk). I still check the Freecol index page regularly, but no more updates for a long time...

Apologies if what I mentioned sounds too harsh or exaggerated. As someone who has not seen the video before, my impression was that I was overwhelmed by interesting info, and I had to constantly pause the video to look at or read things, which also breaks the flow. Dunno.

I had thought you wanted to get feedback and maybe revise the videos, as they are set to unlisted, and I thought if they are supposed to be released you would put them public.

I really think it's great that you care about these games so much and document things! Also found out about your Discord via the video, which I joined.

vmxa · Nov 11, 2021

Hi Blake, man nothing like taking on a huge task. I wish you luck. I already put in tons of playing on all of them, except the last three.

Blake00 · Nov 13, 2021

@AyCe Yeah I don't like the FreeCol GUI either.. there's a 3rd party mod that brings back the old wooden interface but it doesn't work anymore sadly. I talked with people about making a classic Col graphics mod for FreeCol as I have some experience converting 2D Civ1 graphics over to 2.5D Civ2 engine however the conversation died out pretty quickly when FreeCol team members said they'd delete the thread if we tried as that would turn FreeCol into something that breaches copyright.

No the videos are finalised, very very finalised, and there's no going back. Hmm the unlisted thing caused confusion with my Civ 1 videos too as people seem to assume they're unlisted for every reason except for the actual one lol. I'm merely staggering their releases on youtube every week or 2 so to not bombard my subscribers. In fact my releases across forums, social media and youtube itself are all under different schedules for many different reasons I'm not going to bore you all with. Suffice to say I'm posting a lot of other content across many groups and don't want to be suddenly accused of spamming and kicked, so it's important to space things out and not bombard people. This thread is but one piece in a ginormous 'puzzle' I have keep a frigging giant word doc of links to keep track of it all and not forget stuff haha! Despite the different release timings on different sites eventually each video will be fully public and posted everywhere. In fact today is the day I've gone public with the main Col video on youtube so there ya go lol.

Thanks @vmxa

it's been years of work to get this far (mostly thanks to all my Civ2 scenario preservation work taking forever) and I fear it will still be several more before I'm done haha.

Anyway the show must go on... Here is my first bonus episode release! This one is nothing special as compared to my very successful 'Play as Barbarian in Civ games' series, success in Col was limited. I mostly just talk about whats happened and pay tribute to the excellent discoveries @AyCe made when he recently took some limited control of a Native faction proving that EdBigHead wasn't lying to us all those years ago haha. Kinda of a invitation for others to try and see if they can do better (which I don't expect to happen). The next few bonus episodes will be far more interesting I assure you all haha!

Colonization Bonus Ep - How to play as Natives:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMh1vzXFzps&list=PLZqnaGtTZxFbq3F5R6lqzyVvYzg9tRBPY

Blake00 · Nov 28, 2021

Okay the next bonus episode is ready to be shown to the community!

This time I take an extended look at the excellent Colonization fan remake called FreeCol! Over the last few years there's been some great 3rd party addons to FreeCol that add more maps, more nations (allowing huge 8, 12 or 16 nation super games), and more natives. The project is in a fully playable state (try the nightly release, not the old stable release as its too old) and I was able to finish the game back in 2018 and win the war of Independence without hitting many bugs and it's been improved quite a bit since then. Shortly after I posted this video they released a new build with animating oceans and clouds (grrr great timing lol) which adds a lot more life to the game, however be warned that they're currently beta testing/experimenting with different types of 3D converted artwork so you may see some funny looking test graphics here and there. If you don't like something then just download a nightly build from last year as that still had all the original terrain art!

Colonization Bonus Ep - FreeCol HD Tour:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSfj_G4kA9g&list=PLZqnaGtTZxFbq3F5R6lqzyVvYzg9tRBPY

Blake00 · Jan 8, 2022

Time for another bonus episode! This time I take a look at at not so commonly known fan game that merges the awesomeness of Sid Meier's Colonization with Civilization Mars scenarios.

Colonization Bonus Ep - FreeMars HD Tour:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuUMmh82ROo&list=PLZqnaGtTZxFbq3F5R6lqzyVvYzg9tRBPY

Thormodr · Jan 9, 2022

Free Mars looks super cool! I loved the original colonization and this really takes me back. Thanks for the video. :thumbsup:

axx · Jan 9, 2022

Blake have you played c-evo, anno 1602 or Freeciv? I'd be interested to hear you weigh in on those.

Blake00 · Jan 10, 2022

axx said:
Blake have you played c-evo, anno 1602 or Freeciv? I'd be interested to hear you weigh in on those.

Yup I've played FreeCiv a number of times over the last 20 years (and enjoyed it a lot) and I plan to replay it for this video series, and I've never played C-Evo but I plan to play it for the first time for this video series too (both will go into my "Misc Episodes - Civ Fan Games" category that I'll be making a thread for over in the other games section in the near future). Don't plan to play any Anno games for the video series but I do plan to play all of them at some point as I never have and they look pretty awesome! For the video series the next on my to do list is Treasure Fleet, just wrapping up some of my Civ2MGE work and then I'll get playing it!

.

WildWeazel · Jan 19, 2022

Blake00 said:
Time for another bonus episode! This time I take a look at at not so commonly known fan game that merges the awesomeness of Sid Meier's Colonization with Civilization Mars scenarios.

Very cool. I was assuming this was some kind of mod, but very impressed to see it's a whole standalone game in Java! Always fun to find more community made 4X games.

Great series, keep it up! Maybe by the time you get through this list, C7 will be mature enough to cover

Blake00 · Aug 27, 2022

Hey guys.. in case anyone has been wondering no the video series isn't dead. It's just that the Civilization 2 mod preservation project that feeds into the next big main episode in the series on Civilization 2 massively blew out for another year! Plus I accepted a staff position here at CivFanatics that eats up a bit more time too, and I've had some health troubles slow me down a bit. However I'm back busily working on the big sequel episode! And on top of that I'm also making new bonus episodes for both Civilization 1 and Colonization talking about all the cool stuff I missed the first time around haha!

[Col] Civ Video Series Ep 02 - Colonization HD Tour + Col Fan Games, Mods & Scenarios

Blake00

CFC Mod Archivist & Social Media Helper

AyCe

Warlord

Blake00

CFC Mod Archivist & Social Media Helper

AyCe

Warlord

vmxa

Deity

Blake00

CFC Mod Archivist & Social Media Helper

Blake00

CFC Mod Archivist & Social Media Helper

Blake00

CFC Mod Archivist & Social Media Helper

Thormodr

Servant of Civ

axx

Warlord

Blake00

CFC Mod Archivist & Social Media Helper

WildWeazel

Carthago Creanda Est

Blake00

CFC Mod Archivist & Social Media Helper

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