Colonization First Impressions

[rastak]

Played about 40+ turns so far. I got one size 5 city and a couple other cities (one is a silver mining town although I'm not very happy with its location). Natives to the north and south, no other European colonies in contact. No warfare yet.

So far it reminds me a lot of the original. Still working on getting a trade network going (the silver mine should help a lot for that).

The weird part is that I seem to be passing up a bunch of founding fathers. Don't know if that's the right idea or not.

Yea, me too. I just started grabbing a couple of FF. I started out on a not so large island and it's split 50/50 with the Dutch and me (England).


I may have to try that graphics mod....I actually had intended to but I'm kinda cought up in the one more turn syndrom.

 

[guczy]

A lot of ppl are compalining about the music...and i totally have to agree with them. Civ IV and its expansions had so great music (especially Baba yetu, i have to listen to that song every day), im surprised that col 2 is so weak in this regard.

 

[Lord Shadow]

couple of things i'm not pleased with comparing to the original

1)music is horrible. it's downright depression and the music for combat is amateur like someone went to a re-enactment with a tape recorder.

2)maps are really small.

I found the music to be pretty acceptable, even though I haven't played that much yet (damn university studies). As for the map, are you sure you've explored all of it? I don't think there's any reason to believe the maps are any smaller than Civ4's.

 

[comtedemeighan]

So far I have made it to 1561 I'm playing as the French I have established 5 cities and am making a nice Profit from Quebec selling Rum The Natives all have different looking units someone asked that earlier. I have peacfull relations with everybody. I'm playing on a random map huge so far the continent seems to be one huge island. I got contact with all the other Europeans pretty quickly. I haven't found all the natives yet. The King has only raised my taxes once so far. He randomly asks for cash though but doesn't raise my tax rate and I of course kiss the Royal pinky ring The game interface took my about 10 minutes to figure out. The Game is pretty much like the first game with better graphics I'm enjoying it so far....

 

[ChrTh]

Some Second Impressions:

Played the game about another 50 turns.
-Added a 4th colony for the sake of population expansion
-Started taking advantage of Indian training
-Not really doing anything with schools or churches, starting to take advantage of liberty bells
-Got some gunbuilding going on in my capital, starting to think long term about troops
-King raised taxes to 3%, but he also got me some veteran troops cheap

The main thing I'm catching on to is planning, especially with the trade network. It seems that haphazard growth can really come back to bite your butt if you're not careful. Focusing on a couple resources appears to be key here.

 

[eewallace]

First impression: After a few hours play (plus many hours of BTS and some experience with the original colonization which I have all but forgotten) my impression is that micromanagement is the key here. I have found that manually switching what tiles are being worked in what colonies is vital--at least in the early stages, which is all I've done so far. I've managed an automated trade route, which is nice, using a wagon to transport raw goods from less-developed colonies to the main colony that has facilities for making cotton into cloth and fur into coats, that seems pretty profitable. Also, natives seem to like my cottage trade in cigars--even if they have tobacco, they like the way I roll 'em, I guess! I'm anticipating a fairly easy victory (famous last words) on the tutorial level!

 

[KillerSOS]

Can you keep playing after becoming independent? For multiplayer games it would seem nessisary.

 

[Luckystrike77]

Can you keep playing after becoming independent? For multiplayer games it would seem nessisary.

That was a very good idea, but my guess is it's not in......

 

[MiKa523]

I'd like to find an oldskool graphic mod someday, because I don't need all the fancy stuff for this game, which eventually slows down my pc on big maps.
I agree on the music part; I don't like it either.
The UI is rather easy to catch on, but I don't understand at all, why they had to switch the minimap and the unit display in comparisson to Civ4, because I still find me looking for the minimap on the right side and clicking on the left side to center on a unit
So many things they kept from Civ4 (too much in some cases maybe), but this smells like a cheap and completely unnecessary attempt to make Col more different to Civ4 than it already is in order to hush possible critics.

Edit: Is it me or aren't you able to "unspecialize" a unit inside the city?

 

[Pagan[CyC]]

Played for a few hours and restarted once after I realized just how different it is from Civ IV. Wiped out two of the local tribes since they didn't appreciate my colony sprawl. Seems odd that the other tribes are still friendly after that. Could be the level I'm playing on though. Third from easiest, forget the name of it.

 

[VLGoldenJew]

Been playing (and restarting quite a bit) and my biggest impression is that this is not Civ 4. It sounds obvious, but there are some very distinct differences in playstyle other people have pointed out. For example, rapid expansion is key-- there isn't the blatant warmongering of Civ 4 and the need to rush. Also, since you can only work your adjacent tiles, it's quite advantageous to stack cities.

You also need to (at least based on what little I've seen) specialize strategically. You're going to want cities with clear roles-- resource gathering cities that then ship to manufacturing cities and so on.

It's a little disorienting to figure out how to plan cities (at least for now) since many tiles produce a bevy of possible resources.

Overall, I like it-- there haven't been any good micromanagement/resource management games lately--but it's a few patches away from being solid (which has been par for the course for Civ 4).

 

[rabottens]

I played through a 300 turn game on easy and was defeated outright. I could not get enough revolution sediment going to declare independence. I have 8 thriving colonies a magnificant trade network and a decent standing army. I just simply could not get my French people excited about leaving mother country. Perhaps I kissed the pinky ring too many times. Either way I like the way the game plays and in many ways it is an improvement over the 1st edition. I too am a bit dissapointed with the music selection I think they could have done better. So I disable the music and play music off of the player. I have just started my second game and I hope to have learned something from the mistakes I made in the first one.

 

[defjam]

where do you find out how much taxes the king charges you and etc etc etc..

 

[Codeboy]

I really like the styling of the new interface that gives it that "old world charm". Still getting used to where all the buttons are. My only complaint so far is when I drop off new colonists, I can't seem to just right click on them an assign their role. I always have to drag and drop them to their place of work. Be nicer to just right-click, select pioneer and he picks up the tools and is done.

 

[Dale]

I really like the styling of the new interface that gives it that "old world charm". Still getting used to where all the buttons are. My only complaint so far is when I drop off new colonists, I can't seem to just right click on them an assign their role. I always have to drag and drop them to their place of work. Be nicer to just right-click, select pioneer and he picks up the tools and is done.

Just click on the profession button (has tools going round in a circle) and you can assign a job in the colony, or outside colony job immediately (if the requisites are met like tools or guns).

 

[Codeboy]

Thanks Dale, I'll have to give that a shot.

=)

 

[Zhahz]

Loving it so far. I need to restart less (kinda relearning it all and definitely don't remember the game like some do) - only got one game to around turn 100 so far. Gameplay is great, interfaces are great, graphics are great. I'm impressed by it all.

 

[persself]

Also, since you can only work your adjacent tiles, it's quite advantageous to stack cities.

Really? As in, literally one on top of the other? Or do you mean overlap the settlements?

 

[ChrTh]

Really? As in, literally one on top of the other? Or do you mean overlap the settlements?

I think it was meant in contrast to Civ IV (and previous), where you tried to avoid putting a new city in another city's 'fat cross'. With Col, since there's no fat cross, you can have two cities two tiles away from each other with no overlap. And if you have a specialized city (say, a silver mining town) that you don't plan on growing, there's no reason why it can't be one tile away from another city.

 

[Shagrat44]

I have been enjoying it so far. I have taken over most of one island and have started settling on the mainland, I like the converting natives, nice useful use of the priests. The only thing I am having a problem with is setting up the wagon train. I like the concept, built it since I had a land locked colony that is a little short on food, but high on mining. I went to the Guv screen and thought I set it up correctly, but I missed a step not sure what I did wrong, but I should be able to figure it out. I guess my only frustration is learning something new (although there is a great sense of accomplishment when you figure it out).