The Constitution

[Gaius Octavius]

An excerpt from a recent preview of Colonization:

"After declaring a revolution, you get to form your constitution," he explained. "You receive choices in increments of two, each with a bonus: you can pick slavery, which will increase production in all cities; monarchy, which allows continued trade with Europe; elections beget founding fathers; manifest destiny versus native rights; separation of church and state; right to bear arms... we included everything in the [actual] constitution."

This really sounds interesting, but it also sounds like the existing civics system. The major difference is that you can only pick your choices "in increments of two."

 

[Bigfoot3814]

And that you only get these bonuses once you declare independence.

 

[GreatDeceiver]

These civic choices with the drafting of the constitution certainly makes the revolutionary war phase more interesting than the original game.

I imagine if you select Monarchy and maintain trading relations with Europe, you would use your finished goods (rum, coats, cigars) to purchase items useful for the war effort (e.g. muskets). Possibly recruit veteran soldiers on the dockside (mercenaries?)

On the other hand, the production bonus you'd get with slavery would allow you to convert the extra ore, for example, into (ultimately) muskets to equip your citizenry. Better yet, the increase in food production would allow you to increase your population quickly and send more students to the college to be trained as veteran soldiers.

These are just my guesses on how one pair of civic choices might affect game play.

As with most of Sid's games, you're presented with an interesting set of options to choose from.

 

[Greybriar]

"After declaring a revolution...." What an odd way of saying "After declaring your independence."

The implementation of a constitution and the "choices in increments of two" should help maintain interest enough in the game for the player to persevere the ensuing Revolutionary War and continue the game beyond that struggle. Truth be told, when playing the original Colonization I rarely went through all that, quitting the game before the Royal Expeditionary Forces started besieging my colonies' fortifications. What can I say? The Revolutionary War was a very tough fight requiring seemingly endless preparations which took many, many turns to complete.

But I still had a lot of fun.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Actually, royalist AI in original Colonization was pretty dump. You could fake low defenses at some place, by removing troops from town, thus tricking AI to land most of its forces at there, ignoring other targets.

 

[GreatDeceiver]

"I rarely went through all that, quitting the game before the Royal Expeditionary Forces started besieging my colonies' fortifications. What can I say? The Revolutionary War was a very tough fight requiring seemingly endless preparations which took many, many turns to complete.

But I still had a lot of fun.

I agree. The revolutionary war phase was the least fun part of the game. It seemed to be a whole other game tacked on to the end of Colonization.

And as you said, an inordinate amount of preparation was required prior to the decalaration - wagonload after wagonload of horses, muskets, ore, etc. had to be stashed away to survive the onslaught.

But the Constitution civic choices promises to change things up... ...I hope.

 

[TheDS]

Something I always thought about the game that was queer was the attack bonus. Why should you get a 50% bonus for attacking? That's pretty much the opposite way combat is handled in wargames, and should create the unlikely supposition that fortifications are pointless and you MUST attack the enemy before they attack you.

I could have seen such a thing for natives attacking troops in the woods, or (post-revolt) colonials attacking royals in the woods, but all the time?

I didn't like being unable to repair my cannon, either.

Hopefully, the new engine will make cannon more of a support weapon and less of a front-line unit. That makes 2 games where I've seen artillery charges (Imperialism being the first, but that was just dumb AI - artillery charges didn't actually work). I'd like it if they gave cannon a pre-fire ability, like was present in Civ3 for archers and siege. I think that was a great little rule.