Colonization

[Guest]

Could somebody post the contents of closing.txt file? It appears that in my version of the game somebody played with numbers and completely messed it up.

Thanks!

[Incappucciato d'Ombra]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Jun 2 2007, 10:16 PM) 292716</div>
Could somebody post the contents of closing.txt file? It appears that in my version of the game somebody played with numbers and completely messed it up.

Thanks!
[/b]

;
; COLONIZATION Closing Animation Data
; Copyright © 1994 by MicroProse Software
;
; Altering the contents of this file may cause the game to
; malfunction.
;
;

;
; Animations
;
; Series, Frame, Repeats, BaseX, Delay
;
@CLOSING
4, 1, -1, 0, 0 ; Fireworks
6, 1, -1, 0, 0 ; Liberty Bell
5, 1, -1, 0, 100 ; Rock
0, 1, -1, 0, 16 ; Hat
1, 1, -1, 0, 0 ; Lady
2, 1, -1, 0, 0 ; Man
3, 1, -1, 0, 0 ; Military
-1,390, 0, 0, 0 ; End of closing
0, 0, 0, 0, 0

; Messages
@MESSAGES
Loading Game...


I think this is the original content (never manipulate, just played the dos version sometime) :)

[Øyvind]

When opening game following error message pops up right before game menu appears

"One or more CON pages invalid for a given keyboard code"


Is this message the reason for why pretty much every key won't work properly?

The importent keys F, B, P, R and so on do not react, only the arrow-keys works... So to build a colony I have to use the mouse and choose from the rullgardinmeny on top of the screen.

Anyone with similar problem?

What can i do to get it OK?

[velik_m]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Øyvind @ Jul 1 2007, 10:50 AM) 297412</div>
When opening game following error message pops up right before game menu appears

"One or more CON pages invalid for a given keyboard code"


Is this message the reason for why pretty much every key won't work properly?

The importent keys F, B, P, R and so on do not react, only the arrow-keys works... So to build a colony I have to use the mouse and choose from the rullgardinmeny on top of the screen.

Anyone with similar problem?

What can i do to get it OK?
[/b]

Use dosbox.

[Øyvind]

Right.

Downloaded Dosbox, installed it changed some lines in config, read the Readme file, and still do not know how to play with it. And how do I know I have mounted something properly????

[_r.u.s.s.]

when you mount something properly it says 'drive [driveletter] is mounted as local directory [directorypatch]. then to get in to drive by typing [driveletter]

so for example if you mounted C as your local drive, type "C:" and press enter.

then to move in to other directory press 'cd [directoryname]

[The Fifth Horseman]

A Beginner's Guide to DOSBox (http://www.abandonia.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14913)

[Grand Dad]

Really DOSBox is easy once you get the hang it! And saves you so much headache :).

[oea]

i love colonization. i love sid meiers. that said let me you a few my strategies. why listen to me? well if you can be ready for the war of independence by 1650 with all the founding fathers then you dont need my help.
this strategy also helped me unlock the other win possibility. if your empire is so large and economically powerful th king will just give you independence (this only happenedto me once when i built all over north and south america and had started just using custome houses. you know your on the right track for this victory when the king keeps dropping! the tax rate.

starting countries: well for me its the dutch all the way. the starting merchantmanis great but the trade benefits (i.e. the non collapse of goods) are where its at. the english can be fun as they get lots of people cheaply butquite frankly i think i can buy almost as many with the dutch trade benefit. the frnch are neat at beginning but since pocohantas duplicates their benefit, they are somewhat weak. now the spanish are a different game entirely. ill get into theirstrategy another time.

i really like the america map, i have rarely found as good a map randomly or by choosing settings.
on the america map the 2 good places to start are the northern and southern starts. both of these have all the resources in close proximity. but the n.american continent is better, more territory and best of all, a great river network to ease your travel.

so here is my dutch north american strategy.

if you have never looked at the n.am map reveal the eastern seaboard and hit the show terrain. look at how nicely the different terrains are lined up. starting in the north all that great fur land, then right below the cottenbelt, next the tabbaco land and unfortunately only 2 sugar spots (good thing texas is just a river ride away). so the idea is to first put a city in each area.

first city goes on cape cod or boston harbor (when game start hit the end of turn option so you can drop your first setteler on turn one).
next city goes in either new york or pensylvania (next boat will found the other). try to utilize fish squares on all the eastern cities if possible (i have restarted games because i didnt find fishing spots the amount of population a fish can support is that good). timber spots are also very good but not neccasary. and last a city with at least one sugar spot (if there are no good spots this city or rather its function can be placed elsewhere).

the idea here of course is that these first four cities will each become the hub of their respective resources.
so you have your first 2 cities at this point i explore one turn? and then head back to the last city grab its meager produce hit the first city and head to the old world. why so quick because your first setteler will be waiting in europe. why bother to grab goods well its not that improtant but i like to grab horses with that little money. thse horses will be the seed stock for my empire. anyway drop the setteleron the tabacco or cooten are whichever you havent settled yet.

once all 4 opening cities are started the next thing to do is equip a scout.during the course of the game you should visit every indian city and get their gifts and learn what they want in tradeand what they teach. you need to find the indian cities that train the farming specialties (tabaccaco planter is usually the toughest to find on the america map). a note here dont many uncover any city rumours until you have hernando desoto.
i only uncover the ones right around my cities, ones blocking my river ways and ones right near enemy cities.

what to do with immigrants? so you hate those loosy convicts and the indentured servants arent much better. well improve them. indentured servants get sent out immediately to all those indian villages to learn trades. petty criminals get turned to missionaries and sent to all those indian villages where soon they will inspire natives to come join your empire (and keep those indians quiet).

by the way that first scout should talk first to all the eastern villages then head into canada until some village trains him into a scout. right you can get trained into a scout as a gift! as soon as you have an expert scout send him straight to the aztecs (aztecs and incas give better gifts) and then continue to explore s.am with him.

so you have your first 4 cities and a scout and poosibly some missionaries ( if you havent gotten or bought a petty criminal to be missionary turn someone else you want a mission quick in order to get indians their extra food and outdoor goods potenteial is needed until you get experts and their versatility is so useful on the frontier) now is the time to start developing your cities. the next couple immigrants should be give tools and set to work on ech city.one of these opening cites (usually for me its new york or virgina) should be designate the homeport this city should be devloped first. after you have those pioneers working its time for the next round of cities. first is the foundry city. there is a great pace for this city in ohio the mountain with the river in it gives you as much ore as an ore spot. by the way a major river gives the terrain as much extra resource as the special terrain symbols). after you have a foundry site you need to plants cities to bring in more resources of each type. along the missouri youll find (usually) more cotten then you can handle and a bunch of wheatsites. if you follow the lower east west river you will find great tabacco terrain (and hopefully a leaf), right below this area (texas/mexico) is your extra sugar. note i start these citieseven before i have a wagon (if they fill before you have a wagon have them build their own.

so back to the cities. eventually every city should have at leastone of the following lumberjack, carpenter, elder statesmen. the latter ofthese can wait awhile but perticularily on the east you should get them sooner rather then later.

what to build?first in your home port if you dont have a bonus food area or an expert farmer build the dock first, if you have the food the lumber mill should be first, this rule applies to most cities, but the lumbermill if atall possibleshould be built first the reason being that if you clear a forrestwhen you have lumbermill you get more timber if you have an expert pioneer even more(an expert pioneer clearing conifers with a lumbermill in the town yeilds 160 timber!). after you have lumber mill and dock its time for a wagon (if your supply cities need it now otherwise after you) or a warehouse.all these coastal citieswilleventually need warehouse but near star only the homeprt and maybe one other for overflow. once you have the timbermill,and warehouse (and docks if you can, and wagonsas you need) its time for the industry to start. build the industry building for each town (i.e. rum distillery for sugar town etc.) this includes the blacksmith shop for the foundry. after the industrial building build printing presses.

how to populate the cities? first in each city is the field worker to bringing the main resource next is the skilled worker producing finished goods, then the foodproducer (or 2 as needed), then comes the carpenter, then the lumberjack (this one is less neccasary as forrest can often provide enough timber without the expert but in mid gamethey should all actually be lumberjacks and you might want morethen one carpenter). and the sixth person (or even earlier) should bean elder statesman (or anyone in the capitol). why worry about liberty bells so early? two reasons first the more liberty bells the faster you get founding fathers who can be a great help, the sond reason is to enablethe city to grow in order to get ober 7 people into the city you need to be over 20 percent rebel.not only that but when you reach 50percent and 100percent you get production bonuses and this whole strategy is about getting a huge economy.

these first 4 cities (and maybe lots of others) will max out on people (15 to 20 or so). meaning you will have 3pros workinging your industry 2 or 3 carpenter, 1 or 2 lumberjacks, 1 or 2 fieldworkers,2 or 3 statesmen, lots of food producers and on the east coast either preachers or teachers.

founding fathers? i always get peter minuet first, not having to buy land or piss off indians is great. hernando desotoshould be gottenassoon as possible. next(i just learned the escape trick from this forum i used tojust reload to get different fathers) well i stilled dont have a set order breuboff is great to make expert missionaries out of the petty criminals, and the guy who increases the chance for indians to convert, brewster can be good (i usually wait a bit for him as in the begining with my stratgey hes not neccasary.
hudson can be fun. revere can be useful. if you are goingto wipe out indians (which i only do when i play spain) get cortez. jefferson should bein your first fiveas he will help bring more fathers faster (the same holds for bolivar even more soifyou get him early and for paine less so.painecomes into his own later when your taxes are higher. for midgame the stockade builder isreally great. adam smith is one of this strategys goals (when your factories in one city are producing 72 finished good per turn the galleons are needed to take it away). and pocohantas ahh pocy baby this founding father is a timingthing for me. i build roads everywhere and liberally clear forrests so eventually the indians get really pissed (ill deal with indian strategies later) when their levels of anger are red red red its pocy time. in case you didnt know poy clears out all that negative indian vibe prestoall gone. penn well with this stratgy hes not really a big deal, i can usually buya boatload of whatever settlers i want so freeones arent needed but i wontknockthem either theyre free. bartolomo should be used when you have a lot of indians and the neccasary training facilities to teach them (formethiscanbeatough transitionbecause i will have lots of indians who are usually feeding my outlying cities not to mention that until i have found and trained a bunch of field experts the indiansaremy planters etc. drake is good here if you have lotsof pirates (i will usually have a few for their speed factor).
magellans ok ( though only really neccasry if you cannot reach the high seas from your homeport).
late game. stuye is needed to keep a good war economy, the guy who lets you trade with foreigners is ok(they dont give as good of trades thoughbut during the waratleastyou can get more supplies).personally i never boycot taxes so fugger is worthless (i want paine to be great) knowing where the other cities are can be useful(though when play america i know where they are alredy). franklin isgoodifsomewhopersistson attacking you or you get a warmonger king. and ofcours theres washington. i get him in end game because im not a warrior in this game (except when i play spain)
the most important fathers are the politacal ones (all but franklin being really great). de soto and the stockade builder are great. all the religious ones are very useful. stuyevant and smith are integral to my strategies. and for warring drake and washington are great.

once you have the basics going you need to start more cities. at least 2 more foundries and at least one more supply city for eash resource. and lastly for cities you need to build a few stable cities. these are essentially cities to produce horses. at all those sheafs out west andall the greatlakes fish spots build cities and stock them with fisherman and farmers these and the foundries are your war supply cities

here is what i consider ready for the war (note this is actually so overprepared that i usually dont bother with the war which is really really boringand dumbimean all the expeditionary forces do is drop a load every turn usually at the same city, realy great stratgy ijust camp out with my cavelry and wipe them out every turn restock my horses and repeat yawn)anyway here it is...

i will have 8 finished goodcities,2 for each good (at factory level)with six experts of each craft, 5 or 6 field specialists of each type. i will have 3 foundry cities (or more) with nine backsmiths and 2 to 4 gunsmiths (with 2 arsenals). i will ahve around 5 to 7 supply cities and around 4 or 5 horse cities (by the way i will often start these early by sending out a scout and just have them farm until theproduce a citizen thenpack the scout up and start another). so somewheres around 20 cities. in addition i will have between 6 and 8 pioneers working constantly (thus the need for at least 3 foudries and 9 blacksmiths). every city at the time of war will have at least one elder statesmanwith all my eastern cities and other major cities having 3 (by the time the war is over every city will have 3 elder statesman). i will have at least one university and 2 colleges (by somewherein early midgame i will have a college so that i can train field specialists and other pros). i will also have at least one shipyard and usually 2 dockworks(one inthe gul fo fmexico the other in the north).i might also have 1 or 2 cathedrals (not that i really needthem but you ve gotto build something).
most of my mjor cities will be completly built up (nothing to build but artillery). every oneofmy coastal cities will have fortresseswith at least 7 artillery (by war time almostall my cities will be as built as i need them and will all be turning out artillery for the duration needless to say by wars end i will not be able to put artilerry on the field because i will have built too many and cant get more units, that goes for wagons and people from surplus food too not to mention anyone trying to leave a city). at the start of the war i will have 30 or so cavalry(dont forgetto spreadyou troops around when you declare revolution so that all will become contenintal soldiers). at this time most of my boats will be filled with horses (i will usually have my merchantman 2 gallions, 4 to 6 frigates and multiple pirates).every city will have a costom house (one ofthe last things i build beforethe war). in regardsto the custom house, as much as it makes trading easier it is also more expensive usually( ibelieve the cutom house take 50 percentso unless you taxes are high..by the way speaking of that once your taxes pass 50 percent they will start going down, ah the path to alt victory).

things to remember. just keepbuilding those cities until you have all the sites started some ofthem might not do much for yearsbut the liberty bells will keep addingup so that when you start to fill themout its easier. dont forget to develop your terrain. finding the bonus squares is a lot of fun (by the way if you cant find indian trainers make sure to get a regualar citizen to work on abonus squarethis increases the likely hood of learning from the land i believe plowing or roadbuilding depending will also increase the chance).
dont put off building the newspaper either this helps so much not only in getting fathere faster but in lowering tory status in the city the production rates goes up (beforethestartofthe war all my cities will be at 100percent).dont forget statesman (and elderstatesman) for the same reason. if you want to get all the fathers start your statesmen early and dont let up(it also helps during the war, i will usually get foreign aid within a few turns of starting the war).

indianswhat to do? indians are your friends (mostly), treat them nice. every indian village near my cities will get a missionary, it keeps them peaceful and brings you converts. do set up trade with the indians they will give you much better prices for what they want then europe example i will usually get 1000 dollars for in demand tabbaco. this is also the only use for tradegoods which get goodprices also, the indians will alson sell you a load for cheap every time you sell them something.in fact you should process as much as possible through the indians becase they buy dear and sell cheap. how to keepthem happy. give them something just givne them say 5 of what they want and they are happy, but just trading regular will work too. indians and guns. lot to be said here i never give the indians guns or horses, with my building so much they will use them against me (i shouldnt say never i have done the provacatuer thing to indians near other powers that can be fun).another thing indians get upset forevery load of guns brought in and for each artillery. so i only buy about 150 guns and never get artillery until midgame or later. if you dont have guns the indians dont attack as much. i just keep about 5 soldiers on standby (till endgame of course) when indians threaten a town i move them there. never attack the indians unless you want to wipe them out it just exacerbates the situation. remember to get pocohantas only after the indians are thourougly pissed just so the effect is greater and so it wont happen again as quick.
a thing about money. once your economy gets rolling and one of the pwers has left the new world stock up on money you want to have at least 10000 sitting around. why? so that the powerthat leftwill sell you mercenaries of course. often these will bealittlemore expensive but but them anyway (unlees its a really bad price) just to encourage them to do it againeventually when the price ofartillery is toohigh the price will be more reasonable.
well im tired sure i left out lots might get back to it some other time . hope this helped somepeople or gave you some new things to try. till the fireworks fly... later.

[Grand Dad]

Good of you to take so much pain to write that detailed 'walkthrough', I am sure all those new to the game will appreciate it :).
I have been playing it (after trying out the easier levels then as a Viceroy) ever since it came out.
For me it's about the best strategy game AFTER Civilization.

[blazer-glory]

Thought you guys might be interested in this...

http://www.freecol.org/

[Eagle of Fire]

I tryied it a little while ago. It looks like it been done by a young student and it's really not that great IMHO.

It's really not worth purchasing Civ III if you don't have it already only to play that colonization clone. It's not even well balanced either.

[velik_m]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Eagle of Fire @ Oct 14 2007, 02:20 PM) 316057</div>
I tryied it a little while ago. It looks like it been done by a young student and it's really not that great IMHO.

It's really not worth purchasing Civ III if you don't have it already only to play that colonization clone. It's not even well balanced either.
[/b]

What are you rambling about? Freecol is an open source remake of colonization (like freeciv). You don't need to buy Civ3 to play it. They aim to make an exact copy at first (save for graphics), and then improve it.

[Eagle of Fire]

Hummm... I thought it was that Civ III addon which was posted several months ago. The graphics are very similar.

Sorry for that.

[Grand Dad]

Whatever your opinions be for me Colonization comes next to Civilization I....the other Civs III (with its two companion PTW & Conquests) and IV too don't compete with it despite their updated technologies!
Try the Map for Col. on Civfanatatics!

[Sid Meier's Fan]

For me Colonization ha ssomething special, that makes I love it more than any of the civs. I don't know what is it, maybe the trade with specific goods, maybe the final great war for independence or maybe the enjoyable graphics (of the DOS version, I hate the Windows one). I really love that woodcutter with red hat.

Only Alpha Centauri is for me as great as Col. I loved that the factions where differencied by their ideology and the military workshop, that allowed you to produce the exact unit(s) that could crush your enemy.

I have expected to see the detailed trade system and the workshop features in CIV III and IV. The first has been introduced in part with the special resources, but the second one seems to be forgotten... I would like to equip my fur armored warriors with just researched axes, for example.

[I missed! (Sid Meier's F]

I didn't remember to say that time ago I read Coloniaztion wouldn't have never a remake for political reasons.
That is, teh slavery was not included in the game, and this was one of the big critics against this game. Seen this, the designers consider thatnot including slavery will make some people angry as well as including it. That's the reason Col will never have a sequel. I don't know how to solve this problem, but I think it's consequences are very sad...

[Grand Dad]

What makes you want Slavery included...it's one of the plus points in Col. no slavery...no civilwar! There's another game North and South which deals with the American Civil War over Slavery...if you can get it perhaps you'll like it :)! I didn't!

[Eagle of Fire]

This is a very stupid reason not to make a game. Refusing to include historical elements only because it could ruffle the feathers of a few people is like trying to erase from the history books something everybody else know happened.

If you are not consistent with your past, you won't be able to be consistant with your future either... Stupid, and sad... :wallbash:

[Japo]

I don't think this is a reason why the sequel wasn't made. I can believe it was considered, but not that it was the reason enough to abort a project. If they had really had the idea and the investors, they would have sorted that out somehow, maybe in a stupid way but still.

[Mighty Midget]

Is there a way to start further north or south? Every single game throws me straight into the swamp. Seeing food is quite essential, it's rather annoying that the food tiles are always out of reach unless I want to spend 100 years sailing around looking for a tiny spot not occupied by another European nation.

Also: Any hints on how to start the game, building your first colony and all? What priorities should be made? Any swamp tile better than another swamp tile? I always figured tools and food were the most essential things to get sorted out, but it looks like I'm wrong...

EDIT: What's the deal on "diplomacy"? As far as I can gather, the other nations are the only ones who can approach you without declaring war. If I try to approach their units, I'm asked if I want to cancel the treaties. What the hell is that? Furthermore, because of that, they can demand you move your units away from their colonies, while you can only go to war to _try_ to remove theirs... That's more than just a bit odd. Is there a way around this? Is "diplomacy" a one-way thing here, the AI can "talk" to you, but you can only shoot at them? This is no good at all.

[Japo]

@MM:

That misconception of diplomacy is the same as in Civilization and its sequels (at least 2 and 3 that I know), you'll have to live with it, no game is perfect. :wallbash:

About starting region, see this post (http://www.abandonia.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=165&view=findpost&p=292702). If you're really fed up with sugar cane, mosquitoes and malaria (kidding there are no mosquitoes nor malaria in the game), I wouldn't worry about losing some turns sailing north and south, in the highest difficulty levels the rival nations could swarm you militarily the same even if you're really fast developing (because basically they cheat). So just start with the lowest difficulty level for now, and if you want better terrain by all means do sail across latitudes. Besides rum will always be cheaper to sell than coats or cigars, although that doesn't prevent you from making huge profits sooner or later, since there are no costs in this game.

About development strategies, I'm sure I didn't followed the optimum one but it went along with my existing obssesive disorders. I kind of preferred starting with one strong colony instead of trying to occupy large regions quickly, others might favour just the latter. But I think my strategy will be better for you for the moment being, it would be silly trying to expand when you can't make one single colony work. Even though this forced my first colony to be able to eventually produce everything necessary on its own, it's not that difficult, even in that DAMN tropical region, provided you choose the precise spot for the colony and prepare the terrain, and you start with one pioneer capable of carrying out five operations (100 tools) which is enough for the couple of squares a small starting colony needs before it can start to produce her own tools.

I don't consider tools to be a priority (others might disagree), as I said the starting pioneer has enough to do the initially necessary work for a small colony, and once he spends them he turns into a colonist you can use for other profession. Also since the first colony should be on the coast, you can rely on fish for food; you can keep doing that even for a big colony, maybe adding just one square of farm, and when choosing the spot for the first colony it would be good if it was adjacent to two fisheries.

One working algorithm for building a colony could be: choose a nice spot, somewhere in the coast, adjacent to a fishery or two, with at least one hill or mountain square or if impossible another one that will be able to yield ore (ask the Terrain Advisor); you won't need to start extracting right away though as I said. Variety is a plus but the settlement can still turn eventually into a large and rich self-sufficient and exporting colony, even if the rest of the squares are ALL DAMN rainforest or marsh or whatever. And of course try to seize some other extra squares besides the fisheries. It wouldn't harm that your colony was adjacent to at least two sea squares even if you plan to farm from the beginning, because enemy ships like to sit next to your colonies and if there's only one entrance square you won't be able to go into or out of your own colony, except by declaring war, and that's pretty suicidal at the start.

Found the colony with your soldier --but be ready to draft him back once you have more colonists, it's the least defence you'll need (I myself also like to buy one artillery with the first 500 I earn --then a privateer with the next 2000). With the pioneer perform these operations:

- If your colony is placed on a forest square, deforest it. This will increase your food input, by a quite good amount now in the beginning relatively speaking. It will also GREATly decrease your vulnerability towards those thievish Indian attacks (yay!).

- Plow that same town square: yet more food that will be very welcome in this hardy beginning (yay yay).

- Build a road for the first or only square you'll be using as source of wood; consult the Terrain Advisor as to which square will yield more, of course choose a square with the prime timber extra if there's one, or just grab one of those DAMN tropical forests if they're all the same.

- You can now either plow (deforesting first if necessary) one square for food farming (you can always turn it into commodity farming in the future if you've got a big food surplus), or you could as well build a road in the square you'll be using for ore, deforesting first if it's a forest (better hills or mountains if possible). But it's not necessary preparing the terrain to increase ore extraction right now, you can perfectly do it after you've started to produce your own tools, since so few are needed.

Once you've done what you feel is necessary, you can as well keep a few tools so that you'll be able to build one or two facilities needing tools with no need to wait until you produce your own or buying them in Europe. So there's no more need for a pioneer for now, so get him another job inside the colony.

One colonist should be employed at getting food for the colony. At the start you can use one land square for that. (Note: Later in the game a colony with a big food surplus is an inefficient one that could be farming commodities and turning them into manufactured goods [rum, cigars...]. Even now you don't need a big surplus, just enough to feed your colonists, besides at the start immigration is stronger without your needing to promote it.)

The first priority after <strike>producing enough food</strike> not starving is building. So get one colonist and have him chop trees. If you can't afford a second one as carpenter yet, the same guy can switch job into carpenter once you're warned that the stores are full of wood. Even if you've already got a carpenter it won't be able to process wood as fast as it's produced, once the stores are full you can employ him elsewhere --as carpenter for example--, and get him back to the woods once he's needed again because there's no timber left.

My first building is usually the docks so that I can start fishing for food once I need more than one square's worth of food. The second one is the lumber mill because without it the carpenters' production is just ridiculous; it's not the first one only because you need three inhabitants to be able to build it. The next one could be a school, then

One thing you should consider is employing one colonist as stateman as soon as possible. It will eat just two tons of food and it will benefit you greatly, not only producing liberty bells but also very much improving your prospects for that particular colony in the mid and long run. It will be a long time though until you can afford a specialist for this (you'll have to hire the first one in Europe --although you can train the rest yourself at a university).

As soon as your colony is producing wood, liberty bells, and not starving (yay), start sending free colonists to visit the indians so they can learn some profession. If you erase the training of colonists keep at least one of each kind even if you don't need that now, save them for later and they can still work as non-specialists (you'll have to be content with this in many cases until much later). If the indians offer you a profession you don't need AND already have at least one of those, you can as well refuse politely.

Hitting the mother lode here is getting a farmer and a a fisherman from the indians for free without need to hire them at Europe. Remember that once you get one specialist he can teach as many (free colonists or indentured servants) as you like in your colonies; but especially if you find more than one village offering fishermen, accept since you'll need lots of those. Once you've got the docks built and expert fishermen in all the ocean squares, and maybe an expert farmer or even more if you really like, you may get amazed at your food surplus.

The jesuit missionaries immigrating from Europe are more valuable than gold, always use them to found expert missions, they REALly make the difference keeping the Indians from getting raving mad. Don't bother with non-expert missions, they can't be upgraded later, the first impression is the lasting impression I guess.

Well in the end I've been more specific than I though I would be, you could well follow this kind of starting walkthrough, but if you don't I hope it helped you anyway. :)

[Incappucciato d'Ombra]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Nov 14 2007, 06:27 PM) 319210</div>
@MM:

About starting region, see this post (http://www.abandonia.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=165&view=findpost&p=292702). in the highest difficulty levels the rival nations could swarm you militarily the same even if you're really fast developing (because basically they cheat).
[/b]

Eh eh eh... if you know "how"... you can swarm the fool (& stupid) european nation nearest to you even at the highest difficult level :ph34r:

As i wrote in the post cited by you there is 4 entry point, 1 for each nation (but only 2 available for the player in random map). Now an example :

if you start on location X,42 you know that there is an european nation who started on location X,56 (other 2 starting location are too far away). Just sail south-west for 2-3 turn, place the first colony around location X,48-52. Contact the europan nation... in this condition he ALWAYS offer peace.

Take in mind that at higher difficult level, AI tend to create 2 colony since the beginning (but not always) this means ... weaker colony and no military unit :whistling:

At this point the European Nation will tend to improve the economy (but beware... this is true only for few turns) instead of military... build a little military force and you will be able to conquer the 2 enemy colony and ALL of the other men that will be sended to create further cities :sneaky:

Generally i will be able to stolen from 7 to 12 unit from the stupid European Nation nearest to my capitol :w00t:

[Japo]

Yes but I myself don't like to exploit AI vulnerabilities on purpose, it's already bad enough that they exist, it kinda beats the game's purpose... :) But thanks for geekism's sake.

[Mighty Midget]

@Japofran: Thanks a bunch :) Your post is marked for future references. Very helpful!


EDIT: LOL Did anyone say the battle algorithms were flawed? I just lost a veteran dragoon against an unarmed settler! YAY! Man, this game is lacking.

[Grand Dad]

Oho! Mighty Midget you don't have to start where the game 'throws' you! If are willing to spend a few years just explore up North along the coast if start in the Americas! But I am sure you know that already, you didn't become a Mod. for nothing :)!

[Mighty Midget]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Grand Dad @ Nov 17 2007, 02:53 PM) 319446</div>
...you didn't become a Mod. for nothing :)!
[/b]

Ummm. no comments LOL Ok, I started on the fixed America map, and that was a whole different story. Much, much better. Still, the unbelievably crappy combat algorithms have put me off quite a bit. I don't see much point in building up an army to face the King's men, when a settler wipes out a veteran dragoon. That would mean I need like 20 to 1 and that's just too stupid, even for me.

[Magus]

Colonization - Whole Weeks of sleepless nights! I like this game till now and was very happy to find out, that there is a Remake. It's a open-source-game which is a very good adaption of the original. It is called Free Col. The Graphic uses the newest Graphics but all the principles which made it's "antique" forefather so fascinating, are also implemented in the New Version. :)

[laiocfar]

Hahaha, thats an small random factor, dont get mad about it.

BTW, King´s Army is easier to defeat than any of enemy powers. you only need to follow 3 rules: 1) Be ready, to be ready means to got endless stocks of horsies and at least 24 veteran drags and 5 artilleries by costal city. 2) Movilization of army, make sure that all the damm drags get unfortified inside 100% rebel cities, all arts fortified in costal cities, all ships in habor and get many forts as you can get. 3) Viciusly and fearless strike any attemp of beachead.

[Mighty Midget]

Random factor? It looks to me that the tile the attacker's on puts a lot of weight on the randomness scale. I found out (by reloading) there was no way in hell my dragoon could capture the settler, that is, not until I moved the dragoon to the next tile of same type, then I always won.... That's not much random.

[Eagle of Fire]

That's not random, it's an intended feature. It's the colonial army bonus, you get an attack bonus equal to the defense bonus the King army usualy get if you attack from another square which is not barren or town. Meaning, you need to attack from a vegetation or hill square.

Pretty much like what the natives did IRL. They always had the advantage of the terrain.

[Mighty Midget]

No, the whole point is that the two tiles are exactly the same say, for instance both are prairies.

[Eagle of Fire]

THE ROYAL EXPEDITIONARY FORCE
The Crown’s military forces include a royal expeditionary force (REF), trained for operations into foreign lands. Almost certainly this is the force that is brought to bear if an uprising develops in the New World. This force includes infantry regulars, cavalry troopers, artillery units, and warships.

The units of the expeditionary force are highly-trained and well equipped soldiers of the King’s regular army and, under ordinary circumstances, are more effective than almost any troops your colonies can produce (see the Combat Strengths Chart).

REF Bombardment Bonus: In addition to their increased combat strength, the King’s troops are backed by superior artillery and naval bombardment support when attacking colonies. This results in an automatic 50% bonus when the King’s troops attack colonies.

The only weakness these troops possess is their lack of familiarity with the New World terrain. Thus, colonial forces receive the ambush bonus when battling the King’s forces in the countryside (see Attacking and Defending).

Your Continental Congress report (see reports menu) gives you up-to-date information concerning the current size of the Royal Expeditionary Force.Colonial Forces Ambush Bonus: Like the natives, colonial units receive the ambush bonus when battling the King’s regular army troops during the War of Independence. This bonus applies only if the battle occurs outside a colony, in appropriate terrain. This reflects the King’s troops’ lack of familiarity with the terrain.

Colonization is the first game I ever purchased and owned myself. I played that game to no end in my youth, I know pretty much everything there is a need to know about that game. ;)

In resume: keep your cannons to defend towns, take your continental dragoons out of town to kill the King army. In the best scenario, the King army should debark away from your colonies and they'll never attack them.

[Driderman]

Looks like I get to tell something about this game that hasn't been mentioned yet. Yay!
Although, it is an answer to a question posted a month ago or so...

Anyway: There IS diplomacy in this game. It's just well-hidden. To initiate diplomatic talks with other Europeans you need to have a scout unit enter one of their colonies.
Don't bother though, I've played this game regularily since it was made and I've hardly ever used it as the options are very limited

Edit: Oh yeah, one other thing. I once played a game on the America map where I was closely 'allied' with the Arawak indians and at some point during the game they actually went from 'Agrarian' to 'Advanced' and their village icons changed to the city ones used by the Inca! At the time I suspected it had something to do with gaining Adam Smith as a founding father, but I have been unable to reproduce the effect in other games.

[Eagle of Fire]

It probably have to do with the fact you traded a lot of goods with them in that game. When you do that, natives of that tribe tend to become very friendly and even assist you in combat. If you have master missionary, they tend to send you a lot of native slaves too. They're great at anything farming related.

I almost always played French, it happened often to me. I never seen a nation get up to advanced like you are describing though.

[Driderman]

I never really trade with the indians, except for horses and muskets if I need them to fight someone. My goods are usually sold through custom houses, so I doubt that was the case.

I know they'll send a lot of converts (not slaves), I tend to use missionaries a lot since it's cheap labour. Good way to get rid of Indentured Servants and Petty Criminals too, making them missionaries.

I suppose it might be a bug, but it just doesn't seem like it.
If I remember correctly, I had a road connecting their capital with one of my cities and it (possibly) happened around the time I built an Iron Works, possibly in that city.
That may have something to do with it I suppose.
In any case, I'm trying to see if I can make it happen again in the game I'm playing now. Got Adam Smith, got the road connecting, haven't built an Iron Works yet but a Textile Mill. Nothing has happened yet though...

[Eagle of Fire]

I usually never use untained missionaries. Their work is often sloppy at best. What I do with petty criminals and identured servants is make them scouts or soldier. Scouts can be promoted at a treasure coin event (and some native village too I think), and soldiers eventually raise up to veterans once they have enough experience.

Identured servants can be trained at a native village, in the same way plain colons can.

It's the easiest way of getting rid of them I've found while playing. Otherwise, untrained missionaries often make the natives angrier over time, and training petty criminals and indentured servants at universities (or school house) take forever...

[Incappucciato d'Ombra]

promoted at a treasure coin event (and some native village too I think)

A promotion to Seasoned Scout can occur each time you visit an Indian Village for the first time, generally only 1 time for each indian nation but if you are lucky enough, especially in random map, even more than 1 time.
This depend on the specific "way of life" of each Indian Nation. To give an idea :
Iroquois, Apache & Sioux : very high possibility to obtain promotion
Cherooke & Tupi : from medium to high possibility to obtain promotion
Arawaks : not sure, but i think medium
Incas & Atzec : i think ZERO or near zero, never happen to me even in random map where sometimes each of this nations can have 20 and more village :eek:

In addition, each village has its own specialization, so may happen that 1 or more village has "seasoned scout" as specialization and possibility that a village gain this specific specialization depend on the "way of life" of the tribe and obviously on the number of villages.


About this :
they actually went from 'Agrarian' to 'Advanced' and their village icons changed to the city ones used by the Inca! At the time I suspected it had something to do with gaining Adam Smith as a founding father,

EoF is right, level of trade is the key ;) But not only trade between your nation and indian nation, even other european nation that trade with the indian nation, support them with musket and horses, AND horses/muskets stolen by the indian will count.
As for Adam Smith... not sure of this but i think that each Economic Founding Father and general prosperity of your nation (or european nation nearest the indian nation) will count, but the role played is minimal (near to 0).

[Driderman]

So this has happened to you as well?

[Eagle of Fire]

Damn... With all this talk I now want to play this game again. Where's my copy? :p

[Driderman]

I know this place where you can download it, Eagle.... :rolleyes:

[Eagle of Fire]

What? Where? I so want to find that place! :p

I already have it installed since a long time. It never leave my HD. ;)

I started a newgame on the lowest difficulty rating, to get me back to speed. Nice to see that all what I learned something like 15 years ago easily come back to mind while I'm playing. I have a nice little nation now, looking good for indenpendance in about a hundred year from now. :D

[Incappucciato d'Ombra]

So this has happened to you as well?

Yes, about 50% of the times i'd played :eek: (i always trade tons & tons of goods with indians).
Furthermore, if i remember well, 1 time happens that 2 indian nation had his civ level improved in the same game (call me the "indian civilizator" :cool:)

[Driderman]

Right, so I guess we can rule out the possibility that it's a bug, concerning the indian civilization advance... As for that link for Colonization, I was actually under the impression that I downloaded it from Abandonia, my comment was meant as a joke. Although it seems now that I did not seeing as there is no download link for it...

Are you sure this game is ESA protected? Underdogs has a download for it. I'm pretty sure I found it on some other non-warez site though...

Edit: Oh, the Underdogs link is the Windows version... I hate that one. It works just fine, but I can't tolerate the graphics

Link deleted as requested

[Luchsen]

:eek: Please delete that link. It's not protected, but sold at CDAccess.com (http://www.cdaccess.com/html/quick/colonpj.htm) [2] (http://www.cdaccess.com/html/quick/colonpr.htm) and Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000EX111U/sr=1-1/qid=1199999250/ref=olp_tab_new?ie=UTF8&coliid=&me=&qid=1199999250&sr=1-1&seller=&colid=&condition=new) [2] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0002Z26MS/sr=1-2/qid=1199999250/ref=olp_tab_new?ie=UTF8&coliid=&me=&qid=1199999250&sr=1-2&seller=&colid=&condition=new) [3] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000EHI2VI/sr=1-5/qid=1199999250/ref=olp_tab_new?ie=UTF8&coliid=&me=&qid=1199999250&sr=1-5&seller=&colid=&condition=new). The buy it buttons together with the buy links got (accidently?) replaced by the ESA buttons during the relaunch.

[laiocfar]

Random factor? It looks to me that the tile the attacker's on puts a lot of weight on the randomness scale. I found out (by reloading) there was no way in hell my dragoon could capture the settler, that is, not until I moved the dragoon to the next tile of same type, then I always won.... That's not much random.

Never checked it but it looks like anti-S/L device. It saves that randomness even if reloaded.... i am just saying, i clueless about the attacker´s tile... the defender´s tile is very important but attacker´s.... well as i said, i am clueless about attacker´s tiles.

[Wicky]

I heard about Sid Meier, that he's got an official sequel to Colonization in the works and the Civilization 4 graphic engine is used. It is said to come out in the 3rd quarter this year, with (hopefully) a multiplayer option.

[laiocfar]

That will be a good new.

[Eagle of Fire]

As I already said on AR Forums (http://www.reloaded.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=6866&hl=):
I am also waiting, horrified.

Colonization is NOT a Civ clone! I am profoundly disturbed by the thought it will use the same engine...

Locomotion, the sequel to Transport Tycoon, is one of the most boring game I ever played. MOO3, the sequel which supposedly "renewed" the franchise, is one of the most boring game ever. UFO: Aftermath, which was supposed to be the best sequel of UFO: Ennemy Unknown, is also one of the most boring game I ever played.

All those games have one thing in common: they tryied to bring a 2D concept to life on a 3D engine.

They all failed. Miserably.

[Japo]

Ditto


If you've played Colonization (or Freecol ;)), you'll know that a remake that uses the Civilization engine must be compared to the dozens of already existing Civilization (II, III and possibly IV) fan-made (http://www.civfanatics.com/) scenarios in colonial settings, and not to the original "Sid Meier's Colonization". As I said in my Freecol review, the dynamics in Colonization were completely different from all the Civilization series, Master of Magic etc. etc.


From my Freecol review in AR:

Some of you will remember Sid Meier's Colonization, back from 1994. It was one of the descendants of world-famous Civilization, and arguably the most original of them, introducing in the field of strategy games concepts that regretfully haven't been revisited. [...]

For the ones unfamiliar with the original Colonization, the very basic ideas are similar to many "4X" and "God" games: build cities and fight with units. From this point on, however, this game departs from the cliché and turns into much more than a Civilization clone with a colonial setting.

[Rickoooo]

I can't click at the "no go" download buttom, does anyone know why?

[velik_m]

I can't click at the "no go" download buttom, does anyone know why?

Learn to read.

[dosraider]

It means that you can't download the game, it's not abandonware (yet).
Maybe in time ......... it can change, maybe.

And no, I don't know when it will become abandonware, really not.
Can be within the next ten minutes ... or within ten years.

[Eagle of Fire]

They are working on Colonization II... You can expect the game to stay protected for an ungodly amount of time from now on, unfortunatly...

[dosraider]

Or they could release it as freeware to advertise Col2, as they did with .... with ... damn, it's really too late here.

[Edit]
C&C lolz

[Eagle of Fire]

That was in another time, Dosraider. Nowaday, they'll never consider doing that. There is much more publicity and, more importantly (for them), money to do by releasing it as a console game or by selling it again!

[_r.u.s.s.]

i disagree.. deus ex has been recently given away for free in order to promote the newest upcomming one

[laiocfar]

I think as russ, they will surely release it for free as promotion of the sequel. Maybe it become protected again since the co. denveloping the upcomming one just got the licence.

[Japo]

I think as russ, they will surely release it for free as promotion of the sequel.

Just like Railroad Tycoon... This would be sweet since it would be a Windows port and it then wouldn't have the annoying memory limitation on number of units in the original DOS version.

[Fubb]

Bethesda softworks made "The Elder Scrolls Arena" free for the 10th aniversary, and cus Oblivion was coming out.

Dues Ex is free now because of Dues Ex 3 coming out (can't wait)

and...nah...can't think of anymore. I was goona say Populus, but...no...

[Eagle of Fire]

Well, I sure would be glad if it happen. But don't keep your hopes up yet...

And BTW, I'd never consider playing a "Widozed" version of Colonization. If they work up the code to make "minor changes", they'll never simply stop there and will most probably end up breaking up the great balance already present in the game...

[velik_m]

Where have you guys been? Colonization was ported to windows in 1995.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?name=Colonization+for+Windows

[Japo]

:o Thanks man.

Where have you guys been?
Playing Col for DOS. :unsure:

[Eagle of Fire]

I bought Colonization for DOS in the early '90 and it never left my HD! :p

[Japo]

What I'd really want to know is whether this Windows version doesn't have a limitation on the number of units that can exist, like the DOS version has. Since Windows 3.x worked in protected mode there's no reason for that limitation to exist I guess; but it could be that they didn't redo the code enough and it's still there.

I know many won't have encountered this limitation even in the DOS version, since creating hundreds of units isn't the way this game was designed or is supposed to be played. But there are just so many successful games I can play before I look for more extreme challenges. :P

It would take a long time before a game reaches the point where you aren't allowed to create more units, and by that time it's a big letdown, so if someone knows please tell me.

[ShadowBlade]

Great news! :nuts:

The version of Colonization that comes with the PC gamer demo disc is a custom install of DOSBox.

It has an installer/uninstaller and should work perfectly with Vista/Windows 9x/XP.

We will be releasing it for free online in the near future.

[The Fifth Horseman]

What is the relationship of that site with the copyright owner?

[ShadowBlade]

Oh, I'm sorry. I should've explained further.

Apolyton is a Civilization series fansite.
2K_jason is Jason Bergamn, a representative of 2K Games.
2K Games has been the publisher of the entire Civilization IV line, including the upcoming Civilization IV: Colonization.
Civ4: Colonization is a remake of the original Colonization, which uses Civ4's engine and will be released this September.
For more information:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/colonization

:laugh:

[csufr]

Where have you guys been? Colonization was ported to windows in 1995.

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?name=Colonization+for+Windows
Hello...I d/l the complete file and unzip all files but for some reason the game doesn't work. Any suggestions?

[Mighty Midget]

Hello...I d/l the complete file and unzip all files but for some reason the game doesn't work. Any suggestions?

"Doesn't work"? Details, please. Error messages?

Also: Did you try to d/l the game again? (The first d/l could be corrupt)

[The Fifth Horseman]

Satan has posessed your computer. You have to delete all your porn and then ask a priest to perform an exorcism.

... No, not really. But how the hell am I (or anyone else) supposed to figure out what's going wrong when your description does not tell us anything whatsoever? We're not psychic detectives here.

Please tell us:
1. Which version of Windows you're using
2. How (in exact steps) did you attempt to run the game.
3. What exactly happened when you did what you did. Any error messages MUST be posted verbatim - ie precisely as they appear on your PC.

[csufr]

I am on a XP plateform. I unziped all 7 zipped files and placed all files in a folder and ran the colonization .exe file. the file said unable to locate wing.dll file and another warning of can't locate colonization.exe file.

That's about it.

[The Fifth Horseman]

OK, that explains a few things. The WinG API was a very old thing... sort of a precursor to DirectX, actually. Microsoft dropped official support for it since Windows 98SE, but you can install it separately.

Go here: http://community.the-underdogs.info/pub/tools/other/
Download "wing-setup". Unpack it, run MSSetup.exe... and that's it. You're ready to run any games that use WinG on your XP machine no problem.

[zorrobomber]

Actually, Red Alert is free to copy as RA3 is coming, so we can only hope, SM follows this example.

[asingh]

I found three fountain of youths in one of my games! Best thing ever.. dont know if it was a glitch or a bug, but I had around 30 units waiting for me at the docks! Has this happened to anyone else?

[Japo]

It's not a bug, fountais of youth aren't unique, there are quite a bunch in every game. Yes it happened to me many times. :)

[Fubb]

Fubb wishes Colonization was free :(

BTW @ Fifth: Nice new Avatar

[Japo]

Fubb wishes Colonization was free :(

Well you have Freecol (http://www.reloaded.org/download/FreeCol/368/).

[Fubb]

Yes i know, I have it on mjy pc.

The one cool thing about Freecol is that theres so man new nations

But having the original would be nice.

Only prob wit freeCol are;

I wish it used more graphics like colonization, and that you could have hotseat games...

(or CAN you...?)

[irwanwr]

Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!

Review and Download (if available) (http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/59)

How can we download it and where, please?

[dosraider]

How can we download it and where, please?
You can not for now ....
Why can't I download game X? What does "ESA Protected" / "NO GO!" / "NO 90!" mean? (http://www.abandonia.com/en/faq) << click <<

[Japo]

How can we download it and where, please?
Not available here. "No go" means it isn't downloadable because it's either still sold or otherwise protected.

EDIT: Beaten by seconds

[TurinX]

Yay! 1st post since unprotection!:rocks: I've played the freecol version before, but it just didn't capture the "look and feel" of the original.

Now, if only I could figure out how to speed it up in DosBox...

[arete]

Use ctrl-F11 and ctrl-F12 to toggle speed in DOSbox. Happy gaming! ^_^

[Pex]

One of my favorite games ever. I dnloaded it yesterday and thought to have a little go, just for the old time sake. Of course, I spent a few hours playing and saying 'That's it, just one more turn.' :D

Now I remember why I failed a few exams back in 90ies :p

[jonahjuice]

I posted this in the Civ thread last week, I am an idiot. This is the right game thread.

I can't get this game to start. I am using DOSbox but every .exe I run from the download file just leads to a dead end.

the main .exe just gives me a message about Mini Extract Utility Version 2.04c

The install exe takes me to an install screen but I cant get it to work either.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for any help.

[Eagle of Fire]

Colonization is one of the few games on Abandonia which require that you install it before you can play.

To install this game, you need to run the install program from a floppy drive. You thus need to mount a "A: -t floppy" drive before doing anything.

Happy gaming.

[Alex24]

:mhh:edit COLONY00.SAV
go sector 20 offset 128 - 131
change to FF FF FF 7F:mhh::oh:

[jonahjuice]

Colonization is one of the few games on Abandonia which require that you install it before you can play.

To install this game, you need to run the install program from a floppy drive. You thus need to mount a "A: -t floppy" drive before doing anything.

Happy gaming.


How does one go about doing that? I haven't seen a floppy drive in years, and the last time I tryed a program like DAEMON but for A: drive it didn't work too well.

[dosraider]

In fact you don't really need to mount a floppy, the install also works fine from something as:
c:\temp\ or whatever.....

Simply unzip all the files to your dosbox virtual C folder in let say a \temp\ folder , run dosbox, mount your virtual C, do a cd temp and run install.
Just tested it out, works fine.
But yes indeed, also works if you mount the temp folder as floppy drive.

BTW, also accept 'soundblaster pro' when asked, that's the right one.

[Eagle of Fire]

Some old games absolutely need to be installed from the A: drive. Learning to do it the right way the first time is always the best solution if you don't want to run into problems later on. :sneaky:

How does one go about doing that? I haven't seen a floppy drive in years, and the last time I tryed a program like DAEMON but for A: drive it didn't work too well.

You just said that you use DOSBox... And I just gave you the command to mount the floppy... :unsure:

[The Fifth Horseman]

You just said that you use DOSBox... And I just gave you the command to mount the floppy... :unsure:
To clarify further:
The drive letters you assign to drives and directories in DOSBox have nothing to do with your real drive letters and your real drives.
You can mount a directory as two different drives.
You can mount it as a fake floppy drive.
You can mount it as a fake CD-ROM drive.
You can mount something on your X drive as C, your F drive as D, your DVD drive H as E and so on.

[jonahjuice]

Woah I am lost. I understand what you all are saying but I don't know what to type.

How do I mount A? And how to I get a file to play there if it is in a folder called Cdrive?

Thanks for being so helpful everyone!

[The Fifth Horseman]

mount a C:\CDrive -t floppy

[Pex]

I couldn't stop playing this game till I finished it. It took me several days, due to limitted time. I finished it with English, though I still prefer Dutch - the fact that prices of the goods change slow for them means that you're able to earn more money on resoruces like silver or selling trade goods to the Native Americans.

Honestly, I really enjoy the beginning of the game when you still need to explore the new world - afterwards it really becomes just a matter of producing as many Liberty Bells and veteran soilders as you can, preparing for the Independance War.

Tips: Peter Minuit should be one of the first (if not the very first) founding fathers you should include in your council, so you can use the land of the Natives without paying for it. Hernando de Soto is really useful only if you include him before you explore the whole map and the best early as possible. I like getting William Brewster early as well. George Washington makes winning the game much easier for you, since you can upgrade your soilders into veterans in a single battle, instead of having to educate them. You should wait with Simon Bolivar until your Sons of liberty membership is already quite high, so you could use 20% you get from him to push it above 50%. The remaining Founding Fathers really depend on your style of play (I never get Hernan Cortes because I don't go attacking Natives unless they attack me, but I always get Francis Drake, cause I like using privateers :D).

I also like to save the game as soon as I start it, then explore to find the best place for my first colony and then reload that first game and go straight to that place. May sound a bit like cheating, but it makes initial development faster ;)

[Oskatat]

discussion on founding fathers :)

minuit is pretty useless, he doesnt prevent the indians getting angry about you using the land, just about you taking the land in the first place. If you use minuit a lot, you'll have a lot of indian raids. Better is to find spaces between the native settlements, or take them out anyway.

de soto is great, with the alway positive rumours. fountain of youths and one of the seven cities really make for a good start. Washington is a good help for training your soldiers. The two i like best are stuyvesant and Franklin. One allows trade with the home country even during independence war and allows for custom offices (trade without ships), and the other means that everybody offers you peace and european wars dont affect you. All the others depend on your playing style. However, hernan cortez works great with de soto. You find a treasure, move the scout, build city, free transport! And afterwards, you abandon the town, resurrect the scout, and off you go again. You'll go through a lot of city names though

starting places. Well, in random games, you'll see for yourself. In america, up north is great, as is down south. The islands are a bit tougher but you can make a lot of small towns and get a fast hit in the sugar market, plus your towns are usually safe from natives. You are much more vulnerable to other europeans though, so get Franklin!

Dutch are good to play with, since their market holds better and you start with a bigger ship. The english colonies grow faster, and the french dont have to worry about the natives too much, especially not if they also get pocahontas. Since attacking natives earns you penalty points and is usually too much trouble compared to the rewards, the spanish make a convincing 4th place

[Eagle of Fire]

You didn't play Colonization to death like me (us?) if you can't understand the use of Peter Minuit. :p

Thing is, Peter Minuit is only useful if you plan to play a peaceful type of game. If you do (and the French are great at this), then Peter Minuit becomes almost absolutely necessary because otherwise you'll have to pay for land. Land which will either be taken by force, greatly alarming the Natives, or purchased with money you can't afford to spend in great quantities or at all.

The great power of a peaceful game with the Native come with trading wagons in mid and late game. By specializing a town in production of refined goods, instead of splitting it half and half with base resources, and by trading with the nearby native villages, you can up your production at least twofold and make more money in the process (from trading other goods with the Native to get your base ressources). Add to this a good trade wagon network between your own cities, and you're in business. This process can continue forever as long as you have the goods the Native are asking in exchange, and in late game you simply sell the same goods to the custom house for more profit.

The second great advantage of having good relation with the Natives is that they will help you defend against the Royal Army when you declare your independence. If you are like me then you probably will trade plenty of muskets (that you produced yourself) and horses (that you bred yourself too) to the Natives for ridiculously high prices. Once this is done, the Natives are able to breed their own horses and use the muskets you sold them about as efficiently as any other power... And they get in the way of the Royal Army quite nicely if they are in sufficient numbers.

[Oskatat]

i never said good relations were not important :p

i just never needed minuit to keep them

but yes, for the french: minuit, pocahontas and the guy speeding up conversion, crowning it, by the time you have enough converts, by neutralizing them to colonists possibly (as you know, missions will help them like you too)

[Pex]

I haven't thought before to use Cortez in that way - great idea. Going through many different names of the colonies doesn't bother me since you can always change them. In this last game I played I indulged myself conquering New Amsterdam and changing its name to New York :p

I never use Benjamin Franklin since I'm always at war with other European countries. I attack them as early as possible in the game and abandon their colonies using the people to bolster mine. Later I'm more selective, cause if they build a stockade, you cannot abandon the colony and to be honest, places they choose for their colonies are often ridiculous.

Speaking of stockades, Sieur de la Salle is another of the Founding Fathers that I always select, cause it saves a lot of building time (colonies with 3+ pop automaticly get a stockade). But once I have him, if I'm conquering another colony that has 3+ pop and no stockade, I make sure I leave only a couple of colonists in it before I end the turn. Providing that I want to abandon it, of course.

[PixelDao]

I played this game so long ago I can barely remember it. I can vaguely remember something about winning or getting my independence faster or something because I had a lot of politicians. I can't remember why it was important to have them though.

The graphics were a little too chunky for me. I liked Civilization I a lot better.

[marko river]

Colonization is one of the few games on Abandonia which require that you install it before you can play.

To install this game, you need to run the install program from a floppy drive. You thus need to mount a "A: -t floppy" drive before doing anything.

Shouldn't this be stated in game review under "How to run the game"?

[Pex]

It could, but as it is, you don't need to mount a flopy drive to install the game. I did installation from c: to c:. Maybe we should just add that it's a game that you need to install first, unlike many that you just unpack and play from dosbox.

[Oskatat]

I never use Benjamin Franklin since I'm always at war with other European countries. I attack them as early as possible in the game and abandon their colonies using the people to bolster mine. Later I'm more selective, cause if they build a stockade, you cannot abandon the colony and to be honest, places they choose for their colonies are often ridiculous.

Speaking of stockades, Sieur de la Salle is another of the Founding Fathers that I always select, cause it saves a lot of building time (colonies with 3+ pop automaticly get a stockade). But once I have him, if I'm conquering another colony that has 3+ pop and no stockade, I make sure I leave only a couple of colonists in it before I end the turn. Providing that I want to abandon it, of course.

franklin only makes them offer peace, no call in accepting it untill they have no more nice targets to attack :)
I used to like de la salle, but he quickly becomes annoying and there are often better options around. Why annoying? when encountering silver rich lands, i tend to keep a farmer, a stateman, a soldier and, surprise, a silver miner, to make mobile silver mining camps. With Sieur, i cant abandon those cities anymore when the silver mine is exhausted. Yes, you can still mine some silver there, but its better to move on and build a city there, a real one, better location chosen etc, later on

[Wicky]

1) Open a savegame in hex editor
2) Search for the name of town
3) From the first letter of the town's name, go to offset +82(hex) and change byte to 00.

Voilá, the stockade will be gone and the city can be disbanded.


Many consider this cheating because it involves hex editing, but not me. If you follow the game rules and conquer the town first, then you may disable such a gameplay flaw that doesn't allow disbanding. If the game rule that says "no disbanding of towns with a few wooden planks as defense" would make any sense, then they shouldn't have built a rule that you can abandon cities with shipyards, fur factories or ammunition depots either!! :wall:

When I see an enemy town with stockade, then I just get artillery, bomb it out and conquer it, then save game, hex the stockade away and disband it, because on second thought it is allowed.

[Eagle of Fire]

The rule which prevent you to disband a city with a stockade already present is a gameplay rule. It is intended that way to prevent abuses like you are yourself refering to: conquer a city only to move huge amount of colons to bolster your own cities.

It always been plainly explained for me since I started playing. I think there is even a reference about this in the manual. And since this is intended gameplay behavior, I have to say that it is indeed cheating. (As a general rule of thumb, if you need to use a hex editor to change something which affect gameplay in such a way it can be used to boost your score then I always consider that cheating anyways.)

You have to remember that Colonization is more a simulation of the conquest of the new world than it is a Civ remake. A lot of options and gameplay decisions were made to make sure that the game would be true to history, and this is what make it so different from Civilization but at the same time so alike.

This said, I certainly won't stop you from doing it again and again if it strikes your fancy. ;)

Edit:i never said good relations were not important

i just never needed minuit to keep them

but yes, for the french: minuit, pocahontas and the guy speeding up conversion, crowning it, by the time you have enough converts, by neutralizing them to colonists possibly (as you know, missions will help them like you too)
I have never found Pocahontas and the guy speeding up conversion any good or even slightly usefull. Pocahontas is not useful for me since I usually always have very good relations with the Native, and I don't like converts much. Since expert missions already give out a fair amount of converts, I usually have more than I wished I would.

Not going for those two founding fathers allow me to explore way more interesting options. Even a frigate is better than them, as it can be very useful against privateers and the Royal Army.

[Wicky]

It is intended that way to prevent abuses like you are yourself refering to: conquer a city only to move huge amount of colons to bolster your own cities.

Hmm, but on second thought you must admit, that you can move all colons except 3 to your own cities. For example when you conquer a town with 15 colons, you can move 12 out.

:doh:

[Pex]

Most of the time I don't even bother with missions, cause I don't find converts that useful and even if you get that other guy that turns them into colonists, they still keep coming from the village with a mission afterwards.

I never thought of making 'mobile silver mining camps'. Not a bad idea, although unless I'm playing with the Dutch, price of silver usually drops down to 1 long before I exhaust the mine (maybe one of less realistic parts of the game, considering that price of ore never drops as fast as silver).

I'm quite mean to other European powers. I buy a privateer as soon as I can and then pester their poor ships as soon as they arrive to the New World, not even letting them unload new colonists (by which time I have already conquered their existing colonies). And because of the way the game works, they always arrive on the same spot, so you can set up a nice ambush. Then when I need extra colonists, I bring my dragoons and let the ship unload their colonists, so I could capture them.

[El Quia]

Yeah, privateers are so great, I love them! I love to steal the other powers' cargo and sell them in europe or to the natives and just make profit without investing a single coin (except on making the privateer). They are just so fun!


Now I want to play Colonization again :)

[Eagle of Fire]

Hmm, but on second thought you must admit, that you can move all colons except 3 to your own cities. For example when you conquer a town with 15 colons, you can move 12 out.
This is historically accurate. For example: Relocation of the Acadians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relocation_of_the_French_Acadians).

However, even with deportation, it was impossible to simply fully abandon a city. The whole point in conquering cities was to claim the land around it, and there always been a need for a minimal amount of people to maintain the infrastructure in the city when it reached a critical point in size.

[Oskatat]

i never use pocahontas or the conversion guys either, but missions do help your relations with natives and lower costs of having them declare war on someone else. You can always disband the converts when you dont need them.

and on pestering the other european powers, a privateer with 2 dragoons doesnt lose combat points, but can follow their ship to the home port, unload, take ship and take city. I've chased the english all around the map by now

also, on the silver, dont sell unless you got 100, or unless some other power is selling silver as well. also, markets recover. If you are the only silver guy, consider holding your silver for some time to get the market to rise again

[Zerqent]

Did my best game so far. 90% / 3020 points at conquistador level. Finished in 1646. I kinda regret that I overwrote my savegame though, since I was generating lots of gold each turn I could probably have boosted my score by waiting to declare independance/wait to eliminate alle the Torys. I was pretty lucky and actually found 7 fountains of youth, I am used to just finding about 2-3 of them :p

I usually play the dutch and settle in south america. I like the map where my merchantman start in latin-america, and use this to kill of the other power which lands there (usually the spanish). I then travel south and kill the english and finaly settles with about 6 colonists. This pretty much eliminates all competition from other powers, since the last people (the french) are settled in North America and will not come and visit you.

Some tricks:
Trading with the inca capital is great, sell them tobacco (for about 1000-1200) and trade goods (800-1100). You will be able to buy 100 silver for 25/50 for 100 which is great in the start of the game. The price in europe will crash pretty fast though.

A capital can train multiple colonists to professionals, which is something I didn't know until recently. At conquistador level the incas will train expert farmers which is just awesome.

All in all this is just an excellent game - the worst thing about it is probably the unit limit which prevents you from building a 'real' america =)

[WillBKK]

The fountain of youth is one of the best random treasures you can find :D


if it wasn't for that fountain I would have pretty much lost by now!



Good game, I like how different it feels to Civilization, despite appearing very similar in terms of graphics and play mode

[rug]

They put the Dutch instead of the Portuguese?!?!? F*cking dumb americans!!!

The Portuguese colonized Brazil!

Sid Meyer's just dropped very low in my consideration...

Typical culture-less cowboys!

Games with poor historical research are just frustrating: this one gets score 1.

[Wicky]

We heard ya. Now calm down!

[DarthHelmet86]

They put the Dutch instead of the Portuguese?!?!? F*cking dumb americans!!!

The Portuguese colonized Brazil!

Sid Meyer's just dropped very low in my consideration...

Typical culture-less cowboys!

Games with poor historical research are just frustrating: this one gets score 1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File: Dutch_Empire35.PNG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dutch_Empire35.PNG)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File: Dutch_Conquests_Brazil_Caribbean.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dutch_Conquests_Brazil_Caribbean.png)

I have not studied Dutch and Portuguese history but the Dutch where in the Americas, as well as around the world Colonizing.From the wiki they even had trouble with Portuguese settlements rebeling against them.

On a side note a simple edit of a text document can allow you to change any of the countries names and colour. I quiet often changed the English to Australians. Try giving this game a fair go, it is an awesome game, if you don't like the history element, play it as a custom map, with your custom made country.

[Commentoncolonization]

I keep reading in this thread that colonization is "from the same people as civilization." In actuality it is not. Sid Meier actually had nothing to do with this game. His name was plastered on it simply to sell copies. As such there are a handful of nuances and problems we don't see in civilization games regarding problems with the AI and game mechanics. It's still an enjoyable game though.

[DarthHelmet86]

I would like to know where you are getting your information? Colonization was made by the same people as Civilization, MicroProse published both of them, Brian Reynolds along with Sid Meier made the game. You do know that more then one person makes a game and that Sid doesn't have to do everything to get his name on the front.

Having things different from another game by the same people doesn't mean anything either, Pirates! is also a Sid Meier's game and that has a lot different from Civilization. I haven't really noticed there being any problems with this game, it all seems to work as intended.

[Eagle of Fire]

What I really noticed while playing this game (a game that I played very extensively) is that it is not plagued by the problems usually found in the Civilization series.

And that, by itself, make it more unique than Civilization.

I wonder if they'll ever solve the bad randomness errors in Civilization? Colonization already did it right years before Civilization II... :rolleyes:

[jaegerdude]

I think that there is an entry in the manual stating that they added the Dutch rather than Portugese as the they were too similar to the Spanish.

[tristanzz]

You can exploit the dock prices if you have good cash on hand (say, 2000-5000 gold), no taxes yet, low prices on the equipment commodities, and some cargo spaces at the dock. The idea is to equip a whole lot of colonists at once with one of the possible items. The issue is that equipment prices don't respond to equipping colonists right then: not until 1) turns go by or 2) you buy/sell commodities outright, using click-and-drag to your cargo holds.

So for instance, use your funds to put some new colonists on the dock. Finding a fountain of youth is an automatic ticket to ride here! Then, gear them all up with either tools, guns, or horses— tools might be best to start since each dude can carry 100 of them. A petty criminal can hold 100 tools just as well as anyone. You want to blow 95-99% of your money on new colonists and tools. The price of tools should not respond to this storm of activity until the next step.

The next step is buying more tools, actually, but this time we click and drag them directly into ship cargo holds. What this does is cause the prices to respond to all the buying you previously did. The price should start skyrocketing with every purchase. You can Shift-click-and-drag to purchase one tool at a time in this step, and you can stop buying when the price stabilizes.

When the price seems firm, and hopefully a lot higher than when you equipped the colonists, you can sell all the colonists' tools back and make a tidy profit. Afterward, click-and-drag the cargo tools back into the market, one at a time, and prices will crash again. This cycle is repeatable.

You may find that prices do not crash all the way back down to their original level. The price of tools, guns, and horses have strong upward vectors in the European markets that prevent this. You can still make a lot of money, however, and with enough colonists and some creativity you can overload these vectors and make the price rocket all the way up and crash all the way back down, allowing you to acquire unlimited cash. Totally breaks the game, but it's just something I wanted to bring up. You can only see a few colonists on screen, but if you recruit more, you can select and gear them as well using the keyboard.

[jasonmloh]

I think that there is an entry in the manual stating that they added the Dutch rather than Portugese as the they were too similar to the Spanish.

Yes I agree. I have the original manual that came with the floppy disks and there is a paragraph saying so.

[dan30]

I like playing Colonization as an economic game, the complexity of the many different terrains, commodities, and citizen types appeals to me. To avoid excessive conflict with other European powers I like to play on an island, or at least a peninsula connected to a continent by a narrow, defendable, isthmus.

Typically I select the "customize new world" option and set the land type to the "archipelego" option which tends to optimize the chances of finding a suitable island. Then I select "start in new world". The fixed "america" map doesn't really have any islands of an ideal size.

I generally cheat a little by saving the game on the first turn, then look around with my initial ship and colonists until I find an island I like, or decide the map doesn't seem to have one. In the former case I load my initial save and start over, moving immediately to the island I scouted; in the latter case I just restart the game and try again with a new map.

What I look for is an island or peninsula with about 20-30 total spaces, enough to support about 4-6 colonies. I consider ore to be the most crucial resource, so I generally want an island with several hills or mountains. A couple of timber spots is helpful, but not absolutely essential, as long as you don't clearcut all your forests your lumberjacks can harvest wood from any forest square. A silver node is nice, but more than one silver is fairly pointless as the price of silver will rapidly fall to almost nothing if you mine more than one. For a strong economy I like to have at least two of the four basic salable commodities available (of sugar, tobbacco, cotton, and fur), so I look at the terrain types and figure out which the terrain can produce. Rivers are great, but sadly rarely occur on islands; they are reasonably common on peninsulas.

Past a certain point, Colonization is not really a game where more is better. In the long run, your most crucial activity is inciting rebel sentiment, and the more colonies you build, the longer that takes. With 5 colonies I can generally position myself to launch a revolution by 1700. This is why I avoid bigger islands.

[Pex]

I generally cheat a little by saving the game on the first turn, then look around with my initial ship and colonists until I find an island I like, or decide the map doesn't seem to have one. In the former case I load my initial save and start over, moving immediately to the island I scouted; in the latter case I just restart the game and try again with a new map.
I used to do this cheat too, as in saving the game and reloading once I find the suitable place for the first colony. I don't go for islands/peninsulas, though I'll just go anywhere as long as it's good location (silver or ore, like you mentioned later).

I'm actually very aggressive player and I keep attacking other nations for a simple reason - I harvest colonists that way. 9 times out of 10 other Europeans would found a colony in a stupid position, so I capture it and then abandon it and move colonists to my colonies. Once they start building stockades, you can't abandon it of course (which is a stupid rule), so it's important to act fast, almost as soon as they settle. If you are lucky, their ships will deliver to you steady supply of colonists and founding their colonies close to you (often in the same spot over and over again). Interesting thing is that once you declare independence, the country you terrorised the most is most likely to offer you support to fight the crown.

What I look for is an island or peninsula with about 20-30 total spaces, enough to support about 4-6 colonies. I consider ore to be the most crucial resource, so I generally want an island with several hills or mountains. A couple of timber spots is helpful, but not absolutely essential, as long as you don't clearcut all your forests your lumberjacks can harvest wood from any forest square. A silver node is nice, but more than one silver is fairly pointless as the price of silver will rapidly fall to almost nothing if you mine more than one. For a strong economy I like to have at least two of the four basic salable commodities available (of sugar, tobbacco, cotton, and fur), so I look at the terrain types and figure out which the terrain can produce. Rivers are great, but sadly rarely occur on islands; they are reasonably common on peninsulas.
Yeah, it's disappointing how price of silver goes down quickly (contrary to historical facts where healthy supply of silver and gold from Americas was used to finance wars in Europe). But I do prefer to have more than one silver node, since it means that I can sell it quicker - as you would've noticed, at one point price of silver starts falling almost every turn, whether you sold it or not. If you're a Dutch, you can sell a few extra loads this way, before the low price makes it useless.

Past a certain point, Colonization is not really a game where more is better. In the long run, your most crucial activity is inciting rebel sentiment, and the more colonies you build, the longer that takes. With 5 colonies I can generally position myself to launch a revolution by 1700. This is why I avoid bigger islands.

A friend of mine used to play always with two colonies only and managed to finish it quite early. I on the other hand, always liked to play it for the sake of playing, not as much as getting a good score. In all honesty, my favourite part of the game is exploring, sending my scouts around, chasing rumours, meeting different native tribes. Then I like harassing other Europeans :p as described above, or with my privateers if they have established a foothold (and I'm willing to leave them alone). The actual production is my least favourite part - I usually end up trading raw materials only and the only production line I fully develop is ore -> tools -> guns, usually in one colony only. That colony then becomes "military academy" with university and a veteran soldier in there (and of course, some free colonists within the colony, learning).

All in all, it's a great game (if not ideal, but is there such a thing?), and I spent lot of nice moments playing it. Even now, I like to start it sometimes and play only for a hundred of turns or so to see how I would go with settling and what the world is like.

[Japo]

Once they start building stockades, you can't abandon it of course (which is a stupid rule)

I'm sure Stalin would agree that it's stupid refraining from forcing people relocate from their established homes into the wasteland. :bleh1:

My playing style evolved over time from towards bigger, but there's a memory limit on the number of units that can be created. It really takes the point out of playing 4X as in Civilization. It's global (for the sum of unit of all nations), so it may not bother you if you take people from other nations but don't create a lot from food surplus.

I like all my cities ending up with the optimum (maximum) size and producing the maximum amount of everything, including liberty bells and hammers, and with all the colonists specialized in their trade. I think the management system encourages this. Later when I have some of these colonies and I want to found a new one, I set my universities to churn out specialists for the new colony. So thanks to their universities my old colonies allow me to set up a new one and make it 100% as well in a very short time.

I also like to have a big food surplus, and if I don't have another need at the moment I train my new colonists to be soldiers. I also equip them with muskets and horses as soon as I have enough for them, and I end up with ridiculously big armies. But it's now when I hit the memory limit --a message is shown every time a new colonist would have been born. Though with so many soldiers and the colonies also churning out artillery (which also counts towards the limit) after they've built everything else, I have no problem conquering cities from the other nations. But then I like to optimize them with specialists just like my own.

[Eagle of Fire]

But I do prefer to have more than one silver node, since it means that I can sell it quicker - as you would've noticed, at one point price of silver starts falling almost every turn, whether you sold it or not.
Actually, if you sell too much of anything then you also drop the prices yourself every time you sell a load... ;)

[Pex]

Actually, if you sell too much of anything then you also drop the prices yourself every time you sell a load... ;)
I totally agree, but I noticed that after a few sold loads, price of silver just keeps dropping regularly, whether you sell it or not. So, if for example, you can bring silver every twentieth turn, price drops for example, four times and then fifth when you sell it, but if you can bring it every tenth turn, price drops twice, then third time when you sell it, and then twice more (before twentieth turn) and then once more (sixth time counting from the beginning) when you sell it. So, although in the end price drops one extra time, you get more profit from selling extra load at higher price.

Another thing I do is, once I get scouts to the new world, I get their horses for one turn and leave them in the colony, so I can start my horse production.

@ Japo
I'm sure Stalin would agree that it's stupid refraining from forcing people relocate from their established homes into the wasteland. :p

I'm sure he would, too ;) Although, in my defence, most of the time I don't send them to wasteland, but to one of my colonies. But I still think it's just stupid how other Europeans tend to choose extremely useless location for their colonies. Sometimes it's just a matter of moving them to the next square... And I think it's stupid that stockade prevents you from abandoning. Just raze the bloody thing and bring timber with you ;)

[TheChosen]

Colonization is now available on GOG. For 5,99. http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/sid_meiers_colonization

Also, this is only the second classic Microprose game to be released on GOG (first being Darklands). Hopefully this means Civilizations will be finally added, or some really forgotten games like Sword of Samurai.

[DarthHelmet86]

Look at the town names in a few of the screenshots, hints of games to come? Or just GOG teasing us again. :smugulon:

[The Fifth Horseman]

Or it's an in-joke on "Games you'd like to see on GOG". Well, you can see them on these screenshots. :p

[DarthHelmet86]

That is pretty much what I said. :p

[Robin Patterson]

Colonization is now available on GOG. For 5,99. http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/sid_meiers_colonization

Also, this is only the second classic Microprose game to be released on GOG (first being Darklands). Hopefully this means Civilizations will be finally added, or some really forgotten games like Sword of Samurai.


If you don't want to spend even as much as that, try FreeCol - a free fan-made remake that's now very close to the original but with a much more usable and informative interface.

For Civilization, there are at least two free fully playable fan-made remakes: Freeciv and C-evo.

Find links to them all, with other info, on the Civilization Games Wiki: http://civilization.wikia.com - where there may even be links to free versions of the official Civ and Col games

[MikeSol]

I can't believe there is no advisor screen showing what the Indians I just visited can train me in and what they want to buy. I need this advisor screen more then all the ones that are already in the game put together!

[Japo]

If I recall correctly, you can get that information with a scout

http://www.colonizationfans.com/strategy/faq.html

[MikeSol]

If I recall correctly, you can get that information with a scout

http://www.colonizationfans.com/strategy/faq.html

I know the scout provides that info. But I don't need the info just then. I need it later when I have forgotten what that indian village gives and wants. Not to mention all of the other indian villages I may want to train from or trade with. It is unbelievable that there is no advisor screen KEEPING TRACK of this for me. I would trade every other advisor screen just for this one.

Does Civ 4 Colonization keep track of this information?

[Japo]

It requires a scout for you to get the information, why should it be easier? Why would your advisors know if you don't do what's necessary to find the information out? There was no Internet in colonial America :P

I don't know about Civ4

[MikeSol]

It requires a scout for you to get the information, why should it be easier? Why would your advisors know if you don't do what's necessary to find the information out? There was no Internet in colonial America :P


I'm fine with the scout getting the info. *After* I get it, the game should be keeping track of the info I got. As it stands, I have to write it down myself. It is obvious to me that this info needs to be logged by the game. I'm amazed with all the advisor windows in this game, that there isn't one for this.

[Japo]

OK I think I now get what you mean. I didn't remember if the Indians' merchandise demand can change over time, I thought you meant if it did you should get updated information without sending another scout. But yes, it would be nice if the information you did get from scouts were stored and viewable via an advisor.

[tristanzz]

If you forget, and don't mind doing something bothersome and underhanded:

1. Save
2. type ALT+WIN and plop a scout down beside the village
3. Visit it, and
4. Reload

[MikeSol]

If you forget, and don't mind doing something bothersome and underhanded:

1. Save
2. type ALT+WIN and plop a scout down beside the village
3. Visit it, and
4. Reload

Well, I write it down so I can't forget. :) Also, I play the Windows 3.1 version of the game and the cheat codes don't work in that version.

[peyre]

(I know it's been a few years, but this is worth mentioning.)

I agree, MikeSol. If I could change one thing about the game, I would have some of that basic information show on the right when you highlight a settlement: what it wants & offers, and what (if anything) it will still teach. Not having that information would tell you you haven't visited that settlement yet.

A great workaround would be something like the Gold Box Companion (http://gbc.zorbus.net/), a program running in a separate window that reads from the game and displays information for you. This could show you a copy of the map--what you've explored so far--and clicking on an Indian settlement would show the information about it. For people with two screens, that could run in the other screen and you could just mouse over to it when you need some quick info.

[Blake00]

I can't believe there is no advisor screen showing what the Indians I just visited can train me in and what they want to buy. I need this advisor screen more then all the ones that are already in the game put together!

Yes as someone who heavily trades with the natives this is one of my biggest annoyances! Having to constantly send scouts to find out whats going on.. arrghh!

Thankfully we're not alone as the FreeCol Project (https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/) team fixed this in their Colonization remake so not only is there a dedicated Indian Adviser that shows all the villages, what they train and what they trade but you can also click on any village on the map at any time to get this information too. See my attached pics from a recent game I played.

[Blake00]

There's a new Sid Meier's Colonization style indie fan game out called 'Treasure Fleet'. I haven't tried it yet but it looks pretty cool.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1120280/Treasure_Fleet/

I'm thinking about hitting the button on it as it's currently on sale thanks to the steam autumn sales however there's next to no reviews on it. A presumably one man show making a game as complicated as Colonization is no easy task (eg the FreeCol project (https://sourceforge.net/projects/freecol/) I mentioned above has been going for 20yrs haha) so it could be not so great lol. It sure as hell looks pretty cool though! The Col addict in me is super tempted to try it asap haha! I love the retro 90s Col & Civ2 feel in his pics..

https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachments/ss_49d90bdb0fe5c472bc88f4162701b3e989c4ba5a-1920x1080-jpg.540051/

https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachments/ss_8fcc72e22c1ae52e1d9baf85d58d13187e3aa9fd-1920x1080-jpg.540052/

[Japo]

Tempting indeed, and now discounted at 4 €... It looks really interesting, but there's not much information, like I could see in a let's play. From what I see, one weak spot is the sound and music. And the graphics are high-res versions of early 90s graphics, but that's good for us.

I wonder how this compares with FreeCol. For me the original Colonization was perfect, except that you could easily exceed the 640 kB memory when you expanded a lot and created many units, and the random combat resolution was too crazy.

[Blake00]

Tempting indeed, and now discounted at 4 €... It looks really interesting, but there's not much information, like I could see in a let's play. From what I see, one weak spot is the sound and music. And the graphics are high-res versions of early 90s graphics, but that's good for us.

I wonder how this compares with FreeCol. For me the original Colonization was perfect, except that you could easily exceed the 640 kB memory when you expanded a lot and created many units, and the random combat resolution was too crazy.

I decided to buy it but haven't tried it yet. Yeah I tried to find let's plays too but had no luck. I might do a video review of it on my youtube channel once I've tried it. I think I saw someone post on reddit that it had good music, but yeah nothing can beat Jeff Briggs's original Colonization soundtrack, it's easily one of the best video game soundtracks ever made, I love it so much.

I played FreeCol a year ago (using their latest nightly release betas (https://github.com/FreeCol/freecol/releases) instead of the old 11.6) and loved it. The vanilla game plus some of its mods add a lot of quality of life improvements to the gameplay and there some great bonus features I enjoyed (8 nations, huge custom maps, forest planting, better combat calcs, train indian converts to colonists, more advisors, better indian trading & village info, and more I'm forgetting). I doubt this 1 man project can rival them for that but ya never know. A talented modder recently posted a new mod (https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/discussion/141200/thread/658935e76f/) for freecol on their sourceforge forums that adds 4 more European nations to the existing 8 meaning you can now have 12 player Colonization games on huge maps with extra indians. Dream come true for Col fans like me that like super sized games!

[Japo]

If you do a video review please post it here :)

I tried Freecol long ago and didn't finish the game, but I think I just dropped it for no reason. I've always found annoying software that requires Java, although I guess it was a handy way to support any OS.

What I want is a clone of the classic that fixes those two only flaws, allows me to expand as in Civilization,, and confronts me with AI players that know how to expand in the same way.

EDIT It had been so long that I played Freecol, that I didn't remember I reviewed it for Reloaded :lol:

http://www.reloaded.org/download/FreeCol/368/

[peyre]

Yes as someone who heavily trades with the natives this is one of my biggest annoyances! Having to constantly send scouts to find out whats going on.. arrghh!

Thankfully we're not alone as the FreeCol Project (https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/) team fixed this in their Colonization remake so not only is there a dedicated Indian Adviser that shows all the villages, what they train and what they trade but you can also click on any village on the map at any time to get this information too..
True, FreeCol has done that really well. The Indian villages even have names now, and they show you all the information you need. FreeCol even allows several new colonial powers, some of which should have been there in the beginning: Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Russia (well, Russia shouldn't be there IMO, since it didn't reach the New World until about the time the game ends).

However, I've never really enjoyed playing FreeCol. I'm not a fan of the isometric projection, it's lacking the music, and important game mechanics are different: the price of tools and muskets doesn't rise in the same way, the War of Independence is much tougher, etc. And the developers weren't too friendly when you pointed out things like that. Also its development seems to have petered out.

Most of all though, it just overall lacks the look and feel and the gameplay I've come to love in old Col. I want to play Colonization for DOS with a few improvements, not a different but related game. And FreeCol (or Civ IV Col with fan mods) is a different game.

[Blake00]

If you do a video review please post it here :)

I tried Freecol long ago and didn't finish the game, but I think I just dropped it for no reason. I've always found annoying software that requires Java, although I guess it was a handy way to support any OS.

What I want is a clone of the classic that fixes those two only flaws, allows me to expand as in Civilization,, and confronts me with AI players that know how to expand in the same way.

EDIT It had been so long that I played Freecol, that I didn't remember I reviewed it for Reloaded :lol:

http://www.reloaded.org/download/FreeCol/368/

True, FreeCol has done that really well. The Indian villages even have names now, and they show you all the information you need. FreeCol even allows several new colonial powers, some of which should have been there in the beginning: Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Russia.

However, I've never really enjoyed playing FreeCol. I'm not a fan of the isometric projection, it's lacking the music, and important game mechanics are different: the price of tools and muskets doesn't rise in the same way, the War of Independence is much tougher, etc. And the developers weren't too friendly when you pointed out things like that. Also its development seems to have petered out.

Most of all though, it just overall lacks the look and feel and the gameplay I've come to love in old Col. I want to play Colonization for DOS with a few improvements, not a different but related game. And FreeCol (or Civ IV Col with fan mods) is a different game.

Sure thing, will post the video when I get it done haha. :)

Yeah when I played FreeCol I loaded a Colonization soundtrack youtube video and just put that on repeat.. problem solved haha.

I didn't try the game for many years until recently due to being put off by the graphics, however I found that while the graphics don't look all that great with a randomly generated map (the patchwork quilt effect is very obvious with their graphics style), they do actually work quite well with pre-made maps.. eg I love how the big Americas map looks, the South American jungles and rivers are gorgeous! But yeah its sort of a shame that it doesn't support different view points and tilesets like FreeCiv does eg you can easily switch your FreeCiv game between different classic Civ1 style, hexagon style and Civ2 style. Maybe I'll ask the devs about if that's in the engine since I believe FreeCol originally branched out of the FreeCiv engine a very very long time ago.

FreeCiv is actually alive and well! They're just doing a terrible job in the presentation department. After a while I got so annoyed I started pestering them endlessly about updating their website and updating their sourceforge page with details on their beta releases on Github that almost no one knows about! I talked them into letting me create a new sticky WELCOME & INFO thread that gives this vital info to new comers.

https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/discussion/719661/thread/2d0063a3bc/

I also got them to update their downloads page on their website to mention these beta downloads as they are way newer than the last stable release back in 2015 lol!

Thankfully my endless pestering has also got them building a brand new website. I'm going to give them some HD pictures and videos form the big game I played a year or so ago to use on the new site once it's done.

Oh and there's a still a bit of a healthy modding scene too as this talented fellow has created my dream mod which adds another 4 nations to the game which as you pointed out already had an extra 4 meaning you can now TWELVE PLAYER Colonization games.
https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/discussion/141200/thread/658935e76f/

He also created a cool map pack that contains a ginormous full Earth map which added to his other mod would indeed allow you to play a almost Civilization like game racing against 12 other players to colonize the world. With so much land space the Indian nations are super powerful too!
https://sourceforge.net/p/freecol/discussion/141200/thread/9eb4fbdf/

[Blake00]

Oh and while I'm here...

Does anyone here know if there is a way to take control of one or all of the Indian nations? In Civ1 you could take control of the Barbarian/Pirate red slot by using a Hex editor or save game editor so I'm wondering about Colonization.

When activating cheat mode in Colonization the 'set human player' option predictably only allows selecting the 4 European nations so that's no good. I could swear that around 18 or so years ago I saw someone talking in a forum about being able to do it via a hex editor but I can't seem to find anything now as any search seems to bring up conversations on various forums about playing as indians with the Civ 4 Col remake and not the original game.

I've managed to find an old thread (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/sav-hacking.5011/) at CivFantics and also a website (http://www.colonization.biz/hack.htm) that appear to be referring to what I saw all those years ago. Someone called 'EdBigHead' was able to hack the game and play as the Sioux. Wish I could find how he did it.

Guessing it would be glitchy as hell but would be interesting to check out and see how much I can get away with.

[Blake00]

I still haven't tried Treasure Fleet yet despite buying it sorry haha.

However as for the Indian issue looks like I've finally got my answer!

This fellow was able to take control of the Indians via a hex editor however it was sadly unplayable! This must have been what 'EdBigHead' did way back in the day. I'll have to follow his guide and have my own play around.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/colonization-playing-as-indians.632905/#post-15635536


Got a new problem though lol...

Does anyone here have experience with extracting graphics from the original Colonization? I've been discussing this over at CivFinatics here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/colonization-picture-viewer.256665/page-3#post-15649815

I'd love to get my hands on both the ColDOS graphics and also the enhanced (often higher resolution) ColWin graphics assets as I and some others have been thinking about trying to make a classic Col style Graphics mod for the excellent FreeCol project (https://sourceforge.net/projects/freecol/) (since it's graphics aren't always everyone's cup of tea lol).

Over at CivFinatics it's looking like the Dos version situation is under control and we can extract everything, however no one has had any luck getting into the 16bit dll files that ColWin uses to store its assets in.

If anyone thinks they can help with this please let me know! :)

[Blake00]

If it's of interest to any Colonization fans here I've created some social media groups over the last few months as it annoyed me that such a great old game had no presence on any of them!

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ColonizationGame/

https://i.imgur.com/saVdjhC.png (https://www.facebook.com/groups/ColonizationGame/)


Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ColonizationGame/

https://i.imgur.com/LOgDqoc.png (https://www.reddit.com/r/ColonizationGame/)


Discord:
https://discord.gg/CHcH75s

https://i.imgur.com/IUMWuJp.png (https://discord.gg/CHcH75s)

[DrWho42]

just joined the reddit and facebook group! :max: