Colonization
 

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)

Hold down the "ALT"-kay and tipe "WIN" for cheats ;)

Colonization is the oldest game from the "civilization" series of games that time hasn't affected it at all. Its still the same fun to play as it was 10 years ago

I agree colonization is this very much playable in contrast to civilization 1 and civilization 2. But it is only for lack of any newer games that do the same thing. Colonization has some serious issues. Primarily combat which is a lottery and the lack of adequate AI.

A question... apart from a armed revolution there is a choice of just requisting from the king your indepedence.... I never found out that option though :P is it there? Or am i mistaken and there isn't?

Hmmm... well.. in 5 yrs, all i know is that the AI-players have none-armed conflicts.. but you ALWAYS get attacked by the king... don't think there is any option, no...

In canadian release version you could have stay loyal to your king and live happily in monarchy forever until certain date.


So that option of non armed independence could be in there.

there was going to be an alternate way to win the game, i remember seeing the ending saying somthing along the lines of 'because youve been out there so long we decided to give u independance' ive never worked out how to make it happen tho, mabye it was cut from the final edition or somthing. Im pretty sure i found the alternate ending by looking around in the game dir but i could be wrong.

I discovered a fountain of youth, added 10 to my population :D .

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

It's funny when you wipe a country out once, then they come back and demand that you pay them loads of money so you just kill them all again :twisted: .

This game is DIFFICULT and i mean it, even at the easiest level it's extremely difficult to survive if u don't cheat, ah and those spanish forces looks like the whole galactic empire striking on you, the other powers look like kittens in front of the ferocious spanish army.
But it's a very addictive game and you have to select very your production and trade routes..... oh and something more be careful about the food supplies, do not overcrowd ur cities other wise you will need to use all the space for food production thus producing nothing!!!
my strategie was to use the capital as an overcrowded evolved city and get all the supplies from other cities and the capital as the factory and the final destination before going to europe, also try to create an army around your cities so enemy forces cannot hold back ur production (they fortify around ur cities and wait until u really starve and no production can take place before attacking you....it's like a boycott :P
Also it's a good idea to try and control the seas and hold back the trade of others......however it's very costly :?
Early in the game i like to get mounted scouts to find treasures and stuff.....it could really help you get an economical edge and develop more fast. Also push the other forces into the corner from the beginning....otherwise u will be the one in the corner and defending is hard
I rate this game with a 5!!!!! (but i hate loosing a frigate against a loaded galleon or merchant......how is this possible a transport-trade ship sinking a state of the art war ship???)

The game I played was a bit excessive, I found three fountains af youth and 2 lost cities worth (10,000 gold). It got to the stage where I could not see what people's professions were on the city screen because there were too many people standing outside the city.

This game is actually the first ever game I ever bought. I love it. :)

The independance thing, where you get independance without fighting the King... Did someone actually tryied playing the game even after the time limit? I think you are prompted with two choices at the end (End or Continue playing for fun). Perhaps if you did not manage to win the revolution and played until the game end (I know there is a time limit even if you continue playing), you will get your independance that way?

It would sure be too boring for me to even consider trying tough...

i was wondering if when this game first came out, did it not do so well or something... Civilization created 2 sequels plus the call to power and i guess alpha centauri and all... why didn't colonization get a sequel? In my opinion, someone could make some money simply by updating the game, improving the AI and add a few features (I'm sure its not that simple, but the idea is). I'm just wondering... what sparked civilization to so many sequels and colonization nothing...

Partially good question. I tried the game myself out some time ago, but actually didn't like it like Civilization. I think Civilization just has more charme about it, but probably that was rather some financial or similar reason for no sequels.

Colonization is in fact a sequel to Civilization. It's also similar to Imperialism in a way, so I doubt creating a new Colonization would be as popular than you suggest...

Well, thinking it that way, Master of Magic was also a sequel to Civilization. It's available on this site too. Although Master of Magic is rather a fantasy game which just uses many functions of Civilization in economics and the town screen.

i was reading that sid meier is working on a pirates! II (pirates! gold is like heroin), so colonization is the last classic sid game without a sequel. i would hope it is made, because colonization is super fun.
as far as winning without indipendence, i have never heard of anyone winning any other way. i would wonder what other option there would be because that is what everything in the game is setting you up to do. that is why i like civ a little bit better then col, civ always had at least 2 options, and 3 has a multitude.
furthermore, the dos version of col is better then the windows verison, imho.

Hi, I don't know if this has been covered in this thread already but if you want to make the game more interesting I found a few ways to do that. The game is actually endlessly customizable. Just go to the different .txt files and edit them and you can change pretty much whatever you want, from the cost of building something, the prices of goods, combat values, movement, create new units, the player races, how the prices change - whatever. The main file you're going to need to use is name.txt. Even if you're not using it to cheat you can basically make an entirely different game out of it. You might even be able to create new icons... never tried that.

I basically used it to increase movement for all the units because I thought it took forever to get across the screen and it allowed more tactical choices.

Just remember to make back-ups of your main files.

Hey, here`s a good way to balance the combats outcome, no more frigates getting beated by merchant ships :P

Another random praise:
I really like this game. It's been a tradition of mine to play one Colonization game every christmas (though it probably won't happen this year). By doing that, you get your yearly recommended dose of micromanegement.

I'm probably a lousy player, always playing on one of the easier settings, always with the Dutch, always playing in the same way. But since I'm doing it only once a year, I don't grow tired of it.

Oh, yeah... for some reason, playing this low-res VGA game on a 22" CRT looks even stranger than playing EGA Colonel's Bequest. :crazy:

It will be the biggest loss for players if Sid Meier doesn't make a sequel for Colonisation. I don't think there is a need to argue about Colonisation. Simply it is not one of the perfect games ever made; it is THE perfect game that has been ever made. Thanks for making this master-piece accesible for these soulless PC's.

While I do agree that this game is very good, even tough I might have a little bias since it's the first real game I ever played on PC and that it even been my first PC game purchase ever, I don't think Colonization really need a sequel since it was already copied from Civilization.

If you like Colonization, you might want to try out Imperialism. Same story, better colony management, better fights. :ok:

you guys have version 2.25 is it possible to get version 3 or even version 4 for the DOS version (it fixes that annoying freeze bug) and at the same time expands the amount of colonies you can have on the map and also quite a few other gameplay issues - also the computer AI is boosted to be tougher

Still you can goto sourceforge.net (open source) there is now a Coltoo (open source sequal that is at the beta stage not really playable to much but it is going forward)

guys goto this website for the colonization clone (called coltoo or col2) is actually an open source project - so if you are a programmer you can help out. Its not exactly a well advanced game yet but they are working on map generator at present and if you wish to follow this or help out goto

http://www.civgaming.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=14

Its aimed at being a sequel / clone of col 2 with a lot of new features planned.

it's a good game , but civ is better

combat is not random , i see some people have said it is , but it isn't

the only problem with this game is that at the higher levels you can't afford any sidelines like trying to conquer the other enemy colonies , your only goal is to prepare for war against your own king and the trade is too important in this game , you constantly need ships for trade and that get's boring

I think the game has a sort of random generator to generate outcomes like combat, events etc. To get a different outcome say in combat, get some other unit to perform a task like moving or pioneer work, then attack with combat unit. This should also work with events like the treasure found in lost cities (good for getting those fountains of youth). I wonder if this applies to Civilisation as well? It's been awhile...

Once you get Peter Stuyvesant(?) you get to build custom houses so no need for ships to trade. It's nice to maintain a state of war with at least one other nation though, they are a good source of colonists and combat training. Keep some veteran dragoons parked outside an enemy town, when they foolishly send troops to attack you, rout them and ship them back with a waiting galleon or caravel. LOL

Yes, micromanagement in Colonization gets ridiculous. I usually either abandon my games half-way through or start cheating to help me out. I don't go crazy with cheating, but I just try to eliminate the micromanagement. I can't be bothered to move tools around for construction and to educate people, so what I do is let my factories produce tools/horses/muskets that spoil because I don't ship them out and instead of it I cheat for as many loads of tools as I produce every turn in any colony. :D Same with education. I keep trainers in the amounts I think I need, but don't actually put any students there. I just cheat to make a colonist into a pro whenever I need to. Those two things make life a lot easier when I have a lot of colonies.

Me and My friend Jarkko, and probably many other colonization players, noticed 8 years ago that you can play HOTSEAT in COLONIZATION.
----

This is not an official HOTSEAT because it is based on a bug and has only LIMITED possibilities.

Start game normally. When you are choosing your country CLICK THE EMPTY AREA BELOW the english flag. After that screen gets messy. Press Enter.

And continue game normally. After the harbour-leaving-animation, when you are in actual game, save the game and quit to dos(box).

Start the saved game. And voilá, you have 4-players/countries HOTSEAT-play.

----
LIMITATIONS:
(POST FOR CORRECTIONS & ADDONS WHEN YOU FIND THEM! THX!)

- 4 countries are allways available (no less)
- Inca movement is visible
- You can't fight against other nations, except indians
- If ship reaches european port no message is given
- Diplomacy is still monolateral
- Four players sitting around of one computer not very comfortable, although social
- Number of Players: 2 or 4


POSSIBILITIES:
(POST FOR CORRECTIONS & ADDONS WHEN YOU FIND THEM! THX!)

- Indian massacre
- Independency rally
- Goldrush

FIX:
I meant CLICK below the Spanish flag.

For those who don't like micromanaging build one city up in northern Canada, preferably on a tundra ore square and next to a river. Build no other cities. Make all your money by selling muskets to the mother country. Build a fortress and Load the city with a dozen veteran dragoons and a half dozen cannons and with a galleon or two full of spare horses, declare independance, and laugh at the royal expeditionary force. It is also possible to pull this off in Haiti or Cuba.

Am I the only one who actually plays without cheating, and makes the whole fortune selling tobacco to the incas? :bleh:

Finished this game in every way possible except viceroy-spanish, spanish just sucked...
Dutch in south america all the way :ok:

I never even realized there was a cheat mode, but I can't say I've ever sold tobacco to the Incas.

Oh, and after a test I'll correct my one city plan to a full dozen artillery. You won't be the first to become independant under this plan either.

Didn't know about cheat mode either until reading it here. Though it would have been useful to know that multiplayer thing back when me and my friends played this game.

Tobacco to incas is by far the best trade I found in this game. A road to their capital and it's +4000 for 100 tobacco... Then sell trade goods/tools/horses (minding you won't have problemswith them in the future)/cigars, and tobacco again. Keep switching. Each train going there will make you nearly 7000 gold plus 100 silver, which in the beggining of the game is more than enough to get you started.

cathedrals need the church as a prerequisit and one of the founding fathers to enable them, like how smith allows factories. look in the description of cathedral for it.

AFAIK the is no windows version of Colonization - just use DOSBox.

erm, isnt "colonization" longer than 8 characters?

Not sure it needs a founding father, but needs 8 population in the colony (plus the church). Cathedrals are a waste of time anyway :P


Use "Colony", should be enough.

Isn't that upgrade iption for church?

As for game, do you have music on Win2K/XP?

There is also windows version of this game. With correct patch, it is stable on 2K/XP.

Absolutly, that's why the Colonization original directory is "colonize" in the same way that Civilization original directory is "civilize" or "civ".

well i remeber that game too! you can trade olso with the other nations.best way is to have some colonies in south and in north(to get all the produckts) and maybe one colony with no harbor as a stronghold for the revolution.start to fabricate guns as soon as possible, becasue they are also good for trade and yes build also ships the large the better!when the king army arives, destroy them before the can land.Good that the his troops do not know how to swim, however wet moskets(loaded from front by round bullets and gunpouder) do not work.forget the last part thats not part of the game.
be friendly to the indians, becase they can be good help to get cheap manpower, and are good troops for the revolution. :guns: :guns:

My Die Hard Tips To Win In Colonization No Cheating! :Titan:

1) Play with whatever nation you wish.

2) Play method: play like the French did in reality! - be friendly to the natives; - trade muskets and horses to natives especially those next to enemy cities! - make missions in all native camps in your territory (untill they get offended) --> Why all this trading weapons and horses to natives? Well, the natives in enemy territory will attack enemy colonies of course! This may also help them from becoming extinct. Your 'own' natives must also be armed. If an enemy invasion occurs, most times 'your' natives will attack the invaders if they invaders are numerous. You can also use a missionary to incite the natives into warfare against your rivals.

3) I never set up trade routes. Always use your first colony to ship stuff to and from Europe. Make your first colony like a capital: build most major improvements in this city. Keep the other colonies small and simple untill you really have time and money to improve them.

4) Warfare is not as random if you stick to the following rules: - make stables and warehouses everywhere, make sure you have plenty of horses when you start war; turning a colonist into a scout is the fastest way of moving a horse unit around, don't use a wagon for this purpose. - only attack with dragoons so you won't loose muskets.

5) When you have a carpenter, use him to build a lumber mill. You need 3 colonists in a colony but when you have switched to lumber mill order you can move out the other colonist(s), unless you have a stockade. When the lumber mill is finished, move the carpenter to the next colony that needs a lumber mill.

6) When most of your colonies have a lumber mill and have most basic improvements, switch as many to produce artillery. You can buy the first 4 or 5 from Europe but after that they get too expensive. If you have 4 or 5 colonies producing artilleries, you can get a nice colonial war going against the other European nations. If enemy nations ask for peace, give them peace and see if they will pay you any money. After they have paid you (or not), you can merrily continue war! This is one of the great things of Colonization: attack, make peace, blackmail them then attack them anyway. They will get weaker and weaker!

7) Later on in the game, as taxes get too high, trading with the natives can become very profitable.

8) Privateers are a must! Be sure to build a dock works first though. Privateers are the fastest ships and it's sure nice to capture loads of muskets and tools from your rivals. Keep 2 as a minimum and of course choose Drake.

9) Do NOT attack the natives, ever! If they are hostile, give them stuff for free or let them attack your settlements so they get it out of their system. It's safe to always unload your ships when they're in port though. Otherwise if they get damaged in an attack you will loose the ship load.

:ok:

:angel: Okay, here's one "cheat" for desperate people: :evil:

If you are presented with choices for the next Founding Father and you don't like any of them or you want to choose one specific FF who's not on the panel; press [Esc!]

The choice panel will disappear but the next turn it will reappear with new choices. Keep pressing [Esc] untill you get the FF you really want. This does not affect your Liberty Bell production (though I'm not sure, keep an eye on it).

I find attacking natives extremely profitable (annd fun too!) you can make lots of money from getting Cortez and going on a big genocide. This will give you piles of cash to fight your wars and, if you get a misionary following your troops around, you can get loads of people! :cheers:

I didn't know about trading with the Incas like that. I think I'd get a bit bored of that after a while. I always colonise NA because I like its larger size and variety of terrain type (most of SA will only produce sugar).

This is probably my favourite game of all time. The thing I think is most in need of improvement in an updated version is an Indian intelligence report that breaks each village down according to: 1) what skill can be learnt there (if it hasn't already been learnt), 2) what they would like you to sell them, 3) what they can sell you. This would be so much more helpful as currently, I have to do all this in a spread sheet.

Here are my basic (and general) strategies. Most of the strategies in Colonization revolve around comparing short term gains with long term gains. Don't be impatient. Also, it's about doing things in the right order, especially regarding which Founding Fathers you get. Finally, it's about trying to become self-sufficient in all ways (manufacturing, education, etc.) as soon as possible so you're not giving money to the crown.

1. Choose the Dutch, or perhaps the English. The Dutch not only start with a better ship, they have a major advantage with trade. Once you get further into the game and are producing a fair bit and trading with your home country, the bottom will fall out of the market (I think it does anyway because of your rivals). The Dutch aren't affected so much. The English get lots of colonists, but this may actually mean you have far too many to manage comfortably and your colonies end up extremely backward. I'm not so sure about the French, but I don't think their advantage is all that good anyway since if you trade with them normally and have walled colonies, you'll be fine against their attacks. The Spanish are just atrocious. You don't want to fight the natives, really.

2. When you build a colony, fully plow the colony square first. This will make the square more productive for food and a cash crop. This extra food allows it to support an additional colonist, which is very helpful early on. Later on, develop the resource squares.

Try to produce the things relevant to your colony first. The most important is by far the lumber mill as this improves your ability to produce other buildings. Next should be the following (in no particular order): docks, stables and school house -- all of these will assist your colony greatly. At some point down the line, you may need a warehouse, especially for your bigger colonies. Early on, produce a manufacturing building for the one cash crop a colony will specialise in (it's more efficient to have one colony producing cotton/cloth and one producing tobacco/cigars than having both producing both) and forget about building the other manufacturing buildings. Further down the line, improve your manufacturing industry and also develop your liberty bell production with newspapers and printing presses. You'll also want to at least build a college, if not a university down the line too as this will make training colonists much more efficient (and most manufacturing professions require college education).

I really don't go in for building a massive military force early on. Personally, I don't find the combat elements of this game to be that exciting that I like to just go off on a war or two, even if it's counter-productive. I will have one or two units to defend colonies, but everything else can wait. The resources that will go into building armies early on can be better invested. You should build wagon trains (not too many, too early though) as these are vital for trade.

3. I try to get three colonies up and running fairly early on, and then expand from there. I like to have two producing cash crops and the related finished goods (usually one is cotton/cloth), and one producing ore and tools. This means of course that you'll need to have access to the right terrain types as resource squares. From there, I gradually spread out to the point where I will have about two (or maybe three) colonies for each cash crop/finished product, and about two or three for ore/tools. This will give somewhere between ten and fifteen colonies, which will give you a massive economy. Any fewer than this and you won't be taking full advantage of things, any more than this and you may not be able to develop each to its full capacity. Make sure your colonies are all on the same land mass and connected to one another by roads, etc. This makes trade better, and also the WoI much easier. Furthermore, I like to have at least half of my colonies inland. This means they won't be accessible by ships, obviously, but it does mean they're quite likely to have Indian villages to trade with. I then move goods around between trading them with the Indians and moving any excess to the ports for trade with Europe (or manufacturing before I can build up my inland colonies). More than all this though, when it comes to the eventual WoI, your inland colonies should be safe. The royal troops will land next to coastal colonies and attack those repeatedly. This will leave your inland colonies safe for production and defence, and also mean you can then fight a guerilla war.

4. Get a few scouts and send them out to Indian villages (but don't start exploring Lost City Rumours until you get Hernando De Soto -- once you get him, go for it).

4. Use the Indians as much as possible. They will give you gifts and/or information, and they will also train your colonists. Some professions (the "planters") can only be gained this way. Trade with the Indians! You can make a lot of money and not pay tax on this. Basically, the tax you pay to the crown is used to raise the armies that will fight you in your War of Independence.

5. Regarding wars, it's fine to kidnap enemy colonists, but don't capture towns as any of the following usually apply: 1) they're a long way from your other colonies, which will make them hard to defend in the WoI, 2) they're in bad locations (islands especially are both hard for bringing reinforcements to in the WoI and also don't have enough land resources a lot of the time), 3) the computer often completely defoliates its colonies, meaning you'll have to bring wood in for construction (a major hassle), 4) the computer often has Indian converts (who will not be nearly as efficient as professionals), 5) the computer often has masses of poor colonists. All in all, captured colonies will be a major drawback for you.

Do not start killing the Indians off unless they're seriously hampering the expansion of your colonies! At the lowest level of the game, you get -1 score for each village destroyed, more at each higher level. As you get +1 per 1000 gold, unless you're getting 1000 each time you plunder, you're losing points. More than this though, the long term profit you will make from trading with the Indians will far outweigh any money you'll make from killing them. I personally don't arm them with horses or muskets though as in the past they have used these against me.

6. Once each colony is past its early stages, you need to start thinking about its liberty bell production. The drawnback of rebel sentiment is increased taxes (and I think increased royal military spending), but rebel sentiment makes your colonies more efficient at production, and liberty bell production helps you to get new Founding Fathers quicker. Once you get one colony with a university, you can start producing your own Statesmen, so this helps.

As far as Founding Fathers go, some are excellent no matter when you get them, others are very useful depending upon when you get them, and some are just terrible whenever you get them. I won't go into the middle or latter groups as there's too much detail. I will say though that generally, I don't worry about getting most of the religious FFs until I have everyone else.

Here's my pick of the crop: Thomas Jefferson -- get him first if you can as he increases your liberty bell production, therefore meaning you can get other FFs even quicker. Along with Jefferson, other FFs who increase your liberty bell production (such as Simon Bolivar and Thomas Paine I think, although I think you can't get Bolivar until near the end of the game) are very useful. Early on, two other "must gets" are William Brewster and Hernando De Soto. William Brewster stops you from getting any colonists from Europe who are criminals or servants. This might not sound like much, but basically, these colonists suck, big time. To be good at anything, they'll have to be educated (a tiresome process that slows down colony growth) or improved via combat (a general drain on resources). Brewster also lets you choose the next colonist to appear in Europe, which is a lot more useful than letting the computer do it for you. De Soto improves your scouts' abilities to get positive results from exploring Lost Cities (the differences are dramatic) and he gives your schouts an increased sight radius. Bear in mind that getting De Soto without Brewster will make the Fountain of Youth a real hassle, but getting De Soto after Brewster will make it a major windfall.

From there on in, it's largely a matter of your style of play, but I tend towards those who improve my liberty bell production, colonies and trade, not the warrior or religious types. Many FFs aren't useful until later in the game. Those I get early are: Hudson (sure, he eventually causes your furs to flood the market and become worthless, but he's great in the early stages), Pocahontas (pacifies the Indians until you can build up your defences), De La Salle (give colonies stockades for free).

Ultimately, you should end up with a whole lot of highly developed, heavily fortified (fortress, artillery, spare muskets and horses) colonies producing a lot of trade profits, with a sizeable force of mounted units stationed in a couple of central, inland colonies. When you start the WoI, the royal forces will land beside coastal colonies. Your colonies should be able to defend themselves until help arrives. You should then move a mob of about five or six units in to hit the royal forces in a guerilla war. In this way, it should take you one or two turns to destroy each landing force and you shouldn't have too many problems. It's only if the royal forces become entrenched, start taking out your own forces, and besiege too many colonies that you'll get yourself in trouble.

Your score is based on several things to be found on the Colonization Score report, but one thing not mentioned is to do with when you get independence, and the order in which each country gets independence. I think from every year prior to a certain date (1766?), you get one extra point. Obviously though, if you're producing more than 1000 gold per year via trade profits, it's better for your score to declare independence later. Balancing this though is the fact that your enemy powers are also working towards independence and will in fact do so (but they don't have to fight a WoI, they just get independence). I can't remember the bonuses you get, but basically, if you're the last nation to become independent, you get your basic score. As you go up the placings, you get a multiplier bonus, which is obviously very good if you're first.

They're the basics. I hope they help. If you want a far more detailed version where I break things down even more, e-mail me at shorbe@rocketmail.com

Nice work, and all stuff I'd go along with, though you didn't mention missionarries (very important if you're nice to the natives) and it is in fact possible for criminals/servants to become standard colonists simply by working, in the same way that a normal colonist can gain expertise in an area by working at the same job for a long time (though it's slightly more efficient to train them if I remember).

On Founding Fathers, the 2 you mention who deal with immigrants from the home country are even more useful if you play as england (since they get more colonists), and Pocahontas can be handy for tactical reasons (particularly as the spanish) - you can destoy irritating native villages and take their land, then have pocahontas reset all their attitudes to neutral so you don't need to destroy a whole nation/tribe. The FF who makes them give up their land for free is also handy if you end up coexisting with them closely.

BeefontheBone: If you can believe it, I've never used missionaries. I always thought they caused Indians to convert and join colonies and I have never wanted that.

As for colonists gaining experience in the field (if you'll pardon the pun), I've found this to be an incredibly inefficient means of training them. Having an expert in a school or college is much faster (although of course you lose that expert's production capabilities in the meantime...).

Yes, if you play as England, William Brewster is crucial ASAP as otherwise you'll get completely flooded by petty criminals and indentured servants. The other religious FFs I don't like. William Penn just causes way too many people to appear on the docks (especially if you're playing as the English). Juan de Spulveda and Bartome de las Casas I don't like either. I can't remember the fifth.

Pocahontas is really good, but I don't play an aggressive sort of game, so I use her mainly before I get Sieur De La Salle (who gives a free stockade to your colonies once they reach a population of three I think). With a stockade and a fortified dragoon in each colony, the Indians won't be able to do any harm, so it doesn't worry me too much if I generate alarm with the Indians (which happens fairly slowly). You're right though that she is good if you have to wipe out a village or two (which I inevitably end up doing -- if I play in NA, I almost always have to wipe out most of the Cherokee villages and a couple of Iroquois too perhaps).

Peter Minuit (the guy who gets you free Indian land) is actually not so good I believe. The land is free, but the natives still get upset if you take the land, so in effect, you may as well just take the land without him and get a different FF.

Someone else I don't like at all is the FF (Franklin?) who supposedly stops European wars from having any effect in the New World. This has never actually worked for me because 1) I've never been dragged into any war I didn't start, 2) at some point in the game, one of my rivals ends up pulling out of the New World due to the Treaty of Utrecht. In a way, I don't really care, but this means that the power pulling out (usually the Spanish) ends up ceding its colonies to another power (usually France) which then makes that power stronger (in terms of being slightly closer to independence).

Anyhow, there's heaps of stuff over at this page, which is where I learnt a lot of this from (although some things I disagree with the author on or they don't suit my playing style). I can't get any of the sub-pages to load though for some reason, which is really annoying.

Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but:

-what to do against other nations gaining independence first?

You lose points if you're not the first colony to gain independence. It's even worse if there's two nations before you.

My only solution for this: colonial war! Get their colonies and colonists before they start thinking of becoming independent. I guess you also do it more peacefully by watching your own percentage of Sons Of Liberty: once they're more than 30 %, other nations will start longing for independence too.

Once your SoL reach 50 %, the most miserable of your enemies will pull out of the New World and cede its belongings to another colonial power.

And indentured workers can be turned into full colonists by letting them get trained by the natives. Criminals they will not train however. But if you use them as scout they can still become expert scouts.

It shouldn't matter what nation you choose at the start. What matters is the way you play. Play like the French!

Microprose Veteran: I think it's a bad idea to capture enemy colonies, for reasons I already listed. The only exception is a hit and run mission whereby your opponent has enough forces in the vicinity to retake the colony -- capture it, loot it of units or cargo (having a ship or two nearby is handy), clear the specialties of all colonists you can't take with you, and then get out of there, leaving the colony extremely backward and dashing your enemy's plans for independence.

However, I'm all for capturing their colonists outside their colonies. In fact, this is good for two reasons. One is that you get more colonists, the other is that you can arm your criminals and servants and send them into combat. They can be upgraded one level (criminals to servants, servants to free colonists, free colonists to veteran dragoons) if they win a fight. George Washington in your Continental Congress makes this automatic every time they win a fight.

Of course it matters which nation you start as! Play is most important, but starting nation does affect things a lot. The English get more colonists (so more and bigger colonies or fighting forces faster), the Dutch have a better ship (which makes transporting cargo a more efficient process) and get better prices on the European market. The French get a hardy pioneer (development of resource squares and building roads occurs faster) and better Indian relations. The Spanish have better fighting abilities against the natives.

If one does indeed play like the French, then the Spanish have no special abilities. Both the French and Dutch have distinct starting differences to all other players that give them a slight leg up early on which can be exploited and maintained. The French relations with the Indians become irrelevant after the early stages of the game, whereas the advantages of both the English and Dutch really make a huge difference across the course of a game. Having 50% more colonists has to make a difference. Likewise, having more money (even if it's only 10% more) means you can buy more things and make developments your opponents can't, and sooner, and this compounds to the point where you can use it as extreme leverage on an opponent. For instance, the most extreme example is if you get Henry Hudson and flood the market with furs (not to mention filling your warehouses pretty quickly), you can be making twice as much money as your opponents, and you can still scrape a modest profit out. If you were playing with anyone else and got Hudson, your fur industry would become a huge waste of time. This is particularly true if you're playing against the Dutch and they start flooding the market; it can tear the rear end out of your economy and put you at a major disadvantage.

Shorbe: thanks for your detailed reply.

Here's why I still think my way is also good, if not better. :D

I play this game like a strategic warfare game, meaning the advantages etc. really shouldn't play a big role.

Let's see why the Spanish and English have no real advantages:

-Spanish get advantages in fighting natives, but you still need to build your military
-English get more colonists, but they're useless if you can't defend them (strong military)

If you're playing the French or Dutch, getting more colonists is just a matter of capturing them.

The advantages of the French may lessen, but if you got Jean De Brebeuf those expert missions sure will repay your investment! I play without hitting [Esc] when choosing Founding Fathers so if you play as French then Brebeuf will appear earlier.

Capturing colonies is a viable strategy, as long as you make sure they're within reach of your fleet and military of course. At the start, if you're lucky and captured an enemy's main colonies, you can increase your military and wait till they build a new colony again - then capture it.

The main thing in this game is military. It's also a fault in the design I guess, because military units don't require any support once build!

You will understand that for me the economics is just a side issue. I play mainly to wage war. Especially at the start, I stockload on muskets before they become too expensive. Don't forget to supply the natives with horses and muskets though. They'll wage war on your enemies and leave you alone as long as you respect them.

After I have built lumber mills in a few towns, I let them produce artilleries to be used in my colonial warfare. You can buy the first 6 or 7 cannon in Europe.

Microprose Veteran: I guess we just have a different approach. I'm not really into the military side of it. I build up my military towards the end (only building enough to defend each colony from attack before then), but only once my colonies are very well established. I'm all about the development of colonies and micromanagement of my economy. I like to end up with about a dozen colonies of size fifteen at least (excluding any fortified military units). These bring in several thousand gold each turn in trade. Ultimately, victory points can be gained from a lot of different sources, so I go for both quantity and quality of colonists, plus a lot of gold (I usually pass the 200K mark long before I declare independence).

I'm still curious about the effects of missions, as I don't normally build them. What do they do exactly?

Shorbe: yeah, I don't like micro management that much. Anything I build in the New World is for free, so I figure I don't need that much money each turn. Just enough to buy skilled colonists and the odd frigate.

If you intend to live peacefully with the natives, missions are a must. Missions in enemy territory are also important because they make relations between natives and your enemies troublesome, leading to native raids etc., making life difficult for your enemies.

Another good use of the missionary is the fact that he doesn't even need to found a mission. You can send him to a native settlement and 'incite the natives to war' against one or more of your enemies. The natives want gold in return, but depending on their current relationship with the enemy colonists, they may lower their demands.

Incidentally, I remember you said you don't have a big military, 'just two units per colony.' Well, I don't have a big military either. I use the 'horseman strategy from Civilization,' meaning that whenever war breaks out, I can quickly assemble an army, leaving most of my colonies undefended. It can be hazardous yeah, but so was colonial life in reality.

Currently I'm fighting my War Of Independence against the Dutch king. He's only got 55 infantry, 7 cavalry and 11 artillery left. Sigh, gets boring quickly this war. 8,000 Libery Bells are already here.

Microprose Veteran: Thanks for the info. If you send a missionary to an Indian village does he get used up there or can he go to another? Do missions in Indian villages lead to Indian converts?

I tend to use that cavalry strategy also. With a lot of roads, it's fairly easy to concentrate firepower quickly. I usually have a half dozen cavalry and a couple of galleons in enemy territory to "acquire" some more colonists. It gives my military and navy something to do.

I agree that the War of Independence gets pretty boring, pretty quickly.

A missionary only gets used up if he founds a mission. If you just use him to incite the natives, he can just 'hang around a bit.'

Missions may lead to Indian converts, depending on your relationship with the natives. Expert missions of course tend to yield better results. Personally I think the friendly relations with well-armed natives is a bigger bonus in case you get attacked by another colonial power.

Also, the higher your Sons Of Liberty percentage, the more boring your War of Independence. If you declare independence at just 50 %, more interesting things can happen, like royalist uprisings.

Microprose Veteran: Ah, I was afraid of Indian converts. They're useless.

Yeah, I tend to have very high Sons of Liberty membership, so the War of Independence is just a slow grind.

Do you know if there's a cap on the total number of units in the game? I seem to remember once reaching a point where I couldn't produce any new wagon trains, ships, artillery, soldiers or colonists.

Indians Convert are not useless. They can be trained at a school to a servent and then to a normal colonist in late game and in early game they serve as replacement for colonists usually used as food gatherer. They are not as good as specialist but they are better than normal colonists.

Pretty usefull if you ask me.

Indian converts are great for a number of reasons: they're good at:

-getting food (both hunting and farming)
-furs
-tobacco
-cotton

The best reason: they're free. And later on you can turn them into full colonists with the right Founding Father.

Just don't let them do other work than in the fields.

Shorbe: so your way of playing Colonization is not about achieving independence as the primary objective. So you'll never be the first to declare independence (when your SoL goes over 30%, usually another nation announces it will grant independence once 40 colonists are in favor).

:bye:
My, this is one of the livliest and most interesting topics and
games I have seen yet in the forum, I am going to try this
game asap. There is a lot of history behind this game idea, I
have not worked with the Civilization series much though I have
studied the history for many many years so this will be interesting.
thanks for all the great suggestions and discussions.
much appreciated.

:cheers:

Hope you enjoy it - it's by the same guys as Civ (obviously) but it's actually quite a different game in many ways. A remake would be pretty damn fine (although they're probably sticking to Civ4 I'd imagine). AoE 4 looks to be covering similar ground to Colonization, though, and is looking pretty damn fine while it's at it.

:D :bye:
I remember when I first heard of Colonization years ago,
and also the Civ I and II games, i wondered about it all,
as I do work for indigenous peoples sometimes, but the
games might be very interesting to try from the persepective
of learning the actual dynamics of the whole thing, i mean
what it is really like to come to an entire new world or area,
and have to buld a civlization.....so i am looking forward to
the learning curve.... :ok: :ok: :ok: :cheers:

It's worth it, but you'll get sucked into it - it has a tendency to eat your life up.

Eagle: I prefer specialists.

Microprose Veteran: I think I'd rather do without them and just concentrate on getting the right specialists and training free colonists to be more efficient. I can envisage Indians throwing my well ordered colonies into disarray.

My way of playing is about achieving independence as my primary objective, but I have a set of mini-objectives that contribute to that. First, let me say that I always manage to get independence first. If it looks like another power is on the road to independence, I'll use a war to completely screw that up for him. That having been said, unless you're capturing a lot of other colonists or stopping someone else from going independent, wars (as in life) are generally a waste of resources. Instead of turning a colonist into a soldier, you could get him making some money for you instead.

In the meantime, I try to build up all of the different ways of getting points towards my Colonization Score. The first is to have a lot (a dozen or so) of large colonies (size fifteen or bigger) with only specialists in them, so I get the maximum possible score for my population (I think, from memory, you get one point for a servant, two for a free colonists, and four for a specialist, but I could be wrong on this). This also means that I'm going to have a pretty huge economy, so I'm usually bringing in somewhere between 3000 and 5000 gold per turn. Given that you get +1 point per year you achieve independence before a certain date, and you also get +1 point per 1000 gold in your treasury, if your income per turn is 2000 gold or more, it's best to hold off gaining independence for as long as possible as you'll get more points this way (several hundred more over the course of a couple of decades). All the other things like getting all the Founding Fathers and destroying as few Indian villages as possible should be standard, but it's the first two sub-objectives (especially the one about gold) that really make the difference for me. If you're going for maximum Colonization Score, why rush it?

My final push for independence happens fairly quickly once everything else is in place. It's pretty easy to build up the required elements to successfully wage a War of Independence if you have a dozen or so big colonies that are economic powerhouses. Incidentally, by the time all this happens, my colonies usually have 100% Sons of Liberty Membership (this contributes to your score also if I remember correctly).

Christian IV, if you can, try to find the manual somewhere. It's loaded with details about colonial life and details the different native tribes that can be found in the new world.

What's a nice change also is that the makers take sides - for the natives. For example, the Incas are described as 'advanced.' According to the game designers the Incas were and still are second to none where agriculture is concerned. Steep slopes didn't stop them, that's why they invented terraces.

edited x 2

Shorbe: are you sure you're playing at Viceroy level? At that level you only succeed if you wage colonial warfare a lot. The other nations won't just let you in peace to build up your empire. Also, to get colonies over size 15 requires a lot of labour and resources (food).

If you snuff out other nations' independence aspirations first as you claim to be doing, then you're actually playing it in military mode, like I advised to do.

Right now I'm fighting my War of Independence and everything is going as planned. I got 30,000 + in the bank and I need to knock out only 30 or more royal infantry. So I can't imagine what you need all the extra money for (tons). And yeah, I've reached max score repeatedly playing my way.

:bye: :bye:
Thanks Microprose Veteran, I will seek out the manual, I would
very much like to see what you describe, respect for those
remarkable original inhabitants, and yes the Incas have fascinating
history and culture, i browse in their history and archeology at
times and wish I had another life to learn more...for now we have
this remarkable game to experience what so many of our
ancestors and predicesors lived through.....thanks for your
encouragement and suggestion. I did find one site for
Colonization info and add ons, but only the main page worked and
some of the inner pages. I will keep learning from all of you.

:kosta: :kosta:

Microprose: I haven't played it on Viceroy. I'll have to give it a go one day. I haven't played in several months actually. I find it a bit "samey" after a while, which is why I didn't get anywhere near finishing my last game.

Actually, I'm finding it hard to find any game that doesn't end up getting really repetative after the first few times (except perhaps chess). There always seems to be a steep learning curve to understand the governing principles of the game, and then there's a critical point you pass, after which it's just a matter of doing X, Y and Z over and over and varying the degree to which you or the computer are handicapped in different games.

I'm finding UFO to be getting quite repetative now too. I seem to have passed the "getting my backside kicked" threshold and the tables have turned. However, I could tell if I went and started it on a harder level, if/when I could manage to get beyond that threshold, it would still be more of the same.

I went back and played Civ2 recently and found that to be more of the same too, even though I used to love that back in the day. Maybe I'm just really jaded, as Civ2 is supposed to be one of the greatest games ever, but I'm looking for something even more epic in scope.

Well Shorbe, try playing it on Viceroy level and you'll get some more enjoyment out of it.

In strategy games, the most fun part is always the build-up, the trying-to-survive stage till you start to succeed. So yeah, after you've established your empire things tend to become rather boring.

You could also try Civ III. It's quite hard and complicated, much more realistic than Civ II. I haven't played it at hardest level yet.

Regarding Colonization: it's a nice little game that offers a lot to learn. But when you get the message that you've got too many units that's an indication of course you've beaten the game already at that level.

Microprose Veteran: Yeah, one day I'll give it a go on Viceroy. I've actually just become re-absorbed by UFO, but I don't know how much longer this will last.

I really should spend less time playing computer games...

well this is not the topic for civ 2 , but just wanted to react on what someone here said a few posts earlier ..... it's never repetitive ....... i played civ 1 alot and it was always fun , you just have to play at the higher levels , for civ 1 level 4 is good , 5 is too perfect , you can't afford one mistake that kind of sucks ..... civ 2 i think level 4 or 5 and you have the endless amount of maps ..... and you can play on a small map or large map and it requires a different strategy .... of course colonisation has less variety , and i think the economy is too boring and too important in this game and you have to go back and forth with those ships to sell stuff , but if you can wage war either against other colonies or the independence war that is fun and killing those indians can be fun too LOL

:bye: :bye:
Colonization seems to have its own qualities different from
Civ I and II, I am studying them both, and preparing to
learn them but havent had a chance to actually play either yet,
i hope to soon, do you know by the way, if there are mods
or scenarios for colonization like there are for Civ II, what a
fun chance that is to have variations. If you do know about
Civ II take a look at my last post in that topic if you have time,
I would appreciate any imput. I am also very interested in
colonization, and think it looks fun in its own way. thankc :ok:

Thanks for this game! It was one of my favorites back in the day. To spice things up a little, I’ve been playing on Viceroy with only one colony (no cheating!). It’s quite easy to win and lot’s of fun because of the limited amount of micro-management.

Winning as Viceroy with only One Colony

Starting out
Choose the Dutch.
The location of your only colony is obviously critical. The ideal square will:
1. Be on a good food producing square (e.g. plains). Don’t forget that you can clear forest and plough on the city square.
2. Have coastal access
3. Have a silver mine nearby (the mine is always in a mountain, which can be used for ore later in the game)
4. Have one additional ore square nearby (hill, mountain, or swamp+minerals)
5. Have two good timber squares nearby.
Any specials, particularly related to food (e.g. fishery or wheat) are very useful. Also. the closer the colony is to Europe the better.
You will probably have to restart a few times before finding a good starting square.

Founding Fathers
As soon as you build your colony, you’ll be asked to choose a founding father to join congress. These are the ones to choose, in order of importance (the ones not listed are not useful):
1. William Brewster. The best founding father in the game. Get him ASAP.
2. Thomas Jefferson. Also essential to get early.
3. Simon Bolivar. You might not be able to get him early in the game but keep a look out for him and make him join as soon as possible.
4. Pocahontas. If you’re close to aggressive Indians get Pocahontas soon. Also, if there’s some land from your colony belonging to the Indians, steal it just before Pocahontas joins congress.
5. Benjamin Franklin. Get him early, even if there’s no immediate danger from any European power. You never know when one will show up and you do NOT want to get involved in a costly war.
6. Thomas Paine. As soon as your tax rate approaches 10% it’s really worth getting him (and he only gets better with time).
7. William Penn. A nice addition once you’ve built a church and have a preacher or two inside.
8. Ferdinand Magellan. He can be helpful, especially if your colony is at some distance from the edge of the map.
9. Hernando de Soto. Much more useful in “regular” games since he dramatically increases the chances of finding fountains of youth (not so important in a one-colony game).
10. Jean Paul Jones. An extra Frigate is always nice. Useful to stockpile muskets before the war of independence.

Developing the land around your colony
Buy lots of tools at the beginning (they are cheap). Clear and plough the city square first, then build road on the silver mine, then clear/plough the food squares. Lastly, build roads on the forest and ore squares. Use petty criminals and indentured servants as pioneers, then as soldiers / scouts. Send a scout or two to visit with Indian chiefs as this can often lead to some cash gifts.

Colonists within the City
At the beginning you should have: a silver miner, a farmer, and a statesman. Then add a lumberjack (once you’ve built up a stock of lumber, switch him to carpenter and then back to lumberjack, etc.). As soon as you can, add a carpenter permanently. Your next priority is getting another 2 statesmen working which will require more farmers or fishermen. The next step is adding an ore miner and a blacksmith. Then add a second lumberjack and a second (and probably, third) carpenter. Next fill up your church / cathedral with preachers. Lastly, convert the silver miner into an ore miner (at this point silver prices are likely below 10 and tax rates exceed 30%, making the silver much less attractive), add another blacksmith as well as a gunsmith or two: time to start producing those muskets.
Only when rebel sentiment reaches 80%+ is there truly no more limit (except food) to the number of colonists that can work in within the city. The ultimate objective of course is to reach 100% with the associated production bonus -- easy to achieve quite early with Jefferson, (Bolivar), (Paine), printing press, newspaper and 3 (elder) statesmen.

Buildings within the City
Start with a lumber mill (city size needs to be 3). Build a printing press and newspaper next (make sure you’ve bought the necessary tools). Then you’ll need (in the approximately correct order): docks, schoolhouse, stables, warehouse, blacksmith’s shop, college, university, church, cathedral, armory, magazine, warehouse expansion, stockade, fort, fortress. After that, just crank out artilleries.

Experts
Use the cash from the silver to train the experts you need. Your first two purchases should be an expert silver miner and an elder statesman. Never buy more than one expert. Use a school/college/university to train the rest. High priorities are: getting expert farmers/fishermen on all your food producing squares and maximizing hammer production. The next important objective is training an additional 2 elder statesmen. Once you have experts everywhere, train veteran soldiers (put 3 into your university).

Getting enough colonists
The nice thing about having just one city is that you won’t have much trouble getting enough colonists. You’ll find you’ll have just enough or even too many throughout the game (even without finding any fountains of youth). Do make sure you build a church/cathedral and train 3 firebrand preachers near the end of your city’s development so that you can train lots of veteran soldiers.

Preparing for War
In Viceroy, the royal expeditionary force, by the time you’re ready to declare independence will consist of: ~60 soldiers, ~25 dragoons, ~25 artilleries for a total of ~110 units. That’s quite a tough army to face. Experience has taught me that you don’t quite need to match that force 1 to 1, but almost. My recommendation is:
At least 30 artilleries, at least 15 veteran dragoons, at least 25 veteran soldiers and 1000 muskets stockpiled (these are equivalent to another 20 veteran soldiers). With only one colony, you know exactly where the king is going to send his forces. The downside is that you have no hope of producing enough liberty bells for another power to intervene on your side. Nevertheless, do keep your statesmen working because you don’t want to lose that 100% rebel sentiment production bonus.

Veteran Soldiers: use your university to teach 40 free colonists the specialty. There’s no point in creating more. Stagger the teaching cycles so that not more than one free colonist becomes a veteran soldier per turn. Like this, you don’t need to have more than one free colonist, in your city at any point in time (thus maximizing your production and minimizing the use of food).

Artillery: Keep building these and make sure you don’t run out of tools (see muskets). It’s nice to be producing at least 39 hammers per turn allowing a build rate of 1 artillery every 5 turns. If you have some spare cash, the first 5 or so you buy in Europe are relatively good value.

Muskets: You need to be a little careful here and I’ll explain why with an example. Say you’re producing 28 tools per turn. You’re building an artillery unit every 5 turns. That means you need 8 tools (40/5) per turn for the artilleries. So don’t produce more than 20 muskets per turn or you’ll quickly run out of tools. Store excess muskets in the wagon train, or your ships.

Horses: The more horses you have, the quicker they breed (make sure you’ve built stables!). The limiting factor is almost always food. While your city is growing it’s difficult to keep enough food for the horses but do your best. Once you have enough colonists for your army, take the preachers out of your city. Also, when you are done training the veteran soldiers, take the 3 out of the university. This will free up food for a lot more horses per turn. Store excess horses (if any!) in the wagon train, or your ships.

Important note: before declaring independence move out / disband any units standing outside your city that are not a veteran soldiers or dragoons (unless of course you are using them as “musket storage”). This helps improve visibility for the remaining 70+ military units in the city. You can actually only see 40 units in the city at any point in time. Fortunately, the artilleries always get attacked and destroyed first, allowing you to easily re-equip the remaining 40 units with muskets or horses, as needed.

Fighting the War
Just fight a purely defensive war in your fortress. If you get lucky, some forces will land on flat, clear terrain next to your city. In that case it makes sense to attack with your dragoons (I don’t recommend attacking with artillery because then they’ll be unfortified for the next round).

When to declare Independence?
In a one city game, you’re not going to break any records of early independence so don’t even try. Also, given that with the above strategy you build up rebel sentiment very quickly, the other European powers will declare independence early (around 1660). It’s unlikely that you’ll be ready by then so just ignore them (you’re not playing for the score here anyhow). Just go when you're ready. As a rough guideline: in my last game I declared independence in 1689 and won in 1700. I had a little bit of margin at the end so I could probably have shaved off a few years but that’s always a gamble. Good luck!

Micropose Vet, I agree that in Colonization any starting position works. When you play with only one colony, however, the starting location is much more important, especially when you're new to that way of playing. I've won many times the "standard" way; that's why I wanted to try a different kind of challenge.

My inspiration came from the so called "One City Challenge" (OCC) in Civ II. Some years ago a bunch of die-hard Civ II players elevated OCC to somewhat of an art form. The basic rules: Deity difficulty level, no cheating, only ONE city, first to land on Alpha Centauri. At the beginning, most of these games were played on exceptional starting squares only (e.g. 4 whales or 2 whales + 2 silk, etc.) Later on, once the strategy was established, almost any starting square became playable. I played a number of such games myself and learnt a lot about the game. Believe it or not, some of these guys were able to build a spaceship and land in Alpha C. before 450A.D., something I previously wouldn't have thought possible, let alone with only one city. If you're interested in the history and strategy, check out http://members.home.nl/paulvdb/occ/occ.htm.

So to make a long story short: I wanted to see if OCC works in colonization and it does. I actually found it to be fun. I'm not saying that my strategy is perfect. Any suggestions for improvement are welcome but please try to play with one colony first as many things change relative to the "traditional" game.

Hi all colonization fans, I like this game and I found a new free colonization game written in Java.
See Free colonization . It has new graphic, but everything else should remain the same as in the old colonization.

By Weide

If you take the time to go through this forum, there are a number of decent tips.

Remember: use your money to buy things that are vital and, if possible, at low price. Anything you produce in the New World is *free!* OK, a few pointers:

- early on, stock up on muskets before they become too expensive;

- don't buy too many horses because with stables you can breed them yourself;

- befriend the natives and do everything to keep them friends. Give them muskets and horses if they have none. Later on do the same with other tribes, especially those close to your colonial rivals - natives are very good at attacking with horse and musket;

- make missions in native settlements next to your colonies: they help reduce tension (and may yield native converts but that's less important);

- make three or more main colonies (like capitals), rest of the colonies keep them small untill you have time and money to invest in them;

- your first carpenter should build lumber mills in your colonies (need size 3): a lumber mill does the same amount of work as a specialist without lumber mill;

- for attacking, use dragoons only! If reduced to infantry, withdraw to colony with horses or better, send a scout as a scout can travel great distances and is the quickest way of delivering one unit of horses (so it helps to have some scouts at the ready when you begin war).

- one advice I have taken over literally from my military advisor in Civ II: "Why build what you can't defend?" So always have enough dragoons stand-by - dragoons are best because in times of war you can quickly concentrate them to strike a danger spot - this allows you to keep a smaller military (one dragoon per colony on average) and still have the ability to wage war. If you're attacked from two sides, you need more military of course.

Thanks Vet.

something bothers me: buy muskets when they are cheap (early on)... at that stage, I dont have money yet.... By the time I am ready to buy guns, they are all 15 or higher a piece!

Do you suggest buy and sell guns for profit early on?

Does anyone have an info on the '!' over the indians? I know '!' means hot steaming mad but what about the others? What color is the lowest alarm level and the progression to Red? - This way, I know when to send a wagon to present gifts

I once finished this game without cheat (on easiest level) last 1995. Im trying out Viceroy level and am burdened by lots of things - namely my expasion is way too slow - its 1600+ and I only got 7 colonies with only 2 with fort (not even a fortress)!

PS. Micromanagement makes the game tiresome sometimes I just quit from the headache it presents!

The exclams start green, then get a bit yellow and then red, and the more of them are on there the more upset the indians are with you.

The only real advantage I find there is in the game is for the traders (Netherland if I remember well?) who get a better ship at the begining. The second best is French native freedom which allow you to be a lot more agressive than the other nations when it comes to acting with the natives (especially in term of land).

I myself more often than not play French. Not only they are those who colonized the place I live at today but as long as you can get your first colony at 1 turn range from the ocean then you really have the best advantage of the game. Play with natives, trade with them and in the end they'll help you a long way to win your independance. Native colons can be really usefull too for quick expantion.

each side has a few advantages

English get more immigrants, which is good but you can recruit continental congress members to build up your "man power" you can also grow plenty of food and reproduce em on your own, early in the game though it can be really handy

French have better Native relations as you said, and that helps you throughout the game as long as you don't adopt the Spanish style of conquest

The Dutch get a Merchantship instead of a caravel and their prices stay stable longer, the latter being much more useful.

The Spanish get a bonus will attacking the natives, which is great if you just want to kill em and take their money (not recommended for higher scores)

The main advantage to taking the Dutch or Spanish is you also don't have to play against them, since both can be downright ruthless.

Forevergamer:

At the start, what little money you make, buy muskets for it. I would advise against trading in muskets since they're way too valuable for that. Except selling them to the natives of course (sound investment).

A good way to get some extra cash without a lot of work, is to send a scout to make contact with the Native villages. Depending on their mood and level of advancement, they may give your scout some hard needed gold. If possible, send a dragoon to accompany your scout in case you find one of the cities of Chibola...

If you find a big stash of gold, you will see a gold wagon. To cash it in you must safely transport it back to Europe! This means getting a galleon or Hernan Cortez. If you don't want to invest in the galleon, you can also just build a colony with your scout, send in the wagon and you will get the message that the king's fleet will transport it for you for a price... If you have Cortez the transport is free.

After the gold has been transported, simply abandon your colony by turning the colonist into a scout again.

Just to clarify:

The "!" marks over the indians do NOT change colour according to how annoyed they are... the colour represents WHICH country they are annoyed at, blue for French, red for English etc.

They can be annoyed at more than one nation at a time, and so all you can see is the one that they most dislike.

Obviously the more "!!!" the more angry they are.

I recommend everyone to get some scouts going as soon as possible, the indians will soon train them up to seasoned, and if you find the incas and astecs you can make a fortune sending your scouts to collect their beads.

Also, starting as the English for a higher difficulty setting is pointless, as all you will receive at the docks is criminals and servants.

Its true...I got more Petty Criminals than I almost know what to do with, fortunatly I can arm em and use them to steal Other Colonists and hope they get promoted.

or defending against the indians which are alot more pissed at me since I am playing viceroy LOL.

How many colonies do you have?

It is a lot of work to manage the colonies, at least for me.

At the moment my New England counts 5 colonies,
one with cotton, one with tabaco, one with sugar, one with iron, and one quite pointless the spains ... erm ... left :angel:

And there ist still this huge mass of land. It takes me a lot of years to bring all the treasures my scouts find to a galleon. I can't imagine to colonize a tenth of the land.

Ant then there is this thing with the independence...

I have 9 colonies loaded to the max built usually 1 for each cash crop, 1 capital, ` silver mining..and the other is near some key tribal villages.

once I get the max built and enough troops I declare independance but thats usually my target goal

I too am playing after more than 10? years...it's a great game like all MicroProse game of old. I remember playing as a Viceroy (it's pity that there's no option in this and Pirates [aslo Pirates Gold] to view the Hall of Fame) but now I'm finding it difficult to play as a Conquistador, but hreat to be back.

However I disagree with some on this forum that it's the best of the Civ. series. I firmly believe that no strategy game compares with Civilization I. It gave rise to Microsoft's AOE, AOM, Sierra's Empire Earth etc. and later to Sid Meier's Civ. II and III with PTW and Conquerors but not one them is as good as Civ. I.

I don't think there's any other way except to start a revolution. When you click on Declare Independence you meet the King and the war starts. Everone's so money hungry :tomato:

You can go and destroy the Indians and get loads of gold, but you also lose points...fortunately the Dutch and the Indian's pay me some tribute. The French are being nasty since they have been granted independence...didn't see them going at war with the home country? Unfair isn't it :sneaky:

I hear you there Grand Dad, I like Colonization but Civilization and its depth still holds the records for playing the most time in a row and having people threaten me at gunpoint to go to sleep award.

I thought that was a raw deal with the revolutions too that your the only one that has to fight your mother country, I suppose its because of limits to the amount of soldiers on the board, still why should they get the breaks :).

I usually start doing war on the towns with more liberty bell points when the enemy starts getting close to revolution.

Greetings, all.

I just found out this site when I was doing a search for Colonization. I couldn't find any copies of Colonization so I thought I'd give it a shot online, and here I am. I just downloaded it, and I have a question or two for you guys.

I had Colonization for the Mac 10+ years ago, but unfortunately, the disc got screwed up somehow, so I couldn't play Colonization anymore until today. I finally got it running on my PC computer, and I'm looking forward to having some good nostalagia times.

The question I have, is I've been wondering if there is any way to extend the game cut-off year? I remember it was 1800 or 1850, but I was wondering if I could go for a longer game, such as extending the game to even 1900, 2000, 2100+. Wouldn't it be quite funny and interesting to have 1700's tech in 2100+ AD instead of lasers, spaceships, etc. :sneaky:

At any rate, if any of you know how I could extend the game cut-off to past 2000 or more, for a truly epic game, I'd be greatly grateful.


My other question is... is there a max number of colonies that I can build? I've played Civ 1, 2, and 3, and I've built 50 - 100 city empires. In Civ 3, the max number of cities is 512, I believe. Is there any similiar limit in Colonization? I'd like to try to build 20 - 30 colonies to make a nice, epic empire.

Any info on that would also be greatly appreciated. :ok:

Uh Sharina, the point of this game is not to play it for ages and ages.

The point is: get a nice colonial empire going, thwart the imperial dreams of other nations and earn your independence by fighting your mother country.

The longer the game, the looooonger the War for Independence will be and you want to avoid having to fight a loooong War for Independence (it sucks).

Ah... But I do enjoy long and epic games. I want to try to pull off several feats I couldn't do on my Mac version. For instance, I'd like to see if I can colonize the whole map, create 50 colonies, have all my colonies be fortresses, all my colonies have factories, etc. I want to see how extreme I can take Colonization to. I want to see if I can go further and harder than ever before.

Towards those ends, I've been looking for any way to extend the cut-off year, and need to know if there is a max cap of colonies that can be established in a single game.

I've been able to remove the time-cap factor, or at the least, extend it until beyond 2500 A.D. in Civilization 2 and 3. I wonder if this similar thing is possible with Colonizaton or not.

Too each their own I suppose...I am amazed it wouldn't take a day of real time just to move that many troops though, things can get crazy the more pieces you have on the board

Love it..a very intresting game to play at any time and you can play it anytime without getting borred of it. Started a revolution about5 times and won only once but the ending was great(those fireworks realy rock)i'm glad that so many peapole enjoy playing it altough the second part isant' as good as the first..the game is still gteateven after 11 years from it's launch...


Happyer banana evey day..spent on Abandonia :bannana:

I only managed to finish the game with the difficulty setting Conquistador. Anyone managed to pull off the Viceroy? And what is the preferred nationality? I think by far that the Dutch are best because that Merchantman really helps in the beginning and that fact that prices don't go down as easily earn you easy cash.

I've done it two or three times Christian, and I have owned the game since it came out :)

Sometimes I just get lucky.

I also like the dutch besides the bigger ship and stable prices I also don't have to fight them

If you want to never die, build a city on a square completely surrounded by ocean.
The war cannot end for you, giving you time to continue building up your military for an offensive rush on the tories. Also gives you time for Foreign Intervention.

The Col Edit utility is awesome. You can get it here http://www.colonization.biz/download.htm.

or here
http://www.civgaming.net/col2/col2dwn.shtml

I've been enjoying reading all the new posts since I last visited this site and they're all so interesting...some even funny.
Yes there's one tiny mountainous island, but my friend where are you going get the resources to build up or expand your city or your empire?...you can get some ore and food by fishing but wood is the most essential item and what and how much can one colonist, two if you make your soldier do a colonit's work do,...unless you just stay there through out the game :D Sure no one can attack you, not even your mother country...sure is an interesting idea :blink:

I've always found that it's better to play as English...you get more colonists free + you get more crosses.
You can build as many colonies as you can afford but defending them becomes an extremely difficult task 10-15 are ideal...at least that's what I have discovered during these past 11 or so years :ok:

Sure you can keep on playing long as you want...just keep on fighting and losing...but then all the fun goes down the ocean :bleh: The whole OBJECT of the game is to achieve independance! In Civ III and it's two expansions I really wonder how our friend managed to extend the time limit, anyway you're told, when the game is finished 'officially' that you can play but no points will be added to your score...!

Happy Gaming!

Isn't there an island up north of Hudson Bay? Normally it has a Iroquois settlement on it I think.

On Discoverer, you can plow one of the artic squares at the bottom of the map on a random map for 4 or 5 food. I have even seen some with two fish.

Trade routes are not hard to set up...

A cheap thing I found is the map editor has a document that allows you to change the prices of veteran soldiers (and the other master craft people) at the docks in europe. Just make it so soldiers are dirt cheap and buy wood and tools.... LOL

But what's the fun in that?

You are WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! My proof: there is no GREEN player. Though you can MAKE yourself green, in the text files of the map editor. This often though will manage to override itself, especially during the war of independence

The color is often highlighted outside of the ! for foreign powers, and the actual ! is what degree of anger they have for you. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in green means you have too many cities around them at minimal threat. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in red means you have 10+ troopers in at least one city less than 5 squares away. The indians can be red at the dutch. trust me.

And whoever asked the max amout of units it tells you when you reach it. Its 255 units for EVERYONE. this means if you kill all of the indians, and have 240 units, there are 15 units that the other three computers can have...

Do I spend too much time playing this game? If I know about max units and talk about having one colony... anybody think that these two are connected? :whistle:

What level of difficulty do you like to play at Blastradius?

When I'm just goofing around its on either discoverer or explorer. Though I have beaten it on all difficulties. It starts to get challenging if you play viceroy with one city, at max you can have only 4 starting food without a wheat square. (If you are using a one square city) :D


anybody know what a almost perfect cycle setting is for col? I can't seem to fanagle it to perfection. I think its somewhere inbetween 500 and 1000 cycles.
Maybe some frameskip would be good, but it makes the game much choppier over 5

I have a
AMD 1.56 GHz processor
384 mb ram
64 mb Nvidia geforce MX 4000
WIN98

my only problem running it without dosbox is sound, as I have a AC97 audio. This sucks for Colonization sound

Welll...I don't seem to have seen any 'map editor', there's of course the 'customize your world' option but where is the map editor? It'll be a lot easier to get cheaper vetran soldiers, statesmen, preachers etc.

There's no limit on the number of soldiers once the war starts :bye:

Hiyas guys.

I went and finally done it. I finally beat Colonization with my attempt at "mega" like I stated a week ago. I'm not sure if I can post screenshots here or not? Could someone let me know about that?

At any rate, I managed to create a truly massive empire, in excess of 20+ colonies, as well as having several hundred thousand dollars before I won the War of Independence. I can walk away from my "mega-game" of Colonization quite satisfied. :bye:

If I can post some screenshots, I think I could try to post a few shots of my empire, and perhaps I can go back and do some fun screenshots with the stuff I already have in that game. :max:

and I feared that i will miss the date of the revolution!..those fiteworks are preetii!!
some Q & A
Do not start a revolution with at least 3 fortresses because you're dead meat without them
Many Veterans!
MANY canons
many warships!!
^ make many..
Can't i kill that Fat Bastard that makes me kiss his pinkie every time he raises the taxes? :ranting:
did anywone reached to the top of those rating list?
i got to a Famous prison.. :evil:

Getting the highest rating is relatively simple. You just need a lot of patience to sit through the War of Independence.

Fortresses, cannon and ships etc. are all secondary.

The most important asset in any war is: Dragoons, muskets and horses.

The fastest way to get fresh horses to the frontline is to turn them into scouts instead of loading them onto wagons.

During the War of Independence, if you attack the king's troops while both units are outside a colony, you gain the terrain ambush bonus added to your unit's attack bonus! So it's advisory not to cut those trees that are next to your colony and the sea. If the king's troops land in a forest, you get a big ambush bonus if you attack them while your own units are also outside the colony. Ideally, the king's troops should land on a hill or a mountain... :D

With enough horses you can cut down those invading royal troops with little problem. Only drawback is the War of Independence becomes really boring.

Highest rating is A Continent.

There were a lot of options they took away at the release...

You were able to do dialogue with the king on a lot of things.
Amongst which independence, but also requests for tax relief or supporting units

You can still find these in the text file that hold all in game conversations...

I dont think they could find any means of playing it network, so they ceased trying that. I believe thats why the docs are still there.

A real classic game.

And the game is so interesting, that you can play it over and over again.
Only problem is, that when you have learnt all the tricks, it gets to easy, even at the highest level.

So i offered myself some limitations.
First limit, no trading with home nation after 1500.
This allows you just a handfull of colonists, before you try to become selfproducing of everything.
But i still managed to win.

Next challenge, NO trading what so ever.
This really gives you a slow start, since your initial 2 colonists have to grow into everything.
Two ways to pull this off. Find one of the other nations very early, and assault them. This will give you 2 more colonists, and, if done right, another 50 muskets and 100 tools. And most likely they will keep landing colonists near you, that you can take...
Or, simply sail to a corner of the map, far far away, and wait a LOOONG time, until your colonists start reproducing..
But i have done it, with all 4 nations.

Next challenge, NO peace treaties at all.
This gives you problems with all nations ofcource, if you are at war, they WILL send troops your way. And the natives will be a problem too. They will attack you hard for a long time. Eventually they will get calmer, and then you can make them happy by trading with them. But you will NEVER get a colonist trained when you dont sign the initial trreaty...
But, i was able to pull it of, with all 4 nations.

And then for the ultimate challenge : No trading, No treatys...
Go hide on a small island far far away, and hope noone notices you.
But its possible.....

Dines, who uses WAY to much time playing old strategy games...

Dude. Here's the challenge: Don't ever return to europe, don't build the custom houses, only have 1 colony, kill all the indians, and prevent the europeans from landing on any of the landmass with your own built ships. I have managed this with all 4 powers.

And you said you spent too much time playing... why aren't you playing now? LOL

Hey folks! I'm a long-time Colonization fan who is itching to start the game again. If the originals don't work, I'll give this DOSbox thing a try.

I think I find the most success playing English. Having loads of recruits makes it really easy to fill up colonies. I mean, I built colonies to the point where the colony names start repeating!

Some neat things came up in this thread that I need to try. First, I didn't know you can cheat... nor did I know you can hit ESC to get a new list of founding fathers. Also I like the Steal-Indian's-Land+Pocahontas trick to replace Peter Minuit. Early on, FF's come slowly, and he's usually one of the first guys I take. So yeah, this is a cool trick to try.

CTRL WIN. press ctrl w to close cheat menu...

This game is fun enough without cheating, but what if you started out with a manowar instead of that caravel? :ph34r:

This is definetly one of my favourite games ever. It's so addicitive!

I have to disagree with something someone said earlier in this thread though . . The PC version is a bit rubbish compared to the amiga version. Most notably the music. . .

But still I love Colonization to bits. I'm in the middle of a game at the moment, almost ready to declare independence. I seem to play differently to everybody else though.. all my colonists have to be experts, or become experts as quickly as possible. Therefore all my colonies have schools, which soon become colleges and universities. All my colonies have lumber mills and one or two carpenters. All my colonies produce tools, and about half produce muskets. I dont use missionaries, as indian converts are useless, as are petty criminals and indentured servants, and I always play as England.

There's some really good tips in this thread

Hey, I have the same problem with sound. It works fine until a trigger occurs that requires a special sound, in which case it just shrieks. I decided to just turn off the sound to get rid of this problem.

But on a side note, does anyone know where I can change the food bonus for Expert Farmers and Expert Fisherman. I just think that it's a little silly that all the other bonuses are x2 but for farmers it's +2 and fisherman is +3. They should have the same amount of bonus that everyone else does so that where you place your colony is a really big decision not only for product, but for food. The colo-pedia lists the fishing bonus as x2 but I'm pretty sure it's only +3.

Words just can not explain the utter brillians of this game!

Colonization isn't a game, it's a term over what you do instead of sitting over TV shows that bore you or if you don't want to play any of your games you always get this little imp on your shoulder that reminds you of Colonization.

Sid Meiers best piece of work :ok:

Well i finished a game with this site version :D It´s nice to raise a new nation from nothing.
Anyway, Sid Meyer debt the Brazil or portogueses and some founding fathers from Sudamerica :not_ok:
Anyway, i love this game :ok:

Yes raising a 'new nation' is thrilling except I hate it when I am obliged to obliterate a 'native village or tribe' :angry: I prefer capturing the other Europeans' cities :D

But like all the other Sid Meier's games it's great, BUT I still maintain it come second to Civilization I. :ok:

colonization? probably one of the finest games ever!
i like the idea of "raising a nation". in cooperation with a friend of mine we changed the texts of the game, pretty funny. the most interesting side of this game is that you are powerful - you decide to wipe out indians or - my favourites - the french. ;-)

Use colonize, not viceroy. Viceroy is the information holding file for running the startup menu. Otherwise, its ran as a program within a program and cannot run the game properly by itself.

There are many many reasons to attack native as following:

1) if you have mission in their vilage then they all convert, so you can get populated much much much faster. You can easily buy 5 dragons and bless 5 unites and you can get 5 native each turn which means a city with population 10 every other turn. That is the main issue. In another hand the converted native work much better on the filed than normal unit (obviously worst than expert unit) so your cities expand much more faster. Latter you can have them all converted to normal unit so you can teach them what experties you like.

2) Treasure. Especially if you attack city rather than camp or vilage. Oh man 13000 $.

3) Having their land for free. You just need few pioneers to bulid the cities behind the line of your attack. The converted natvie should be send to city soon.

4) Having less trouble. That is obvious, they are just unpredictable.

....

Here are some cheats
alt+W+I+N a cheat bar will apear
in the colony
shift+4=money more money
shift+1=all upgrades
shift+5= press a cargo and it gives you +100 of that
shift+t= gives you a colonist
shift+s= select a colonist and put him there were you wan't him and then use this cheat to upgrade him to were you put him ok

Nah, i prefer too be cool with them, but the choise it´s done when electing the ontinental congress, if i got the option Francisco de Soto or Hernan Cortez. I chose the first and let the indians got a happy life. But sometimes only comes Cortes and if u get Juan de Sepulveda too, it´s the same. U can try to attack other europeans, an early attack in the game could be very beneficial. I never builded too many cities, never more than 9 and somes where only plate mines.

I can understand why to cheat a girlfriend, or why to cheat a party, or even a friend. But cheat the AI in a pc game... :tomato:

9 cities? That's way too much for me - the main problem being the irritating unit limit - I once had 14 colonies, but I could barely defend them because of this.
Also, it really helps if most or all of them have access to ore - it's needed for the 2 most important things in the game - tools and muskets. This works especially well on the higher difficulty levels, as the king always raises the prices for tools and muskets really high, allowing you to make loads of money.

As for the indians, the 2 biggest problems about them are that they can't stand large colonies and that they like to make unprovoked attacks on your treasure units. However, you can really rip off the poor indians when trading with a wagon train (buy 100 silver for 200 gold!).

The AI for the Europeans is poor and really shouldn't be much of a threat - I usually ignore them, except for their juicy merchant ships that fall foul of my privateers :D

The best places to build colonies in América (at North, where now is USA and South, where now is Argentina). In free maps, i can make an initial colonization(exporting just raw materials), a quick campaing of cleaning wich will give u some veteran soldiers and that must end with the raze of the indian capital(relations goes to good again) and a second colonization(industralization). I don´t know why but i like my troops at cities, attack always the enemy(this game it´s like civ where the key of war it´s to fortify and hold out), here attack, attack any unit near your city. :Titan:

9!? Oh man no way. I am playing a game in a wast lant and I am currently have 28 cities (as far as I remeber and all have more than 15 and they are in perfect condition). Oh man I don't remeber how many Caravan I have, I can't keep track of them. Well I don't think if I can finish this game.

LITTLE CHEAT

there is a way to play alone (no other europeans) , dig on the files and open the one that holds all data on movement, construction costs etc (dont remember the name of the file "menus" maby") then make caravel movement 0 and play as the dutch. (WIN is a game killer)

SOME TIPS

Unload civilians built colony and click on all its squares before meeting the indians,that will save you from buying their land.

Create self suficient colonies , farmer/lumberjack/carpender/ore miner/blacksmith/farmer are the way i bult my cities.I find that the most difficault ware to have is ore, so save before building.

Plow forrests around enemy colonies (lame but it works), dont mess the market that much , get styvensant and a customs house, get loads of horses everywhere (you can transfer even 2 of them in a colony and they will multiply) . When playing in america 1 port is enough , expand inlands . Use wagons as warehouses for horses/guns , wagons are great for moving supplies but not for trade.

Built a couple of unis , one for statemen and one for craftsmen.Use indians , you can sell them anything without having the prices dropped, they can also train your colonists early on. Im not a big fan of missionaries but if you can hundle the load of converts are not completely worthless.When you are big enough to built a catherdal your colonies will give you extra population on their own so cathedrals are a waste of time & meterials.

Be sure that the king is boycotting all of your products before sending the guy that erase them in the councill (sp?) , that will give you extra time before the taxes start rising again.

Gotta agree with him.

indians are very useful at the begining.....

just buy 1 goods (200) and 1 tools (300) and go to one of inca towns to sell them for 1400-1600 each ! it gives something about 3000 from 500 investment...

you can do it again after 4-7 turns and they would buy tools or goods again. theres always some indian cities (at least 3) with sea connection, rest of them you gonna reach by wagon trains...........

it gives many many so needed gold on the start. this method always takes me far from my opponents on military and economic level, so i can easly crush other nations.... when i wipe them out i wait until cortez join my congress. he guarantee that destroyed indian cities always have tresaures.

inca and may capitals gives (with cortez) 15000-20000 tresaures ........

if you take my steps you should easly crush King army and gain a good score

oh. i forgot. in my opinion it is best to build 5-6 cities in top part of south america, near ore, river and forrests (river terrains gives good number of food after irrigation, ore and lumber are most important resuorces, still in need). at best build 3 port cities and 3 land cities. all close to others.

the other cities i built are small 2-3 people cities close to some resuorces (like silver, tabacco , weaver...). small cities should not have palisade. i built there only warehouse, nothing less. they produce resuorces all the time and when war for independence begins i destroy those small cities (they are easy target for King).

i defend independance in those 6 big cities, all close to each other and good comunicated by roads. it gives opportunity to quickly throw forces to most needed town). i only keep 5-7 cavalry and 3-4 artilery fortified in all towns. another 5-7 cavalry and 3-4 artillery help to the city which is attacked by king.

you should wipe out one desant team before another came out and easly crush king and his armies.......................

IMO you should hide all your ships in ports. fighting with man-o-war isn't easy and they could capture even your frigates. you should never fights them, only sometimes try to dameged them near your own ports................

in the text i use prices and army sizes from the second level of difficulty. but it works fine with all levels, you just need more armies and deals are lower....

thats the METHODS to make game easy, playable and fun.

hardcore colonization fans (like me ;] ) built they cities on deserts or tundras and dont even sell or buy anything from old world. they only have what they made themself or buy from indians. i know person which gain like 70-80% score after playin like that ;] word

maybe someone gonna use my tips

peace

ps. colonization - GAME OF THE CENTURY !!! ;]

Which file is it? I have examined all of the text files, but have not found a list of ship movement rates. That was the nice thing about Alpha Centauri-- they documented how to edit the various game within the files themselves (not very well, but if you get the strategy guide, it is easy). It would be a fun-to-do-once thing to be the only europeans in the new world. Also on my list of things to try is a single port at the mouth of the amazon basin

why do you play in the americas ?
I have found it much more fun to play in random mode where you have to discover where everything and everybody is. It is much more interesting to try and find the silver and incas then to know whaere it all is.

Play in America is a good option to move foward into next difficult level cuz u know the terrain and u aren´t to get defet by bad luck at the chose of first colonies. Play in a random map its an extra difficult but allows u to totally new games each time and some more fun. Anyway, about the best strategy, i can said that u can done it by taking other european cities in the fisrts turns were they are unguarded... the rest it´s to chose founding fathers and play in concequence maintain the obajetive of fully industrial and indepent colonies about export economy and the production of tools/guns, cannons and veteran dragons. When going into war avoid the sieges (the ai try to sourrond a colony and only attack when got enough strengh), keep war out of your frontiers and see it like a chance to quicker training for the army and new captured colinist. About independence war, u must got some big army(all the drags that are no garrison, min 20 drags with 1000 horses heads inside colonies) and garrisons of 3 drags + 5 art for cities in danger of attack. The true of fighting king´s troops its to got 100% of rebels and to not allow to make a beach head by taking one of your cities. When and where they land they may be crushed. Keep an eye on horses even build horses growers colonies. If a mounted continental army(all dragons inside colonies become MCA) is defeated it becomes a normal continental army (NCA), u give them 50 horses and a MCA again, if NCA is defeated, it becomes in a veteran soldier without guns, u give then guns and horses, and u will got dragons!!! Training during war can continue by new recruits attacking undefended artillry in open. About fleet, if u damage the MoW, u can reduce the numbers of disembarks but remember that a) a MoW its mightyer like a frigate attavking or a privateer attacking with F Drake B ) the damaged MoW only can be an empty MoW so the effect will be some invasions forces later c)a ship u have attacked cann´t go out d) always there are a MoW to attak that ship even ehen u didn´t see any e) a MoW attacking it´s force: 24 + 12 = 36 and your frigate 16, if privateer 8 f) The king got enought MoW to attack ships protected by a fort, so any rebel ship out of port will be attacked, and plus by sending a ship to repairs or siking it u will do nothing, u must attack and damage at least 1/10 of royal force´s ships. So u can get so use from a fleet but its more likely that yours will get hurt worse, better let the forts to bring the naval defence and only attack if your are doing pretty good in ground and so u can leave some resources to ship building or if u are getting unumbered like a deseperate measure to give the chance to your ground forces of some rest in a far futher.

I have sunk the King's Ships before all of his troops are deployed. This is really hard to do, as the ships are much easier to damage than to sink. However, if you manage to do this (by saving or however you want to manage it) you cannot beat the game, as the king still wants to kill you.

When the rotalists move inside their ships to another location its because they are sure that they gat already taken the last location :( .
U also can beat them by fighting inside the countryside, if u got a colony deep in land, u can chose to set the front line between the ports and this city... but u will have to counter attack and u will lose many colonies. And it isn´t better than attack when they move to land, u will got high loses even wining the war, its another deseperate measure to high challengers.

The editable file is named names.txt
From there you can change (almost) anything (including "little cheat" ) -also helpfull for little moding realistic indian army etc

BTW since it is not an online game "cheating" isnt an issue, eachone plays the game as he/she likes

It's really immaterial what terrain you choose...it must have a lot of space, a large island will do fine provided it has all the resources.
It's best to built fortresses along your seaboard cities and equipp them with a couple of cannons (they usually take care of the king's men'o'war). Attach (ambush) the Cavalry with your own and after a few attempts the king surrenders...takes some time of course!

Happy Gaming!!!

No a chance, in random maps there is a lot variety in America no. But in random maps there are clearly betters zones with rivers or silver that are quiet usefull

Colonization is one of my favorite of the older games.
I just wanted to say two things quick, with the orginal US version, you can be granted your independance without a war. It involves making a LOT of librety bells.
Also, their is another cheet I am not sure if everyone is aware of. If you want, you can play all four of the great powers in a single game. To do this, make a new game and in the powers selection screen (spanish, english...), select one of the powers and then drag it to the bottom of the screen. The graphics will go weird and you are all set. The graphics will be fine later on, but the game does seem to act funny if I remember correctly.
Good luck, happy gamming, and thanks to the people who run this site!

Ravewood

One defensive strategy I always use is to build my town and leave the land that is adjacent to the ocean alone. So when the Kings Army land I get the bonues of the terrain as an ambush. The only bad thing is that the AI/europeans likes to slash and burn all the trees & plow around their towns, so when you take over their towns.....the King likes to attack those towns first. So I like to capture an enemy town and then abandon it. It only works if they don't have a stockade, fort etc. :cheers:
I like to leave a mixed assortment of armies guarding my cities. Example: If your Continental Army loses, send in your Criminal/Dragoons and they MIGHT just win. :bleh:

U can buil roads and maintain the ambush bonues, its a good strategy. But use canons for defence in forts and M.C.A. for ambush, never run low in horses and can defeat the king easy

My favorite stragity is to take the caribian islands (and killing all the indains on the islands). Once you clear the islands, you are safe from indain attacks (they always get ticked off and attack me anyways). Movement is faster over the sea and the alantic is right there for shipping back to europe. Then you can fish all you want and they cannot fortify next to your cities to block your fishing due to fort/fortress attacks. There is also only one or two squares that they can land on and you can attack at your own pace. Any cross town shipping (or reinforcements) can be done by leaping from port to port so your merchants are always safe. Also, I always have a massive fleet alowing me to sink their boats and trap half their army back in europe!
The downside is once they invade, you lose your wood source and only get 3 moutains or hills to work with.
Lastly, don't try to fill all the squares on the islands as the attack forces will just ignore whatever you have there and land anywhere. It will work against the other three powers though.

I also recomend keeping large merchant ships fully loaded with horses so you cannot run out.

I was wondering how do you guys that don't destroy the indians get money? Sure, on the easier difficulty levels it's not that hard, but on governor or viceroy I just can't get enough money by trading (yes, there are the Lost City Rumors, but even with Hernando de Soto you only get about 2 cities of Cibola per game). The price of muskets quickly rises to ridiculous levels, forcing you to manufacture your own. I simply cannot get enough gold to raise an army on governor or viceroy unless I destroy the Incas or Aztecs (or both).

Seasoned scouts recives gift by talking by first time with peacefull indians 200-800 gc. Also no buy to europe, steal it from other europeans. Rush attacks are best. Holland got a better market but anyway at end better sold them muskets and no rum. Use horses as the key of military equiment,.

It may be worth noting that you need an empty galleon to transport treasure.

Otherwise, as said, it's just a case of moving the unit onto the ship on the map screen, or dragging them onto it on the town screen.



Regarding someone's earlier question about how to make money without slaughtering Indians. Set up trade routes for your wagons to Indian villages (find out what they need with scouts first) and later on, other european colonies. But don't give indians horses or muskets. Then it's just a case of visiting as many indian villages as possible and uncovering all of the Lost Citys. Use Seasoned scouts for this, and if you can wait.. there's a founding father who improves the outcome of your findings..I think he increases the movement rate for scouts too. (Can't remember who atm) Oh and of course there's trading with your home country as well.. trade the most expensive things and stock pile the things that are cheap or rapidly decreasing in price (one game for me silver became cheaper than sugar) and save them until the price raises again if you can afford to.


After a while, there comes a point where I dont need money because my colonies are self sufficient and can produce everything I require myself. I think I've posted this earlier in the thread, but I'm quite pedantic that I use professionals for all the jobs and normally end up with 3 carpenters working at a lumber mill in every colony.

In response to someone posting a tactic about not modifing the land surrounding your colonies so to gain attack bonuses.. I couldnt do that. I work the land like a hardy pioneer on speed.

Francisco de Soto is the one who let ya found the fountain of young always. Remember that the only in some icon can ya found the fountain, others are deafaultd as treasures, gold, ect, etc, etc. He doesnt icrease the moves.

Magallanes increase the moves at the sea but in land... just i dont know :bleh:

Played this one again a few weeks ago, with the French. Although it's historically incorrect, I won every battle (except two during the war against Europe) and the other Europeans didn't stand a chance. France winning even one battle's amazing, but all of these :D

Anyways (I hope no French read this :whistle: ), good trick's to send out a Scout to visit each Indian village. You'll gain alot of money this way. First thing to do with that (or the moment you got 2000 gold), is to buy a privateer. Keep that one to guard the sea passages above and below the main land nearest to the European waters.

Along with that, make enough colonies right away along the coastline nearest of Europe (For now these can even have only one colonist in them) and make sure there's at least one dragoon per couple of colonies. Use these to capture any and all Europeans that set foot on land there.

You'll gain a crapload of colonists in no time this way, and won't give the Europeans a chance to even start bothering you. It's even better if you have three privateers (one for the top, one for the bottom, one for all-around... and if there's an inbetween, one for there as well)

Tip #1 - The two most important congress members.
Ok I played this game a decade ago and it surprised me how so many 'experts' completely failed to mention something.

Factories that can only be built after Smith joins the congress do not require any resource to make stuff unlike their lower level cousins. (Amazing bug huh? The factories are intended to have a 1/3rd bonus... but the original coders F'ed up and simply added successful production. This means in a supplied place you get 24 instead of 18 for instance. But in an empty place you get 6 instead of 0.)

Custom House once built still sells stuff (automatically yet!) even if there is a boycott and you never need to worry about trade routes or building/buying ships. In this way you never have to worry about spoilage. Do yourself a favor and make Stuyervescent your first congressman every single time and make a bloody custom house in every city you build.

This makes Smith and Stuyervescent the 2 most important members of your congress. With them even if you intentionally get no one else into the cabinet you can win any game making thousands each turn without any work or any botherring with 'micromanagement'. These two members make money a non-issue and Smith's Iron Works (with accompanying bug) makes tools and muskets a non-issue as well.

Tip #2 - Taxes are for the idiots to pay.
Always toss your goods into the ocean. It might seem like a waste but the money you lose on sales later will amount to way more than the sell value of the lost goods.

Tip #3 - A Horse is a Horse, of course, of course.
NEVER EVER EVER buy horses. Just wait until an expert scout or dragoon shows up at your dock. Land the scout in a city (city with a stable is even better) and making more food than it consumes, for one turn make the scout do something besides scouting. This puts 50 horses which after that one turn will have left behind enough horses to rebreed. Now make the scout back to a scout.

Tip #4 - Save when you're close to getting a new congress member.
Earlier in this thread someone came up with the idea of not selecting a member and just waiting until next turn. Well.. yeah... if you want to waste time. You can get the same exact result by just reloading the game each time to just before the first selection comes up. Each time you wait a turn or more that's a turn or more of liberty bell production wasted.

Tip #5 - Beware the endless games!
Once in a while you'll run into a peculiar and incredibly annoying bug when fighting for independance. The bug comes when your fort/fortress manages to sink one of the royal galleons before all land troops have been deployed. Once all the other ships have landed their troops you'll finally run into the annoying as heck bug's end loop. From then on you will run into an endless loop where the game tries to run the royal expeditionary force turn but can't land troops. Even though you are kicking their royal hineys you will never win independance since you didn't kill off "all" the troops.

Tip #6 - Beware vanishing units!
If you attempt to surround your city's landing area with ships to keep the galleons away it will not work. Instead the galleons will occupy the square without a fight and your units will all vanish from that square. Even if you have 8 privateers there they will all still vanish under the might of that single galleon.

Tip #7 - A careful editor is rewarded.
If you decide to edit the movement cost part of the .txt file to make all your land movement instantly travel around the continent... do NOT build roads. Units that travel along roads or riverways will still cost 1/3 a turn instead of that 0/3.

Tip #8 - Iron works work best!
Since Iron Works can make tools even when absolutely no ore is present and can make a ton in an adequately ore supplied colony with full expertise x3... buying tools OR muskets is incredibly foolish. Even a single 'ore colony' with a full compliment of expert blacksmiths and gunsmiths will make enough weapons to supply more than a single dragoon every turn (while still leaving an extra 30 or so tools each turn for supplying pioneers or building projects), and that's assuming you don't make tools/weapons in any other colony. Personally I stick an Iron Works in every single colony regardless of whether they have an ore supply (and soon after a rum factory, fur factory, tobacco factory).

Tip #9 - Give me Liberty and I'll give you more heart!
As quickly as possible raise your liberty rating inside colonies. That means the printing press, newspaper, and elder statesmen units are crucial. A city with 49% liberty gives normal production. A city with 50% gives a +1 before taking into account expertise bonusses. A city with 100% gives +2. These bonusses get applied to all things - food production, lumber, crosses, everything... even to more liberty bells which gradually compounds the increase.

Tip #10 - For those who appreciate a good free colonist over yet another worthless expert.
There's an option to forget a colonist's profession which will turn it into a normal free colonist. If you run out of free colonists but want to train a profession you can use this to remove that wasted silver miner in a colony with no silver (or whatever) and make him into yet another expert soldier or elder statesmen or whatever (with time and good teaching).

Tip #11 - The last person you want in congress...
The absolute last member you ever want to add is the guy that removes all boycotts. With custom houses you can sell even though its boycotted... but by removing it the lousy king can force you to waste goods a second time. Some might say this makes it a good member to get early on... but personally I feel it's a waste of a perfectly good member's spot. By leaving him for last you can time it so that you won't have to worry about much time before you achieve independence (in reality you should most games win way before getting a chance at this guy...)

Your got nice tips to make money, but the real power in the game isnt money, its people. What do you do with the money? End buildings and buy colonist. So Smith and Stuyervescent are just two more foundinf fathers. I bet that u choose La Salle to avoid the cost of stocades.

Some nice tips there. I didn't know about the Iron Works bug. Probably because I've never built Iron Works without having ore in the settlement. :)

I totally disagree with what you said about getting Customs Houses early though. I thought about it and discussed it with many people online back when this game had a huge following. The agreement of most people then was that it's a nice thing to have later on, but not crucial early, and that's what I still believe.

Early on, your few colonies are usually on the shore and are easily accessible by ship(s), so it's no trouble at all to pick up exports. There is a nice cycle where ships go to Europe with exports and come back with new colonists. Suppose you built a Customs House, then what? Still send those same ships to pick up colonists, only send them empty this time?

IMO, Customs Houses only make sense once your viceroyalty spreads out a bit and starts producing exports in large quantities. Then you don't really want to bother with shipping all those goods by hand to ports, then buying extra ships to fit everything in. But this definitely happens way after you get your first Continental Congress member, so I don't think it makes sense to get Customs Houses first priority.

For me, the first priority are guys that have to do with fighting the indians. The indians living in the same area you are planning to settle have got to go soon after the honeymoon period of trading with them ends. Very developed tribes, like Azteks, have got to go as soon as you get the guy who guarantees conquered indian cities give treasure and the guy who makes royal ships transport treasure free of charge. You can make huge amout of gold from looting each of their cities, which gives a great boost to your economy, especially if you get it early on. IMO, it's very important to pillage these cities before the other powers do, because you definitely don't want any of them getting their hands on something like 50k by wiping out just one advanced tribe.

There're better ways of dealing with the Indians. Just keep your colonies 'round them at a reasonable size and they'll stay happy. I think 'bout 7 or 8 on, they'll get upset, but not to the amount that they'd go full-out war. There can be an incident once or twice, but's better to look for the reason for it rather than attacking them.

Treating the Indians well'll get you two things:
1) No negative points in your score (Except if you're Spanish, then it won't give negative points anyways)
2) They'll keep giving presents you can use to gain money, while they sometimes do demand things, but that's mainly stuff like food, which's usually in abundance.

A quick thing 'bout the gifts from the Indians... they tend to give raw materials mostly. Turn them into their processed counterparts when you can, as almost always, one of the surrounding tribes will pay for them. This's the fastest way to continuously earn an extra buck.

Well, maybe it's different for me, but my indians get upset a lot earlier than that. I'm playing a game now where I am trying to recreate history a little bit more accurately than the game usually does and for that I'm not building any big colonies until early to mid 1600's. Still, even with a single colony of size 3 and NO garrison, I have alarm bells in surrounding indian villages already.

Regardless, at some point the indians will become hostile and why would you want to halt your progress just to keep them happy? They might only attack occasionally, but those attacks disrupt kill your wagon trains and treasure trains often. That is not to mention the obvious annoyance of having indian villages in your lands even when they're peaceful: they constantly block your rivers and roads! :angry: This means that a wagon train that was ment to bring tools in time to finish that building in an inner colony will take an extra turn or two, wasting production, that your colonists traveling through your country take longer than they should, etc. Like I said, sooner or later, you'll have to kill the indians that live among your colonies. It will usually only be one tribe, maybe two, but you'll have to do it, or face a lot of hassle.

Sure, you get negative points for doing it. Sucks, but what are you gonna do? It's not that much of a penalty anyway and you'll only be wiping out a few villages that are directly among your colonies. Plus, you get money from each village. With agricultural tribes it could be quite a nice amount, while with civilized tribes you get so much that it's easily worth the penalty. The advantage of doing it fairly early (but after relations start going sour) is that you get all this money earlier, which helps more than if you were to get it later.

Great tips.

I suppose the beauty of Colonization is that there's lots of different strategies to playing it successfully. Like.. I rarely build custom houses, and I never attack indians. And getting Adam Smith and therefore the factory level buildings is only a recent thing for me

Definitely. That's what I also love about this game. You don't *have* to do anything, and you can play the way you enjoy the most.

I guess I'm just a lot less patient with the locals than most of you guys. They raid my settlement, well fine, once or twice. But if they attack my units and kill them, it's revenge time! :Titan: :Titan: :Titan: And then it just kind of escalates, since once you're at war, it's pretty hard to go back to being friends again.

Here's one more good strategy, that involves indians. Usually, at least some of your enemies will be fairly far away from you. In America's map, you'll usually have at least one other civilization in South America if you are in North and the other way around. Since they are so far away, you are likely to never have conflicts with the indians who are living next to your enemies' settlements. So load up on horses and muskets and sell them to that tribe. :D You know, level the playing field a little, so the indians present more of a challenge to your competition.

You'll be amazed how much of a difference it makes. Indian braves with primitive weapons have combat strength 1 and so are usually a pushover. But mounted braves have strength 3, which is the same as Europeans' dragoons. Add to that their terrain bonus and suddenly they become quite a decent force. Sure, they will probably not be taking and burning established colonies with forts, palisades and cannons in them, but at least they'll be able to keep their lands and will continue to be a nuisance to the AI, especially if that AI is Spanish.

Is it just me, or is Canada and Northern US the best place to start in?

1. Tons of beaver special resources for early money.
Furs need only a road to collect at full efficiency (as opposed to cotton, sugar and tobacco, for which you need to clear the forest first and then plow) plus it's immediately visible where the especially productive squares are, so you don't need to plow the whole area to find the best spot to grow. Also, furs plus Henry Hudson is a ton of gold with relatively few people working. Later on you can build an industry using furs as raw materials.

2. Most productive forest terrain. Only Coniferous forest is the same as Mixed, while others are worse for carpenting.

3. Most prodictive food terrain after clearing mixed forests. It's not a huge difference later on, but when you have an unskilled colonist farming, it makes a big difference if the terrain he is working is more productive. Plus there's a chance of 'wheat' resource. So, fewer squares will need to be dedicated to feed the colony.

4. Iroquois are pretty good-natured indians, unlike, say, Tupi, who seem to be at my throat right off the bat in South America. They and the Cherokee are fairly developed, so you could make some money trading with their capitals and not worry too much about being scalped for a while.

Anybody else has favourite spots to start your colonial empire at on the Americas map?

Is it just me, or is Canada and Northern US the best place to start in?

It depends on your style. Personally, I do not find the Tupi to be all that bad, so I prefer to start with a port at the mouth of the Amazon river system (the Orinoco is also pretty good, but the Amazon is the best. As moving along the river is as good as moving along the road, you do not have to build many roads. The only two things that are needed to win the game are tools (used to build fortresses, artillery, and muskets) and horses (you also need timber, but this is usually not in short supply). Money is useful, but it is not crippling to
have shortages of gold. The Amazon river system has lots of ore, so colonies can produce lots of tools. It is also good sugar territory. The Incas are usually happy to buy trade goods, tools, or rum and they sell ore and silver. Buy silver while the price holds up (to sell in europe) and then buy ore, for more tools.

For some real adventure (someone else having a terrible time), figure out which indians are getting pasted by the other europeans and sell them muskets and horses (but only if they are far away from you).

Trade with the incas is amazing, I made so much money (before the price of silver collapsed), that I never bothered to attack them, even after recruiting Hernan Cortez for continental congress.

I like Cuba usually...Arawak tribe.


I can usually get prime timber and ore..sometimes good timber and Ore. Then I use that to spread out.

Hmm, so you expand inland along the river, rlbell?

I thought this would be difficult to do initially because your colonies wouldn't be on the shore and you wouldn't be able to pick up goods from them easily. I suppose you could sent wagon trains, but it's a bit annoying to bother with them.

How do you manage to trade with the Incas? They are so far away and across mountains! When they do sell you silver, how do you get it to Europe? Do you haul it all the way to the port on the other side of the continent? Or do you only start that trading after your empire is fairly developed and you have customs house in a nearby city that produces a ton of tools for sale?

I love to trade with the Azteks whenever I'm not in the extreme South America though. Their capital is often on shore and when it's not I build a trading settlement not far from it. They, too, sell dirt-cheap silver and pay great for imports. I can usually trade fairly profitably with them for at least 100-120 years even without reloading. And when that sweet arrangement burns out, well, it's time to unleash Mr. Cortez. :D

That sure sounds like a cool different game of Col to try though. I've never tried to colonize along the Amazon, only either along the caribbean coast or in Argentina and southern Brazil.

I'm not sure I totally agree that tools are everything. Tools are nice, of course, but what I find to be the most valuable thing to have by far is people. Since money directly translates into people (at 600 gold per colonist, worst case scenario), my strategies tend to focus on how to get more gold. :) The best way is to trade with the indians and reaload whenever you tire them out by bargaining, but that seems like a cheat to me, so I avoid it. And without reloading trade loses a lot of its appeal since your profit margins shrink badly.

Interestingly, tools can also be bought for gold at a fairly reasonable price, even if they shot up high or even were boycotted. An new colonist costs 600 (since recruitment price tends to quicky jump above 600, which you need to train a new ore miner), but a hardy pioneer costs 1200, which means you get 100 tools for 600 gold. Not a great deal, but pretty good, IMO. I find myself often using this way of getting additional tools when my existing infrastructure can't keep up with the rapid expansion of colonies caused by war with advanced indians.

Another question for everyone: have you found a way to use missionaries well? And I mean legitly, not reloading every time they get burnt or make the indians hostile.

For me, it seems that whenever I send a missionary, even a Jesuit, to the settlements close to me, they either make the indians upset to red exclaimation marks, or even mad enought to outright kill the missionary. Even when they are successful, I don't seem to get anything out of it. VERY occasionally, an indian unit would come and join me as converts, but there are too few of those and you have to wait too long for them to justify spending a fully capable colonist as a missionary.

Firstly, the best place to start is south america like uruguay, u got tobacco from uruguay, cotton from Argentina, sugar from brasil and from inlanf silver and ore.

Secondly i use missionaries to calm the indians.

I don't have much luck with Missionarys either, I just prefer to trade with Indians and use free colonists and train them to be experts so I don't really use converts after a while.

They are good for stirring up trouble with rival missions and euro nations.

Actually, I used to really like the Uruguay/Brasil/Argentina area as well, for just the reason you mentioned: a ton of different resources. :ok: But then I looked at North America a little closer and realized that you can get all the same resources there as well and right in coastal colonies. There's tobacco in Virginia (naturally!), Cotton above that and Sugar in Florida and Cuba. The Appalachians are a decent source of ore, while to the north you've got great food, wood and fur lands.

So what I like to do is start off in the northern parts of US and in Canada, where fur gives early income and a bit later good food production makes it easy to run education towns. Then I expand south further along the coast until my colonies stretch to about Texas.

I also find North America fairly easy to defend if your colony is centrally located about modern day Washington DC. Very early on, I can kick out all the Europeans that try to land and keep the whole area for myself. I just hate it when they settle near you and give you problems later on.

Missionaries to reduce indian alarm? That'd be nice. For me they seem to usually do the opposite, i.e. piss the indians off.

The added annoyance of wagon trains is worth the potential reward of fewer coastal colonies. One of these games, I will manage to only have one port. A single port has the disadvantage that you need more wagon trains, but the advantage that the expeditionary force will land exactly where you expect it. If you have been profitably trading with the natives, or been sufficiently industrious, you might have accumulated enough money to buy (spend gold to complete) thirty, or more, units of artillery. Having them all in the one fortress will catch one or two the king's man-o-war in a rather nasty surprise. It also allows you to concentrate your continental cavalry where they will do the most good.

Too many colonies on the coast force threaten you with defeat in detail, as expeditionary troops arrive in large enough lumps to overpower any local garrison. A single port, filled to the ridgepoles with continental cavalry and wagon trains full of horses, is an extremely hard nut to crack

Tools are literally an essential part of industry. Tools become muskets and help build every type of advanced industrial building. There are actually rather few colony improvements that do not require tools. Also, all land improvements require the expenditure of tools

Incan trade is done by the laborious method of building a road. Admittedly, incan trade is easier if you start in the Orinoco river (modern Venezuela).

I do not dicker with the natives, as they usually offer more than the goods are worth and sell for a price that allows for a comfortable margin.

You're absolutely right, tools are important. They're just not supreme is what I ment. If I have a ton of tools, it's hard to make use of them all. Sure, some are needed to build up colonies, some more goes to developing land, but that's about it. Getting more people will give a boost in almost all situations, since there are so many things for them to do. Among other things, they can build a new colony and make tools. :D

I've never made a lot of muskets in this game since if you fight smart muskets are never lost - horses are. The initial supply I buy from Europe while prices are low plus an odd bunch here and there that I steal from other Europeans lasts me all the way to late game. Once my core colonies are built up and fields are plowed, need for tools in peaceful domestic applications drops by a lot and that's when I start building up an arsenal. Coincidentally, this is usually when my colonies stop needing more people to work in them and so a lot of new immigrants get turned straight into dragoons and sent to get experience in wars with indians and other Europeans. Indians are prefered, of course, since they are usually easier targets; just have to be careful not to burn their villages.

Another very important thing IMO is food, which gets you horses. They're constantly spent in wars, especially the war for independence, for which it'd nice to stockpile as much as possible. Horses also seem to become more expensive over time in Europe even if you don't buy any, and a little bit of extra money can be made by selling them in peacetime.

Wood is close there as well. You must play quite differently from me because I always end up with shortages of wood. That's one of the reasons I haven't thought about trying to settle in the Amazon basin. Rainforest is a pretty lousy source of wood compared to mixed and coniferous forests.

Basicly, my rough calculations are that a colony needs three, preferably four good squares for food production by expert farmers/fishermen. That leaves the other four squares. Two or three of them I'd dedicate to raw material production to supply some type of industry in the colony, leaving just 1 or 2 for lumber. That leaves me with only 8-24 lumber, barring a special lumber resource in a square, which is still not good enough to supply three expert carpenters. :( Because of this, I actually designate "lumber" as the raw material of some colonies and "carpently" as its product. This is the colony I would have cranking out artillery or ships all the time. It works OK, but still, there's never such a thing as enough artillery. :D

Well I always prefer starting in the Amazon area, preferably near a hill, then expanding north and westwards. South is scrub and very unproductive. Dislike the islands - too little space and fewer raw material plus places like Cuba have the Arawaks who are very unreliable. The Tupis can easily be subdued.
Never sell horses, guns or tools to them unless you aim to arm them against the other Europeans. And I never attack a village unless they force me to.
It's always better to send a missionary to a capital. The Incas are usually very co-operative.

happy Gaming!

I think I might have said this in an earlier post, but I always play on a randomised map, that way it's more fun to explore unknown regions, and it is like a new world.

I don't bother with missionaries as I normally play as England and about half way through the game I end up with more colonists than I know what to do with! So every Colony will have 3 or 4 people sitting outside it waiting for something to do. I do think that's only because I play as england though. Spains bonus means nothing to me as I don't attack the indians, the French bonus doesnt actually seem to make a whole lot of difference and the Dutch bonus isnt a long term benefit.. although it's helpful at the start.. I think I'll be Netherlands next time I play.

The other advantage of taking the Dutch is you don't have to play against them, particularly on the harder levels they can be quite brutal.

What level do you usually play at?

How to use Missionaries.

They will start getting angry at you if you try to convert all of thier colonies too fast. However, if you use experts (Get the Founding Father for this) and you do it as 1 per every 10 turns you can turn even the Iroquois and the other huge indian nations into your allies. To keep them calm, give them muskets/horses/tradegoods/tools as a gift. Especially if you plan on them helping you in the War of Independence. Indians kick the king's units behind. An Expert converted city will resist conversion by other powers and the king much better than a normal missionary.

Also, don't build right next to them. If you can, be at least 5 squares away from any of thier cities. That way, you would need in excess of 40 some units in that colony to cause them alarm.

There's this little spot in the Uruguay/Brasil/Argentina area right where the river starts where you can produce sugar, tobacco and cotton all in one coastal colony. I always build a colony there when I'm playing on the America map. The only problem is you have to import tools every time you wanna build something other than the 'tool-free' buildings. I always make sure there's a tool producing colony nearby, there are enough mountains in that area to get ore from.

There's this little spot in the Uruguay/Brasil/Argentina area right where the river starts where you can produce sugar, tobacco and cotton all in one coastal colony. I always build a colony there when I'm playing on the America map. The only problem is you have to import tools every time you wanna build something other than the 'tool-free' buildings. I always make sure there's a tool producing colony nearby, there are enough mountains in that area to get ore from. [/b][/quote]
I agree with you regarding the area. Then I build colonies away from the coast as they do not come come under attack when you declare independence :D . Build wagons, and roads where necessary (rivers work as roads too) both for trade and transporting resources!

Yes I too face the same problem with too many immigrants from England...so the best answer is build more colonies inland :D They can be smaller but well defended.

A better way to get Indians' support is to give them money! :w00t:

An older reply, but my computer was down for a while, the king's army does not grow with time. It grows with the tax money you pay everytime you buy, sell, or send treasure.
You pay for the army that destories you!


Thanks for the tips posted, their are some good ones in there.


I have said it before, but my favorit spot is the gulf of mexico. You get a three towns with Ore (if you build to maximise the number of cities on the islands), lots of wood and TONS of fish. With this you can make hundreds of free colonisists to go build towns on the main lands. Also, everyone of my island towns have a population of 15-20 and I have so many dragoons that each town has ten just sitting around.
Also, their are lots of spots inland with silver, ore, wood and anything else you want.
To top it off, their are only 3-5 indain cities there and once they are gone, you never have to have your core colonies be effected by europains or indains!

Top that off with the kings forces hitting mainland costal colonies frist and you know exactly what you have to defend!

When I declared in my last game, they hit one town with every unit they had and lost to that one town. Please note it did not have a fotress completed and was poorily defended compared to the rest of my colonies.

I think I am going to reload that game to just before declaring and go conquer the other powers to control the world. I only got a 59% colonisation rating and I want to see if I can get 100% for once.

Has anyone acturally got 100%, or am I just not playing enough?


Ravewood

Well. taxes rises with time so Royal Forces rises with time. :bleh:
Anyway, dont defend of them, attack them from outside the colonies (u get an ambush bonus) with a mobile force of MCA(Mounted Continental Army). Inside the colonies left cannos and never let combat a CA, pull it back refill it with horses and got the MCA again. Dont let they make beachead. :ok:

Viceroy Leonardo De Las Nieves of the Free Dutch
President, Republic of Surinam, 1681---------1588 77%
I think that i ended as an state of the Union.

As Civ II, in the score table cant got a % over 100. But in points u got now limits or maybe u got a 666666 points as limit but i dont know.

You can get 100% I think, but you have to have lots of power, lots of colonies, lots of 100% free citizens, lots of naval power, and you can't kill the indians. Starting the war of independence early (before the US declared war on George the III) will also grant you a nice bonus.

Ah, but the army only raises if you pay taxes. :D
So, just dump everything and trade with custom houses, simply keep everything in ships and wagons so the king's accounts cannot find it to tax (which is a LOT of micromanagement), or don't trade with your homeland...

Nope, the Royal Forces growth even when trading with custom houses and i am very sure of this last. Maybe just a bug that consider the growth according to tax without care of custom houses effect. I never trayed to stop sell of goods from America and be by my own.

I don't know about Civ1 or Col, but in Civ2 you could get a Civilization Rating as high as 327 or 328% I think (it must be recorded in a signed integer variable), and I'm not talking about the score but about the CR percentage, sure. And you can keep track of your CR even further, because once you surpass this limit the CR% turns negative and keeps running. And yes I got that score without cheating, it's easy once you know THE method. :max:

Colonization is completely different though, because you can't expand without limit, there's a very tight memory limit as to how many units there can be (outside colonies--not including workers). This just pissed me so much. :tai:

untrue that you have to "continuously keep your army at large and at all your colonies"... at least not if you remember that the REF always attacks your weakest coastal colony and use that knowledge to your advantage: simply make your most defensible coastal colony your "weakest" colony by placing its military units outside... when the REF lands, destroy it on the beach. granted, you'll want to do this in one turn, so make sure you have enough military units to complete your counter-attack.

warning: don't block the REF's path to your "weakest" colony or you'll automatically lose units.

tip #1: leave only one military unit in all your other coastal cities, thus maximizing your counter-attack force.

tip #2: you won't want to route your counter-attack through your colony (even if there is a terrain bonus), because then your armies will end their turn inside your colony, thus making it your strongest and diverting the REF elsewhere... although this is can be a good strategy if your counter-attack has failed and you are now at risk of losing a key colony if that next boatload of REF shows up.

tip #3: for the above reason, remount any defeated dragoons in a different colony... hopefully one nearby.

For the war of independence, I tend to take the approach of dismantling all but my strongest colony (with a fortress), stacking all my military units (and other units) in there, arming absolutely everyone I can with muskets and horses, getting around 10 artillery, then declaring independence, I sit in my settlement, they attack (privateers attack their ships) and lose (I requip and soldiers that have lost battles with new horses at the end of every turn. Not very pretty, but it works.

The worst thing about Colonization was the random nature of combat results. :ranting: A game can't be a strategy game if you can't anticipate the results of your actions with some likelihood. :not_ok: I don't know why units had combat rankings, if an unarmed colonist could perfectly defeat a veteran dragoon. :wall:

There was a curious feature about this: if you lost a couple of combats in a single turn, you'd better end the turn without attacking with the rest of your units, because apparently luck came in runs in this game and you would lose all of them, no matter your combat ratings.

I have no idea of what you are talking about.

I actually bought this game, and I had (I am not sure if I still have it) a spreadsheet which showed me the strenght of all units and and defensive bonus of all terrain. This mean that a unit fortified in a mountain square (not hill) get +50% if fortified, +100% because of the mountain and +50% if it's a veteran. This mean a whoping 200%, and this is not even counting the fact that Dragoons are stronger than Soldiers to begin with...

Yes I know that numbers, they are in the Colonizopaedia and if you activate a certain game option an analysis is shown before each combat, including each unit's basic strength and all modifiers, caused not just by terrain. But hasn't it happened to you that an enemy loaded (-25%) caravel (2) defeated one of your Privateers (8) which was of course attacking (+50%) and even if you had Francis Drake (+50%)? That's 2 against 16, it's just an example, and things like that or worse happened to me ALL the time.

It doesn't happen to you? WHY?? :cry: Oh boy, this game would be so much better to me if this wasn't so!

Of course this kind of stuff happens. Can you imagine a caravel manned with actual soldiers, prepared to fight on the decks with pirates off of privateers? Sometimes the puny get lucky. Sometimes that poor inca brave will somehow hurt your cannon.

It was made from the same people who made civilization, and thus a phalanx does have a minute chance to kill a armor.

Naval battles are not the same thing at all. It happen to me all the time that my privateers get beaten by smaller ships... However, you will be able to seize cargo way more often than not, and it's probably programmed this way because if you manage to completely deny the access to a port to another nation then you pretty much locked them out from the game unless his colonies are already well developped...

I stand by my worlds. :angel: A strategy game is greatly spoiled if you have no clue of what your strategic planning will result. And there's a limit to unexpected results in real life.

There was a curious feature about naval battles. The bigger your navy is, the greater the likelihood of getting your ships sunk. I don't remember if just losing (getting sunk or damaged) will be more likely, but if you have only one warship, everytime she lose she'll be damaged not sunk. Whereas if you have plenty of warships most of them will be gone before you have time to build a single replacement.

Civilization 1 was also way too random for my taste (then Civ2 had pretty fixed results, then Civ3 got a bit more random). But the randomness in other games is really random, in this one it's modified by other factors not represented in the modifiers like those mentioned.

I love this game and have been playing it since...95? Tuff game! I've played through it afew times without cheating and had a ball. I now cheat (by editing the attack/defend rating of missionarys to 99, thus adding the power of god into them) and i jsut run around the place with the aim of new-world domination. Great way to play for faster fun. You still have to build resources etc, but the attacks are swifter and surer.

Just 1 Q, is it in anyway possible to desert a colony after it has a stockade?

Nope. I'm sure the game already told you so.

Nooo! Once the colony gets 3 population rating you can't abandon it...you can before that! :ok: :bye:

You may abandon a colony regardless of its population provided that it doesn't have any fortifications, may you? But then there's a founding father who builds a stockade in any colony with 3 or more colonists. Well the case is that you can't do what the game says you can't, and there's no way around it, as far as I know. Although... Have you tried starving one of the three colonists? Naw that would be too cruel. :twisted:

And no, when you abandon a colony it disappears, it doesn't turn into an "abandoncolony". LOL

Piss of a native and let them kill your city. Make sure it has no defenses or muskets...

Or don't have the Sieur de Salle foundin' father join your congress - then you'll only have a stockade on the colonies you wouldn't abandon anyway....

/Raasted

Or around the colonies you've conquered from other nations, but whose location you don't like. And besides de la Salle is all right no matter this secondary effect. Look, the best thing you can do if you can't abandon a colony is to forget about it. Leave the last three losers there (preferably criminals) and do as if it didn't exist. After all there are no costs in this game.

I know it is a bit crazy way of showing some thing cool, but the sites title was that. And there is an map editor there, and update patches and lots of other cool Colonization stuff there. And they are even linking to you guys :)

Colonization Home Page

Agreed - the best thing to do is probably to forget about the colonies you want do abandon...as to de Salle - gaining stockade on the 3. citizen isn't a very powerful thing imo - there are many other founding fathers you would rather have joining your congress than him.....

/Raasted

Basically IF you want to abandon a colony YOUR planning was faulty. I'd rather restart the game than to either abandon or worse leave them to starve or worst of all let the tribes slaughter them.

Don't you chaps get involved with the people to settle and wish them well? :not_ok:

1) Does anyone know whether you could find one or two fountain of youth??? (and not like the one in futurama)

2) I dont fuly remember this, but im certain, that you somehow can trade with you the other foreign powers in Europa, after declaring independence..... is this true. Is that an option you get after the declaration, or do you have to have some kind of big-shot-trade-advisor????,



And here is just an open question: Which advisor did you prefer?
I think i prefered Pocahonts, because she made tensions betwene the native´s and me, much less.



:ot: WolverineDK og Raasted: jep, det er fedt nok at m?de andre danskere herinde :ok: Selvom i m?ske er de eneste der kender den opskure reference til Red Warzawa i mit brugernavn :D

Peter Stuverysoiunenvoncoisantoinsant - the costum houses are inexpendable! :ok:

/Raasted

I've never found more than one, I think. Do you remember whether other nations, AI players, can find it? Only the human player can, if I'm not wrong.

Well, after you get one Fouding Father (can't recall his name) you may trade with other nations' *colonies*. And of course, trading with nations other than your motherland is precisely what Stuvesant's custom houses do; they allow you to sell your goods in the free market instead of your king's buying monopoly, and that's why these goods are tax-free -contraband.

I can't remember all of them now. The first I tried to get were the ones who increased your liberty bells production, so that you got new Fathers faster and your colonies got the patriotic bonuses earlier. Another very good one was the one who allowed you to choose the next immigrant, and turned criminals and servants into free colonists. Pocahontas seemed of little value to me, because she mitigates the problem but doesn't solve it. If you want the indians to be easy establish missions, they're miraculous! :angel:

1) Some of the coins were you can explore are related to the rumors of the lost city, many times you will get the banner "only found rumors" and sometimes you will lost the explorer. There is a chance of find the fountain of youth, the chance of finding it is minimiun related to the "only rumors". With Hernando De Soto results of exploring Lost City Rumors are always positive.

2) Jan De Witt alows trade with other colonies in the New world, Peter Stuyvesant gives you the custom house. With that you can got auto trade without ships with europe even during revolution war.

3) Wich advisor you prefer?
There are many, but two of them are key and represent two different tipes of playing Hernando De Soto/Hernan Cortes. Peter Stuyvesant, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson are keymembers too.

Don't recall all the Founding Fathers' names though I have written them down somewhere, but you can and do find more than one Fountain (in fact I'm sick of them two galleons are bringing them and more than a dozen imigrants waiting at the London docks [Viceroy level]); and yes you can trade with the other european powers (they try to pass on their surplus to you) albeit the Indian pay you more :D

As i already said you need from Jan De Witt to trade with other europeans in America. You are always free to trade with independent nations in America but they are more likely to use a kind of Monroe doctrine and try to attack you.
You are right to say that is better to trade with indians but you should know that sometimes you choose to play as a bloody spanish conquistator so no idians to trade they only exist to be stolen, enslaved or killed.

Use the pioner to colonize and with the ship and the soldier go to kick some one. Its easy at begining coz Ai, most of times, build a city with the pioner and other with the sold. So You get free extra sold and pioner And the chance of continue capturing colonist for ya. More tips... errr......no about the start of the game.

You need at least one port, i found that by having many ports you ve a tendency to become a good exporter that brings lots of cash in early years but few during the later game. That means that ya will end buying the army equiment to fight for independence. This means an stronger army compared to the army build by nations with many cities at innland that raises their own horses. But if the war get some hot, the innland nation will replace horsies and even artillery easier and worst in the independence war, the seashore nation will fight without bonuses and paying penalities.
So make some ports to build your economy but reinvest in innland armament industry.

ive gotta play civ 4 then.

but secondly: Colonization is so close to perfection that it dosent need a sequal that much.
Not when it is soo easy to play on modern computers. :ok:


question: i dont seem to remember, but was it possible (without cheating) to get a Man-o-war??? or was it only the Tory-forces that can get such a boat? was it never possible to buy one??? or am i wrong??


last question: i have never lost a colony to indians or foreigners, but when it happended, did it look like this???::::

http://www.colonization.biz/level2/pics/burning2.gif

Once independence was declared, and if you held out long enough, a foreign power offered you help against your motherland--much like France and Spain lent the English colonies a hand against England. If I remember right, this new fried will provide you with Men-o-war.

Modern sequels do but screw good classics. :yawn:

You can get it as part of the intervention force during the war of independence. If you lose any, they cannot be replaced.


On a side note, I wish they made the war of independence harder. It's always way too easy for me, even on viceroy (I've never lost more than 1 colony to the king).

Yes - though it only happens when the colony is lost "forever" - destroyed.....

And as said before - the intervention forces from the other european powers includes man-o-war(s)...

I agree - the only flaw in the game is the (lacking) difficulty...

/Raasted

did you know that if you sink all his majesties ships the game gets stuck and you cannot finish because he cannot land the last of his troops so no independance

I dont belive it possible, the chance of sinking a ship is related to the number of ships in the game. If there are 40 ships, its more like next naval battle one ends with the fish; if there are only the 4 start ships + 1 combat ship it is near impossible to sink anyone. With a little adjustement of that equation and last ship of the royal fleet is invincible.
Plus you dont need to defeat the whole royal force, by controlling all cities and holding when last complete comboy arribes. You dont need to defeat the last two regulars that dont make a full comboy, the royal fleet, etc.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Jun 2 2006, 03:42 AM) [snapback]233707[/snapback]</div>Cool ^_^ i got to try... And how could I do that? How could i know where his majesty will land?

the last ship of his majesties is not invincable because i have been waiting for them for ten years before i gave up my fortress sank the ships and he has not returned and i have not gained indep.

When you attack an Indian settlement and have a mission in it, Indians will flee the city and join you colony.

not always and if they are turned pretty upset by ya, they will burn the missions.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stensiggaard @ Jun 3 2006, 02:24 PM) [snapback]234041[/snapback]</div>If you have Juan de Sepulveda, it always happens. You can really expand quickly if you use Juan's ability to scare up a large number of converts and then get the founding father the transforms all converts to colonists.

It is possible to sink all of the kings ships. It is a bad idea, but is completely possible.

One of my best games ended badly when the kings ships all landed attacking one city. Being my weakest city, I naturally destoried every member of the landing party and sunk all of the ships with my privateers on the same turn they made landfall. In the end, less then half of the kings army had come over and all of his ships were sunk.
In that game my weekest city still had a solid black row of people standing outside the fortress. Something like 15 cannons and 30 of the mounted continal calvery. The city of sparta, my most powerful city had more then 30 cannons and its own fleet of frigets blocking the whole island.
Incase you were wondering, the value of silver was 1/2 as was about everything else and I had several towns with max production turned to building ships and shipping tools to other towns which where building endless cannons.

PS Completely suronding an island in ships and/or filling every square with troops does not work. Although we cannot land troops unless there is an open square, the king can and your troops/ships vanish. However, it is still a good way to make them land on a picticular square for the ambush bonus.

Well done Ravewood, you should move to next level now, always keep in mind that all ships outside colonies(in surronfing squares) or traveling in high seas will be captured by REF (Royal Expeditionary Force). Only one Man-O-War will arrive per turn to be added to the REF in new world, and it takes near to 4 or 3 turns to a MoW for set sails to Europe for bring more troops. So near to 4 MoW are always in fight, they are near invincibles, frigates can attack them with 24 force and MoW have 24 for defence so the outcome is to close to call, but next turn your frigate can be seized or defeated coz the MoW will attack with 32 and the frigate defend with 16. The chance of sink or get sunk are related to the number of ships in game and the number of ships of the owner of the defeated ship. Pirates defeat MoW few times and you got most privateers sunks that times a MoW gets defeated, MoWdef=24 vs 16 Privateer attack force with Drake, next turn MoW 32 vs Priv 8. In Independecy war, only REF´s and your ships are counted to determine if a ship is going to be sunk, so is really hard (near to imposible) to leave REF without ships. For land war, try to defeat royalist when they make land, kill all landing parties with Mounted Armies from the inland to get the ambush bonus and leave colonies guarded by Artillery. To determine the defensive force of a colony, you should count the % of royalist, the fortress level and multiplicate it by the number of Artilleries in the colony. Dont use troops to defend colonies, pull back troops without horses, got horses reserves. It is hard to make dragoons to become Mounted Continetal Armies. From a garrison, the number of Drags that become MCA the independece day. will be related to level of game, number of colonist inside city, % of rebel. Another way to get MCA is to let drag to ambush REF´s artillery, they are easy targets.

That game was from a long time ago (I recived colonization for my brithday the year it came out). Although, I could probably still find the save file.

I have acturally never had a ship seized while it was out of a colony. However, when I was younger, I mostly played on the lower difficulty levels. Now I am just getting back into it and have only really played two games lately.

May be a cheat factor here? More likely a fluke! Once I was trying to bring my Privateer into port when it was attacked by a Man o' War and to my surprise and joy M o' W was sunk :brain:
But looking at the firepower of a Frigate and a MoW it's not possible. I tried and lost three against the same ship :angry: (This was at the Viceroy level).

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Eagle of Fire @ Jul 10 2006, 10:56 PM) [snapback]242573[/snapback]</div>Any recommendations on how to defeat the royal expeditionary force?

Ambush them outside your colony, leave your artillery inside the fort...better a fortress!

Aside from quasi-cheats, attack them in rough terrain. Of course you should be prepared for serious war before declaring independence. That means having loads of veteran dragoons and a fortress defended by loads of artillery in every colony.

Attacking them in rough terrain wins you an ambush bonus, just as it does to the natives before you declare your independence. Try to get as much as possible help from Indians and Europeans. Use missionaries to revoke Indians against your mother country. Pay them if you have enough money. Try to get Man-o-Wars from supporting European nations to stop them at sea. Destroying a Man-o-War filled with dragoons will be quite easier than bothering the dragoons on land. Never use less defense then a fortress equipped with lots of cannons (five or more could be handy). Use your customhouses efficiently to make enough money available for purchasing artilleries. If you lose one, buy another one quickly. If one your cities falls under siege, try to break it with your dragoons from an another colony. I guess these should do the trick.

You can not defeat Man-o-War filled with royal Cavalry.
About winning the independence war, read above or just try to be always attacking landing parties. Never by at defensive, got lots of horses, LOTS OF HORSIES to never lose Continental Armies.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(laiocfar @ Jul 30 2006, 02:10 AM) [snapback]245812[/snapback]</div>It has been so long since I completed this game and I can't remember clearly. Why can't a Man-O-War filled with dragoons be defeated? It is so hard, or the game doesn't allow this. Which one is it?

I don't think it's impossible, and the soldiers aboard a ship don't make a differece for sea combat --according to the game's own Combat Analysis. However every warship you'll have will be inferior to the King's Men-o-War, except for the few Men-o-War the other European nations will give you. But in the end there's just no way you're sinking all the King's Men-o-War, you'll have to confront the King's Army.

I tend to abandon all colonies other than my main one, which is choc-a-bloc with artillery and horsemen. I lost very few horses, and only about 2 aritllery. The city was full of horses so I didn't lose any men.
My tactic was to fill the seas with privateers (which were quite effective agaisnt the man o' wars). When the troops made landfall next to my colony I attacked them from within with horsemen, while keeping the artillery safe inside.

When fighting the Royal Expedition Force, your main counter is your Continental Army dragoons. With them, you can get a bonus up to 200% only because of the terrain type the ennemy is standing on (forest or swamp). And they don't get the defensive bonus either, you actually gain the defensive bonus for the terrain.

I have a dumb question. Is there a way of removing colonists from a colony to move them to a better place? I can move them to the outside the colony area but unless they are soldiers I never see them on the map. Am I missing something?

well, there are two ways of "placing" citizens. One is in the town screen, where you put them onto a vacant square, where they disappear from the map screen. The other is to place them outside the fence, where they should appear on the map screen the following turn. Other than that, I really don't know.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lowlylowlycook @ Aug 10 2006, 07:19 PM) [snapback]247799[/snapback]</div>I guess it's only that most times only so many units can be displayed while on the same spot. There's no difference between soldiers and other colonists, believe me. If you've moved them out you'll be prompted to move them the next turn --they won't have moves left the same turn they're de-assigned, no matter whether they're soldiers or not.

If they're fortified or on sentry --they won't unless you've actively ordered them so-- and there are only so many units on the city spot that you can see only the first few ones when using the "activate unit" order for instance, you can manage them --fortify, sentry, clear orders-- in the colony management screen. At the bottom right, below the surrounding terrain view and above the commodities and "Exit" button, there's a window and three buttons. Press the one featuring a musket and then in the window you'll be able to manage a practically unlimited number of units.

IMO, it's just because the colonists are considered spending their turn when assigned. When you put them outside the fence they will be available in the next turn after completing the work given them (ex. fishing, teaching...). Fortified, sentried units like soldiers and ships are not considered to be spending the turn because they are just waiting. You can activate and use them immediately.

Colonists behind the stockade can defend only if attacked and guns are available, and no regular soldiers inside!

Dont you need a foundin father to let colonist to take the guns for defence?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(laiocfar @ Aug 12 2006, 02:27 AM) [snapback]248030[/snapback]</div>Absolutely. It's been long enough so I can't remember the name clearly but something whispers from the depths of my mind: "the name should be something like Paul Revere"

BTW, if I'm not wrong they can still defend even if there is just one musket in the town. It should be something like a bug or it could be consciously made.

Paul Revere is a founding father but i am not sure if he is the one who makes colonist to take arms or the guy that give you a frigate. And i got a version without the bug or maybe the bug wotks with some fortification level or it isnt a bug and it comes from the fortification level.

When you get a stockade, you can't reduce the number of colonist in a colony under 3. This rule always been there.

I checked some of the founding fathers;

Paul Revere is the man who lets the colonists to take up arms.
Drake is the one who strengthens privateers.
John Paul Jones (or something like that) is the one who gives you a free frigate. (I don't think this guy is helpful later in the game, because you can use your liberty bells for something much more necessary.)

About the bug(!) i mentioned; normally a unit of soldiers needs 50 muskets. For example, when i have any number of muskets below 50, it can even be 1, any civilian in the colony takes arms when attacked and they seem as soldiers in the combat display. It could be made intentionally just to show the basic aspects of militiamen, people going to war with all they have, even if they don't have enough :whistling: But it has nothing to do with fortifications as much as I experienced so far.

And yes, population of a colony which has stockade can't be dropped below three nor it can't be abandoned.

Paul Revere it is. For most actions you do need the proper FF.

And the Militia Bug of one musket, fight with a real force of 2?

Paul Jones is good when you need a few more turns of raising armies. The frigate wouldnt hurt and can be more usefull that a late Hernan Cortez to yoiur game.

Fortifications are important for defence not for attacking!

Hey, used to play this game when it first came out! awesome game.

I believe you have to collect so many liberty bells if my memory serves me right to get non-conflict independance

If my memory serves me right the other nations could get peaceful independence but you couldn't no matter what.

That's right...you can't!

:sos:

Hello, I have question: I have installed and tried to run this game under DOSbox, but it allways ends in "loading game" screen, leaving game and I can't restart it. I use colonize.bat file to start it, in command line colonize. Any help for me? I relly would like to try this game.

I've found this download site for old Colonization game:
link removed

Please do not post links to warez sites. Thank you! :ok:

No links allowed!

fortifications are good for attacking they give you the control of a water passage.

And better for defence!

GOT A COLONISATION RELATED PROBLEM!!!

Just downloaded the game from another site, as it's my favourite game of all time!!! I unzipped it from the original zip file. I have even managed to install the game (as in I got onto the actual in-game installation screen), however I don't know how to play it now as I don't know how to get the COLONIZE (MS Dos Batch File) to play.. if anyone has any ideas please drop me a line at:

[BEEEP]@student.manchester.ac.uk

Use DosBox to run the game. Given that you've been here for nearly two years, I'm surprised you didn't know that...

Not necessarily 5th_horseman! You can play it even on the DOS Prompt full-screen though it's faster and the mouse does tend to wander if you let it :).
Of course the DOSBox is better :)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lethe @ Mar 27 2005, 11:02 AM) [snapback]85579[/snapback]</div><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Microprose Veteran @ Apr 13 2005, 01:41 PM) [snapback]94586[/snapback]</div>Has nobody else mastered the Spanish rape tactics?! :titan:
Raping the Indians can really pay off, as long as you don't try it too early! and please, for the love of god... don't sell them muskets... The Indians can be really temperamental, even if you try to be nice to them... at least with the Spanish smash the indian tactics, you can be sure they will hate you :P

I like to use all 4 nations and I still don't think I've found any one strategy that consistently beats the others.
English immigration isn't half bad though.

I love strategy games. I'm well over Command and Conquer Generals, Warcraft III Frozen Throne (except for DOTA), but I'm downloading colonization today hehehe that game always sees some play at some time of the year.

I've tried both being friendly to the Indians and wiping them out. Their aggressiveness can be reasonable, but only if you found missions in every nearby village, don't expect to live alongside them if you don't. I always play with the Spanish (and have beaten Viceroy level), actually I don't care about the bonuses, and I'd say the Spanish one is the most worthless one since combat in this game is so exasperatingly random.

Spanish arent hard since indians arent good at fighting... the problem are the other europians, when your armies are far away in the rainforest hold an enemy siege is nearly impossible. Normaly, i rush the nearest europians and relly on fleet and some well emplaced forts to dont have landings near my seaside colonies, the inland colonies always got the army near and washigton helping to fight indians can result in a huge number of veterans.

Immigration bonus of The English is the best for me. Because you can make a difference in this game by increasing your population and thus production.
Dutch starting with a merchantman and a stable trade is also good. You can use the money you earn to populate your colonies.
The French and the Spanish are the worst while the french are a little bit better IMHO.

Netherlands rules. It has merchantman at start, so you can transport more cargo to the Motherland and make a jump relative to your European neighbours in development. I always play for them. But my first completion was for English. For historical authentity. :)

Netherlands gots the economy power and it results in a good advantege, the best in the game if you ask me, but war and exploring are always better than buy imigrants.

[semi rant]What's with all these swamps I wonder. I started 5-6 games, random map, and every single one of them had the entire coastline consisting solely of swamp. Isn't there supposed to be any other tiles? [/semi rant]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mighty Midget @ Jun 2 2007, 05:59 PM) [snapback]292699[/snapback]</div>Then go to other latitudes. I also get tired of tropical climate all the time, because my ship seems to arrive always at tropical latitudes. Nevertheless you can colonize there just as well... if you like five sugars in your tea. :D

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Jun 2 2007, 06:25 PM) [snapback]292701[/snapback]</div>This because there is only 4 entry point for the ship (14, 28, 42 and 56 on Y axis) but only in America's map , on random map there is only 2 : 28 and 42, and at this latitudes only tropical, savannah, rain and swamp can be found in abundance :tai:

Imho, this is one of the major fault of colonization (random and custom maps sucks ! :angry: ).

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!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Jun 2 2007, 10:16 PM) [snapback]292716[/snapback]</div>;
; 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) :)

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?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Øyvind @ Jul 1 2007, 10:50 AM) [snapback]297412[/snapback]</div>Use dosbox.

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????

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]

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

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.

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.

Thought you guys might be interested in this...

http://www.freecol.org/

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.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Eagle of Fire @ Oct 14 2007, 02:20 PM) [snapback]316057[/snapback]</div>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.

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

Sorry for that.

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!

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 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...

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!

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:

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.

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.

@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. 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. :)

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

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.

@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.

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 :)!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Grand Dad @ Nov 17 2007, 02:53 PM) [snapback]319446[/snapback]</div>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.

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. :)

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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...

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...

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 :
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).

So this has happened to you as well?

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

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

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

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:)

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

:eek: Please delete that link. It's not protected, but sold at CDAccess.com [2] and Amazon.com [2] [3]. The buy it buttons together with the buy links got (accidently?) replaced by the ESA buttons during the relaunch.

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.

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.

That will be a good new.

As I already said on AR Forums:

Ditto

From my Freecol review in AR:

Why can't I download it?
 

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

Learn to read.

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.

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

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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...

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...

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

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.p...on+for+Windows

:o Thanks man.

Playing Col for DOS. :unsure:

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

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.

Great news! :nuts:

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

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:

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)

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.

Runin Colonization
 

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.

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.

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

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?

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 wishes Colonization was free :(

BTW @ Fifth: Nice new Avatar

Well you have Freecol.

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...?)

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? << click <<

Not available here. "No go" means it isn't downloadable because it's either still sold or otherwise protected.

EDIT: Beaten by seconds

W00T
 

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...

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

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

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.

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.

method Edit money from CheMax
 

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

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.

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.

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:

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.

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!

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 ;)

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

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.

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)

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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:

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.

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 :)

This is historically accurate. For example: Relocation of the 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.

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

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 =)

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

Where are the Portuguese?
 

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.

We heard ya. Now calm down!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File: Dutch_Empire35.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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

limitless cash in 1500 (within the rules, lol)
 

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.

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

Island strategy
 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 ;)

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.

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

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

That is pretty much what I said. :p

Free imitation games
 

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

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!

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

Colonization Companion
 

(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, 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.

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 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.

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/1...reasure_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 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/attac...80-jpg.540051/

https://forums.civfanatics.com/attac...80-jpg.540052/

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 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 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!

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 (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.

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/di...ad/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/di...ad/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/di...read/9eb4fbdf/

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 at CivFantics and also a website 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.

Extracting terrain & other graphical assets from classic Colonization
 

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/threa...#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/threa...#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 (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! :)

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


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

https://i.imgur.com/LOgDqoc.png


Discord:
https://discord.gg/CHcH75s

https://i.imgur.com/IUMWuJp.png

just joined the reddit and facebook group! :max: