Our fourth city name continues something of a theme.
(
let the warrior meet the lion )
Game: Colonization
Released: 1994
Played: 1995-2017 (on and off)
Personal rating: A warm fuzzy blanket of nostalgia
Colonization was the successor to Civ, arriving only three years after the granddaddy of 4X games and soaking up unknown hundreds of satisfying hours of my well-spent youth. It polished the graphics and interface and did away with the technology tree in favour of collecting liberty bells and founding fathers.
A the start you find yourself in unknown waters with only a boat, two colonists, 100 tools, 100 muskets and thousands of squares of virgin terrain to exploit. The exploration was particularly satisfying - finding tribes with skills to teach and goods to trade - and the joy of finding a lost city rumour was only tempered by the risk that you'd lose your scout without trace...
The economy was based on improving your buildings, piracy, rapidly collapsing commodity prices and a weird system of random trade embargoes that you had to get a certain founding father to let you build a custom house to get around. But really it was a game about shuffling wagon trains around while you waited for that one extra cannon to complete before you attacked someone. I'd probably frown at the whitewashed history today (slavery? No sir, only criminals and "religious converts" working in our fields, honest!) but when I was a teenager that didn't seem so important.
The game itself stands up surprisingly well even now, I sank a few tens of hours into Freecol last year and had fun until the interface (the only bit of Freecol that's different from the original) started grating and making me wish I could play Colonization again.
(
let the warrior meet the lion )Game: Colonization
Released: 1994
Played: 1995-2017 (on and off)
Personal rating: A warm fuzzy blanket of nostalgia
Colonization was the successor to Civ, arriving only three years after the granddaddy of 4X games and soaking up unknown hundreds of satisfying hours of my well-spent youth. It polished the graphics and interface and did away with the technology tree in favour of collecting liberty bells and founding fathers.
A the start you find yourself in unknown waters with only a boat, two colonists, 100 tools, 100 muskets and thousands of squares of virgin terrain to exploit. The exploration was particularly satisfying - finding tribes with skills to teach and goods to trade - and the joy of finding a lost city rumour was only tempered by the risk that you'd lose your scout without trace...
The economy was based on improving your buildings, piracy, rapidly collapsing commodity prices and a weird system of random trade embargoes that you had to get a certain founding father to let you build a custom house to get around. But really it was a game about shuffling wagon trains around while you waited for that one extra cannon to complete before you attacked someone. I'd probably frown at the whitewashed history today (slavery? No sir, only criminals and "religious converts" working in our fields, honest!) but when I was a teenager that didn't seem so important.
The game itself stands up surprisingly well even now, I sank a few tens of hours into Freecol last year and had fun until the interface (the only bit of Freecol that's different from the original) started grating and making me wish I could play Colonization again.
Completed: RB Demogame - Gillette, PBEM46, Pitboss 13, Pitboss 18, Pitboss 30, Pitboss 31, Pitboss 38, Pitboss 42, Pitboss 46, Pitboss 52 (Pindicator's game), Pitboss 57
In progress: Rimworld
In progress: Rimworld