Trade, diplomacy and war form the foundation of Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization. Tasked with populating the New World you will leave the shores of your oppressive Motherland and form your own country to live amongst the natives until such time your armies and economy are strong enough to claim independence. The title bares large resemblance to Civilization IV and the classic Colonization and as a stand alone expansion it should appeal to fans of either of these older titles.

Colonization has been built on an enhanced version of the Civilization IV engine so many elements of the controls and interface will be familiar to owners of existing Civilization titles. A number of incremental improvements have been made to ripen the graphics to an impressive modern standard and the user interface and controls are clean, fast and efficient to keep your mind on the turn based strategy.

At your disposal are a variety of key options such as various map sizes, online multiplayer including a play by email mode, several difficulty levels and game speeds all to guarantee the colonising experience you desire. To begin your journey towards independence, choose your Motherland (France, England, Germany or Spain) and who your predominate leader will be (each with their own unique benefits) and then set sail for the New World.

Colonization differs from classic Civilization by focusing on trade and immigration to establish the means to fund your final fight for independence. Technology advances have been removed entirely in order to conform to history, and for the same reason a turn limit introduced which pressures the player into their revolution as soon as possible.

Choosing where to begin colonizing is very important, without the right resources to develop and trade your town will develop slowly. The game will highlight tiles which are a good choice for starting towns. As you continue to play migrants will be waiting at Europe for you to pick up, at which point you may decide to sell or buy resources with the Motherland. Early in a match interacting with Europe is a powerful way to gain a head start against your rival colonists, however as the Motherland starts to demand gifts, increases taxes and natives begin to convert to your towns your interest will slowly fade. Until such time you are ready to severe the Motherland completely.

Accomplishing independence isn't as straight forward as it might sound. First you must achieve 50% rebel sentiment in each of your towns by promoting strong culture. Then you may declare independence, but not before establishing a strong and reliable country. Begin the war prematurely and you will not have the resources to fight off the Motherland's armies, which must be totally annihilated to end the match.

Culture, as with immigration, production, farming and so forth is accomplished by allotting towns people to the appropriate building or land tile. Each towns person can adopt any profession you desire, although they often possess specialities enabling them to accelerate in their field of expertise. Educational facilities can allow you to improve these specialities.

Not all towns people will be producing resources or food to bring direct growth to the town. The majority will be farming resources such as tobacco, while others will be making cigars from that very same tobacco. Such resources can be traded with natives, other colonists and the Motherland to earn gold. As the currency for the Civilization series gold is used to rush buildings and interact with other nationalities but additionally in Colonization it is eaten up by the Motherland through taxes and pointless demands for donations.

This focus on population management and trade makes Colonization unique, but also very dull. The game includes an AI which can automatically assign towns people work and recommend what structure to build next. Although I found the AI never understood my strategies and forced me to micromanage every single worker and keep track of which resources were needed in which towns. Automatic trade routes can be applied between towns but selling to natives, the Motherland and competing colonists has to be operated manually and this is where my own interest in the game totally diminished.

There are a lot of tedious tasks and decision making to wade through and as your only reward: admiration of your own management skills. Here in lies the appeal of (or lack there of) Colonization. It is a niche game. The inevitable war might inspire interest, but with the missing technology element it is much easier to recommend another Civilization title for planning and executing more comprehensive military campaigns.

Despite my personal preferences I am able to appreciate that some people adore this genre and have fond memories of the classic Colonization, which this new iteration faithfully recreates (apparently). It is a decent expansion to the regular Civilization formula that changes a few fundamentals that may interest Civilization IV fans after a new way to play.

The focus on resource trading and population micromanagement makes Colonization a fairly dull game to endure, except for the select few gamers who find this style of game rewarding and challenging. The title will appeal very strongly to fans of the original Colonization by providing them with a more modern interface, new features and vastly improved technology in which to enjoy the classic gameplay. Gamers keen on entering the genre should definitely look into Civilization Revolution or Civilization IV instead as Colonization is reserved for a small niche of gamers.

Platform reviewed: PC

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