
For starters, and it really bites that we can't show the UI or find videos, the interface and music are different from Civilization IV. Also, the graphics have been given a nice boost and, seeing them in person, it's certainly noticeable. Senior Producer Jesse Smith also walked us through several other things that make Colonization different from Civ IV.
The main thing to grasp in Colonization is that the scope of the game is quite focused on establishing a colony in the New World of the Americas. Trade, diplomacy and warfare in the game's world are the focus, instead of Civ IV's macro concepts, like the tech race and pushing culture.
The city interface is also quite streamlined and appears intuitive, with players being able to take workers and easily move them to focus on things like trapping or other resource-gathering ventures for the city. Players can also build cities right next to Native American camps and we've been told that things will be fine until later in the game.
We also asked about slavery, a significant concept in American history that would be a glaring omission if it were completely ignored. We've been told that much like the introduction of religion in Civilization IV, Firaxis has gotten used to handling loaded concepts and taking the teeth out of them for the game. Slavery in Colonization civic accessible early in the game and players can choose whether or not to use it. Slavery was also a civic in Civilization IV that certainly had its pros and cons. We didn't have time to ask how Native Americans will be treated later in the game and if there'll be a Colonization version of The Trail of Tears.
From what we saw, Colonization looks like it could be a great focused strategy experience for fans of Civ IV, set in a specific point in history, and focused on management rather than the macro concepts of Sid Meier's more epic game. We currently think of Colonization as a Civ IV game with a magnifying glass held up to a certain portion of history.
To be clear, our time with the game was very limited as 2K seemed to want us focusing on titles like Borderlands or BioShock PS3. We got so little time, in fact, we'll be sending questions to the game's producer this week to fill in the significant gaps we didn't have time to ask about. If you've got questions about Colonization, please feel free to leave them below and we'll be sure to ask many of them when we speak with the game's producer this week.



















(Page 1) Reader Comments
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I've never played the other civ games, so I have a question if anyone knows; Are they all turn based? I went into it thinking it was a real time strategy game, and I was a bit dissapointed when I found out it was turn based (Civ Colonization that is). It's fine at the beginning, but it's incredibly annoying when you've got tens of cities, hundreds of soldiers, planes, and boats etc that you have to control. There is no autopilot mode for anything but the food and resource harvesting (which citizens do without you telling them to) so you literally have to babysit each unit on every turn. You can set units to move in a direction for multiple turns, but you still have to watch the animation of every single unit on every single turn. It's a bit frustrating when if it were real time, you wouldn't have to do that (if there is a speed up feature and I haven't found it, I take this criticism back).
All in all, it feels alot like a gimped, combined version of Sim City and a real time strategy game. There just isn't enough of the sim city aspect, or the RTS aspect, to blow my mind, and the cartoony graphics made the Sim City aspect even more watered down. If anyone out there thinks this combo sounds interesting, then I'd say you should absolutely check it out though. It's definitely a solid title.
"I was a bit dissapointed when I found out it was turn based"
That's the real beauty of these games. All the good things about a good board game, without all the tokens and charts.
ROFL. Welcome to big boy games.
@ LaughingTarget
Slavery was not in the original. The closest thing were the indentured servants who were Europeans, and not quite slaves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servants
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Unfortunately I don't have a PC, so my question is, will there be a Mac version?
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And at the previous posters implying pirating the game... you're all sick.
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I could see days and days dissapearing into this game... I hope it doesnt change to much from the original.
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Civ4 gets it right again :)
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Much more info is here:
http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/colonization
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