I play old games (Sid Meier's Colonization)
By ArbitraryWater 5 Comments
In the current hubub revolving around the 10th anniversary of everyone's favorite failed console, I find it time to talk about old games. However, unlike everyone and their dog I am not talking about the Sega Dreamcast but instead am talking about Sid Meier's Colonization, which was released for DOS in the early 1990s after the original Civilization. But, how could I acquire such a game if it is not easily available on amazon or some download service? Oddly enough, I found it while going through the thrift store with some friends to look for weird stuff (One of us bought a leg brace. Fun times). Seeing a plastic baggie containing 3 floppy disks and a manual among all the other crap that was there is certainly interesting, and I only had to pay $1.50 for it. Thankfully, my computer is old and crappy enough to still have a floppy drive, so I was able to install and run it on DOSbox.
But what about the game itself? Simple. If you have ever, ever, ever, even touched any of Sid Meier's non-pirate related works you have played at least half of Colonization. That may be some exaggeration, but the basic form of gameplay that makes some people go crazy (not me, by the way) and play long into the night is there. You, as the newly appointed leader of a colonial expedition are to rape, pillage and plunder the new world, but in a strategic manner, all while preparing to declare your independence from the mother country. Yep. However, there are enough differences from Civ to warrant explanation: You can only get new dudes from your mother country, indians converted from their heathen ways, and the random chance of population growth. Your combat troops entirely consist of Soldiers, Dragoons, and Cannons, but any of your citizens can become a soldier or dragoon simply if given some muskets or some horses. The majority of your income comes from pillaging indian villages or trading with the old world.
Don't Believe me? Here's a video that I recorded with DOSbox's internal codec (thus no music, which ranges from catchy to obnoxious) which shows some inital gameplay.
However, how do I feel about this game? Well, considering that Colonization is pretty much the same as most of Sid Meier's other work, this is basically my opinion of all those games. Treat it as such, as I will never do a thing on Civ II or Alpha Centauri.
I would not consider myself a fan of Sid Meier. I can appreciate and even enjoy his games (Pirates, mostly) but I am not a fan. It's telling for me to say that my favorite part of Alpha Centauri are all the awesome quotes, either from real philosophers such as Plato or Machiavelli, or from the game's fictional leaders, that you get when you research a new technology. Then what is my problem with those games? I am fine with the level of detail and almost fine with the level of micromanagement involved in such an endeavor (Thus my love of Galactic Civilizations II), but the main issue I have with Sid Meier is the time/accomplishment ratio that most (all) of his games have. In layman's terms, his games take too damn long for anything interesting to happen. Once you get past the initial excitement and startup, it starts becoming a time-sucking monotony until the end, when more excitement happens. However, that middle part is 90% of the game. Some may disagree (as they are allowed to do.), but I much rather prefer the Heroes of Might and Magic series (which Video_Game_King should play, so he can tell me that I have bad taste or something) or Disciples II, which don't take 3 hours for things to move along. I simply have trouble coping with that pace.
However, despite that, I still find myself enjoying most of what colonization has to offer. It's a strategically deep game with a clean interface and an interesting premise that people who like those kinds of games will enjoy the hell out of. I am not one of those people, but it's still fun, even as I see my time drain away while deciding if my colonists will plant tobacco or chop lumber. 8.8
Since I only discovered the DOS version of this game by chance, you probably won't be able to find it if you tried. But, there are people with too much time on their hands who have created a fan-remake (which you should at least try out) as well as an official remake using the Civ IV engine. Those games, I assume, manage to capture the same experience as the original.
Next Up: Probably something Might and Magic related, although maybe not with Heroes.