Colonization

History

The King sends the player, Vice-Roi of the grounds, in order to discover and claim grounds in America. The player must determine number of colonies, enrich the Crown and of course see with the conversion of the Indians.

Course of the play

The player finds for Nouveau world with a caravel with, for simple crew, a handle of soldiers and some pioneers equipped. According to the nation that you chose, your strategy of colonization will depend on the single capacities connected to this Crown. The the United Kingdom benefits from an immigration increased, the Spain of a no-claims bonus of attack on the cities and Amerindian villages, the France of a capacity to maintain the harmonious relationships to the latter and finally the Netherlands are in better trading position and start directly with a trading vessel.

Built on the concept of Civilization , this play employs an interface of play to the turn by very similar turn. The play mainly proceeds on a geographical map generated by chance New world. The player must operate his units (colonists, soldiers, ships, etc) on this chart. The play is connected on the other hand more with one economic simulation. One directs each colonist in optics to produce goods and resources which will be resold in Europe (where the Crown will take a share of the incomes via an imposition).

Using the ship which one lays out, one explores the oceans until arriving at the Grounds of the New World. There, it is a question of finding a " place; idéal" to establish its first colony (near a maximum of natural resources, often indicated on the chart by explicit graphics). The first colonist fixes the " population" of your colony with 1. Each new brought colonist (or surplus of the stock of food) increases the population by a unit. Each colonist can be affected is with a task on one of the 8 squares (of ground or sea) available around your colony (for example, it can be a farmer or fishing to produce food, logger to produce wood, trapper for the skins of animals, etc), that is to say with one of the many trades (more than one ten) available on the screen of the colony (carpenter to produce boards, which will be used to build buildings; furrier to transform the skins of animals into coats, etc). One can recruit specialists in Europe: those are more productive in their respective tasks, but are often expensive. A better means to teach a speciality with a colonist consists in for example building a school, or making him visit a village of specialized Amerindians.

The relations which the player maintains with the Amerindian tribes (Aztec, Incas, Sioux, Arawaks, Cherokee…) must be measured well. They can be directed towards a peaceful and often beneficial trade, or with the wrong way with a total massacre of the various factions (which are sometimes in war between them). This last option is risky because the Indians are often well armed and will not hesitate to badger you. However, their capitals conceal unrespected treasures… the same system of relations is applicable with the three other European nations (peace treaty in addition), except that each captured colony becomes yours. The consequences can be more serious: the nations with which you are in war will not help you when you declare your independence.

The King will imply himself from time to time in the mission of the player either to increase the tax rate or to force to enter in war against another colonial capacity.

The goal of the play is indeed to declare the independence of the colonies which you will have founded (often when the taxation of the products which you sell becomes intolerable) and to push back the attacks of the troops of the Motherland which will try to take again the control of those. A system of “Founding fathers of the nation” was set up to reward the production for bells of freedom. Those can free one or of the additional functionalities allowing some strategic advantages.

The sound screen is decorated of traditional folk music including/understanding various parts of violin.

Open Colonization

A company of development of Uruguay, Lambda, works since already August 2004 on the development of Open Colonization. It is about the same play but with, in addition to all the existing functionalities, the aspects of added new handsets. The concept of a play with open source is that it is free and that all can contribute to it. The development team is composed at present of about fifteen people.

This project aims at the large fans of this play.

External bonds

Official site of Firaxis, house of development directed by Sid Meier
The Unofficial Microprose Colonization Home Page
'' FreeCol '' open adaptation source with a more recent technlogy
'' Open Colonization '', free project of play.

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