Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization Preview

E3 2008 Preview

Firaxis is back in the Civilization saddle with the third installment of the Civ IV series, but this time around the company is tackling a defined objective with Colonization.

In Colonization players take on the reigns of one of four colonies that have found their way to the New World. They must take on the chores of growing a colony, luring in new immigrants, garnering wealth and weapon and then launching a revolution against the king that torments them from across the waves … and they must do all of this within 300 turns.

2k is the publisher behind Civ IV Colonization, and showed it off at E3 in Los Angeles.

There have been a number of changes to the Civ IV game with this stand-alone expansion. First of all is the player interface, both in terms of management screens and in regards to the world UI. In addition to the four colonies, there are two leaders per colony, each with different ways of affecting the path to the revolution. As colonies grow, players will fill a liberty bar. Once the bar gets to 50%, the revolution can be launched. But there is a lot to do before that can happen.

In addition to the eight leaders, there are 52 founding fathers who will join your cause depending on your progress and how you play the game. These are iconic figures as well. You may pick the English colony with John Adams as the leader and then pick up Betsy Ross along the way. Of course, as in any Civ game, resource management is key and turning those resources into marketable goods will help you gather what is needed to purchase specialists. Specialists will improve production of items. Additionally, you can create your own constitution and the elements you select to implement in that document will determine the way the end game plays out.

Like any Civ game, you need to have other cities established to help with the flow of resources. Throughout the journey, you will have an aggressive king as the antagonist. But, don’t mistake this, despite the iconic characters, as a true reflection of history.
As the dev team for Firaxis was quick to point out: “This is not a history simulator; it’s a game.”

At its core, Colonization remains a turn-based strategy game with plenty of options to tweak the game experience. The maps, whether you pick a recognizable landscape or get a randomly generated map, are huge in size and the game grows in a very nice visceral manner.
 

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