Online Software Warehouse. Huge range of Brands: Microsoft, Adobe, Apple plus Financial, Design & Accounting Software, Video Games plus more!

Civilization IV: Colonization for the PC is the third offering in the Civilization IV series. A re-imagining of the classic Colonization strategy game Sid Meier created in 1994, Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization is a total conversion of the Civilization IV engine into a game experience in which players will lead a European nation on their quest to colonize and thrive in the New World. Players will be challenged to guide their people from the oppressive motherland, discover a New World, negotiate, trade and fight as they acquire great power and battle for their freedom and independence.

Don't buy this game if you expect a Civ-clone. It's different from that. Building a strong economy through trade and production, keeping cool with the natives and rival colonies, and keeping the king off your back define this game, not war and pillaging (a great and fun part of civ). In fact, you'll shoot yourself in the foot if you destroy rival native and colonies because they're potential trade partners.

Colonization demands trade and micromanaging your people, unlike Civ. You don't just build structures and watch the money roll in. You have to choose jobs for every single person and make the most of their skills, or lack thereof. Micromanagement means plan, plan, plan every aspect of your revolution so that your towns are pumping out goods for sale because that's how you make money. It takes a lot of work and soon feels more like work than fun because you have to remember who's doing what and how much they're making of what product. You can get wrapped up enough in this that the goal of revolution falls to the background.

Colonization needs work to make it great. It's fun and extremely interesting, but some glitches make it un-fun, such as invisible units (which I still can't figure out how to fix). I hope Firaxis can give this classic the respect it deserves in the future.

After reading some of the negative reviews about Civilization IV: Colonization, it would appear to me that some people are confused, and despite their claims of having played both Colonization and Civilization they clearly expected more Civilization than Colonization. For all intensive purposes this is a remake, and the title is a bit misleading, Civilization although a great Turn Based game in and of itself is vastly different from Colonization, many of the complaints listed in the negative reviews can easily be explained by simply referring to the original Colonization.

- One Victory Type
Although uncharacteristic of Civilization, Colonization has always maintained succession from the King as the only path to victory. Granted it's been a long time since I played the original but if I recall correctly even defeating all the European nations, and wiping the New World clear of every Indian did not equate to victory in Colonization.

- Royal Expeditionary Forces
The remake has made winning independence exponentially more difficult by tying Rebel sentiment to the size of your REF(Royal Expeditionary Force), where as in the original Colonization it was tied more so with the Tax's your King collected, either by hikes, or over time. The remake relies on the production of Liberty Bells, which you may consider holding off on producing until you wish to Revolt, despite Liberty Bells being critical to the expansion of your cultural border and beneficial in acquiring Founding Fathers.

-Intervention Forces
Where as in the Original Colonization and historically relevant to our own Independence a European Nation after the continued production of "X" amount of Liberty Bells would come to your aid and save you from the REF, the remake does not allot for such salvation.

The Bottom Line
If you enjoyed the Original Colonization, and would like to see it with new graphics and different spin of gameplay, buy the game. It's only $20 and if you play more than once, you're getting your moneys worth, a movie which is 1.5 hours is like $8 this game to play through once takes approximately 2.5-3hrs or more.

If you love Civ4, but feel like you've played it into the ground and it's lost your attention, then you'll want to pick up Civilization 4: Colonization. The game takes the Civ4 engine to new levels and creates an environment much more focused on trading, resource building, and resource management. The world is smaller, your goal is "simple" - to establish a colony, survive in the new world, and build a force strong enough to defeat your European motherland (the king's army) so that you can claim independence before your neighbors.

You can fight your European competitors to derail their chances, or partner with them for mutual success. Trade with neighboring Native Americans, specialize in certain trade goods, and build a military producing powerhouse in the end.

Ignore the complaints from people who have not beat the game... they need to L2P. This is a different setup than traditional Civ4, the focus is different, it's more production based than war based, more about progression and building up resources, liberty bells (to rebel), and military during the right time in the game. Definitely a mindset changer. It's a very calculated 300 turns, but play through the game once or twice and you should have the rythm down.

If you find yourself frustrated and failing at first, there are plenty of guides out there to help you along [...]

If you're itching to play Civ4 again, but are jaded by the original release and expansions, get Civ4: Colonization and you won't be disappointed. For $16.99, it's well worth the price :)

Colonization feels more like just another mod for Civilization 4 then it feels like a separate game. It only offers one mode of play, and in my opinion, does not have nearly as much replay value as most civilization products.

It is very similar to Civilization 4, and is still fun. I enjoy it, but I still play Civilization 4 much more often.

I played the original Colonization up until this one came out on a DOS emulator. I literally played the original game until it was completely worn out twice!
The new game is good with great graphics and smoother play style. 2 things that I did not like about it was that the Founding Fathers play was changed and of course there are more, they do different things and you have to gather different kinds of resources to get them. The Founding Fathers have different contributions as well ranging from the ho-hum to the WTF to the actually practical.
The 2nd thing was it took me a while to figure out how to get to the settlement screen. It is different assigning resources to the settlements and it is just awkward working with it.
I will still play the game and will enjoy it tremendously. Those are just minor issues that I have with the game.