Civilization 4 Colonization E3 Preview
As a extension of that carnage, Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization focuses directly on the journey to the new world, allowing players to take up the role of the peaceful, political settler or the gold-grubbing, blood-letting conquistador. Built upon the preexisting Civilization IV engine, the game shares a variety of elements with its forebear with a particular emphasis on the political and economic aspects of settlement and expansion.
In a demonstration of Firaxis Games upcoming PC strategy title, Firaxis marketing manager Dennis Shirk explained that the game isn't strictly limited to the peaceful—if somewhat backhanded and occasionally troubled—English colonization experience. While a spin through the 300 turns of a standard Colonization game might be more politically and diplomatically skewed, other factions like the Spanish are built for swift, brutal, and early conquest of the new world's native inhabitants.
True to the Civilization pedigree, a match begins by selecting a home country and leader. After scouring the coastlines for a suitable landing site, players must form some sort of arrangement with the natives, exploit the surrounding natural resources, and begin the arduous task of building a working economy.
If you're familiar with Civilization IV's interface, it should be easy enough to jump into Colonization—the two games are more or less interchangeable in terms of gameplay, with a couple of exceptions. Settlements and cities allow for much more micromanagement, allowing settlers and colonists to be assigned to particular roles in specialized buildings in your colonies. Certain figures behave as specialists, and are best used according to their skillsets—a blacksmith will get bonuses to productivity in a forge, but will obviously be a smidge less useful as a furtrapper.
Shirk explained that the first two-thirds of the game are focused on the economic development of your new civilization, while the final third is kicked off by revolution. Certain buildings, specialists and great people will help generate enough rebelliousness among the populous to prompt a separation from your home country, allowing you to forge a constitution granting you several abilities and advantageous bonuses for the remainder of the game.With the revolution in full swing, the game's focus turns towards combat, allowing you to make full use of the war chest built up throughout the earlier years of your colonies and leverage the alliances and pacts made with other factions and native peoples.
With the game swiftly approaching release date, development on Colonization has ramped into the polish phase, and the game is looking good. While the Civ IV engine has seen little by way of substantial or otherwise major changes, the graphics feature improved texture and detail work, and the game's HUD has been updated and streamlined to better suit the new micromanagement features of Colonization.
Functioning as a standalone title independent of Civilization IV, Colonization seems like a sure-fire experience for Civ junkies and new players alike. Like its predecessors, the turn-based strategy play is perhaps a little more contemplative and slower-paced than other strategy titles, but hey—you can't rush something like the utter decimation of a native populous.
