The whole game is focused on the colonial expansion period of Europe. Players can choose to play as one of several major European powers, such as the Dutch, Spanish or English, among others, and set up their colonies in the new world. Each game, whether single- or multi-player, whether in scenario or play now mode, has but one goal: Le Revolution! Plant a colony, then immediately plan on the optimum route for instilling the requisite revolutionary spirit in the people and train them to fight against the superior forces that will most assuredly come calling when independence is declared. Power to the people! Money is essential for colonist growth, training, route building, and weapons. You name it, you will need it. Balancing the production of each settlement against the need for increased workers and services is quite a challenge, and is sure to keep everyone busy.
There is no explanation on what to do with this ship. Experienced Civ players will know they need to move the ship and make landfall, but new players may be a little confused. Fortunately, the interface has been improved a bit and is more streamlined and navigable. One thing that is missing from Colonization is the tutorial design from the Civ IV games. There are tutorials present, but they are tutorials in name only. In practicality, they are actually more like “tips” for players. Players won’t even get the first one until after they move the ship and place it on land. Then, windows will pop-up from time to time and explain new possible actions such as having units join settlements, sending units to live in villages for training, the new Settlement Screen, and other moves. I sure missed Sid and his expert advice from Civ IV. I wonder why he didn’t make animated tutorials for Colonization.
The interface is basically designed the same as previously, but has been changed a little to become more cohesive and user-friendly. The biggest change to the interface is the Settlement Screen, which is the city information screen. When clicked, this menu function displays a full screen of information about the city, presented as a sort of “map” of the settlement. The buildings are represented by drawings, with silhouettes of possible workers beside them. Assigned workers fill these silhouettes and can be dragged from one worker slot to the other. These experts can be either recruited from Europe, or be trained at home. Many of the native villages offer different types of production expertise and are more than willing to train anyone that comes to stay with them in the village. However, the natives are only skilled in the production of raw goods. Manufacturing is beyond their capabilities. Players can also build schools to train workers. This type of training takes a while to implement broadly at first, though, so be prepared to spend a lot of time traveling back and forth to Europe to fetch immigrants.
