Vapid, half naked dude cutting down trees. We're off to a great start!
Internal view of Bay 12, with the best 16th century GUI. Those build icons are, left>right top>bottom:
Carpenter - turns lumber into building points.
Tobacconist - turns tobacco into cigars.
Blacksmith - turns iron ore into tools.
Distiller - turns sugarcane into rum.
Weaver - turns raw cotton into cloth.
Fur Trader - turns animal skins into coats.
Town Hall - produces Liberty Bells. More on that later.
Buildings have to be staffed to do anything. Specialists do twice the work of ordinary colonists, and every building has two upgrades to increase it's volume of work except the Town Hall.
On the right is the resource map. Unlike every other Civ lineage game, you can only work the immediate 8 tiles. Right now I've got our one colonist making woodland creatures into corn, apparently. The fish would produce more food, but there's no dock to send fishermen. Normally I'd be cutting down trees to make a dock, but this works fine too.
Along the bottom is the inventory of all the resources. It's not important what all of them are now, and they should be as self-evident as the fact that we have none of almost everything.
Meanwhile, I send the Veteran Soldiers to check out those ruins next door.
Hmm, alien and ostentatious graves. Well guys, what should I do now?
If you guessed "dig that shit up", you're right. No mummies no mummies no mummies...
Booyah! That's how we roll in Seville baby!
Rruht rrouh Reorge. Only 1494 and I'm rich and hated.
Treasure can only be transported by a Galleon, and it takes up the whole thing. This treasure doesn't even cover the cost of buying a galleon, and I won't have that kind of money for a long damn time. Time to bite the big one...
I've seen worse. 960 pesos is a lot better than zero.
Dammit, I gotta type another explanation. Those Liberty Bells? They represent political infrastructure. You need them to grow your towns past certain sizes or you suffer production penalties (there's actually another step involved that I'll have to explain soon). Bells also accumulate over time to add people to your Continental Congress.
The Congress is like Colonization's version of research or wonders. Each person adds some global bonuses or allows special abilities, as well as learnin' ya some history. Whenever another person can be added, you get to choose between five categories, each with five people. These ones do-
Peter Minuit - Lets you use Indian owned lands without paying them. Being Spaniards who just pissed the Apaches right the fuck off, this doesn't seem important.
Henry Hudson - Doubles the collection of animal pelts. That's it. Lame.
Paul Revere - If you have weapons in a town, but no soldiers, and that town is attacted, one citizen is instantly turned into a normal soldier. Useless this early.
Pocahontas - Reduces Indian anger, and makes them less able to hate you. Literally minutes too late, and for Spaniards counter-intuitive.
William Penn - Churches produce more crosses, ergo more immigration.
Yeah, I'm not giving you a vote on this one, because it'd be either pointless or retarded.
Found the Dutch. Lazy stoners haven't built a town yet, and probably won't for a while.
Here they come. Hunkering in Bay 12.
The Apache raiders have a combat power of (1 +50% for raiding) 1.5 versus the Veteran Soldiers who have (2 +50% for being fortified +50% for being in a town) 3. Combat in Colonization rarely means actual destruction, at least for Europeans. More often, a unit will lose it's weapons or experience, leaving them ordinary colonist. Basic Indians can't be demoted like that, so they're just wiped out if they lose.
Not surprisingly, both groups were easily fought off.
Limey showoffs. I hope they have Apaches crawling up their asses.
Even when they don't win, Indians can steal money or goods.
Traveling between Europe and the Americas takes a few turns (slightly random) each way.
Europe. I just sold some furs for pocket change, and that cowboy on the docks is a Scout seeking religious freedom in the New World. I can also try recruiting one of the three random colonists available at a geometrically increasing price, hiring a specific specialist at ridiculous prices, buy other ships (can't afford any yet), or buy goods.
I hired another colonist and bought him guns and horses, turning him into a dragoon. Dragoons are mounted soldiers, with more attack power and four movement instead of one. No reason to use soldiers instead of dragoons except the cost of horses.
Damn pot-heads. This is my continent.