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[Ancre]

So, this is my very first let's play, and in it I will present you Sid Meier's Colonization !

It's an old game, released in 1994, where you discover and colonise the Americas. You can either play the French, the Dutch, the English or the Spanish ; you'll be given a little boat with a group of soldiers and a group of pionners, to build a city and explore the new world. The main goal is to achieve independance from your motherland before anybody else. There's also a civilisation score at the end, which tells you how advanced and peaceful your civilisation is ; so you can also try and get the maximum score too, so that your name won't be given to a prison or a local disease.

Despite it's age the game have pretty nice graphics (even if some are badly drawn, I'm especially thinking of the king here). The map is working with a 2D square system very much like early Civilisation games, but all of the announcements come with an illustration : you have indians or priests next to the message box, for example, or you can have a full-screen illustration for important events (such as founding your first colony, or discovering the Pacific ocean). The music is awesome as well (check it out) and overall it's quite an enjoyable game. However, even if you can conquer and destroy indian civilisations, it does not present the grimmest parts of america's colonisation, such as the slave trade (so you can't re-create Haiti's history for example) and you're necessarily advancing towards democracy, or more exaclty politics isn'treally develloped (so you can't rewrite Brasil's history by keeping it's king in place for example). But it's really minor points on what is essentially a joyful and colorful game.

Since it's my first LP, and my english isn't the best, please do tell me every mistake I make, as well as what you would like to see in it !



And now, let's begin !

[Yaddy1]

Sweet, I love this game. Be the Dutch because they're the best or the English because they're the worst. Also you might want to fix your subject. It's Sid Meier's Colonization.

[Iituem]

Be the English!  Slaughter the natives and turn America into a bustling metropolis before it's time to declare independence!

[Ancre]

Iituem, you here ! I am honored, your let's play Civilization 4 is wonderful and I hope one day I'll be able to do something this level as well.

Yaddy1, I fixed the subject name ! That was a stupid mistake. And I agree, the dutch are the best and the English the worst (even if it's a close call with Spain ... ) but ...



I chose France today ! That's mainly because I'm French, and I've already been to La Rochelle (fantastic city by the way) so it will make my life easier for my first LP. Plus I like how their starting advantages. Since I've set the difficulty level to average when I have a hard time winning those kind of games, I am not sure France's cities will create a great empire throughout the continent, and will instead make stupid decisions and struggle to survive ... but only time will tell ! And I hope it will be fun to read either way ! I am currently writing the beginning, so it should be coming very soon.

[Iituem]

Been quite a long time since I played Colonisation.  Mind including the French starting benefits in your beginning post?  (Also, thank you for the compliment!)

[Ancre]

I. BUILDING A NEW HOME

An de Grāce 1492. In the large Atlantic harbour of La Rochelle, an expedition led by the great explorer Jacques Cartier set sail to the West. Commissionned and blessed by King Charles VIII and with the protection of the port's nobility, the expedition consisted of only one caravel loaded with adventurous pioneers and soldiers, many of them eager to leave and settle for a new life, all of them given mission to explore the seas and find new land to colonise, in the name of God and for the glory of France.

Land had been sighted in the western distances of the Ocean, or so it was said. Time was bringing many changes to the known world : Spain was freed from the Moor's emprise, Portuguese explorers begun mapping the African coasts, Türks were an ever-growing menace for the weakened Byzantium empire, and in France war against England was mostly over. People felt a new era was about to come, and both the King of France and La Rochelle's nobility wanted a better place in it. Thus giving support to such a expedition made sense ; costs were low and even if failure was likely, potential benefits were great.

But in the middle of the Atlantic such political issues seemed distant. Much closer were the storms and the difficulties of the travel, as well as keeping the men calm. For months and months they travelled without seeing land, and more and more they questioned the sanity of such a journey. After all, what they knew about these "new land sightings" was but hearsays and rumors, and as the days passed it seemed these rumors were based on nothing. The sailors were concerned about their lives and felt they were sent to die in an empty sea, and every day it took all the captain's diplomacy skills and intimidation to keep his men away from mutiny.

And after many months spent at sea, it was a relief for everyone to finally find land.



At first what they found was nothing more than small islands. Still, the crew was delighted to land, and that night they feasted with was was left of the wine provisions, as well as fruits and the turtles and the colorful birds they could catch and roast. The ship's officers decided to name that new found land Saint Louis in honor of the saint patron of their motherland.



With everybody's spirits cheered up again, they set sail again and mapped many island's coasts, until they found a bigger, more hospitable part of land, that looked more like a continent. And there they settled, founding the first city of Saint-Louis, which they named Charleroi after their King of the House of Valois. There was lots of woods around, with game and unknown animals in those forests, and an access to the sea. Pionners begun clearing the forests in order to plow fields and soldiers built the houses and the town hall of the nascent city.





Very soon, it appeared the French were not alone in these lands. Along with the strange animals, strange men appeared, speaking in unknown tongues, and waving their arms happily. Fortunately first contact was peaceful - it seemed Charleroi was built between the land of two different tribes. The first ones named themselves "Iroquois", the second "Cherokees". Ties were built with the two people of the new land, and they both introduced to europeans a strange plant that they smoked in long pipes. Tobacco was it's name, and the people of Charleroi soon began crafting tobacco cigars to bring back to La Rochelle. Along with the hides of the strange animals and the natives' offerings, this would create quite an interest back in France !



Charleroi and the natives' villages :



Inside Charleroi :

[Ancre]

Well, first post done ! Writing in english is harder than I thought I got a bit tired at the end so it's probably not as good as it should be. I hope it's still interesting to read !

Game wise, the French always start with a hardy pioneer instead of a normal pioneer, which means they are that much faster at plowing fields, cutting down forests and the like. They also alarm indians much slower than the other countries. All in all these are good advantages, which means you can start very fast your first colony and, should you want to be friendly with the natives, you have less to worry about them getting angry too fast because you're too big or you take away their lands.

Well, of course I did a huge mistake in starting and, while I avoided the islands I settled a bit too far from the high seas, which means my caravel can't go from Charleroi to La Rochelle in one turn. Which is important for speed purposes and to avoid being attacked in sea later on. Ah well. I will build other colonies soon ! So That is not a big problem.

[EuchreJack]

No offense, but the French are the worst starting power.  After a few years, the British will swarm and will you, the Dutch will out-trade you, and the Spanish will just wipe you out.

The british are the real powerhouse.  Their numbers will win every time.

Oh, but good LP!  I'm glad to see more of Sid Meier's games getting new, detailed LPs.  I personally started to play Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire because of Iituem's LP.

[The Worst Gamer]

The sad thing is that this is probably better than the remake.

Simply because the remake would never run on my PC (or, apparently, a LOT of other people's).

[Haspen]

Oooh, it's Sid and I haven't knew about this game!

Watching with interest :3

[Yaddy1]

What difficulty are you on? Also nice start.

[EuchreJack]

What difficulty are you on? Also nice start.

Agreed.  I usually have to trade in furs for my first few years, until nobody in Europe wants any more furs, lol.

[Yaddy1]

What difficulty are you on? Also nice start.

Agreed.  I usually have to trade in furs for my first few years, until nobody in Europe wants any more furs, lol.

Yep cigars, cloth and rum are the best.

[inteuniso]

The French? Merde.

Anyways, it's the least likely power to win, and thus the most Fun power to play. Good luck, and make sure when you get in a war with the British to have ALL the Native Americans on your side.

[Heron TSG]

I wonder if it's possible to hack the game so that you can play as the natives.