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Civilization IV: Colonization

The Laundry List

So, Colonization is mostly a solid visual upgrade to a classic strategy game. But as usual, we dig up the dirt as well... Colonization is definitely a good remake, but as Firaxis moved the gameplay to Civ4 engine, some unfortunate bugs and balance issues have crept in.

Oversights and Oddities

Every standard game starts at the southeast corner of the map, very close to the southern tundra areas. This is most noticeable on larger maps, and probably just a small oversight. A bigger problem is the fact that the distance from land to the edge of the map where you can sail to Europe can vary wildly. Sure, you can work around it by restarting a game if it turns out the random map handicaps you with extremely long sailing distance to the edge but the correct solution would be to just allow sailing to Europe from any tile at least four tiles from land. Competiting AI nations can also be hosed by this feature.

Endgame also has some problems. My first attempt to start a revolution failed miserably - I ran out of time as there is a strict turn limit when the game ends. Understandable and true to the original, but still annoying. What's worse is the fact that this timer keeps running after you start your revolution, and the King can take his sweet time to actually ship his troops over. In the end you can lose because the King "runs the clock" with his royal expeditionary force, not giving you the chance to defeat his last troops for the victory. Obviously there should be two timers - one for starting the revolution (game over, if you don't) and another to finish the revolutionary war to prevent you from dragging it endlessly. At the moment you can end up starting a revolution that you can't possibly win because there isn't enough turns for the King to send in his waves of troops.

Revolution? Don't Tell The King

But all this is minor and easily fixable in a patch. What's more tricky is to get the endgame balanced properly. The main obstacle on the path to victory is the somewhat counter-intuitive royal expeditionary force. King's forces start out small, but they grow over time based on your production of Liberty Bells (raising your rebel sentiment). Liberty Bells give you Founding Fathers, and they are also the only thing that improves your culture and expands your borders, allowing you to peacefully overtake any nearby native settlements and compete culturally with any European rivals that settle near you.

But there is a huge downside - building Liberty Bells increases the King's army at such a rate that it's almost impossible to overcome the odds, no matter how much effort you put into building up stockpiles of arms and horses. The "smart" way to win is to build absolutely no Liberty Bells at all until you are ready to go "native", then quickly pile Elder Statesmen with Newspapers everywhere boosting the bell production and flip the sentiment from 0% to 50%+ almost overnight. King doesn't get the chance to recruit more troops, and you can trigger the revolution against a much more manageable army. This feels like an exploit, and it requires you to all but ignore two major game features - the Founding Fathers and the cultural borders.

Related to this, you would imagine that annoying the King or filling his coffers with tax funds would increase the size of his army, but it appears that only Liberty Bells matter. You can safely ignore every case when the King extorts you for money - there is no downside. Taxes bite into your finances, but as there is no Customs House to circumvent boycotts, you have little choice if key products are involved - tax rates of well over 50% are easily possible, and it grows based on the volume of trade you do with Europe. Still, neither tax rate nor King's requests for tribute affect the size of the Royal Expeditionary Force - only your openly rebellious activity (Liberty Bells) do. The whole mechanic to determine the size of the King's army should be reworked - as it stands, it rewards exploiting and makes it almost impossible to win "normal" games where you build up the rebel sentiment over time.

Stockpile, Stockpile

You also can't build up a standing army to prepare for the coming invasion - any settlers not working in cities do not count for the rebel sentiment, and you might be unable to start a revolution. Instead, you have to resort to stockpiling tons of guns and horses (in wagon trains, to circumvent the warehouse caps). This is somewhat realistic, but it can come as a surprise, especially if you decide to take care of the natives by looting and pillaging everything with a strong military. Old Colonization allowed you to gradually get the soliders on your side and actually have standing forces when it's time to kiss that pinky ring for the last time.

Late game combat also has an odd balance problem - cannons get massive bonuses against targets in fortresses - so massive that they nullify any defensive bonuses, making fortresses a penalty. You are much better off defending in the woods (no bonus for cannons, bonus for you due to terrain). I guess in a way this is realistic as the revolution was mostly fought guerrilla-style, but it feels silly that you are worse off behind fortress walls than in the open. You can also use this quirk to your advantage - your own cannons have the exact same upside for blasting away King's troops that have taken one of your fortified settlements.

The AI that controls the competing nations is also fairly dumb, not properly taking into account many of the "non-Civ4" concepts. All in all, the problems imply that someone skimped with the QA of the gameplay mechanics. Even if the engine is tried and true, when used for a whole new game it should be properly tested.

Page 1: Introduction, GameplayPage 2: Gameplay, VisualsPage 3: Bugs and Gameplay ProblemsPage 4: Summary and Scores

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