Difficulty:

Very Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Broken"

I'm a Civilization fan ever since the first Civ comes out. I have somehow skipped the Colonization though. So i was very existed that i'll be able to play a remake of a game I have missed. Unfortunately, the exisitment quickly went away. The interface is kinda uncomfortable. If you haven't play this game at all you will feel kinda confused what to do. The tutorials aren't helpful at all. The great CIVpedia in Colonization is screwed up too. Many links are missing and it usually take a lot of time to actually find the answer to your question. It is there, you just have to dig up a 5 feet hole to find it.

Anyway, after a few restarts I've managed to get a hold on this game. I've build a pretty good empire with a few nice prospering cities and a stable economy. I've played my time at the game and it was fun until i had to declare my Independence from my home colony. Then i got swarmed by an army almost 10 times mine, with 45 warships each capable of destroying 2 or 3 of mine (each ship takes 10 turns at least to be build) . I said to myself... I've messed something up this is impossible to beat. And i went to read some forums only to see that I'm not the only one facing this problem. There is like 1 way to manage to win this game - not to gain any liberty bells for a very long period, and then boost up your independence in like 10 turns so the king doesn't get enough army... This only available strategy make pointless almost all of the features of this game. You don't need to get Founding Fathers, nor build a stable and long profiting economy. The more you trade the more you lose... The more units you gain the harder you Independence is...

I would say - Don't play this game. At least not before a decent patch is released which balances the difficulty and leave the players with more then one option to play.