Fair game.. great graphics but incredibly hard, you will be so tempted to cheat and save/load constantly.
There are some minor problems with the game though, such as an extremely challenging main game. And what's you manage to survive that there is little point to live the struggle of 17th century colonization once again. My reasons are so, in order to declare independance the motherland automatically has stronger units than you, and so so many more. I even tried to keep my motives of independence hidden to the very end (produce bells in mass amount only when you are ready) but they still get units insanely fast. I'm not going to lie it is next to impossible to declare independance successfully without cheating.
Also the king decides to raise taxes every couple of turns , which is insanely annoying, I ended up at 76% tax on my 1st play through. So if I sold cigars for 500 I would only get like 120. It would allow me to purchase one unit, to the king's 5. Maybe ill give it a chance again, but likely you have to be a master strategist to survive this one.
I'd recommend if you don't mind the graphics go back to the old one, its so much more simpler and quicker, well if you can find it of course. But then again if you are looking for a real challenge give this one a shot, and try become independent in North America in the 17th century and you will have a blast.