Avian Gamers Network

IGN's got a new page for all things Colonization related.

http://pc.ign.com/objects/890/890713.html

I've been waiting for this release/update to the 199X classic.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

Me too. What really got me misty eyed for it was when Civ4 BTS came out and they added a remade version of one of the Colonization songs when you zoomed into an American city. I had a sneaky suspicion something like this was in the works when I heard that. why else would they spend the time to remake an old beep based song

Every CIV iteration has put in "Easter Eggs". The original Colonization was made in 1994 believe it or not, and the first iteration was a DOS based program

I too have been looking forward to this and will get it next week.

Now Im hoping Firaxis does and Alpha Centauri II..................

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"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

I do believe it. I still have 3.5" Colonization discs. I have the game installed on an older laptop (along with some other classics) and get it out from time to time to play.

Maybe the most replayable game I've ever tried. Simple and Deep in the true Sid style. Easily one of my all time favorites.

Does this one have multiplayer? That would be neat with fellow Avians.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

I had the old DOS version too and could never get it to work properly with DOS box later one. Apparently Firaxis is releasing, or has released, a FreeDOS version you can download for free.

The new version states it's multiplayer. I'm trying to figure out how that all works out. In Civ, conflict is pretty straight forward, but in Col with an objective of independence, how does that work out? Do you declare together? Can you be from the same country? etc.

As far as Alpha Centauri goes... man... I've waited for word on that for years. I spent about 3 years looking for, and found, a copy of Alien Crossfire. I bought it on eBay for $4. I could never find a working download. Such a cool game with the terraforming abilties and unit customization.

I imagine that in Colo you'd have competeting nations, rather much the way it was IRL. There is only so much land and resources to go around. Could make for some interesting situations.

Multiplayer is supposedly for 8 players, two players to each CIV, so Im very curious to see how that works.

My guess is, its a race to see who gains independance first.

Today is the alleged release day, has anyone found the game or pre-ordered it?

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"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

It looks like today was ship day for the pre-orders and tomorrow (Tues) is in store availability. That's what I've read from places like civfanatics.com and apolyton.com. I figured I'd let those addicts do the leg work

So, I see a stop at Gamestop on the way home from work tomorrow, in my crystal ball.

I think a buddy is going to be picking it up as well. I'll wait to here reviews from Avians here and him before I snag it. I've spent a lot on vidya games this past month so should cut back where I can.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

Best Buy told me they'd have it on the shelves at about 2pm today (tuesday).

Confirmed that most if not all of the Best Buys in the Indianapolis Metro area have it in stock. The store I go to in Greenwood said they had 40 copies.

Ill be kicking the Kings ass tonight

Ill post back in a few days and give my impressions.

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"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

Picked mine up tonight after much failure at many places.

But it's as fun as the previous. They haven't changed much of the gameplay at all, which is great.

I'll write more tomorrow... coming off a 4 hour session

I concur with Tetran, I stayed up till 1230 last night about 90 minutes past my usual bedtime because I needed to play "one more turn".

It appears most Best Buys in the Midwest (USA) have numerous copies. For 29.99. Circuit City has them listed on there webpage as available today for 24.99. I toook the Circuit City print out to Best Buy and got it for 24.99 last night.

I am just scratching the surface thus far, but my first reaction was, why did I have to wait YEARS for this game.

I loved the first iteration but always wanted a remake that was updated to todays technology.

This game is well worth the 25 bucks.

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"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

Currently D/L from Steam. $29.99.

Bestbuy here has them listed for $29.99. Amazing we can actually get it for the same price as you Yanks.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

I ended up getting both copies of mine for $19.99 a piece due to some fubarness with BestBuy and their pick up in-store option on their website. Funny, when you get a confirmation email to pick something up, you generally expect it to be at the desk and not in an unknown box somewhere in the warehouse. Anyhoo....


The game is as addictive as the original. My biggest gripe about it is I keep wanting to play it like Civ because it looks like Civ! Well, actually the graphics are better - much more detailed terrains and the water is a giant improvement too.

I've been playing my most recent game as a multiplayer game with Slyclonis (some may know him from WoW) and on Marathon setting so we can spend time on deliberate moves and actions. We're on the same team and same country so we'll end up declaring independence together. Same civ/same team MP group share leaders, and what looks like native conversions through missionaries - and unfortunately tax increases from the King. You will hate the monarchy, quicky.

The city construction and specialization is just like the old game so there was nothing new to learn there other than unprogramming my Civ-oriented mind. There was a learning curve to get used to the concepts and systems again, but it's all coming back now.

Trade is as important as it ever was, and having colonies produce the raw and finished goods is always a priority. I haven't messed with automatec trade wagons yet, but it looks like you can set each colony's import/export settings and it will work with automated trade wagons to bring the raw materials to cities that need it and finished products to port cities for trade with Europe.

Over all, it's a blast to play and for $29.99 I highly recommend buying it!

No time for a full review myself, but I have a gripe.

The original took longer to play. At some point, don't remember the year exactly, there would be 2 turns per year instead of one.

Now maybe there is some way to change that with the new version (i haven't checked) but if not, then I will be really disappointed. I loved the very long, deliberate building of my country. I would hate to see it go away.

Outside of that it's damn fun, and while not adding a ton, it looks like they changes they made are all good. Still very addicting.

Thanks for the impressions Tetran. I will seriously consider grabbing it given you say most what made the previous version great remains, and that the gfx have been overahauled.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

GoG, are you playing Marathon speed? I haven't keep a close on on the years:turns ratio, but I know we restarted an MP game that was on Marathon recently, and after 4 or 5 hours of play we were still in the early to mid 1500's. Given there's another 200 years to go.... it could be awhile

Granted MP games can take longer due to waiting on the other person, but it's not too bad at all.

I just remembered the whole school concept of training your workers. For some reason I was remembering free colonists and below advancing their specialty by working a certain role. /facepalm. That was a waste of time lol

This wagon train thing sort of perplexed me at first.

The bottom line is you HAVE to make sure for every export you have, that you also have an import.

So if you export cotton from Roanoke, you have to import cotton in Jamestown.

Each and eveyone has to have an import and an export location. Then click on a wagon and select what routes you want it to run. Ive had one wagon running around like crazy covering four trade routes between three different cities and it worked

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"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

Yea I think I'm playing some mode that takes less time. I'll check it out for my next game.

Only played the one and got to 1800 without declaring war or even coming very close. I played an extremely neutral England. I just focused on building up my cities and trading w/ the Old World. I never once made a military unit and turned down all offers of boycott or joining in any war.

I ended up being a very sprawled, with many smaller cities. My "influence" from these cities was enough to force several Native settlements to be abandoned. It's a very cool new way of handling the spreading Europeans.

At first, I thought, that the game was playing very much like the original, but now I think there are a lot of sublte differences that really add up. Not sure what to make of them all but it'll be fun to figure stuff out.

Got a copy last night. Hope to be able to play it some this weekend. Could be a few long nights of "one more turn" like the good ol days based on how you describe things here.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

Great! Good to know! I certainly wouldn't have guessed that and probably would have been frustrated an hour or so before I could be bothered to take another look

The wagon train automation sounds very similar to the old one. Maybe they beefed it up a bit, bit I do recall getting a couple wagons automated in the original. It wasn't a fancy UI/mechanic but damn did it save some micromanagement. Gotta get the sugar to the rum distillers!

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

So I know that there is a PBEM feature. Is anyone interested in getting one going? I don't mind it being slow, a turn or two a day type thing.

Not sure exactly how the PBEM works. Can you get more than two people? Would be fun to get a four person one going.

WTF is PBEM?

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

Play By EMail.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have played games like that, though a young pup such as yourself may have never heard of it.

Let's go all the way to 11 with play by mail.

Sounds interesting. Would be a fun thing to try since it appears the game will run on my work laptop. Gonna fully test that out right now. News at 11...

edit - Yip, game runs here at work. Nice

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

11 people? Do we know 11 people that have the game?

hehe.. up to 11 as in a bad Spinal Tap reference

Oh. I don't remember that line. Good movie though.

A line used in a Guitar Hero 2 loading screen as well.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

dork.

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"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides." - Thomas Paine, Common Sense

STFU and get back playing your 360 fool. We could use a 4th in the band...

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

I played the heck out of CIV 2, CIV 3, and CIV 4 PBEM.

Its slow as hades.

Asume you have four players playing. Evertime someone does a turn they need to save the game and email the save to the next person. (Hence the name Play By E Mail).

Assume everyone plays the game once a day and passes it on.

4 x 300 turns (because we have one play a day, and then the email is forwarded)

=1200 days. Thats 3 and half years.

Now assuming the four players make attempts to speed it up, and plan the timezones correctly so maybe you get one turn every 2 days instead of 4. Thats still close to 2 years to finish.

You guys would be better off doing online play once a week at a specified time, saving, and then picking it back up the following week.

In my experience its a rare occurance to even have a PBEM come close to finishing.

People go back to school.

People get sick (heaven forbid)

People just quite frankly loose interest.

Sorry if I am raining on your parade, I aplogize, but I just wanted to share my experience before you guys got into something without thinking about the long term commitment that it entails.

And sure with dedication you can get one turn a day, maybe more, but sooner or later Murphy's Law takes over. So plan on at least a year to finish a game...............

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"For over 2 years, the Veteran Community were the guardians of peace and justice in the Pre CU. Before the dark times, before the NGE."

I appreciate the post Aranarth. It's something I wasn't considering, and likely should I have I guess.

So, anyone interested in getting an online going? Maybe a 2 hour stretch once an evening? Sunday night would work good for me.