Colonization is a great game from a mechanical perspective (aside from the AI bugs, which make it a slog to play today, and the crazy behaviors of the game when

Colonization is a great game from a mechanical perspective (aside from the AI bugs, which make it a slog to play today, and the crazy behaviors of the game when you have Ben Franklin). I find it difficult to play today in no small part because of the level of violence done to history. Civilization posits itself as almost a board game, and to me it largely strips itself of the historicity that its setting implies by turning it into overtly "gamey" stuff. Pottery implies Granary. Colonization personalizes a lot...and stuff like the way that native "converts" "flock to your mission in their city" when you attack it with artillery is a significant whitewashing of what anybody playing the game as an adult knows is going on. I don't think Brian Reynolds had ill intentions by any stretch; you can, of course, be peaceful in Col, and it's probably the best way to play at higher levels (France becomes really advantageous, especially stacking with the Pocahontas bonus). And the way the manual is written clearly indicates that they understood the parts of the historical record that the game leaves out. I have always assumed that there was fear from higher-ups at MicroProse that made them sanitize the game a little. But it mostly makes me wonder what a more honest game, made today, would look like. I might or might not have half an engine written on this laptop, as it happens...at some point I'd love to sit down and talk to Reynolds about that game. Everyone asks him about Alpha Centauri, but I really want to know about Col! (Also: while Civ4Col is pretty lame, I think its biggest mods, The Authentic Colonization and Religion and Revolution, take important steps toward a more honest representation of things. They're also really, really fun in ways Civ4Col was not.)