Sid Meier’s Colonization
Revisiting Sid Meier’s overlooked resource juggler.
aving over the entirety of the New World may not be an easy task but, with a few hundred years and a copious coin purse, it is possible to become more of a threat to the environment than Jeremy Clarkson. Sid Meier’s Colonization may not now be the most grand looking game but, back in the day, Civilization’s little brother was something of a treat.
PReleased in 1994 by MicroProse, the now oft-overlooked strategy management game pulled in positive coverage on the Amiga, despite lingering in the shadow of the wider-known Civilization series. Colonization is one of those games that lures you in with the promise of a sedate strategy experience as you begin to colonize the New World— either the actual Americas or a randomly generated map. You build, harvest, manufacture, trade, and bolster rebel sentiment until you can stick two fingers up at the tax- grabbing King, declare independence, and fight for freedom.
It sounds easy, but even now it’s one of those games whose apparent simplicity morphs into you wrangling a nest of vipers inside the belly of an anaconda. By the end you’ll be an overburdened mess, an outcast to your own countrymen, doing more juggling than Penn Jillette.
While it didn’t quite fall slap bang into the “so hard it will shatter your eyeballs if you so much as look at it funny” era of gaming, there is little