Hi guys,
First of all, I’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year! 🙂 Hope you’ll have a great 2013!
As you can see from the logo above (thanks to The Heretic for making that one for me by the way), this is another piece about my collection of old-school games.
This time I’d like to present a true gem in my Amiga collection. The name of the game is Colonization and it was created by none other than Sid Meier/MicroProse. The Amiga version was released back in 1995 and it came on three floppy disks. It requires 1MB of RAM to run. You can install it to a hard drive if you want.
So, what kind of game is Colonization? It is a turn-based strategy game where the aim is to colonize a new world and later on secede from the country you came from, just like what happened to the United States in our own history. You’ll have to wage war, build towns and cities, be a clever fox in the art of diplomacy and earn resources and gold through trade to succeed in your quest.
The game is quite complex, but it’s not too difficult to learn, since it contains a decent tutorial. If you’ve played one of the Civilization games on the PC or another platform, you should feel right at home with Colonization. As you can see from the photo below, the game comes with a ton of manuals and instructions. 🙂
Colonization received favourable reviews in several Amiga magazines back in the 1990’s. Amiga Format gave it 95%, Amiga Power 93% and CU Amiga 91%.
One thing which I think is great with the Amiga version is that it utilizes the OS of the computer to the full. When you play the game for the first time, it is immediately clear that the developers have made an Amiga specific version tailored to suit the OS and hardware. I’ve embedded a few screenshots below, so that you can see for yourself.
I’ve had a lot of fun playing Colonization on the Amiga in the past. It is a great strategy game, featuring nice graphics and very atmospheric colonial music. 🙂 Speaking of music.. I’ve included the theme song from Colonization (Amiga version) for you to listen to below. Isn’t it nice? 😀 The screenshots in the video are from the PC version by the way..
Any other fans of Colonization out there? Would love to hear from you and your memories of the game. 🙂 Thanks in advance for commenting!
There is a modern PC remake that keeps the spirit, but one must remember the old days when this was excitement. Many combined resources and well build story and freedom to prepare. Nice. Only drawback was inability to play as either natives or any competitive European force that would add more spice. But greatest homage to 13 colonies.
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Hi there,
Many thanks for commenting. 🙂 I remember the new PC version, but it has been quite a while since I last played it. Must give it a go again some time this year. 🙂 Happy New Year to you btw!
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I loved Colonization to pieces and played it for months on my Amiga, installed on the hard drive. This and Pirates probably compete for most time played.
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Hi x111,
Thanks for your comment. 🙂 Pirates! is a superb game.. that is how I learned geography when growing up.. 😉
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I remember seeing this game in EB years ago, at the time I didn’t have a computer so I couldn’t play it. I did get the chance to play Civilization when I was finally able to afford computer. It was a lot of fun, although I liked how it would ask you a history question and if you got it wrong you lost resources or something like that.
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Hello,
Thank you for commenting. 🙂 You might be interested to know that there is a new (a few years old..) version of Colonization for PC’s. Maybe something of interest?
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You’re welcome. 🙂
I will have to see how much school will put me out first.
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Best of luck with school. Looking forward to hear how it goes. 🙂
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Do you actually own the box, manual and disks? If so, cool!
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Oh yes. 😀 Got the whole game. The pride of my collection! Also got Back to the Future 2.. 😉
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Great. Love to see some pictures of that. 🙂
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I’ll see what I can do. 🙂
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Great. 🙂
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Hi, Happy New Year to all. I really liked playing the game. I like this type of colonization games. If anyone is interested in playing various puzzles you can just check this site.
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Hi there,
Thank you for commenting and for visiting my blog. Glad you enjoyed Colonization. Will check out your site.
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[…] only familiar with this version from back in ye olde Amiga days, I know it’s a remake in the Civ IV game but I still hope […]
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Hi there! Thanks for the plug! 🙂
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I too am a huge fan of Colonization, though I am familiar with the DOS version. The game is, hands down, one of my favorites of all time. I still play through it often. It’s a blast. Thanks for writing!
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Hi Chris,
Thanks for commenting. 🙂 Yes, it is a great one. Truly a classic that belongs to the Hall of Fame of games. I think the DOS version had more colors than the Amiga one.
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[…] My Retrogaming Collection: Colonization (Amiga) […]
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