Scenario Review Scenario Title: Colonization Author: Gary Reviewer: Andrew Hoekzema   Historical scenario. Yet another Discovery Age scenario including the French, British, Spanish, and Dutch as the colonizing powers. All Indian tribes fall under the heading of "Native Tribes." Download at CivWorld

Overall Rating 12/30 COMMENTS: Huge map, runs from 1492-1800 AD. Most graphics except terrain are changed.

Playability Rating 5 / 10 COMMENTS: It is pretty fun because it is quite open-ended, and despite very serious flaws in the scenario, I had some fun with it. It is far too easy to get rich in this scenario. I recommend either toning down the rewards in the events for unitkilled or making merchant units much harder to build, because at one point there were about 50 of these guys swarming all over my colony - it was crazy! Also, this scenario can get really boring after you have established and developed a good colony since the tech tree doesn't enable for enough evolution. Serious historical flaws are pretty noticeable as well. More on this later. The atmosphere was somewhat appropriate. What I mean by this is that the tech tree really doesn't allow for very much evolution, despite the fact that this scenario spans 300 years in which there was quite a lot of change. It is pretty well balanced between the 4 recommended civs (although the French really can get bogged down in the forested areas). Considering the plethora of Discovery Age scenarios out there, you really need to make one that at least is pretty historically accurate. This scenario very poorly portrays the Age of Discovery, and the goals of the scenario are quite unclear. Rather surprisingly, the Portugese were left out of this scenario, and a pretty useless "Europeans" civ is left in it. I was particularly dismayed by the tech tree, because a tech tree, in my mind, should never restrict gameplay, but this one did. This scenario would require a huge overhaul to get it up to par with even the average Discovery scenario.

Level of General Care 2 / 10 MAP: The map is kind of weird looking, and I think there are real inaccuracies in it, like the relative shape of Hudson Bay, etc. It's big enough, though. On the continents, there are immense expanses of plains, grassland, and jungle, which is kind of unpleasant to the eye. My main suggestion is to clean that up, but I also recommend not making a panama canal or making ocean access to the great lakes (Great Lakes fleets were built right there, the ships couldn't navigate the St. Lawrence). DOCUMENTATION: The documentation is pretty light, not very explanatory; very brief but does not really even cover the minimum. No PEDIA!!! GHAAAA!! TECH: The tech tree is in proper order, but is really inadequate for representing the time period's dramatic technological, economic, and political changes. DETAILS: The details are really quite shoddy. Each European power starts in one and only one place, and none of the cities are in their correct places, and most, if not all the native cities are either not tribes at all or are in a really inaccurate location (ex: the Cherokees and Apaches appear to reside in Illinois and Minesotta respectively, and the Creols were not a tribe). Also, for some reason, each civ can see random places on the map which they have no units on to begin the game with.

Art and Originality 6 / 10 NEW IDEAS: There is really nothing in this scenario (except major historical mistakes) that set it apart from the other Discovery Age scenarios. ART: The artwork is fine, all the artwork was borrowed.

NOTES: The reader may wish to compare this review with more positive reviews by others. Direct comments to the Reviews forum.

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