Bug in Colonization?

[AmigaBruno]

I've recently enjoyed playing the game Colonization on my Amiga A1200, running it off a 4Gb CF card as HDD, under Workbench 3.1 with 2Mb RAM. I also own an Amiga A500 Plus with a GVP hard drive and a total of 3MB RAM, but I haven't played it on that model yet and now I'm not keen to spend enough time testing it. I've tried various boot options, but the docs on disk say it's compatible with AGA, as well as older Amigas. I've played at Discoverer level for all the European powers available, meaning France, Spain, England, and the Netherlands. My first established and largest colony is always occupied by another European power and I can never get it back.

Unfortunately, no matter what I do in the game, it always gets to the stage where eventually, at some time during the mid to late 17th Century, all my trading comes to a halt because I no longer get any chance to do anything with my ships at all! I mean, I can no longer send them to any ports, load or unload cargo or colonists, then I'm just left clicking on requesters to acknowledge events which have taken place, but I have no way of doing anything to influence these events. I've ended up making notes of what year trading was stopped, then played for another 8-10 years to make sure I could no longer trade before giving up!

I'd like to know if this has happened to anyone else on here. It may be that this is a disabled time limited version of Colonization, designed to prevent people trading after about 1660-1680 to encourage them to buy the full version of the game. Obviously, this is no longer sold, but I'm fascinated by it and really want to do whatever it takes to be able to carry on playing it after roughly 1660-1680!

[Lord Aga]

Is this perhaps after you declare independence ? Or regardless of it ?

[itix]

I recall trading was good business only for limited time until powers are flooded with surplus from the new world. So it is part of the game play.

To make progress you must generate liberty bells and have your colonies growing. Get some cannons and cavalry to defend your colonies and preferably capture nearby enemy colonies.

[yssing]

I have never seen that error before. But it sure does sound like a bug.

I always build custom houses in all my cities as soon as I can and stop training/recruiting from europe before I declare independence.

Indian capitals can train as many as you throw at them and a blue city can educate them in a few turns.

[AmigaBruno]

Is this perhaps after you declare independence ? Or regardless of it ?

I've never got to the stage where I could declare independence. I was always worried about threats from other colonies. I've recently received military support from my Kings, so i wouldn't have got this if I'd declared independence. Even with this support, I was eventually overwhelmed by other colonists and defeated, if I hadn't been prevented from trading already.

[AmigaBruno]

I recall trading was good business only for limited time until powers are flooded with surplus from the new world. So it is part of the game play.

To make progress you must generate liberty bells and have your colonies growing. Get some cannons and cavalry to defend your colonies and preferably capture nearby enemy colonies.

I was no longer given the opportunity to send ships to ANY ports, even from one colonial port to another. The only input left available to me was to click on various news items about the price of commodities increasing or decreasing at the ports we'd originally sailed from to set up the colonies. I was also able to click on requests for help from colonies saying they'd run out of lumber or some other item, but I didn't get the chance to supply them with lumber from anywhere.

I've bought some cannons called artillery, but even with 3 of these it was impossible for me to capture a nearby quite small colony, let alone recapture my original colony near there, which had been occupied by rival colonists.

This seems like a very complicated game, so I suppose the best thing to do is get a copy with the original disks and manual. Meanwhile, any tips from people on here would be welcome.

[AmigaBruno]

I have never seen that error before. But it sure does sound like a bug.

I always build custom houses in all my cities as soon as I can and stop training/recruiting from europe before I declare independence.

Indian capitals can train as many as you throw at them and a blue city can educate them in a few turns.

I've never built any customs houses, so I'll try that.

When I got complaints from colonies that I was supplying them with an "untrained" colonist, I took that as an insult, so then I sent these colonists to found another colony, but later on found I could force these colonies to accept them anyway, so I did.

I have never had anyone trained in Europe either, because I usually couldn't afford it.

[Djole]

I've never built any customs houses, so I'll try that.

When I got complaints from colonies that I was supplying them with an "untrained" colonist, I took that as an insult, so then I sent these colonists to found another colony, but later on found I could force these colonies to accept them anyway, so I did.

I have never had anyone trained in Europe either, because I usually couldn't afford it.

Find a good place for your first colony with a lot of food and some other valuable resource. Dont built it just anywhere. Build town defense (stock gate etc.) as fast as you can. Use artillery just for defense and and keep them fortified. Plan your other colonies also on good places, no need to be on the ocean, you can use wagon trains for transport.

For attack use dragons, if you win a few times they will become veterans if not already.

Also you can trade with indians also and they can train your colonists. Use the extensive information in the game about units and terrain and it will get you much further in the game.

Also for me its better to accept the tax raise every time until you have enough liberty bells to declare independence.

[Lord Aga]

I was no longer given the opportunity to send ships to ANY ports, even from one colonial port to another.

Well I would say this is a good indication of the bug. Go for some other version.
WhdLoad maybe ?

[AmigaBruno]

Find a good place for your first colony with a lot of food and some other valuable resource. Dont built it just anywhere. Build town defense (stock gate etc.) as fast as you can. Use artillery just for defense and and keep them fortified. Plan your other colonies also on good places, no need to be on the ocean, you can use wagon trains for transport.

For attack use dragons, if you win a few times they will become veterans if not already.

Also you can trade with indians also and they can train your colonists. Use the extensive information in the game about units and terrain and it will get you much further in the game.

Also for me its better to accept the tax raise every time until you have enough liberty bells to declare independence.

Unfortunately, I can't see any indications of what resources there are at any location, so this seems to mean I end up building my colonies "just anywhere". How can I find out what's there before building?

It seems I need to get an original copy of this game with the manual ASAP!

[Djole]

Try some other version maybe your disks where corrupted or something.

Anyway there should be icons of the resources on the terrain an you can get terrain information from the menu.

[Darrin]

Unfortunately, I can't see any indications of what resources there are at any location, so this seems to mean I end up building my colonies "just anywhere". How can I find out what's there before building?

It seems I need to get an original copy of this game with the manual ASAP!

You can tell by looking at the tiles.  As a rule, I always try and build a colony where it has access to at least one square containing each of the following:
Mountain (or 2 hills)
Forest (for your wood)
Good farm land
a resource (sugar, furs, cotton, silver, tobacco)

Use a pioneer to improve the land as quickly as possible.

Assign lumberjacks, carpenters, blacksmiths and miners to their correct roles even if it means buying them from Europe.

If you build near the sea try and include a tile with fish an assign a native of fisherman to work it.

Send your untrained colonists or indentured servants to the natives for training unless you want to arm the untrained colonists or bless the indentured servants as missionaries and send them to convert natives.

Get a Scout early in the game and send him off to contact natives (to see what training they can offer) and to explore ruins.  He will also allow you to plan where to build your next settlements.

I usually try and have a settlement designed to focus on 1 specific type of production, so I make a settlement each to produce cigars, coats, rum, cotton, silver, weapons.  I then use several wagons to move resources/items between the settlements and have one particular port for transporting stuff to Europe.

As Djole said, accept the tax rises until you close to starting your revolution.

Spread spare horses and guns around the settlements.

[yssing]

Use a pioneer to improve the land as quickly as possible.

You can always plow the land that your city is build, even long after the city has been build.

As Djole said, accept the tax rises until you close to starting your revolution.

That depends on what founding fathers you have, one will remove all bans, and one will raise bell productions based on your taxes.

Spread spare horses and guns around the settlements.

Horses are the only produce that you get more of all by doing nothing, providing you produce enough food.

If you want to play it on the hardest level, then only place your first city next to see water, place the rest inland and use wagons and custom houses to sell. The tories will then only attack that one city, so you can easily defend it.

[ElPolloDiabl]

You must have reached the unit limit. It's about 255. After that the games just locks up. I think if they are working they are not counted, so you can go a little higher.
Google for the population limit on Colonization.

[AmigaBruno]

You must have reached the unit limit. It's about 255. After that the games just locks up. I think if they are working they are not counted, so you can go a little higher.
Google for the population limit on Colonization.

No, I never got anywhere near the population limit.