There's Gonna Be A Revolution: My Colonization Dynasty

[Honolulu Blue]

INTRODUCTION

NOVEMBER 1683

I put my personal assistant Squealy on one of our schooners, told him to head for Amsterdam and deliver this message to our leader:

Dear Stadtholder:

We would like to thank you for the opportunity you gave our forefathers many years ago to found and develop this great land.

However, we now feel that with your ridiculous tax rates and limited help that we can do better on our own. Therefore, we are declaring our independence from The Netherlands. Please respect this decision and leave us be.

Sincerely,
Chuck Taylor
Fearless Leader
Republic of Surinam


The reply came back in a few months - pinned to the dead and rotting body of Squealy. Our message to the Stadtholder did not go down well, I'm afraid:

Dear Mr. Taylor:

The Dutch Empire cannot allow you to declare your independence at this time. By the time you read this, our warships filled with our best troops and artillery will be arriving on your shores. Please rethink your rash decision. Many lives can be saved if you surrender now. My General and I await your decision.

Sincerely,
Stadtholder
The Netherlands

[Honolulu Blue]

My great, great, great, great, great grandfather was one of the first immigrants to the New World. They were given tools and muskets and told to bring glory and wealth to the Netherlands. In 1493 we founded our first colony, called New Jack City. We met a band of Arawaks and found two of their villages. They were friendly, at first. We founded five more colonies, captured one from the French, burned both Arawak villages and a Sioux camp, discovered tobacco, found some sugar, made and sold a little rum, a few coats, some ore, and generally made the Stadtholder rich.

We received a steady stream of immigrants that slowly trickled down to almost nothing. Fortunately, our bountiful food harvests allowed us to expand from within. We brought along a few experts to help them do specialized jobs. Some of them volunteered time in our schools to teach these skills to others. And as the stirrings of independence increased, some special people stopped by. We were especially grateful for Peter "Did it in a" Minuit, George "Father of our country" Washington, and Simon "Says" Bolivar. They and others allowed us to get strong enough so we can get to where we are now - ready to declare our independence.

[Honolulu Blue]

If you haven't already guessed, I'm playing Colonization for Windows, a 4X strategy game from Microprose (RIP) that was released in 1995. It was produced by Sid Meier and written (mostly) by Brian Reynolds.

For those of you who have played the game before, you can skip these next few paragraphs, since I'll be explaining the mechanics of the game. I'll tell you when it's safe to come back.

Colonization is a game where you start with modest resources - a ship, some tools, and a few soldiers - and you have to use these resources to get powerful enough to tell your leader to get bent. He'll then send some (OK, a bunch) of his crack troops and best ships to try to crush your puny little rebellion.

If you've played any version of Civilization, the mechanics of the game are similar. Colonies are the equivalent of cities and can be founded by anyone, anywhere (though some locations are better than others). The center square is a special square that doesn't have to have anyone working it, but produces food and some resource. Other squares have to be worked and produce food OR a resource (like lumber, ore, or furs). There are also inside squares that either turn resources into finished goods (e.g. furs into coats) or allow some special capabilities (e.g. docks allow the colony to use the ocean squares to fish for food).

Colonists can come through one of several methods. One is after a certain amount of crosses are produced (each colony produces one, building a church produces an extra one, and assigning preachers to the church produces more), a random immigrant comes to the docks. Another is recruiting them from the docks in Europe. For a (usually) modest fee, you can persuade one of three groups of immigrants to come aboard. Still another is to bribe them. This is the most reliable way to get experts, but it's quite expensive. Still another is to capture them from other European countries (Spain, England, France, and Holland are the ones that are available, and you're obviously one of them). And the last method is to get converted natives. One thing you can do with colonists is to make them a missionary. Missionaries can be sent to native villages. After some time passes some converted natives may go to a nearby colony and look for work.

War works similarly to Civ, but there are some differences. Basically there are three types of ground troops - infantry, cavalry, and artillery. There are no tech upgrades (no tech in this game at all), but there are several different types of each, depending on who you're facing, and about a dozen modifiers. There are six types of ships - caravels, merchantmen, galleons, privateers, frigates, and man-of-wars (MOW). The first three are merchant ships and can't attack; the other three are warships. Privateers are unique in that you can fight anyone with them without being at war. They may suspect your dastardly deeds, but they can't do anything about it - except send their
own privateers your way. Anyway, all but the MOW can be purchased in Europe or built in a shipyard in the colonies. The natives are similar to Civ's barbarians in that you don't need to declare war to attack them, and they don't have to declare war on you to attack you. The natives generally attack when they feel threatened by things you've been doing. War can be started from Europe (they may or may not give you some troops to compensate) or in the colonies. Diplomacy is pretty simple - it's either peace or war. You can demand money if you're strong, or they can demand money from you. They can sneak attack, though they'll wait a few turns to do that.

There's no research in Civ; the closest equivalent is the liberty bells. Bells are generated from the colony itself (one per) and putting statesmen in town halls. They do several things -

(1) They raise Sons of Liberty (SOL) membership in the colony; there are bonuses to production if the SOL% is at 50% and a larger one if it's 100%. There are penalties if too many residents are Tory (i.e., not rebel).

(2) They allow Continental Congress members to show up. Continental Congress members offer benefits to you. For example, Simon Bolivar raises the SOL membership percentage by 20 when he joins the Congress.

(3) During the war for independence, those bells determine whether or when some other country will intervene on your behalf. Intervention means they send some nice troops, artillery, and ships to one of your colonies to use in the war.

(4) Generating liberty bells after intervention adds to your score.

Trade and economics is more detailed than Civ, though still simple to understand. There's the bid/ask spread to deal with, where what you pay for goods in Europe is more than what you can sell them for. The spread for lumber and food is so large that it's not worth it to either buy or sell them there. The spread for ore, sugar, fur, and tobacco is smaller, so it's sometimes worthwhile to sell them. The spread for other goods is 1, the minimum. The economy is affected by people buying and selling. Muskets, for example, start out cheap, but get horrendously expensive after awhile because everyone buys them in large quantities. On the other hand, silver starts out at a really nice price (to sell), but gets driven way down as lots of it is found and sold.

Each country starts with its own advantage. England gets a bonus to cross production. France gets a bonus to Native relations (they don't get PO'd as fast). Spain gets a bonus to attacking Native villages. And the Dutch start with a merchantman and get a more stable economy.

There's a lot more to the game, but I suspsect I've either bored or confused you all by now. If you're a fan of Civ or other 4X games, I'd encourage you to give Colonization a try. You can get it for free if you know where to look (and your moral compass allows such things), or you can find it from eBay for a pittance.

Here’s a screenshot of the New Jack City colony to show you how the game looks:



(You guys that know Colonization can return now).

I'm playing the patched Windows version at the Governor level with no house rules.

Rejected titles:

Viva La Revolucion
Free Weed & Hookers For All
Rebel Rebel
Freedom '95
The Surinam Shuffle
No Passing These Dutchies

NEXT: The State of the Union

[Honolulu Blue]

The Republic of Surinam and its colonies. Barbados and that galleon are British (technically, the United States of America, since they have already declared their independence).



Should be mostly self-explanatory. The little things on wheels are Artillery and the rest are Dragoons. The guys in blue are Veterans. To summarize:

New Jack City has 12 Dragoons (3 Veterans) and 3 Artillery. In addition, one is teaching the rookies about war in the university.
Fort Orange has 4 Veteran Dragoons and 2 Artillery.
Fort Nassau has 7 Veteran Dragoons.
New Holland has 4 Dragoons (3 Veterans) and one Artillery.
Port au Prince has 4 Veteran Dragoons and one Artillery.

All of the above cities are defended by a fort.

Dykstra has no defenses. You’ll see why in a little bit.

That’s a total of 31 Dragoons (21 Veterans) and 7 Artillery. Some of the Veterans will be promoted to Continental Army status, giving them an extra point in combat ability.



My pathetic little navy. One Merchantman, one Privateer, and one Frigate (thank you Mr. Jones). Much like the real American Revolution.



Lots of information on this screen. Rumor has it that the Stadtholder will be sending 64 Regulars, 21 Cavalry, 20 Artillery, and 11 MOWs our way. If they sent them in all at once, they’d probably massacre me (their fighters are better one on one; artillery the same). But they won’t, and that’s where I’ll get my edge.

Also, rebel sentiment is up to 98% - 78 of our 80 citizens feel we should declare our indepence. The other two… well, who cares about them?

The last thing I’ll point out is the 18 Founding Fathers we’ve convinced to support our cause. They each added their abilities to our cause.



Sons of Liberty – our key to winning the war. The guys in red are Statesmen and pump out about twice as much as a regular guy. We’re pumping out 511 bells per turn, which should get us to intervention fairly soon.

NEXT: Signing my name on the bottom line. Death sentence or national holiday?

[Coffee Warlord]

This is gonna be a rough revolution.

[fantastic flying froggies]

Don't you know? they're talking about a revolution...

[Jon]

Where'd you get the game? This was one of my favorites>

[Honolulu Blue]

This is gonna be a rough revolution.

Well, maybe. Somehow I think I'll get out of it OK.

Originally Posted by Jon

Where'd you get the game? This was one of my favorites

I bought the Windows version off eBay a zillion years ago. About two zillion years ago, I bought the DOS version at retail (don't ask me which store).

Anyway, thanks all for reading, and I'll try to keep things interesting.

[Honolulu Blue]

Spring 1684

The Declaration's been signed and I tell the Stadtholder and his lackeys that he'll have to return us to Dutch rule by force. Now the warships are arriving on the horizon. They're pretty ships; I wish we had some. France has pledged their support if we can show that we aren't going to get crushed (in game terms, that means generating 6500 bells).



The enemy lands near Dykstra. This will become a trend.

The good news is most of my Veteran Dragoons have become Continental Army members - all 3 at New Jack City, all 4 at Fort Orange, 5 of 7 at Fort Nassau, 2 of 3 at New Holland, and 3 of 4 at Port au Prince. We think we're ready for them...

1684-86

The war is going very well for the rebels (us). We're beating up on them, while taking few losses. Our frigate has damaged one MOW and sunk another. I think his luck will run out soon.

1687-89

The only real surprise is our miracle frigate. He's damaged three more MOWs and sunk another before being damaged enough to need some repairs.



Our fort at NJC took out another MOW. That'll slow them down some.



Meanwhile, they keep sending 'em and we keep mowing 'em down. Also, the French are about to send help. It looks like they can spare 4 Continental Cavalry, 4 Continental Regulars, 4 artillery, and 2 MOWs. We can, of course, use the help.

NEXT: The French come to our aid. Will it be enough to bring us to victory?

[JeffNights]

ha, this is Great. I just fired up Colonization again, I forget how fun the game was.

[MrBug708]

The greatest game ever made

[Honolulu Blue]

Originally Posted by JeffNights

ha, this is Great. I just fired up Colonization again, I forget how fun the game was.

It is that. It is not, in my opinion,

The greatest game ever made

That list still starts with Imperialism II. Colonization is probably in the top 5, however. It's probably among the top 5 in gametime for yours truly.

[Honolulu Blue]

Spring 1690



The French declare war on our side! Vive la France! Some of their troops have arrived just today, and more are on the way. Let's send the Stadtholder back to Amsterdam!



Our MOWs sunk three more of their ships; they don't have many left.

In other news, it's more of the same. They just can't stop us.

Autumn 1692

This is the first turn that they haven't tried to attack us. It's just the calm before the storm, but we'll take advantage of this to bolster our defenses and make a Dutch victory even more unlikely.

Spring 1694

A longer lull than we all expected. But they're back for another beating. Our boys could use the target practice.

NEXT: More help from another source.

[fantastic flying froggies]

The French should start to surrender any minute now...

[Honolulu Blue]

Autumn 1695

Things are going so well that we decided to sell our muskets on the game's equivalent of the black market to whomever will buy them (not the Dutch, of course). This increases our treasury and gets us this offer of help from the English:



We have nothing against the English, so we say go ahead.

Autumn 1701

The English do it again. Things are moving slowly, but we're getting the job done.

1702-04

They don't seem to be landing any more cavalry or artillery, so it's just infantry to destroy, three units at a time. Easy pickings. Not only do we not lose any men (we haven't lost any yet), we're barely losing any horses at this stage.

Spring 1706

Another offer - same as the others. For scoring purposes, I take it, even though I really don't need them.

Autumn 1710

Another offer.

Spring 1715

Another offer.

Spring 1716

I decide to put a token garrison in Dykstra, just in case. The battles are going very well; they just don't come frequently enough.

Autumn 1719

Another offer. We're starting to sell our spare horses now.



At this point it's almost over; we just have to wait for them to land and destroy them as they do so.

Spring 1721



A slightly different offer.

March 1722



The Stadholder's last stand.

May 1722



We destroyed the last of the Dutch invasion forces. The Stadtholder says he has better things to do than fight us; we know the truth. Victory is ours! There are celebrations all over Surinam! There is much work to do, but we can now start on building our new nation without looking over our shoulder.

THE END