Original Colonization vs Civ 4 remake?

[octavius]

Anyone played both the original Colonization and the remake that is bundled with Civ 4 Complete Edition?
If so which is better, and why?

 

[Kalin]

Original all the way.

 

[Comte]

Original is better. Like in most "Modern" strategy games the AI is braindead in the new one. That ruined it for me.

 

[rezaf]

The original is better in almost every way.

Many things have been dumbed down simplified, sometimes to "steamline", sometimes to shoehorn stuff into the Civ4 engine it clearly was not meant to accomodate.
The game plays slower and in my opinion, the clear top-down view of the original even looks better.
A major downside is that the windows version does not run on a x64 OS.

The new version has few things going for it, mainly mod support and a few tiny nooks and crannies (for example you couldn't abandon walled colonies in the original Colonization and in CivCol you can, iirc).

 

[asfasdf]

Original is better, but the remake is enjoyable.

 

[spectre]

The Civ4 remake changed quite a bit of stuff, like requiring gold for almost any sort of training (took me by surprise first time I played), but one can't shake the feeling that the civ4 strings are showing from underneath,
which makes it lose some of the original's charm. I was especially fond of the endgame ranking with various stuff being named after you.

For what it's worth, I spent much more time on the original, not so much on the remake, though I recognize its merits.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

I've tried the remake only very briefly, but it felt like a mod unlike the original that felt like its own game.

If it had a bit higher res graphics, like 640x480 for example, it would be really great.

 

[vonAchdorf]

The original game is better. For the remake, there's a mod "The Authentic Colonization" (TAC), which unfortunately only works with well with a German Col version (at least that's what the authors say). You can switch the German version to English, but some texts are missing / wrong, a pure English version doesn't work properly at all. Maybe it works with the Steam version.

 

[Renegen]

Being a huge fan of both games, I play TAC all the time, it's great. The old Colonization suffers from the problem that no matter how advanced your units are, they still only have like a 80% chance to win the battle. While the new Civ4 version you can reach 99.99% probabilities, this makes it less frustrating.

 

[Luka-boy]

3rd way: Play FreeCol
http://www.freecol.org/

 

[Arrowgrab]

The original game is better. For the remake, there's a mod "The Authentic Colonization" (TAC), which unfortunately only works with well with a German Col version (at least that's what the authors say). You can switch the German version to English, but some texts are missing / wrong, a pure English version doesn't work properly at all.

Really? Can't say I ever noticed that. Admittedly, haven't played it in a while, so memory might be failing me; still, I'd expect to remember something like that.

 

[vonAchdorf]

The original game is better. For the remake, there's a mod "The Authentic Colonization" (TAC), which unfortunately only works with well with a German Col version (at least that's what the authors say). You can switch the German version to English, but some texts are missing / wrong, a pure English version doesn't work properly at all.

Really? Can't say I ever noticed that. Admittedly, haven't played it in a while, so memory might be failing me; still, I'd expect to remember something like that.

I only quoted from the (German) FAQ - so I don't have first hand experience with running it on an English version. Interestingly the English FAQ over at the fanatics doesn't mention these problems so English users are probably fine.

 

[Arrowgrab]

I only quoted from the (German) FAQ - so I don't have first hand experience with running it on an English version. Interestingly the English FAQ over at the fanatics doesn't mention these problems so English users are probably fine.

Or maybe the FAQ is just badly out-of-date, I guess.

 

[index.php]

Civ4: Colonization – “We The People” release 4.0​

The modders of the popular Colonization mod “We The People” have released the latest version of their mod, after more than 2 years of development. This new version includes new terrain types, terrain features, resources, an overhaul of building requirements, limitations on shipping, and a looooot more tweaks.
For the thread please see here, and for the changelist here.

 

[index.php]

Civ4: Colonization – “We The People” release 4.1​

Changes:
- New MapSize "Massive" + some new Maps for it
- Reduced generation of Coral Reefs on Ocean
- "Bakery Products" have been renamed to "Provisions"
- Immigration Overhaul (too many Units on Dock waiting reduces Immigration)
- The flag on the Danish Schooner is no longer mirrored
- Buttons to import/export all yields now include more yields
- More background music added
- Changes to when some events will trigger (no spoilers with specifics here)
- Production help text (like mouseover on hammers) now has the leader contribution listed as a standalone line
- Domestic Advisor gained mouseover help text on the production page
- Event help text now informs more about production changes
- Wild Feathers are now used to produce (padded) Goat Hide Boots.
- #427 #820 Build road to location now allows the player to pick which type of road to build
- Readme is now html as that allows index with links to each section
- Savegames will no longer break if more buildings or units are added to xml
- Added more achievements
- #723 Map sizes have changed to avoid black map when zooming out (random maps only, doesn't affect existing savegames)
- Added proper error message windows. Also message windows will no longer show error icon and error sound.
- #813: Button to filter Yields in City Screen to only available ones
- Random map adjustments to terrain and land mass
- Removed source code from releases (mod starts faster). Source code is still available in a separate release zip file
- Added new game speed for builders (slower than Marathon)
- Names of colonies, generals, admirals and ships now support Cyrillic (Russian only, manually entering colony names still has issues)
- City billboards now support Cyrillic without manually replacing GameFont.tga (game restart required when switching to/from Russian)
- Random map generation is now updated to handle new terrains and terrain features in a more balanced way

New Units:
- Added failed native trader
- Seasoned trader
- Eccentric architect
- Prisoners of war (incl. Events to exchange them in Missions / Forts)
- A new unique unit for each European civilization

Graphic updates (new or improved):
- Achievements: 71
- Bonuses: 7
- Buttons: 9
- Units: 26

Colopedia:
- Major improvements

Translations:
- Improved quality of English text
- French translation is being maintained again due to the arrival of a new translator
- Major updates to French
- Significant updates to Russian
- German is still being maintained and is still up to date

Balance:
- Native raids no longer destroys all production
- Cross cost of immigrants now increases slower, but max price has increased
- Slave Overseer and Slave Hunter are now less overpowered
- Town guard is now a bit stronger
- Master carpenters now reqiures a college for education
- Cargo price changes
- Dutch Mercantile trait now provides trade goods in colonies
- French now gets 2 baked goods per colony per turn
- Hemp and flax planters are now available in Europe
- Rebalanced what some of the terrains can produce
- More terrains now produce clay (should reduce the risk of not being able to produce any)
- Corrected Balancing of REF to not get Terrain Defenses

Fixes:
- Goodies no longer spawn on mountain peaks
- Domestic prices are no longer unattractive compared to European prices
- Full barracks no longer blocks civilians and cargo from being unloaded
- Founding fathers will no longer be able to reveal shipwrecks as that would discover the Pacific without going there
- Russian dragoons will no longer have greatly oversized heads in some situations
- Event where servant steals money will now remove money rather than adding them to the player
- Peace granted through a founding father will now have a minimum duration (prevents declaring war the following turn)
- Failed Missionary could not use the school system
- #808: leader traits granding production bonuses to all colonies will now always provide those in all colonies
- Production help text (like mouseover on hammers) will now display the correct numbers
- Taiga no longer prevents pioneers from building farms or plantations
- Danish ship (which?) now has a Danish flag, not English
- Fixed issue where docks could not be built on certain small lakes
- Great general can now join artillery professions
- FF Verrazano now reveals goodie huts
- Fixed a missing ambient sound for Terrains
- Sea animals no longer spawns under ice
- Fixed issue with wool related to storage capacity view
- Fixed issue with Cochineal using wrong Improvement
- #842 Fixed issue caused by cashing of Slave Production Modifier
- Foreign kings offering immigrants will now offer a random unit and not just the same as what other kings offer
- #846 starting a game in another era than discovery will no longer crash the game (still not recommended to start in anything but discovery)
- #854 Buying deep water ships from king without any suitable colony no longer crashes the game
- Fixed issue where construction supplies didn't take up cargo space as intended
- #865 with Construction supplies that could not be loaded on Wagon Trains, Smuggling Ships
- Fixed vanilla bug where AI assumed it could construct all buildings due to a typo
- Attacking smuggler ships no longer reveals their owner
- Fog no longer prevents pioneers from building improvements
- #845 European wars will no longer be able to end right after they started
- Port Royal, not Africa is where new world resource experts can be bought
- #872 Colony screen no longer breaks completely by trying to draw the icon of NO_YIELD
- Carriages can now use ferries across large rivers
- Fixed pathfinding issue where ships would sometimes prefer to go through storms
- Iron Mines, Iron Mills and Peat Pits no longer destroys bogs (ore boosting improvements should not remove a +2 ore bonus)
- #804 Ice lakes are no longer generated in deserts
- Fixed a number of seemingly random crashes caused by selection groups containing a NULL unit
- Citadels ands Bastions will no longer view all units as infrantry
- #874 Automated scouts will now take enemy units into account when moving
- #874 Automated scouts will now stop automation if they are done exploring, hence making the player aware that the scout is available
- Units can no longer move after bombarding a colony
- Fixed (vanilla?) bug where selling to natives increases the counter of what has been sold in Europe
- AI settlers will no longer permanently take up a cargo slot on a ship if it can't find a suitable location to settle
- Ranchers no longer lists domestic requirements, which it doesn't actually require
- #900 Fixed issue where tax increases could cause tax to decrease (only happened with taxes above 60%)
- #902 createAnimalsSea now uses xml settings for sea animals rather than land animals
- Fixed rare issue where Town guard could end up with blue skin

Internals:
- Added wrapper classes to avoid exe and python from calling our code directly (adds modding freedom)
- Complete rewrite of OOS logging to allow savegame to dump all saved data to the log output

 

[Gaznak]

Original is better in every aspect.