Sid Meier's Colonization

The Good
A nicely woven trade context, you can harvest many different goods, process them to varying levels of refinement, ship intermediates between towns (like RRT) then trade them either back in Europe, with other Civs, or with the indians, to reap huge profits. It allows rapid expansion if that's your style. It allows temporary cities (build, then later dismantle) if that's your style again. You can fight others, or grow peacefully, relatively unhindered.

The Bad
It can get a little too peaceful, if you're not attacking anybody. You can go for 200 turns without a war, which is fine, if you like merchant/trade simulations. The military units never advance in technology, which is historically realistic, but a paradigm shift for seasoned CIV style gamers. The graphics are of course 1994 state-of-the-art, but that was amply sufficient for me, since the spreadsheet engine underlying the graphics is no worse than that of Civ 3. At least the AI doesnt cheat so much in Colonization.

The Bottom Line
DOS and Windows versions virtually identical, I play both (I find the interface more smooth in DOS. You settle and build cities like other Civ games. You can engage in trade and make money, or attack and rob the Indians and make money. You can get $100 for a good or $1000, depending who you go to trade with and what they need at that time. You can conduct shallow trade, with inexperienced workers right from the start and make a little money. Or you can go deep, develop the land, train workers to be specialists, and built industrial infrastructures, to make 5 to 10 times more money from trade. If you want to be peaceful, the AI pretty much can leave you alone to develop and grow peacefully, and build an economic powerhouse.

But there is ultimately a war you need to prepare for. The war of Independence, which you have to spend 200-300 turns preparing for, and to win it, you will need every cannon, every cavalry, and every fortification (and every dollar) you could possibly have built during those peace years.

The Good
All the different things/ways you can play it. Each game is like a new game. Sound is not to bad.--Sid Meier classic. A game in my list of top 10 games ever played.

The Bad
The music, normal I like the music in games, but the music is the first thing I put of when I play this game.

The Bottom Line
I game you either love it with you whole heart or you had it.

The Good
There are many paths to victory, and plenty of opportunity to invent unique strategies. Initially, you are dependent on your mother country, and so make money by shuffling goods back and forth between your colonies, the natives, and Europe. Or you can ignore that, outfit some guys with guns and go treasure-hunting and wiping out Indians. Gradually, through the addition of taxes, you are forced out of your mother countries' market, at which point you end your game by declaring independence and (hopefully) winning the war. You can win "big" by developing into an industrial behemoth, or win "small" by quickly building up an army and trying to defend only one or two colonies.

The Bad
The price for the depth allowed is that in the later stages heavy micromanagement(more than Civ) of your trade and specialists becomes necessary for success. Since specialists are individual units and are attached to colonies, you often find that early on you don't have a use for some specialists, and then later when you do it's in a different location from where they went originally, so that you either shuffle them around constantly or sort of ignore it and miss out on their production bonuses. This is alleviated slightly since you can choose when to finish your game, but that only covers up the problem.

The Bottom Line
Fun historical strategy, loosely related to Civ but with a character all its own. You can learn a lot by playing this game, though it quietly steps around the issue of slavery. It moves relatively quickly - you might be able to finish a game in one evening.