Sid Meier's Colonization

The Good
Play as Spanish, English, Dutch or French. Each has a special advantage of their own. Most people play the Dutch because your ship can carry 4 commodities at the start instead of 2 for all other players. Also commodity prices are better. The French have better relations with the Indians meaning fewer attacks and have a trained pioneer which clears land quicker and gets more logs from cleared woods. The English get 50% more immigrants, but this makes it more difficult to train them all and stop big colonies losing efficiency. The Spanish have veteran Soldiers to attack the Indians or other Europeans.

The Bad
The fight mechanics don't work according to probabilities and you get too many foreign POW's - ie. you can attack a city with several Artillary all the time and lose them all, on other occasions attack all the time and win. This means either you lose every unit and keep every unit. Probably means you should only lose some, this really spoils the game as you can't guarantee a win although you have a massive arsenal. Also after you get 4 privateers they always lose. It would have been good if you could have captured ships as well as sink them.

The Bottom Line
Great. A real insite into how the New World was Colonized. Learn about historic figures of the time who join your Congress. New Congress members act like tech advances in Civilization eg. Adam Smith makes Factories, and Magellan increases ship movement. The game is a bit like Civilization only on a reduced time scale. Includes Dragoons, Soldiers, Scouts, Caravels, Mecantmans, Galleons, Man-O-War (during fight for Independence). Kings Soldiers and Continental army recruits act like Riflemen and Cavalry.