History VideoGame / Colonization

* EnemyCivilWar: Somewhat justified in that it is modeled after the War of the Spanish Succession. The game only supports four European powers, and when you declare independence, the game needs a "slot" to allocate to the royal power that will be trying to bring you to heel. So, once you reach 50% rebel sentiment in your colonies (and so could declare independence), you will be informed that this war has ended, and that one random country (not you) has surrendered all its New World claims to one of the other two AI powers. Only very rarely is this a good thing for you.

* EnemyCivilWar: Somewhat justified in that it is modeled after the War of the Spanish Succession, at some point in the game, you will be informed that this war randomly has ended, and that one random country (not you) has surrendered all its New World claims to another random country (''maybe'' you). This can work out great in your favor, if you are the lucky recipient; but the odds are that it won't be you, and you'll end up with one of your rivals suddenly more powerful.

** The independence war typically boils down to you trying to lure the Powerhouse of the Royal Expeditionary Force away from your colonies and out into open ground, where your Subversive Continental militiamen will be able to take full advantage of their terrain bonuses to bushwhack the enemy.

* GenreShift: For the most part, the game is largely a economic-sim, with you managing the production and trade of your settlements. However, the moment you declare independence by the end game, it becomes a full on war game.

* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: There are score penalties for every Indian village you wiped out.

** At a higher level, describes the way the AI plays. If the AI finds a spot with good cotton, it will build a settlement and then cram it with expert cotton planters. If it finds a spot with good fishing, it will build a settlement and then cram it with expert fishermen. And so on. You discover this pretty quickly as you start to conquer more of your rivals' settlements.

* {{Video Game Caring Potential}}: Build a prosperous colony with great wealth and economic opportunities. Make your colonies a place in which everyone that was driven out of Europe due to their unpopular religious or political views get to start a new life. Be good to the natives, peacefully interact with them through trade and cultural exchange, allowing those that were converted to live with along side the rest of your citizens as equals. Produce lots of liberty bell, then adopt values such as the separation of church and state, emancipation of slavery, and support native rights, making your new nation a paragon of enlightened democracy with peace and justice for all. The natives will reward you with tax free trade opportunities and teach your citizens useful skills that cannot be learned from anywhere else. The people will reward you with increase productivity and combat bonus.
* {{Video Game Cruelty Potential}}: Construct an imperialistic outpost for your homeland, with an economy based on extorting and looting from the natives! Utterly and thoroughly exterminate all native Americans and plunder their land! Use new immigrates as cannon fodder in you conquest! Burn the settlements that belong to other European colonist to the ground! After declaring independence, make your new nation a slavery based theocratic monarchy that believes in it's Manifest Destiny, a government that is even more oppressive then your European homeland! The natives will try to fight back, but with your superior technology it will only be a matter of time before they get wiped out. As for your people... Well, they actually will not do much to protest your actions!

* GuiltBasedGaming: All of the Native Americans greet you with friendly, unbridled joy (even the ones that were historically aggressive).

* GenocideDilemma: Do you try and peacefully cooperate and coexist with the Native Americans, even if it means you will have to spend lots of money paying them for their land and limit where you can build your settlements, or do you go with the conquistador route and exterminate them all with your military might?

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: All four colonial empires begin the game in 1492, the year Columbus discovered the New World. At that time, an independent Dutch state didn't even exist, as the Netherlands were still a Spanish province.

* BenevolentAlienInvasion: If you decide to not go with the Conqueror/Manifest Destiny route, you can try to peacefully co-exist with the natives -- trading and sending your colonists to live with them, actually paying them for the land that you occupied, and using your missionaries to covert part of their population to live with your colonists. However, no matter what you do, you will still end up destroying their traditional way of life as your borders expand and eventually push out their settlements while your missionaries lure their young men out into your own colonies.

** Additionally, the French start the higher difficulty levels with an experienced pioneer (making infrastructure development that much faster for you), the Spanish start with a veteran soldier, and the Dutch starts with an upgraded ship.

* IndenturedServitude: Criminals and indentured servants emigrate from Europe. These people are ineffective at any skilled job, but may eventually become a free colonist through labor or military service (criminals become indentured servants first before turning into free colonists).

* GuildBasedGaming: All of the Native Americans greet you with friendly, unbridled joy (even the ones that were historically aggressive).

* [[GameplayAndStorySegregation Gameplay And Story Integration]]: Your colony's interaction with your European homeland. The king will keep on increasing your taxes until eventually, your colony can barely turn a profit, making independence your only choice. The various army's modifiers also reflect their historical situation. The REF have better equipment that the colonist don't have access to in order to reflect their economic and economical superiority, forcing your to think outside the box and employ unconventional warfare tactics such as using the terrain to your advantage and weaken the enemy using hit-and-run ambushes, just like the Americans did in the actual Revolutionary War.

* UnfortunateImplications (see {{Video Game Cruelty Potential}}): Earn a Native Convert by founding a Mission and waiting a few turns. They have a higher yield on resource-gathering and a lower yield on manufacturing work. Put your newly-earned Native Convert to work in ''a silver mine''. Failing that, a cotton or sugar plantation. Depressingly, TruthInTelevision -- that is until, a large proportion of the native population having died off, the colonies resorted to importing slave labour from Africa instead.

* BenevolentAlienInvasion: If you decide to not go with the Conqueror/Manifest Destiny route, you can try and peacefully co-exist with the natives. Trading and sending your colonist to live with them, actual pay them for the land that you occupied, and use your missionaries to covert part of their population to live with your colonists. However, no matter what you do, you will still ended up destroying their traditional way of life as your boarders expand and eventually push out their settlements while your missionaries lure their young men out into your own colonies.

* GlobalCurrency: Gold
* {{Grey and Grey Morality}}: The colonist wants to create a build a new nation for their people free from the persecution and oppression from their homeland, while the Native Americans are trying to defend their ancestral lands and way of life from the stranger from across the sea.
** Averted for the conflict between the colonist and the crown. In RealLife, there was at lease some legitimate reasons for raising taxes, but here, the king raises your taxes and demands random tribute for the most bizarre if not outright nonsensical reasons.

* IKissYourHand: Every time your king (or stadholder) rises taxes, he demands that you kiss his pinky ring to comply. You can hold a {insert trade good here} party and refuse the tax raise, but then you can no longer sell that particular good in Europe.

* IndianBurialGround: Can anger nearby tribe if ransacked, but can function as the trope under this, too.
* InexplicableTreasureChests: Lost Cities, which are this game's take on the classic "goody huts." With the founding father Hernando de Soto, IndianBurialGround pretty much functions like this, too.

* OppressiveStatesOfAmerica: See the {{Video Game Cruelty Potential}} below. When writing your constitution that determines your new nations future in the 2008 remake, you can make America a brutal and backwards monarchy from the very beginning, without even the pretense of freedom and liberty.

** Even for an old and abstract game, its version of events leaves big hole. A gaping hole. A black hole, if you will, with no mention of the role that slavery played in the European colonial development. This is an EnforcedTrope brought by ExecutiveMeddling, as Sid Meir had planned to include slave labor in the game, but was overruled by Microprose for fear of offending black people.

* {{Privateer}}: For the owner, ResourceGathering, for everyone else, unidentified pirates, shoot on sight.

* TookALevelInBadass: While the natives starts out as musket fodder for the colonists, later on once they managed to get their hands on guns and horses through either raids against European settlements or trade, they will become a legitimate threat that you really need to watch out for and can turn the tide of a war depending on who they allied with.

* TechTree: Surprisingly for a FourX game, averted. There is no research in the game. The Founding father mechanism could be seen as a substitute, as you get Founding Fathers who give you various bonuses.

* ZergRush: Since the King's army from the homeland will always have superior equipment and training compared with what the colonist have, once you declared independence this will be your only viable strategy.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/colonization_7422.jpg
[[caption-width:360: Colony screen.]]


''SidMeier's Colonization'' is a {{turn based strategy}} game from 1994. In ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Colonization Colonization]]'' you [[SettlingTheFrontier colonize the New World]] as either England, Spain, France or the Netherlands.

* BenevolentAlienInvasion: If you decide to not go with the Conqueror/Manifest Destiny route, you can try and peacefully co-exist with the natives. Trading and sending your colonist to live with them, actual pay them for the land that you occupied, and use your missionaries to covert part of their population to live with your colonists. However, no matter what you do, you will still ended up destroying their traditional way of life as your boarders expand and eventually push out their settlements.

* ThePromisedLand: What immigrants from Europe view the New World as. Especially if you discovered a FountainOfYouth which will automatically attract a large number of immigrants.