Okay, I spent a week with Colonization.  Unfortunately, as with Empire: Total War, I have been a bit too busy to really give Colonization a real shake.  Strangely enough, though, this fact bothered me more with Empire: Total War than it did with Colonization.  I can't put my finger on why: perhaps it was Empire's compounded load times (loading the strategic game, loading the battle screen, back to loading the strategic game); perhaps it was that I didn't feel "right" saving in the middle of an epic battle (actually, I'm not even sure if there is a save option there; I suppose there is).  With Colonization, there were times when I only had a half hour to play, and I didn't mind just going in and playing for a half hour.

Colonization is a Civ 4 mod and looks the part.  This isn't a bad thing: Civ 4 actually looks pretty good to me!  My experience with Colonization was very different than with Civ 4, however.  In Civ 4, I tend to create a city then create units, and happily go off exploring with the units.  Meanwhile, I'm researching and building stuff in the city.  In Colonization, I was quickly aware of economics.  Every time my population grew, I needed to be aware of food: were we producing enough food?  Often, I had to put ideas on hold because I needed more people to produce food.

After some earlier attempts, I realized that I was fixating so much on these economics that I wasn't sending out scouts to explore.  More importantly, I wasn't expanding out and creating more settlements.  Okay, I need to balance these things! 

In the end, it didn't take long before I realized that half hour "what the heck, let me play for a few minutes before bed" would result in several hours. 

Anyway, this has been a crazy week for me, so I'm posting this article almost a week later than I had intended.  I'm not sure what game I will hammer at next week.  I am pondering . . . my XBox 360 is getting lonely, so perhaps this is time to revisit the consoles.