Game:

Sid Meier's Colonization (1994)

Duration: 45:21

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Colonization is a game from 1994 that I remember fondly. It's a sequel of sorts to Civilization, being made shortly after the first Civ game.
Due to the subject matter, I suspect this game could not be made today; there are some hilariously triggered retro reviews of it out there, of which perhaps the most infamous is "if (!isNative()) return false" - https://www.playthepast.org/?p=2509 - which stakes its entire thesis on misreading a conditional to think it does the exact opposite of what it actually does, getting corrected in the comments, then continuing as if nothing went wrong.

The most obvious difference between this and Civ is the specialists: For every job a colonist can do, there's a specialist who can do it about twice as well. This leads to a lot of micromanaging to get the appropriate specialists in place. In addition to the specialists, the docks are also crawling with indentured servants and petty criminals. Both of these colonist types are bad at indoor work, but can work outdoors as well as a free colonist. Indentured servants aren't so hard to deal with - the Indians will happily train them into specialists, and there is always the option of having the Indians train them, then making them forget their new speciality - which immediately turns an indentured servant into a free colonist. Petty criminals are a bit more troublesome: Indians won't train them, specialists will outperform them, and they are hard to educate.

There are two main priorities in the early game...
The first is to make a profit. I'm doing a reasonable job on that front, with a silver mine, a rudimentary brewing industry, and some trade with the Indians.
The second is getting at least one of the following specialists: lumberjack, carpenter, farmer, fisherman. With these, it's possible to feed your growing population and get some basic buildings up reasonably quickly. Conveniently, these are all "schoolhouse-level" professions, so once you get these specialists, they can train more from free colonists.


Founding fathers:
Henry Hudson: doubles the output of fur trappers. Good for making a quick buck at the beginning of the game before the price of furs inevitably nosedives, good for setting up a coat-making industry.
Peter Minuit: Lets you buy land from the Indians for free. Minuit is usually necessary at the beginning of the game, although there is the "full arsehole" option of picking up Hernan Cortes instead and taking the Indians' land by force.

00:00 Hello Intertubers
05:40 Game starts
08:15 The first colony
20:30 Free money.
26:54 Colony 2 - silver mining.
34:00 Commodities
36:40 FREE MONEY!!!
37:05 Colony 3
41:20 Soldiers and Dragoons
43:42 Trade with Indians
45:00 Selling silver!

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