When it comes to turn-based strategy gaming, no one does it better, or has been around longer, than Sid Meier; any list of the top 10 strategy games of all time could be largely filled with games developed by Meier, but his best-known are the Civilization series. It has been three long years since Civilization IV was released, but now Meier, with his Fireaxis development studio and 2k Games, is back with Civilization IV: Coloniz­ation. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a remake of the original, released way back in 1994.

Your purpose is to establish a colony in the New World, build a number of settlements and then declare your independence from your own sovereign state. First, you have to decide which nation you wish to be. There are four to choose from: England, France, Holland or Spain (the exclusion of Portugal from this list having caused some controversy). Each country has a unique bonus attached to it, so if you pick the French, native tribes you encounter are more accommod­ating to you encroaching on their territories; or, if you pick the Spanish, as I did, you get a 25 per cent bonus against said natives if you decide to slaughter them all. Once you’ve picked a country, you have to pick a leader; each country has two to choose from, each with their own unique, additional bonus.

Then it’s time to decide which part of the Americas to conquer; the player can choose from the mainland American continent or the Caribbean islands. It was at about this time that I realised for the first (but certainly not the last) time that this game has enormous re-playability potential. I selected mainland America, only to be taken to another screen where I could choose the size of the map, the speed of the game and its difficulty level. Colonization has seven difficulty levels, from Pilgrim to Revolutionary, and they do get noticeably harder as you go on. For my first game, I picked the second difficulty level, and with two more clicks I was looking at a boat in a small square of sea.

Before long, my noble sea-farers found land; but we weren’t the first and were met after disembarking by a group of friendly natives who, “as we were only a group of peaceful nomads” offered us a segment of their territory to build a settlement, just so long as we promised to keep it small – which I did (settlers always keep their promises to the natives!). And so was born the colony of Shadow Innsmouth.

Although there is an element of combat in Colonization, fans of the “gather resources, build a giant army, then wipe out the enemy” technique of strategy gaming will not last long here, where the potential repercussions for future relations with natives mean that combat is best embarked upon cautiously. From the first few turns, you realise the most important thing is economic domin­ance and you are well advised to get your settlers working on harvesting sugar and tobacco to send back to Europe to raise funds as fast as you can.

Within five turns, I’d sent my first shipment home and made a small sum of money; which came in handy when the natives who had kindly let me share their land were suddenly asking for money in repayment. A few turns later, the King of Spain remembered that he hadn’t just given you a colonial charter for nothing and wants a slice of your pie. This happ­ens frustratingly often and you frequently end up “kissing the King’s Ring and paying up”, which makes the urge to finally rebel all the stronger. You are frequently reminded of the plight of your sovereign nation, including economic information that can govern what type of resources you send home for maximum profit. The money raised can be spent on hiring profession masters, religious firebrands and servants from the docks each time you return to Europe.

As your settlements grow, you will attract Founding Fathers who, for those familiar with the Civiliz­ation series, confer extra bonuses. All the while, your liberty score will be increasing, and eventually you’ll be prompted to decide whether you’d like to declare independence from your sovereign state. It’s at this point that the King sends a force to eradicate you from history. If you are wise, and have sufficient ground forces, then the game is won.

As the title suggests, Colonization runs on the Civilization IV engine, but it’s been tweaked to make it more user-friendly and intuitive, with much emphasis on making everything as drag-and-drop friendly as possible. And the graphics are lovely.

 As you have come to expect from a Meier title, it’s got lots of nice extras, the best for me being the “Civilopedia” that allows the player to view all the units, Founding Fathers, tribal leaders and concepts in the game. By the time you read this, the game should be on general release and we’ll be able to see just what the multiplayer aspect has to offer – an exciting prospect.

I don’t have enough superlatives to describe how much I enjoy playing this game. In my opinion, 2008 has been a pretty grim year for PC gaming, but even if it hadn’t, Colonization would stand out as something very special. It’s the perfect mix of totally engaging turn-based strategy with lovely visuals and a re-playability factor verging on crack addiction.