Game Reviews

Commander: Conquest of the Americas (hereafter known as C:CotA) is two distinct game types in a not entirely happy union. The two game areas are individually impressive, but both have some personality quirks that become even more apparent when they're together. It's not a dysfunctional relationship by any means, more like one that's in need of a bit more communication between the parties.
The premise is a strong one: control one of seven European powers hoping to exploit the hell out of America's resources in the 16th century. Trade your way to superiority and defend your economic interests with the finest warships the continent has ever seen. Scraps of land from Hudson Bay to the northern shores of (what is now) Brazil are ripe for some good old fashioned European colonialism.

We're talking top-down strategy here and, as this is title published by Paradox Interactive, you'd be correct in assuming it requires a reasonable amount of thought to play. The early part of the game's main campaign (which stretches from 1500 to 1630 and will comfortably eat up 30 hours or more of your time) is dedicated to establishing a fledgling colony or two and transporting the first handful of resources back to your chosen nation's home port. Colony management plays an important role, as without a few key buildings to keep up morale (such as Church, or Theatre) the people will become listless and apathetic about producing more goods for sale.It's necessary to keep transporting colonists from the home port to your American outposts as they never appear to reproduce. Nor, as far as I can tell, do they ever die. C:CotA's population acts like a static commodity - if you need people somewhere, simply move them there as you would with any other resource like iron ore or cotton.