Colonialism (1st Edition)

Colonialism is the policy whereby a nation seeks to gain authority over other peoples or territories. The subjugated people are generally exploited for the economic benefit of the colonizing country.

Colonialism is played in game turns. The heart of the game turns are the Action Rounds. In each Action Round a player either draws 3 cards, moves a ship, withdraws influence discs, explores a region or plays an influence card from his hand. Influence cards are either Action or Policy cards. Action cards are played and immediately resolved in an affected region on the board. Policy cards are placed in the player´s colonial policy area and are not resolved until the end of the next colonization phase. As these cards are normally placed face down, there is a fair amount of bluffing and suspense.

There is hardly any downtime in Colonialism. Individual player turns are short and swift. The game is very elegant without a lot of “rules overhead”. It also scales well – any player numbers from 2 to 4 are fine. Thanks to the art of the always amazing Harald Lieske Colonialism is a “serious” look into this chapter of recent history in game form.