Just wondering if anyone here is into Sid Meier games like Civilization IV or Colonization, or even other strategy games like Age of Empires. I've been playing the Colonization game lately and it is a pretty interesting little simulation. You get a sense of colonial economics and mercantilism, even though of course it is just a game and cant possibly encompass all aspects of the real historical colonial exchange. Notably they don't include slavery directly, which is a big historical gap.

If anyone plays let me know...I'm thinking of spending a few months making an expansion scenario that would include slavery, playing as a maroon colony, playing as a pirate colony, and adding at least the notable rebel leaders and generals from DR and Haiti.

I have played all the Age of Empires. I specially enjoyed playing part III, cuz' on their warchiefs expansion one could play as Toussaint. Also, their Asian dynasties is specially fun, specially when one uses Japan or China (the samurais being tougher warriors than most, and the chinese for the gigantic numbers they could throw into the field). Have you played the Total War series?

Another series that you could try is the one of Star Wars RTS games:

1- Galactic Battlegrounds and its expansion The Clone Campaigns, which are some sort of "Age of Empires meet Star Wars".

2- Empire at War, which not only focuses in economics and building field armies, but also lets you use space fleets as well.

Haven't played Total War no. I stopped playing the real time strategy games a few years ago, but last week I picked up AoE III, no expansions, to see how it compared to Colonization. Played it the last couple of nights a little it and it is def fun but personally I like the turn based games more. I really lack focus sometimes and with AoE you can't wander off or you lose momentum. Nice to hear they got Touissaint in there in the expansions though. Are there any Hispañiola specific scenarios?

Yes, and also every single point of the continent. Also, the Warchiefs expansion not only lets you play as Toussaint, but also as Bolivar, San Martin, Santander and Washington among others, every one of them bringing a single different advantage when you bring them into the field. The one of Toussaint is that the colonists have more hitpoints, and the one from Washington the ability to use Gatling guns. Also, you can only bring them when you get to the level 3 to 4 crossroads in the random play mode (not the story mode, although in one of the maps of story mode, Bolivar aids Amelia Black on her quest, after you help him kick spanish arses first, of course).

If you love turn based games, then you'll love the Total War ones, specially the most recent one (Empire), which allows you to use fleets, and have its setting on the XVIIIth century.

I'll have to look at that Total War in a few months. I also grabbed a turn based one from 2006 called 'Galactic Empires' or something like that from the bargain bin. Lots of gaming to do in the next few weeks as I cancelled my cable TV

Speaking about Sid Meier's games, did you get to play his "Pirates" series (specially the first one)?

Never played anything outside the Civ seriees except Alpha Centauri one time waaaaay back. How is Pirates?

It's extremely entertaining, about a seaman whose family gets indebted and tyranized by a spanish noble. Your quest is to align yourself with one of the four powers disputing the Caribbean on the XVI and XVIIth centuries (Spain, France, England and the Netherlands). You can align yourself with one or with all of them at the same time. The game is some sort of "no bounds" RPG game, on which you can obtain ships, recruit crews on the local taverns, visit historic locales (like Tortuga island), trade in the ports of the New World, assault any ship that comes into your sight (including the legendary spanish treasure fleets and silver train), obtain treasure maps in local taverns, bribe enemy governors into granting you pardon for your crimes, rescuing members of your family, getting revenge against the spanish count Montalban in the process, and must funny of all, you can romance the governors' daughters (by successfully cajoling them with your reputation and daring exploits and dancing with them on a given chance), and if you have enough points with them, they might give you the schedule of the spanish fleets and/or marry you. Isn't all that extremely funny?