Nah, since I Hereforthebeer just awesomely sent me MoO, I don't wanna ask for 'nother game. I'll keep the game in mind 'round sale time though.

worth doing! :) and nicely done HereForTheBeer!

Sure! Unfortunately there's not much in the way of help on the game forum here, but this faq has some pretty good information regarding tips on colony building and other aspects of the game. Also the tutorial for the game is decent, but it is meant to help in games against active oppoenents.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/196975-conquest-of-the-new-world/faqs/2038

As for a game in the style you've described, here's what I'd recommend:

On the main menu, select "create new game". This will bring up a sub menu from which you should select the game style 'custom'. From the custom menu you can do the following:

- Select your nation of choice. All are viable for your purposes, though I would recommend any of the colonial powers over the Native American. Each power comes with it's own advantage. But, again, without active opponents the effect is negligible.

- Set computer opponents to zero.

- Set the victory conditions for points and number of turns to 'unlimited'. This will allow you to play a purely sandbox mode without having to worry about the game ending prematurely.

- You have points that you can put into skills. I would recommend Cartographer, Admiral, and Craftsman to start. The first two enhance the movement of your units and the last allows you to sell your materials to the mother country for a higher value.

- You wil have the option to shape the terrain by using the water and mountain seeds option. The higher the number that you select, the more of each will be present on the map. So, for example, if you set both to maximum, there will be plenty of inland lakes (the interior of which cannot be explored) and tall mountain ranges on the map. On the other hand, if you set both to minimum, you'll have dry flatlands for the most part (which is a bit boring, imo).

- Set resources to abundant. This will maximize the number of discoverable resources that help your colonies. You can find natural crop fields that help farming; various forests that augment wood production; mineral deposits that help in metal production, and so on. Click on a discovered resource and it's area of efect will be highlighted onj the map. So if you click on a crop field and build a farm in the highlighted area, the farm will receive a production boost.

- Set play time bonus to zero. You're not playing for points, so it's not needed.

- Set movement to whatever you desire, but I would recommend either normal or easy as this dictates how far your land and sea units can move (and thus uncover) in a given turn.

- Lastly, choose you map size. I would recommend using the default as the minimum size if you really want to get a feel for how exploring works and have enough room to create a good colony network

- Click Start. It'll take a moment or two for the world to be created.

On the first turn, you'll start with a small ship on the coastline. On the ship will be three exploeres and a military unit. Bring the ship to the coast and select 'disembark all' and the units will appear on the coast. Select a unit and bring the mouse in the direction you want the unit to move. As it moves, the 'fog of war' will dissipate revealing the newly explored territory. Tip: Hold down the shift key as the units move and they'll move more quickly. Once all units have used up their move allotment, the End Turn option will highlight. Click on it and proceed to the next turn. You'll do this sequence for the next couple of turns, broadening the exposed area you've explored with each successive turn. On turn 5 (it might be 4), another ship will appear off the coast. On this second ship will be a military leader and a settler. Disembark them. The settler will give you the option to found a colony. Once you have what you feel is suitable spot, found your first colony and start building....

That should get you started. :-) The only thing you'll have to be wary of early in the game is being situated to close to a hostile indigent tribe. Unless you are very unlucky, you'll have ample warning of their whereabouts. But if you settle your colony close to one, you risk having raids early on. Hope all of this has helped.

Thanks for all the tips! Should definitely help for starting a new game. I'll try it out when I get home.

I played Master of Orion for the first time two or three months ago so I don't have a lot of experience. But the AI of some of the alien races is aggressive. I had an alliance with one race (I forget the name, I think they are described as dumb and aggressive) and all of the sudden they declared war on me. I thought "wtf?". Their mistake, cause I took most of their planets from them before they came begging for peace. They are now isolated to a small corner of the map. Anyway I actually haven't played in a while, I'm a little scared to. That might sound ridiculous but the last session I had with the game lasted 7 hours! Its a huge time sink. I'm afraid if I start again I would spend a ridiculous amount of time playing.

This was going to be my suggestion. Great game - still have the original CD.

One of my favorite strategy games of the past few years is Crusader Kings 2. It's not really a 4X game, but it can be played peacefully. I strongly suggest you check it out. It's definitely a ton of fun.

Another game that come to mind is dungeon keeper, there is fighting but the game is also based highly around dungeon eco, then later you fight the good guys to get a portal gem, it is a fun game

Just played Conquest for a bit and had a lot o' fun. I figured out how to build settlers! Woo! Anyway, this is probably the closest to what I was thinking. Being able to set enemies to 0 and play on sandbox is nice, especially since there're still Natives so it's not completely devoid of life.

Don't take that as a thread closing statement though! I'd still like to hear and talk about whatever.
CK2 is another one I've had my eye on for a while, as I've heard good things and really like the concept. I've always been a bit put off by Paradox games tho. I have Europa Universalis 3 and haven't really played it because I don't want to watch hours of Youtube videos to figure it out. Is the learning curve better in CK2?
This is the thing that bothers me about a lot of strategy games (TOTAL WAR. Okay I know you're called Total War not Total Peace but come on guys!). They often have this kill switch or something where after a certain amount of time everyone will randomly decide to murder you even if they don't stand a chance and are bros with you.

This is going to sound awful, as these titles are generally not available on GOG.com, but have you considered the Paradox grand strategy titles?

I ask because it seems like you want less war. While there may be a distinctive lack of exploration, actual management and running a nation take the forefront of them. I'm referring to games like Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis IV, Sengoku, Victoria, etc. etc. EU especially would be a good choice in your case. Its set during the 'colonization' era, and you can take control of any country and just go and be awesome. The fact that I saw the Irish recreate the Roman empire speaks to how sandboxy it is.

....this being said, the learning curve for Paradox titles is... uh.. steep. Like.. you should be prepared to lose games regularly for about a month or so before you start to grasp the mechanics. :p

I think so. It didn't take me that long to pick it up and I haven't played Universalis yet. You can start slow and work your way into the harder stuff. I remember in my first game, I couldn't figure out how to get my troops onto my boats for an overseas invasion, but that was easy to find.

I would suggest you start with Ireland as that is the easiest starting area. I started with Scotland on my first game and I soon conquered all of Ireland, England, and Scotland to form the Empire of Brittania. It's definitely worth a try.

Actually, there is a demo version out there somewhere you can try out if you want.

Not a weird question at all and I feel the same way as you, for a different reason though.
Ever since I started playing 4X games I've loved them to bits. It's a cliché but probably the first game that got me started was the original Civilization back when it was released. Anyway.
The reason I feel as you is because almost no game in the genre makes me feel as a Ruler when the fighting starts. Suddenly I'm both the Ruler and the Military Chief. It's controlling all the gazillion of military units that makes me bored to bits. So I usually play until I am clearly dominant in military and then start a new game. Sometimes I crush a particularly irritating enemy first or slaughter someone just to play with my fancy military units. :P

The reason I told you I've been playing 4X for so long is that during all this time there are very very few 4X games that doesn't end up with what I think is tediousness during war. If I'm the ruler why can't I tell my generals to go fight the war AND have a reasonable chance of winning? For crying out load most AI opponents manage, granted usually with a big resource bonus but it shouldn't be that hard to program generals to be tolerable effective.

Rant over.
Good luck finding a game. If you do and post it here I'll probably have a go at it too. :)

Oh and when I get really bored with playing Military Units Babysitter I do as have been suggested before and set the enemy AIs to the lowest setting and/or the least aggressive. Works with most 4X games. That at least gives me more time before the tediousness of war starts. :P

That would be a great idea for a coop game! Just as long as it isn't a MMO. ;)
It would get rid of the war time sink too. Usually as soon as war breaks out a turn or clicking per second in a RTS go from a couple minutes, leisurely clicking to many minutes or maniacal frenzied clicking all over the place. The burden would be distributed among the players and chances are everyone would play as they liked the most.
Another good thing is that if someone drops out of the game the AI could take over until another player or the original one joins.

Yeah, this annoys me too even though I usually enjoy the combat parts of 4x games. But sometimes I'd like to play more peaceful but you know eventually doing so will get you overrun by enemies. With that session of Master of Orion, I enjoyed getting to do some combat and it went greatly in my favor, but I was a bit surprised about the AI. I understand that race's profile is aggressiveness, but if I have an alliance with them, they should declare war on one of the other empires or not sign a pact in the first place.