[AceJohnny2]

when I was a kid, I was frustrated by the difficult choices of colony placement: "here, I get ore, but one tile over there's bonus food!" and wished I could create a "perfect" map.

This was possible in the Civ IV: Colonization version! However, it appears that the more productive you are, the bigger the Royal army is. I wish I understood the precise mechanism of that.

[yread]

I think in normal colonization the king just funded the army from the taxes you paid. So, the more goods you sold him the bigger the army. If you traded with the natives instead it wouldn't grow as fast.