IMPERIALISM II

The story of the imperialistic Spanish - one game I played

[A note about this review] [Back to main] [Back to Imperialism page]


The take-off

I like playing on the european map because of the added historical feel, but the random worlds have the advantageous option of choosing ones own starting position of the capital.

As usual I had to consider the single most important factor: food. Allthough there's a special fouraging rule which makes every home province produce some food with no development needed, there will still be need for much more food. So before conquest could even be considered, I had to take care of the farming.

Never food enough! Well, not so really, but even when there's enough, it's a wise choice to build up a stockpile, so that's what I did. The guy in the blue coat is the engineer who connects productive tiles to the capital. The other one is the builder who develops the farms and any other production tile in the game.Note: the screenshots used in this review are not completely fair to the real graphical quality of Imp.II. First of all there's the degeneration of a screencopy and secondly, this was taken from a beta version. Graphics do not look quite as corny as it does here (at least at my browser)
The goal of the game is to rule 50% of the old world provinces. If you get minor nations to join you peacefully, they'll stop feeding themselves, and demand all the food from you. In my first game, that meant widespread famine, so from now on, I'm stockpiling!
Food is used to sustain all units - army, navy and labour - and it is especially important to be able to expand the laboursupply and that way the production and income from exports.

The new world and its' riches

Meanwhile, I had sent two of my three carracks to the west, looking for the new World. This time, the Spanish needed no talking into the exploration of America. After about 4 turns: America!
Once the coast was in sight, my explorer was off to explore the in-land areas. As well sugar as tobacco and fur could be discovered from the sea, but the most important task was to find gems, diamonds, gold or silver (or spice - the least lucrative). All that converts directly into solid cash!

Explorer studying Cuzco - capital of Incas - and surrounding territory. The indians have allready developed a sugar field (my explorer is doing a terrible job stepping on the crops!)


"Get rich!" (Lenin 1924)

I quickly discovered gems and a lot of spice. One turn make a consulate, next turn an embassy (quite expensive this early in the game!) and then off with the merchant. He can buy land in the new world and in the minor nations of the old world. Buying land means two big advantages: profits and protection. Any other great power who would like to invade the province I own tiles in, better think twice. In Imp., invading a province which holds another great powers property means war. So I bought a little here and there.

My merchant bought a silver tile last turn. Now the developer is opening a mine. The silver still belongs to the tribe, but they will sell it to me at a very favorable price. There's also some cotton here, but I'm out of money and besides I have not invented cotton processing yet...

Trading with the Kwakiuti where I have developed a diamond mine. A profit of 198$ just like that. And for every turn their price goes down. And the more trade I do, the better they like me allthough I'm really exploiting them (he-he!). Eventually they will like me so much that they can be talked into joining my empire - if that's what I want.

The production is straight forward so I have chosen not to display a screendump here (graphics enough allready, right?). All inputs go by two units together with 2 labor to produce one finished good. Two tobacco and two labour=1 cigar. One Tin and one cobber=one bronze. Just like that! However a trade off still has to be made in the labour allocation. I gave priority to timber and cast iron, which are the basics of most developments on the map. And then wool to textiles for sales purposes and fleet.

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(View the background below if you like (that is if Geocities will load it...). It was taken from the Imp II intro)

A note about this review

 This review was made while I was taking part in the beta testing of ImperialismII. I wanted to try to make a different kind of review and thought it would be interesting for other strategygamers to get an impression of how the strategic concept in Imperialism works. It also felt natural to me to do this kind of article like I have been doing on Panzer General rather than trying to do the same kind of review that the pros do. I find that standard gamereviews are often almost boring and don't reflect the true joy and excitement of playing (but then again I suspect some reviewers actually don't PLAY the games ;).

The "review" shows one game as I played it. It should of course be understood, that this is just one strategy. A number of different strategies are open to players in Imp.II. I expect it to be like it was with Imp.I, that different major strategies will become apparant once the game is released.

As for my personal background it should be understood, that allthough I have been part of the beta test team, I am in no other way affiliated with or payed by SSI or Frog City. I have taken part in the beta testing because I liked Imperialism(I) very much and wanted to do my part to help ImperialismII become an equally exciting game. Allthough I had to have SSIs approval to do this review, it has not been moderated by SSI and is not biased by some kind of agreement. What you see is my honest opinion and experience as a gamer. Nothing more, nothing less.

As the review is based on a beta version this also means, that what you see in it and the features I describe may change in the final version. I have tried to stay within the limits of the general picture of the game, which I feel pretty sure will not change. However neither I nor SSI/Frog City can rule out any changes.


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