Customer Reviews

Imperial Glory (Mac) (DVD-Rom)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Here's a game that hits my personal "sweet spot" -- it combines my favorite aspects of the grand strategy, diplomacy, and research/infrastructure-building genre (*cough* Civ *cough) on the one hand, and the real-time tactical battles on the other. The Napoleonic Era is a classic for a recovering wargamer like me, and the eye-candy graphics are simply lovely.

So why am I not giving this five stars? In a word, documentation. Or rather, LACK of documentation. This game follows the lamentable trend of providing the barest minimum of information on how to play, and then publishing the "official guide" as a separate book. In the case of Imperial Glory, you can't even find out what all of the improvements (just to name one example) ARE, let alone what they DO, except (a) by exhaustive trial and error, or (b) coughing up the twenty smackers for the book.

The included hardcopy manual is nice, as far as it goes, which unfortunately isn't very far. Online help is sparse, and the so-called "manual" folder from the install DVD primarily consists of bog-standard FAQ and readme docs and a two-page PDF of keyboard shortcuts. None of this adds up to "adaequate" in my book, and I have three decades of experience with wargames, computerized and not.

What it boils down to is this: This is not a $40 game. It is a $60 game that happens to ship in two separate boxes. Make your cost/benefit calculation accordingly.

One gripe specific to Mac OS X: The note in the FAQ that multiplayer games don't work between Intel Macs and PowerPC Macs ("due to some fundamental hardware differences") is a small but irritating bit of incompetence. My inner geek is screaming that it's gotta be a big-endian/little-endian problem, which means their programmers don't know what the ntohl() and htonl() function calls are for. (Why don't game developers ever hire someone who knows networking to write their networking code...?)

Despite a lot of negative reviews, Imperial Glory is not a bad game, excepting some flaws in the computer A.I.---it just requires a lot of patience. The overall campaign is very long (took me 2 months playing an hour a day to finish one) and you need to be ready to adjust to the gameplay.

(TAKE THE TUTORIAL FIRST BEFORE PLAYING A CAMPAIGN!!!!!!) :)

My tips:

First of all, you can't just expect to jump into the game, start raising armies, and conquer Europe in no time. No. . . although many would like to. I tried that and ended up fighting almost all the major empires on the map.
Instead, you must pay significant attention to your diplomacy---i.e. country's status, alliances, pacts, agreements, trade routes, raising food, raw materiels, etc. Sounds like a lot but it isn't much once you get used to it.

THEN you can get into wars, if you don't like the idea of peaceful annexation. Battles will come, and you have the option of controlling your armies yourself or letting the computer do it. Before doing the former, try playing a few "quick games" so you will get the hang of directing armies. Believe me, the computer A.I can be dangerously smart at times, although there is an occasional stupid flaw (as previously mentioned.)

As for ship battles. . .euugh. I was NOT pleased with them. Unless the battle is one against one or perhaps two against two, don't even bother. It is terrifically hard to command up to three to six ships in a battle and attempt to steer, fire, ram and board enemies all at the same time.

So, there you have it. My only problems with the game is the sometimes stupid computer A.I. flaw, as mentioned (twice), and the length of time required to play. 2 months. . .ahem. . .is a little long. However, I'm sure there are gamers who play more than an hour a day. [as I am starting to. :) ]

One last thing: It also takes very long to load up saved games and battles . . . like a minute or so. :(

Imperial Glory is a potentially fun turn based strategy game. It combines the turn-based empire management of Civilization with the tactical control of battles (real time strategy) of Total War.

But #1: It takes forever to load. Each time you fight a battle, you have to reload the military module. That takes about a minute. And then when the battle's over, a minute to go back.

But #2: It crashes. A lot. I'm halfway through one game and it has crashed literally a dozen times. Combined with the slow loading times (another minute just to get to the menu!) and I've stopped playing a fun game out of sheer frustration.

I didn't get far in trying out this game: the drag and drop function simply didn't work, making it impossible to commplete the tutorial. An e-mail I sent to Feral Interactive about this problem got no response. Save your money!

this game is a true upholder of the total war genre. it has realistic combat and things work on a hugely grand scale. but for me it is the naal battles that make this a gr8 game. the rendered level of realism is stunning. ships dont all handle at the same speed (unlike AOE) and they also dont run through each other. the cannon ball efects are borrowed from AOE and that is a great thing. another wonerouse thing about IG is that in the game, houses are a relative size to infantry and cavalry.all these things combine to make Imperial glory a respectabe addition to the total war caste.
H.s.c.M

Go play any of the Total War games and you will see why Imperial Glory is so bad. Don't waste your money.

I like to play Civ IV. I wanted something in the same line but a little different so I tried Imperial Glory. Don't like it at all. It's in the box sitting on the shelf.