Customer Reviews

Imperialism 2: Age of Exploration

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Plenty of people have said what's right with this game, so letme take a different tack. What was wrong with Imperialism One was primarily three-fold:

1) Time-frame. By setting the game in the 19th Century, rapid technology change was inadequately represented and often overwhelmed the game. Imp. II two solves that by stretching over three centuries, and not only that, but three centuries where the change is extremely significant and yet not overwhelmingly so (plus Imp. II has a better tech tree anyway).

2) Victory conditions. The victory conditions in Imperialism One were so horribly put together that you almost never got a truly satisfying victory, and "victory" often got in the way of a good game. Imp. II corrects that and then some: the victory conditions are realistic and well-designed, but more than that, they actually drive the game the way it ought to go, and force you again and again to act as you "ought", by which I mean within the economic and political realities of the time you are modeling.

3) Lack of scenarios. Because of all this, scenarios were vital to making the original game work, because you usually didn't want to play the game "as-is". There were a few scenarios included with the game (and two of them were pretty good), but no additional scenarios were ever released, and there was no way to program any of your own. This game, by contrast, is so well done that any scenario would be a waste: simply altering the starting parameters will create just about whatever scenario you're looking for, and I never found myself longing for one the way I did with the original.

(ONE KEY TECH NOTE: I've played this both on a Performa 6400 with a 200MHz 603ev chip and on an iMac with a 233MHz G3. The iMac, which should have been a lot faster, wasn't. The box minimums will work, but you'll be frustrated and it will run almost intollerably slowly. Try to run this game on at least 300MHz G3 machines if at all possible.)

Perhaps I'm a stickler for playability. One of the design challenges of any empire-building game is that the more territory you conquer and govern, the more details you typically have to manage. If you (and the designers) are not careful, you can eventually get swamped with them-- especially if you are a perfectionist.

An outstanding feature of Imperialism II is that this does not occur nearly as much as in other games of its type. It is, instead, a true strategy game. You are not a paper-shuffler, you are the pilot of the great ship of state in a multi-dimensional ocean. You need to think carefully under ever-changing conditions to decide where to chart your course and keep it in good trim. If you are going in the wrong direction, heaven help you if you don't realize it soon and face the facts: and then you need a sharp lookout and patience, because a ship of state doesn't turn on a dime.

A key concept is balance. You can never do everything you want or need with available resources. At every turn you face policy decisions: Should you increase your road and port building? Your food production? Develop forests, mines, or plantations? Build transport ships-- oops, not enough food for the sailors, but how do you get more food without more ships? Do you sell goods to get money to buy various raw materials? Do you buy raw materials because you need them, or can you afford buying something just to curry favor with a potential colony or ally? Invade Indian territory, or invest in it and try to keep your rivals from invading? Build up your armies, even if it seems that you never have the funds to send them into battle? Join alliances and risk being drawn into a war before you're ready? Or stay aloof and risk the rest of Europe's ganging up on you? Do expensive research yourself out ahead of the pack, or spend less (usually) money and resources for spies, forever playing catchup learning what others already know? The choices are innumerable and the relationships among them infinitely subtle.

I do not place a lot of stock in fancy graphics, but must say that the colorfol look of this game, compared to the muted and vaguely depressing colors of Imperialism [I], is another attractive feature. The sugar... the tobacco... the spices, gold, and gems in the New World: they make your mouth water with the desire to reach out and grab'em. It's hard to remember that they are just means to an end, as territory in the old world is the key to winning or losing.

I've played many such games, and aside from Civilization, I think Imperialism II has gotten the most things right to date.

When I heard about this game I was addicted to Age of Empires 2. I lived AOE2 and my blood was AOE2 I was over at my friends house playing AOE2 24-7. "The most in depth and greatest game ever" Little did I know 6 months later I would be playing a older game that could easily top that hype. This game is by far and away very deep. There is about a hundred techs. that you can get to improve your society, army, and navy. This aspect of the game can give you an early edge over your enemy or a early death sentance. Once that first obstacle is cleared you must also have earned, conquered or aquired, New world countries to supply the home world with materials needed to defeat the other Great powers. While these prior goals were being obtained you must also prepared your great power to be a strong one. Will you be a diplomat or a Glorious General? Will you be a friend or foe of the natives? Will you be strong at sea or strong at land? Will you be a nation of knowledge or simply use knowledge to obtain weapons? These questions face every ruler of the six great powers, and the path traveled is always different. Sound difficult don't fear. You are lead through a easy tutorial which will get you on your feet and walking into a world of depth and endless choices. There is also a multitude of options one being the tactical field option. If this is on you can fight your own battles which adds a very intresting concept of crushing the enemy or being crushed.

While the graphics are nothing to ohhhhh at it works in a turn based world. I feel like I have just covered the surface of this game so just take my word it is awesome.

The game puts you on the throne of a European empire around 1600 A.D. You get to discover, explore, and conquer the new world, while fending off imperialist rivals and vengeful tribesmen. Usually, a certain number of provinces need to be conquered to win. These are taken from neutral states in Europe, from other empires, and from natives in the New World. The oversees provinces bring some new resources like tobacco, sugar, and precious metals, which are important in the technological and industrial trees. Meanwhile the metropolis pulls standard resources like coal, wool, wheat, and wood from the homeland provinces and converts them into skilled workers, weapons, and ships.

Pros:
- excellent baroque music and atmosphere
- balanced overall model where compromise, combined arms, technology, and strong economy are intimately related
- okay technology tree
- nice drawings of ships and ground units
- nice details in shipping and naval blockades
- entertaining turn-based battles with okay combat system

Cons:
- Civ-like boring and old land-development system.
- The diplomacy model is substandard. Alliances mean nothing. Declaring war and shifting allegiances in a trice is ubiquitous. In such chaos, diplomacy is virtually meaningless, as is anybody's word, which turns the game into a perpetual clawfest among crabs in a barrel. It is exceedingly hard to reach critical mass. Bribes are very ineffectual too.
- There are no psychological factors like grudges, animosity, and obstinacy. Very bland and uncharacterful.
- The economic system is tedious and repetitive. There is pretty much one good way to win, so once you learn it, there is no replay value in terms of economy. It gets tedious and boring after a few games to spend all this time worrying about number of fabric rolls and cigars in one's stores, while one would want to deal with general strategy and geopolitics.
- Spying does not reveal any strategically significant information.
- Armies are not difficult to maintain, but are horribly expensive to use. The opposite should have been done for far more playability and historical accuracy.
- Little European neutral states are armed to the teeth with state-of-the-art weapons. Later, the same is true for natives too. Ridiculous, since the player has seen how hard it is to research and build these weapons even for a mighty empire. Proper maintenance fees would have fixed that in passing.
- Graphics is mostly outdated, even if most units are beautifully drawn.

Overall impressions are positive, but there was clearly potential for much more with proper design choices. I sold back my copy for store credit after playing it for a month or two, so it comes to show.

I've had this game for a couple years now, and still pull it out every once in a while, because I know I can still improve and try out new strategies. This game has a huge amount of depth and flexibility; I would say more than Civ II. Exploring and exploiting the new world is a neat twist. I also like the fact that you don't have to micro-manage each city- your nation works as one interconnected machine. You can also set battles to auto mode and computer players make their moves lightning-quick compared to Civ II.

But beware fair weather gamers: campaigns are looooong and slow. If you get in a tight spot with resources, it can take dozens of turns to get back on the right track. The length can make some games boring, but it also allows a lot of changes in the balance of power among nations.

I seriously doubt anyone can beat this game the first try through. After playing Civ II for a couple years, I thought this game would not pose much of a challenge. Well, it took me 4 or 5 times before I learned enough strategy to win. So if it took me a good 20-30 hours per game, then you can see how long you can enjoy this title.

This game is a real gem, and is one of my all-time favourites. It is surprisingly good, given its age and relative lack of polish. The emphasis is on slow and deliberate strategy, rather than fancy graphics or crowd-pleasing action.

The game is a kind of distant cousin to the Civilization series. You send out explorers, build builders and military units, research new technologies, declare war and use diplomacy and trade to expand your empire, and so on. In many ways I think it is better than Civilization, perhaps because the economic model is so ingenious, and the gameplay often so edge-of-the-seat.

Everything has to be kept in delicate balance - your exploration and territory, your finances, your technological development, your raw materials, your workforce, the size of your military, the size of your merchant fleet. It is like trying to juggle several balls at once, and you are usually forced to neglect something. If something falls too far behind, then bottlenecks develop and your growth can suddenly grind to a halt. Neglect the military (which is all-too-easy given all the other demands on your economy), and you can quickly meet a sticky end.

You are often involved in a race against time, which keeps the game exciting and addictive. For example, you may be running deperately low on funds, and need to discover some precious resources before you go broke. Or you may be running low on food, and need to build some new farms before your population starts to starve. A particular challenge is building up your merchant fleet. You end up building ship after ship, and yet there never seem to be enough to transport all the materials you need to feed your hungry empire.

If all this sounds difficult, it is. But it is also great fun, and it is also quite easy to get the basic hang of. Although complicated, the economic system is also very logical and intuitive. It all hangs together surprisingly well.

While managing your economy is a challenge in its own right, the ultimate goal of the game is to expand territorially. This is also a slow and deliberate process, requiring careful preparation. Again, you will often find yourself in a desperate race against time, trying to grab land and develop new offensive technologies, before your enemies have time to build powerful defences. Each attack is an exciting gamble, where you pray and keep your fingers crossed that the enemy defences are as weak as you think they are. Defending is also a tense business, where you never seem to have quite enough troops to plug all the holes in your defences.

All in all, it's a highly addictive and intellectually rewarding game. If I have a criticism, it is that there are certain resources (diamonds and gems), which have an excessive amount of influence. Basically the opening phase of the game is a desperate race to find the diamonds. This is of course not at all realistic, and it is also slightly disappointing that so much should hinge on one thing.

It's a pity that there aren't more possibilities to customize and modify the game (which would have been one way to solve the "diamond-hunt" problem just mentioned). If Imperialism 2 came out today, there would no doubt be many more options to change the value and availability of resources, how much things cost to build and maintain, and so on.

What a shame that there don't seem to be any developers willing to take over the Imperialism franchise and give it a modern treatment. I think that anyone who has played this game knows just what an outstanding classic it is.

I saw this on the shelf at my local computer games store and though "This looks quite good". I installed it and I discovered that I had bought a game as good as or even, dare I say it, better than Civilization 2. The interface may have its problems, but the gameplay is phenomenal. I would not recommend the game to those who do not like strategy games or history, but as a fanatic for both I have spent many happy hours playing and I really hope there is a sequel coming soon.

What is great about this game is balance. One word that could describe Imperialism II is "elegant." The player must constantly be planning ahead and balancing numerous policy objectives in order to avoid being overtaken by the computerized players. If you ever believe that going with the status quo is the best move for a turn, then you are in big trouble. The game develops slowly, but change is constant and unstoppable.

Contrary to the assertion of a previous critic, there are many paths to victory in Imperialism II. One can win with a country by accumulating wealth, population, learning, skilled workers, allies, or military might. However, it is extremely hard to develop all of these resources... almost impossible. A player needs to decide what overall approach she is going to take, and stick with it for 300 years.

My only disappointment is that the age of colonialism is not realistically rendered. There are no slaves in Imperialism II, for example. The only moral quandry that the player encounters is whether to use war or trade to obtain New World resources. So, from that perspective, the player appreciates why some colonial powers were able to incorporate native people into their countries peacefully, and some colonial powers instead turned to genocide. There is also no depiction of the impact that the colonial economic system had on colonists themselves. Wasn't the rebellion of England's North American colonies one of the most important events of the Colonial Era?

Still, a really fun game.

Once I start playing I can't stop. It is much better than conquest and age of empires.

First, Imperialism 2 is a tough game. Actually, it's probably the toughest I've ever played.

Why is it tough? It's the 16th century and you're a European power in a desperate race to conquer the New World and build your empire. You must expand or die. You need a military tough enough to defend against other European powers. If your military is too small, they'll find out and immediately invade you. It doesn't matter if you're allied with anyone. Your allies will abandon you in a second if they can profit from your demise.

So you need to build military units periodically to discourage invasions. But to build units you need a growing economy. That means more workers and more raw materials. There isn't much infrastructure in the beginning so you'll have to anticipate which resources you'll need in the future and build accordingly. If you plan wrongly, your economy will stagnate. During this time the other powers will continue expanding and probably overtake you.

But it's not enough to simply build military units. You also need to upgrade them and research new technologies. This costs money. You can get money by mining gems or precious metals in the New World (and they don't exist in Europe!) OR to sell commodities (materials and goods). You can also conquer capital cities in the New World, which give a substantial one-time cash bonus.

As your empire expands you'll have to micromanage quite a few things. Industrial production and commodity trading can be put under Computer control, which is handy if you're feeling overwhelmed but will occasionally give you less of something you need. Civilian workers such as Explorers, Engineers, etc. must be controlled manually.

The beginning of this game is like a one-armed man trying to juggle chainsaws. You need to discover the new world as fast as possible, send explorers to find diamonds, gold, silver, and gems, then expand your military slightly (usually 5 total units is enough) to conquer capital cities. But expanding your labor force is also necessary, which takes food, and gathering food requires building roads and farms, which take iron and wood. You've got to expand in all of these areas because falling behind means getting invaded by another power. Get the picture?

Yet despite the game's difficulty it remains appealing. The computer AI is very aggressive and can invade by land OR by sea. This compares very well against games like Hearts of Iron 2, released in 2005. The AI in HoI2 very rarely sends successful amphibious invasions.

Imperialism 2 gets four stars. The depth is amazing, the AI is extremely challenging, and it's very replayable. Unfortunately the diplomatic system is lacking. Alliances and relationships mean nothing. Your best ally will betray you in a second if they can profit from it. Another problem, in my view, is the total lack of an economy at the start of the game. Okay, okay - it's the 16th century. But still, they had industry back then. They didn't start out with nothing.

We need an Imperialism 3!