Imperium Galactica II

[frogbeastegg]

Did anyone else play this? There is still nothing else quite like it about today (is there?). In many ways it was ambitious and ahead of its time, quite a classy production, even when I first played it a few years after its release. Space and land battles you could control, research, trade, diplomacy, espionage, agents, exploration, colonisation ... in some ways a bit like a space version of Total War.

It's been ages since I last played, so long I don't even remember much about the game. I think I might load it up again sometime ...

[King Edward]

I played this (Still have it somewhere at home) it was a great game but i always suffered when the Kraken turned up, their ships were always so much more powerful than anything else, they could blow away my heavy capital ships with one or two shots before i even got my ships in range!

Id love to see a remake with a modern game engine as there is a hell of a lot of potential there!

[Ser Clegane]

Wow - it's been some time since I played that one.

I agree, it was (and probably still is) indeed a very good game, though it could get a bit tedious at times IIRC.

Very good overall atmosphere, motivating tech-tree and main campaign structure ... plus some absolutely stunning cut-scenes.

Unfortunately when I got it, I could not really invest the time it probably deserved ... perhaps I should dig it out again...

[Krusader]

I remember buying it at bargain bin price. I quite enjoyed the game, but I too suffered when the Kraken, or what their name was, turned up.

Unfortunlately I can't get the game to run on my Win XP

A remake of IG2 would be sweet, or a similar game.

[lancelot]

^im sure it will work if you run the compatibility wizard..

I thought it was an ok game, until that bunch turned up with this lightning attack on their ships that made them seemingly invincible....then it got boring quick.

[el_slapper]

I had been able to finish the easy campaign - but there was no way to survive in normal

[Monk]

I loved that Game when i played it. The game sported a pretty good Diplomatic mode (still much better than RTW's imho), spying, trading and war areas. I felt it was a game that was easy to get imho.

The three campaign races are widely different and give unique playing experiences. Plus the random setting in the campaign map gave you a different game nearly all the time. The messages you received from your advisors; mercenaries looking for a job, rival kingdoms wanting trade agreements, Traders looking for an armed escort, Traders who are trying to rip you off, and all types of missions and such gave a great and completely immersive campaign game. Something that was a really nice touch, if you Got into an Alliance with another Race, they'd send Birthday congratulations to your Emperor every other year . Now I don't care if they're little grey men, that's just so nice! I've always said that The tw diplomacy screen could learn something from IG2's. The Non-Agression pacts, Trade agreements and Alliances.

Not to mention you had to actually "sweet talk" the leader of rival factions. Improving relationship, lying about another Empire to make them parionoid, insulting them to coax an attack, or blame them for spies in your Empire. Add to that the abillity to trade information/technology as well as planets... it was a really good model for diplomacy i thought

And the cutscenes... stunning put simply. Every now and then i load up the game and give it another go. Even though i've seen much better looking games since; the campaign is an element that makes me come back for more.

[The Wizard]

A great game indeed... but at the time I wasn't really prepared (and was too young) to put as much time in a game that deep as I did with MTW... but I recognized its greatness.

They were actually making a sequel, but they stopped development and their publisher handed it to another developer who turned it from a TW kind of game into a space battle simulator.

The game Haegemonia is actually from the same developers as IG2, IIRC...



~Wiz

[AntiochusIII]

^im sure it will work if you run the compatibility wizard..

I thought it was an ok game, until that bunch turned up with this lightning attack on their ships that made them seemingly invincible....then it got boring quick.

Play the Kra'hen. The god-emperor's fleet will come FOR you instead of against you! The best of those badarses (the battleships "Predators") have more firepower than anything else in the game. I checked the stats. (And yes, the last time I played this game - which I had it a loooong time ago when I bought it together with STW (and Pharoah...) -was only months ago.)

I explored the easy game thoroughly indeed, but, unfortunately, normal always kills me at some point - it's too hard...

The storylines are immense - the best in any space games, easily, though those who play long enough will always find one, never boring epic end: the Solarian-Kra'hen conflict escalating into a Galaxy war. Why - there's even an option when you're Solarian to inform other races (who...if anybody cares about the story, will realize that they were (except for the Shinari) just descendants of mutated humans) about the Kra'hen's military might. And when you're Shinari, you'll get an urgent (immediately called) message that let you choose your path of war: ally with the Solarians, or annihilate them and then turn (and get turned) on the Kra'hen. Most games end before that though, but I deliberately played a bit longer just to hunt the Kra'hen down.

The Kra'hen storyline got nothing but revenge, war, god-emperor's megalomaniac, seers, and occasional free or one-time-payment mercenaries from the home galaxy - enough for any warlike players to quickly dominate the entire galaxy.

I have one question for those who knows though - is "God-Emperor" a divine being or just a Kra'hen dictator?

[frogbeastegg]

Wow! I expected this thread to die, or perhaps get a couple of posts. IG2 is one of those games I never hear about, and I had a devil of a job finding a copy to buy a few years ago. Unfortunately I got the budget version of the game, with one of those useless PDF manuals. That made learning very tough.

I got going with skirmish missions (there were some, right? Missions away from the campaign ...) and began to find my feet, take over planets, and really appreciate the depth of the game. Then I had a month of heavy university exams and had to stop playing. Once the exams finished I picked it up again, from the start, and much the same thing happened, except the gap was longer and the replacement workload after the exams was heavier. That was, rather sadly, the end of my IG2 affair; I never did get back.

There is nothing else like IG2, is there? Space strategy games have been a little more common recently, but mostly in the vain of MOO3.

[The Wizard]

Froggy, there isn't anything quite like it anymore, no.

The closest thing is Haegemonia, which is like Homeworld yet adds to that planets, people on the planets, and planet management. Unfortunately, unlike IG2, Haegemonia does not allow you go to the planet surface. Its diplomatic system is also less complex. It was released back in Q4 2002. Damn Americans couldn't handle the European character though, and the 'a' was dropped to accomadate them. Sheesh

Haegemonia is actually a game by the developers of IG2, Digital Reality. Unlike IG2, however, it is a game which has a much more realistic scenario. It's about a faction from Earth and a faction from Mars from the outset, and if memory serves, it adds a couple of alien races later on in the campaign. It was pretty enjoyable, but lacked the polish of its cousin, because it had some serious balance issues, next to a couple of bugs.

One of my favorite parts of the game was ship construction -- the ships were constructed as space stations are now, with scaffolding in orbit and the parts being added to it piece by piece. Especially impressive-looking when capital ships were being constructed.

Digital Reality is making an add-on at the moment. It's called Haegemonia: The Solon Heritage and makes the original up-to-date graphics-wise, an important thing in this genre, and adds several things. It's currently TBA.

Now, departing even further from the IG2 build, there's Homeworld 2, which is more of a space-only affair concentrating much more on battle than IG2.

And then there's that game that was originally Imperium Galactica III, but Digital Reality abandoned the project for some reason and it was handed to another developer, who turned it into a Homeworld-like affair rather than something resembling IG2. Forgot its name though.



~Wiz

[Kekvit Irae]

I love IG2. I especially like how you can (almost) fully customize your ships with weaponry and equipment, though like most games, there's always at least one super-config on each ship that everyone uses.
Land battles could be revamped a bit, but are still enjoyable. A good tactic for conquering planets is to completely destroy any and all power sources they have before killing the troops. This will make rebuilding a whole lot simpler. Why spend time dismantling 10 solar plants when you can destroy them in battle and rebuild them into magma plants?
The campaign is wonderfully done, though because I only play on Easy mode, I feel left out from the main plotline of the human campaign, since I usually conquer the Kra'hen before I get to the end of the Tears plotline. But I especially love the random event with the space pirate's daughter. You can marry her, if you so desire ^_^
My only real complaint is the cutscenes. I've noticed that on the Kra'hen campaign, the terraforming cutscene does not play, but it does on the Solaran and Shinari campaign... all the freaking time. This POs me to no end, as there is no way of disabling that cutscene that I know of (and if you play through a long campaign, you will know that 75% of the planets you encounter you will have to terraform to your advantage).
Each of the different campaigns are totally different. Solarans rely on diplomacy (the ultimate goal being to unite all the races against Kra'hen), but have an equal amount of spying and fighting. Shinari rely almost entirely on trade and spies, giving a more strategic approach to the game. Kra'hen... they kill. Lots. In each of the campaigns, the missions are fascinating and do well to advance the plotline, though like I said before, I never could finish the Brotherhood of the Tears storyline. I want to know what happens

All in all, I give it one thumbs up. It's like a standard Resource Transit System game (C&C, Warcraft III, etc) whereas you spend plenty of time trying to build your empire and power until you get to a point where you can realiably go on the offensive, and this makes it boring. But despite its problems, I love the game.

[Leet Eriksson]

And then there's that game that was originally Imperium Galactica III, but Digital Reality abandoned the project for some reason and it was handed to another developer, who turned it into a Homeworld-like affair rather than something resembling IG2. Forgot its name though.

It was renamed Nexus the Jupiter Incident or something similiar.

I'm a sad sob apparently.. :( i have never put much playtime on IG2 although i still have the game somewhere.. the even sadder part is i cought up on the hype and forgot all about it, and now IG3 is probably sleeping with the fishes never to be revived.. i guess i'll go dig IG2 and reinstall it again. But whats that about not working in WinXP?

[AntiochusIII]

Why spend time dismantling 10 solar plants when you can destroy them in battle and rebuild them into magma plants?

You get the money "back" for dismantling the stuff rather than blowing it up.

My only real complaint is the cutscenes. I've noticed that on the Kra'hen campaign, the terraforming cutscene does not play, but it does on the Solaran and Shinari campaign... all the freaking time.

Huh? I've got a good break from the scene for Solarians instead of Kra'hen. That terraforming thing really pissed me off sometimes playing with the reddish pink and teal factions...

Each of the different campaigns are totally different. Solarans rely on diplomacy (the ultimate goal being to unite all the races against Kra'hen), but have an equal amount of spying and fighting. Shinari rely almost entirely on trade and spies, giving a more strategic approach to the game. Kra'hen... they kill. Lots.

Actually I think the Shinari one is the most fun. The Solarians seem to concentrate on the main plot of the game, with some variations like the pirate's daughter. The Kra'hen is war-filled and troop-filled, always with something to kill and betray. Indeed, you got several chances of recruiting free or one-time-payment Kra'hen brothers from other wars. However, the Shinari one got so many "little plots" of its own that you'll never get bored building up because there's always something to do during that, from saving the Alien planet in danger to befriending the traders and hunting the pirates; and even "ultimate" plot of its own before getting involved with the Solarian-Kra'hen war which ends the game. Indeed, the "Saving Alien Planet" plot is a nice touch as you in a Kra'hen campaign will get it too but you'll blow them up rather than helping them! Their ships are pretty weak to use, though, but somehow - when I face a Shinari main fleet late game, the AI always freeze half my fleet, allowing it to destroy the other half, unless I overpower them with those big blasters before they could do that. (How come the AI do better fighting with Shinari fleets than me!?)

Why, the graphics isn't the best but this game is like a few other games out there - you love its details and touches but it seems that nobody else got any clues about it at all.

[Togakure]

I only played the original DOS version of Imperium Galactica (the first version). I remember enjoying it immensely--particularly when I invaded a planet and got to command the tank attacks. I still have the original diskettes, but haven't been able to get the game to run under Windows, even using my DOSBox emulator.

Is Imperium Galactica 2 old enough to run well on a 450Mhz PII MMX with 128MB of RAM and a 16MB diamond Viper 550 vid card, running Win98? It sounds like an oldie but goodie I'd really enjoy.