Imperialism II and developers' folly

**screwtype** · 06-03-2005, 19:21

I've got this budget game called Imperialism II, which came out in 2000 and is now selling for under ten bucks.

I've been really enthusiastic about this game and wanting to tell the community how great it is, but I thought I'd better play a couple of campaigns right through to test it out and the result has been a bit of a disappointment.

For those who like a good strategy game, this one would seem to have it all. It has a complex economic model that really makes you work hard to develop your economy. The diplomatic model is in some respects the most realistic I've seen. It's not necessarily just a matter of conquering the New World, you can make friends with the Indians and/or the minor nations, and develop their goodies for them, reaping a percentage of the profits each turn, until eventually they may become willing to become part of your empire. You may want to do this if you don't have the cash or the military power to conquer them outright. The trading system is also quite complex, although a little too arcane for my taste.

Even the battles over provinces, though nothing like as complex as a Total War game, are kind of fun as you maneouvre up to 16 unit units on the battlefield to try and get the best of the enemy.

So where does the disappointment come in? Well there are two glaring problems with the game. Firstly the victory conditions. This is a game that gives you about six pages of variables you can set to tailor the difficulty level to your exact taste, yet somehow they have managed to leave out the most important option of all, which is the option to tailor your own victory conditions! Basically, the game is over when one nation conquers 42 Old World provinces.

Now the developers must have known the victory conditions were an issue because the manual says you only need 31 provinces to win, but the game itself requires 42. So it must have been a last minute decision to change them. But if they weren't sure what the victory conditions should be, wouldn't the obvious thing have been to let the player set them to his own taste?

The problem is exacerbated by the second major problem the game has, which is the stupidity of the campaign AI. In my current campaign there are only two superpowers, me and Sweden. I have 39 provinces already and only need another three to win the game. Now you'd think Sweden would be concerned it was about to suffer total defeat, and fighting like hell to stop me from winning, but instead, my relationship with Sweden is at the very highest level. We are the best of friends and there's no chance it will declare war on me. So I'm going to win again without the slightest problem.

I've been developing my economic and military power for days on end until I'm finally ready to challenge the mighty Swedish empire, and the Swedish empire is going to give up without a fight!

What a letdown.

I'm truly staggered to think how the developers could have gone to so much trouble to build such complexity into a game, just to leave the AI factions so dumb they won't even defend their interests when facing certain defeat. Again, if they'd given you the option to set the victory conditions to conquering ALL the provinces, this would not be such a problem. But taken together these two omissions make it really easy to win.

Of course, you can get around this problem to some degree by declining to take that last province, and just try to win by fighting it out militarily. But if the AI is too stupid to contest the provinces whose resources are critical to military power, the result is a foregone conclusion anyway. The only way to make a game of it then is to play with one hand tied behind your back, and limit the number of provinces you take. But where do you draw the line? That's an impossible question to answer.

I read an interview with the head of the development team that designed this game. He said there would never be an "Imperialism III" because consumers had shown they are not interested in buying complex games that simulate the real world. No, sorry buddy, don't try to blame the consumer, it's YOUR stupid fault for designing a strategic AI with the IQ of a potplant!

**Mongoose** · 06-03-2005, 19:30

Sounds some what like RTW...

**screwtype** · 06-03-2005, 19:47

Similar in that both games have a poorly developed campaign AI. Although I think it would be harder to develop a smart AI for a game like RTW.

I don't really want to knock Imp II too much, I played it for several weeks before I started to become aware of its limitations, so I couldn't say I didn't get my money's worth. In fact, I'd still highly recommend it as a budget purchase.

It's just that, you know, when you finally start to master all the different elements of the game and are ready to fight to the death, you find that the enemy who once seemed so formidable is simply a mirage.

Perhaps it's just this particular campaign, that I happened to get lucky and be good friends with the other superpower, but the impression I get is that the bigger and more powerful you get, the *less* inclined the other powers are to challenge you, and it should be the other way around, they should be ganging up on any power which threatens to outstrip the others.

Anyhow, there's still hope for the game, because it has a multiplayer option for up to six players, and I'm inclined to think this could be a cracking good game if you're playing against humans rather than computer AI. So I'm looking into the idea of starting up a multiplayer campaign with a few other gamers. But I may want to play through a couple more singleplayer campaigns first.

**Mongoose** · 06-03-2005, 22:24

Srewtype, have you ever played a game that you thought was satisfactory?

**doc_bean** · 06-03-2005, 23:44

Well the same developers seem to have made more strategy/empire building games none the less. They all get 'average' ratings on gamespot, which I don't think speaks in their favour...

I've seen Imperialism 2 a lot in bargain bins lately, I was never quite interested in it. The box art doesn't appeal, and I don't like the name for some reason (it feels too much like civilization, making it look like another 'me too' game). But after your review I might pick it up if I find it cheap enough.

On a completely unrelated note, they were selling Red Alert for 3€ at the shop I was at today. The cheapest I've ever seen a boxed game, I reckon.

**screwtype** · 06-04-2005, 00:42

Originally Posted by doc_bean

I've seen Imperialism 2 a lot in bargain bins lately, I was never quite interested in it. The box art doesn't appeal, and I don't like the name for some reason (it feels too much like civilization, making it look like another 'me too' game). But after your review I might pick it up if I find it cheap enough.

Yeah, go and grab yourself a copy. It's definitely not a civilization clone, although there obviously are some similar concepts in any type of empire building game.

I've been playing it for about six weeks and I still have things to learn, so there's quite a bit of depth there. I can't deny I've had a lot of fun with it, in fact I've found it incredibly addictive, but I recognize a game like this will not be to everyone's taste. You can only find out by playing it, and for ten bucks you really can't go wrong.

If you do pick up a copy, come back to this thread when you've played it a bit and share your impressions.

**screwtype** · 06-04-2005, 00:27

Originally Posted by mongoose

Srewtype, have you ever played a game that you thought was satisfactory?

Hmm, not sure what prompted this mongoose. I did say I'd got my money's worth from this game!

As for your question, I'm really not sure how you'd define satisfactory. I've certainly played games I enjoyed. But I've rarely played a game that hasn't been marred to some extent either by the presence of a bad feature or the omission of a good one.