Imperialism I & II

[Maniacal]

So thanks to Thorn I discovered this wonderful game ^_^

I am on my 2nd game (plus the tutorial but that doesn't really count), easy mode and I chose a map seed off a website that was good and helps but isn't unbalanced for the others too. I have the strongest industry, strongest army (and I still don't think it's enough, I played "chase the dutch hussar aronud the new world" already since my next target is France as they have taken half the island I am on, I really wish to cut the chase and not have to chase them around. i have three full stacks fo 12 on the border and plan on constructing at least 5 more (two for the new world). As well I need a navy. Luckily the frogs have a much smaller, everything really except territory which is (in the old world) equal. I own a gigantic blob of half the new world. All my infrastructure is built up as far as I am going to bother (another reason for the war, I need more wheat and cattle, and Denmark (last minor nation) is allied to everyone).

Luckily both France and I are allied to the other surviving great powers (Sweden was gangraped, Holland finished them off, and then the rest of us beat them up when I thought I was declaring war on France but eh, I got a huge chunk of territory out of it, Holland is still a strong power though). So France should hopefully just ignore me for now, I'm hoping to take advantage of any other wars that go on, as I really only want to fight France and have no wish to fight more than one opponent.

I just develloped rifles and am approaching pre-Great War level of tech. Only problem has been a shortage of Tin.

I have I think 10 engineers and buidlers, not sure where to put them, I have half sitting around Cuzco in the new world and the other half sleeping south of my capital. I'm going to need them once the war with France get's underway, first once I grab their colonies and thenonce I've got good progress on the French held former nations of Germany and Italy.

 

[LulThyme]

Great games, both of them.
Replayed Imp2 recently to finally get a win on Impossible using a random map (and a win on Hard with Portugal on the Europe map).

 

[Olav]

So thanks to Thorn I discovered this wonderful game ^_^

+1. Strange that I haven't heard about this game before...

I've just finished the tutorial, and will try to start a new game soon.

Edit: Have rivers any purpose? I thought I saw something about it in the turorial (in the chapter about ports), but I can't remember what it was.

 

[Janusi]

Ah, Imperialism. It and its sequel are both great games.

 

[Maniacal]

+1. Strange that I haven't heard about this game before...

I've just finished the tutorial, and will try to start a new game soon.

Edit: Have rivers any purpose? I thought I saw something about it in the turorial (in the chapter about ports), but I can't remember what it was.

You can build ports on Rivers, it will create a black and white trade house on the tile you buld it on and a dock at the end of the river. However I do not think you can dock ships there, only in oceanside ports.

EDIT: Question, if a tile has a transport of 2, yet does not have a road on it (say, adjacent ot a road) then I'm guessing I do NOT have to build a road on it to get the resources?

 

[Thorn]

EDIT: Question, if a tile has a transport of 2, yet does not have a road on it (say, adjacent ot a road) then I'm guessing I do NOT have to build a road on it to get the resources?

Yes, that is correct. As long as the tile is next to a road you should get the resources.

EDIT: Oops! That really depends on if you are playing Imperialism 1 or 2. I assumed you were talking about Imperialism II. It's been ages since I played the first Imperialism. I remember that you had to build a depot or something to get the resources.

 

[Maniacal]

Yes, that is correct. As long as the tile is next to a road you should get the resources.

EDIT: Oops! That really depends on if you are playing Imperialism 1 or 2. I assumed you were talking about Imperialism II. It's been ages since I played the first Imperialism. I remember that you had to build a depot or something to get the resources.

2, I probably won't play 1 as I assume 2 is an improvement.

Yeah that's what I thought once I noticed it, which is good, means WAY less road building and it's much easer to concentrate on proper road structure now.

 

[Oruc]

Nope!

 

[Olav]

Probably best to take this question here, and not in the AAR:

Regarding cattle and fish, what are they required for (if you don't have complex food option turned on)?

Fish and cattle both provide meat and are needed to grow your population along with wheat

So in the pic above I will lose 2 meat each turn? Also, I have 12 labourers - why do I only have to give them 10 wheat and 10 meat each turn, and not 12?

 

[Maniacal]

Go to the main industry/recruitment menu, and hover your mouse over the wheat and fish icon there, it will tell you how much is needed (the number is under the picture) and how much you are transporting. You want to be transporting more meat and wheat than you need.

I've was running a loss for 20 turns and didn't notice anything though, but my war against France (damn Portugal grabbed 4 provinces on my Island from them >.>) was a complete success, grabbed several proinces and several colonies. Next, to destroy the last minor power and then, perhaps, Portugal. Although I may try and kick Holland instead, they are getting two large, and with France being reduced to 2 provinces Portugal and Holland attacked Spain too.

VERY USEFUL TIP
When you research new units, you still have to MANUALLY UPGRADE THEM, but the ICON WILL UPDATE EVEN IF THEY ARE STILL OLD.

I was wondering why the bleeding hell I had halberdiers attacking when the world map told me they were riflemen.

And the steel... I want to just recruti as much as possible and get a tone of steel, every unit now takes up so damn much steel.

 

[Olav]

Thanks for the tips! I'm still in the 16th century, so not much warfare yet.

Do you control the battles yourself, or do you let the computer do the job? I'm done them myself now (against natives), but it's getting a bit repetitive...

 

[Thorn]

That's a pic of your transportation screen. The blue bars on cotton and fish means you can transport (via sea) 1 more cotton or 1 more fish (meat). It looks like right now you are transporting 11 grain (by land) and 8 meat (7 by land 1 by sea). The screen is saying you can increase your fish by 1 or your cotton by 1.

If you look at your industry screen it will show you how much food your population demands.

In this example my army needs 3, my peasants 11 and my navy 3. The food can be either meat OR grain.
So, in your picture it looks like you need 20 food. Check your industry screen and see if your total demands match. It looks like you need to transport that 1 more fish to make everyone happy. You may be using your food stores right now to make up for the missing unit.

 

[Thorn]

You beat me to it, PrinceScamp. The price I pay for including fancy screenshots.

 

[Polycrates]

These were such great games (number 2 especially)! Thorn's AAR has got me into 2 again and it's still way fun...

I have I think 10 engineers and buidlers, not sure where to put them, I have half sitting around Cuzco in the new world and the other half sleeping south of my capital. I'm going to need them once the war with France get's underway, first once I grab their colonies and thenonce I've got good progress on the French held former nations of Germany and Italy.

Forts! By that point in the game they're relatively cheap, and a level 3 fort is nearly impossible to beat...Lets you focus your offensive forces much better without worrying about defending every province.

I was crap at this game, I could only make any money if I found some cashcrops in the new world

Sometimes you just have to build up your local industry and sell off any excess (lumber and cloth especially). Hard to go wrong just focusing on absurd production of lumber and iron - and they sell for higher prices than the other processed resources anyway!

Edit: Have rivers any purpose? I thought I saw something about it in the turorial (in the chapter about ports), but I can't remember what it was.

They give 1 fish on each tile they're in for ports (including your capital). They also let you build your capital inland, which can get you more nice level 2 farms etc.

Thanks for the tips! I'm still in the 16th century, so not much warfare yet.

Do you control the battles yourself, or do you let the computer do the job? I'm done them myself now (against natives), but it's getting a bit repetitive...

Definitely better to control them yourself...you get better results, but more importantly you can focus on getting total kills rather than letting them retreat, which makes the next province harder. You can get full kills easily (esp. with cavalry) by having a guy directly in front of and directly behind the unit when you rout them; there are other configurations, but basically if the unit is routed and can't move they're automatically wiped out.

Dunno if auto might be better against level 3 forts...those things really hurt.

 

[Olav]

Thanks for the answers! I have a new question though:

I built a port in the upper left corner of the continent to get some more fish. However, even if I have the port connected to the capital, I still have to transport the fish by boats. Why?

Also, are there any (graphical) mods to this game? Looks like you have a different font than me, Thorn.

 

[Thorn]

Ports always use ships for transport. There's no way around it. That's why ships are so important in this game.

There are no graphical mods for the game that I know of. I think I did change my font, though. It's in the data directory. The version I'm playing is on my site if you want to try it. I think it's the font-modded version. There's also two graphic mods for the first Imperialism there.

Also, check out the Yahoo Imperialism group that PrinceScamp mentioned. There's always activity there and a good database of files. Someone even just released a custom map for Imperialism II! Unheard of if you've ever tried to mod the game.

 

[Thorn]

A little more on graphical modding of Imperialism II. I attempted that a while back. It seems the graphics are in .rsrc file. Imperialism was actually written for Mac and ported to PC. If someone has an old Mac OS and access to an .rsrc editor then we could probably change the graphics.

 

[Olav]

Ports always use ships for transport. There's no way around it

Oh ok. So there's no need to connect ports with roads (except if you want to transport the land-resources by road)?

New question: What does the tech National Bureaucracy do? In the description, it says: "An upgraded town produces materials for transport consistent with the types of developed resources for its province".

 

[Maniacal]

It allows you to upgrade small towns intol larger towns, that can produce finished goods (although you will have to transport them by road or ship to your capital before being able to use them). Otherwise only your capital actually makes finished goods.

If you connect ports to roads some of the resources around a port will be sent by road if the road is connected to your capital. I have not tested that much though. I did build several ports that were not connected by road just for the fish.

 

[Olav]

It allows you to upgrade small towns intol larger towns, that can produce finished goods (although you will have to transport them by road or ship to your capital before being able to use them). Otherwise only your capital actually makes finished goods.

They can produce finished goods without labour? How do you know what kind of goods it will produce? What is the cost of upgrading?

If you connect ports to roads some of the resources around a port will be sent by road if the road is connected to your capital

What if you build a port on your home continent, and build a lot of roads around it that connects far away resources, will all those resources be sent to the port? I'm amusing that the port isn't connected to the capital.