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How old is this game now?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I remember playing this game 5 to 7 years ago. I still have it stashed in my game box and after noticing it here, I am going to have to break it out and install it on my new computer. Oh the graphics are dated, but the game play is damn good!

RUNS ON WINDOWS XP...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The very best of the "4X" games, better than any of the Civilization games...and I love the Civilization games!! Better balance and gameplay than civ; I found that the civ games bogged down with enless detail as you progressed throught the ages. But that is me, and a minor fault, I have enjoyed endless hours with CIV 1-4. But Imperialism 2 gets my nod as the best of all time. I just wanted to note that it runs fine on my Windows XP box.

A classic

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: June 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

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.

Might be best of its genre.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: October 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

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.

Addictive, One that survives the times

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: January 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I got tired of the first-person shooters I was playing and went to the archive of my gaming library to play this very addicive game. When it is time to take a break you just have to go one more turn. A complicated game of solitaire as I can find no current game support for multiplayer, yet this does not take away from the fun as you can't play the detailed battle scenes in multiplayer anyway. It is cheap and with low specs. I also recommend the strategy guide.

What a Great Game this Was

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 14
Date: July 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Up until OS 9.1 this game was a favorite. But it is no longer supported and will no longer play.

Okay but could have been much better

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: August 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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.

Outstanding!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: July 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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.

a really cool game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: May 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

it's a great game filled with suspence and excitement.
When you play this game you never know what could happen.
Hang on to your seats.
P.s. I know my boyfriend would really love it!

a really interesting game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: May 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

it's a great game filled with suspence and excitement.
When you play this game you never know what could happen.
Hang on to your seats

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