Imperialism
This guide is based on version 1.1.7 of Imperialism
090301- I began work on the guide
022602- I started again after the usual slump
022702- touching up
Imperialism
This game has probably stolen more time from my life than any other game
I?ve played. That is saying a lot considering that the other games I
play often like pool, chess, et cetera, are, for me at least, very time
consuming. Grades did suffer. I blame it (the game) that my grammar am
bad, and my speling is less then steller.
This game has gotten (from what I?ve seen) zero recognition despite
being a thoroughly well programmed game. This guide is basically meant
to be one last nod, an epitaph perhaps, as it drifts into oblivion. As
for the guide, a lot of the information can be found in the manual I
think.
Some background information for first time players-
This game is meant to be played using the European scenarios, but you
should probably do a random map on the introductory difficulty for your
first game. The computer players are incompetent, to say the least, but
they have a habit of ganging up on humans; new players, as a result of
their slow start, are especially at risk.
The manual is your best crutch when you don?t know the game mechanics.
If you don?t have yours, you?re screwed. My best advice is to expand
the lumber mill early, as wood is used for EVERYTHING early on. Don?t
be afraid to place bids for lumber instead of trees; two trees produce
one lumber, so buying lumber will save you valuable shipping space. As
an added bonus, this will improve your relations with other great
powers. More on this later.
Here is the plan for building up a decent country.
1. Get an engineer to build a port or depot over in a big forest. Ports
cost more, but get you wood faster as you don?t have to build connecting
rail from your capital like you must do with depots. They also get you
more food that will be valuable later one, though not so valuable now.
2. Expand all of your industries. I once thought that you should only
expand the industries that your country is strong in, i.e. if your
country has lots of timber you should concentrate on the lumber
yard/furniture expansion, but the early expansions cost so little that
it really is no trouble to expand them.
3. Expand the merchant marine/build a navy & trade. This is tough,
because the cheap ship, the frigate, is worthless, yet it takes 5 guns
to build the useful ship of the line. Not only that, but building them
expends wood that you need for expanding the merchant marine. The navy
takes precedence over the merchant marine, however your country will
suck without an initial expansion of the merchant marine. Don?t bother
selling commodities the first few turns; the price will get driven up
due to low supply in a year or two. Two or so ship of the lines should
keep other powers from gang-raping you before you?re on your feet.
4. Always expand labor. Period. Even if you have nothing for them to
do, you should still be hiring new workers as well as training them.
You should also recruit some regular soldiers and invade some nearby
minor nation with resources that you need. This will familiarize
yourself with the battle system and battle books while giving your army
some needed experience and giving you control of a market (you have to
take the capitol to control the market) so you can sell commodities you
produce every turn.
Those are the only vital things that come to mind. Don?t be confused by
the numbering; these can be done in any order. I?ve numbered it so I can
quickly filter through it.
Don?t forget diplomacy, either. It is often much easier to build a
trade consulate and grant subsidies to control a market rather than
invading. Subsidies also let you buy raw materials, taking pressure off
of your transportation network. Speaking of which, don?t worry too much
about the network. It is easy to expand the network, and it isn?t under
much pressure early on. In fact, don?t worry much about anything. Even
if your workers have nothing to do because you didn?t import any raw
materials, you will have plenty of time to catch up to the computer.
Just worry about finding out the game mechanics.
Now, on with the real guide.
Trade Markets-
This game is all about gaining control of trade markets. The best
indicator of the strength of a great power is the number of trade
markets they control. All attributes on the statistics screen such as
military might, diplomatic strength, and even minor things like
transportation either affect the number of trade markets one controls or
are effected by the number of trade markets one controls.
There are basically two ways to control a trade market: declare war on
and take the capital of a minor nation (I don?t think great power
capitols will buy goods, though I tend to leave great powers standing as
they may be future allies against the dominant great power later, so I
wouldn?t know), or simply establish a trade consulate in a minor nation.
Diplomacy is faster, although in my opinion somewhat less effective than
the sword (just like in real life, but not).
There are advantages to both. The advantages and disadvantages of a
military coup are rather extreme, so I?ll explain that first.
With a military takeover, you risk loosing troops, which isn?t a big
deal, but you also loose respect among other minor nations, making them
less likely to trade with you, which is a big deal. That is probably
the biggest disadvantage to a hostile takeover, as being ostracized by
the other minor nations kills you twice by forcing you to subsidize
trade more to retain control of minor nation markets and by limiting
your ability to sell finished goods to get money (yes, this is actually
redundant, but I must emphasize this). Also, the markets you take by
force will only buy goods at their starting rate i.e. 900 for furniture
et cetera instead of the usually inflated price of goods. Taking a
market by force takes time to do as well. It takes a couple turns to
build the attacking force. The bare minimum attacking force (there can
be quite a bit of variation) would be along the lines of two infantry,
one light cavalry, one light artillery, and one heavy artillery since
you start with it. This is quite a lot early on in terms of lost labor,
and even this force needs experience to have a 50/50 chance against a
minor nation capitol even at lower difficulty settings, and you will
have to personally command them to keep them from loosing. Having extra
light artillery works wonders, though.
The advantages of a hostile takeover are tremendous, however. Despite
what I said about loosing trade, the hostile takeover is extremely cost
effective. You put some money and resources up front for the takeover
and building of depots, rail and transportation and you get the
resources of the minor nations land permanently. Another great thing
about taking a minor nation is that they develop factories. This is not
obvious because no extra buildings develop in the town, but you will
notice the change in the transportation screen. Since the factories
don?t show up on the map, it makes the resource rich provinces less of a
target to other great powers (humans only, of course). It is kind of
funny when you ship in four or five units of furniture from a province
just to sell it back to their original capitol. (It still buys goods
after being taken. Very nice.) Obviously getting furniture for free is
a lot better than having to pay for mere trees. Another big advantage
that isn?t obvious until the end of the game is that you get the food of
a province after you fight for it. It doesn?t seem like much, but I
have kicked myself after getting a colony and realizing I didn?t have
enough food to expand my work force. It pays in the end when you have
600 expert workers and are trying to build up masses of (un)trained
workers in anticipation of new military technology. A cool incentive to
military takeover is the fact that taking a minor nation?s capitol
(either directly from the minor nation or from another great power) lets
you recruit soldiers with a starting experience of 1 medal (out of
four). This is nice at the end of the game when the turnover rate for
soldiers is, to say the least, extreme.
Taking control of a minor nation by diplomacy is much easier and much
faster. You simply establish a trade consulate and raise subsidies
until you are the minor nation?s most favored trade partner. This is
uberschnell, which is the claim to fame for this method of taking
markets; one turn and five hundred dollars later, you have a market.
Doing diplomacy, as opposed to military coups, keeps your relationships
with other minor nations high, and also improves your diplomatic
strength, which is important if you are trying to "steal" a council of
governor victory early on, as diplomatic strength translates to minor
nation votes. The relationship with the market you control will improve
significantly due to your dominant trade status with them, allowing you
to invite them into your empire as a colony. This gives you the guard
troops of the former country, which can be obscenely large for the
random worlds at higher difficulty settings. The first country to
capitulate to you gives you two clipper ships as well.
The only disadvantage to a colony is you have to use up merchant marine
and money to get the resources, but this is can also be an advantage if
you are low on transportation. Merchant marine is cheaper than
transportation in terms of resources early on anyway, so this isn?t a
big deal.
Both methods have practically identical ends; you get to move troops
through the provinces and get free resources. Because of this, it
really doesn?t matter which way you take a country. Just make sure you
get the capitol so you have a place to sell your finished goods. Also
note that while there aren?t any critical disadvantages to diplomatic
absorption of markets, there aren?t many incentives to diplomatic
takeovers either. Two clippers? Pathetic. I wish you could declare
war on colonies.
A side note for both of these methods: You probably won?t be able to
take over trade markets with your military in the higher difficulties in
random worlds. You probably don?t want to anyway. You see, the
brilliant strategy behind the computer?s declarations of war involves
randomly selecting a trade market and declaring war on whoever controls
it. If you control a bunch of markets, declarations of war will swamp
you. This gets exacerbated by not having a lot of arms (which is common
on higher difficulty levels). I?ve lost games because of it.
As for diplomacy, I often get a minor nation liking a rival great power
and me. For some reason, they tend not to join either of us, and we
have a form of dual ownership of the country. It is really cool to see,
although it is kind of annoying when the other great power doesn?t
develop the minor nations resources they control in a timely fashion.
Civilians & Specialists-
What I used to do is build only one miner, one engineer, et cetera.
This is stupid. Go all out and keep building these things even if there
is only a slight demand for them. You can never go overboard with these
guys since you can send them back into the work force. Once I had 30+
prospectors sweeping Africa for oil. I always have at least 5 to 10
foresters and ranchers for the European scenarios. If you have a large
labor pool, hiring lots of them can?t hurt you, as their cost is
practically nothing when compared to the cost of getting the expert
laborer in the first place. Two paper is not that bad, and after your
country gets underway, the money is chump change.
You have to balance your civilians with your labor, though. If you have
civilians sitting around doing nothing and have a labor shortage, send
them back into the labor pool, even if it is clear you will need them in
the near future. An experienced worker makes 4 units of work a turn.
In one turn, they can repay the paper cost for their recruiting. In two
more turns, they can more than repay the monetary cost for their
recruiting. Often I disband civilians only to rehire them a couple
turns later. The experienced worker is often far more valuable than the
specialist is. The perfect example of this is you have an engineer who
can?t build a port because you are poor. Also, you have a labor
shortage but can?t bring in a new worker because you can?t spare the
shirt and chair. Just disband him. Building the new port wouldn?t help
since you don?t have the labor to take advantage of the resources. The
extra labor will accelerate your growth and ultimately let you get the
port out quicker and have a stronger country for it.
Military strategy/tactics-
You should get a good navy off the bat. Even if you have an unbeatable
army, you will still lose wars because of crap navies. Every time I
have lost this game it was because of my ignorant snubbing of navies.
They take precedence over everything. Getting taken off the sea early
on is brutal, and pumping arms into ships to increase your diplomatic
strength is cheaper than making a land army. You should build whatever
ship has the greatest range of the era. Later in the game you will need
an army, but remember the navy comes first. There is no real strategy
for navies. Usually naval wars are just an arms race with ships.
Spread your ships everywhere. This lets you capture merchants from your
opponents quickly even if you are forced into war. Instead of having to
send your ships all the way over to the other country?s port to
blockade, you can intercept next to the various ports they are trading
with. If someone blockades your harbor, then do not send all your ships
back home; the opponents grouped navy will destroy them. Blockade their
harbor and they should send their navy in piecemeal against your grouped
navy. If they don?t, you are at least even. If you get blockaded
heavily, you may want to consider not offering goods or bids to save
your merchant marine. Also, if one of the seas around one of your trade
partners is heavily patrolled, don?t trade with them. You lose access
to resources but save merchant marine. I know it?s obvious, but I find
myself ignoring this all the time. For some reason I think that even
though the last 5 shipments of wool or whatever have been sunk, maybe
the next one will make it. That is a waste of ships. You have to know
when to give it up.
One thing that is hard to deal with is having the ports that your
engineers built become blockaded. Once again, I?d just blockade the
other countries main port. That is more damaging than just losing some
resources.
A problem with spreading out your ships is they get killed by groups of
ships roaming about. This shouldn?t happen unless you are fighting the
computer or are for some reason not blockading their harbor, though, so
it isn?t an issue.
Another sea strategy is to keep your ships grouped at all times. You
will generally not lose many ships because of their tremendous group
firepower, but you will not be able to guard your resources as well or
attack as quickly. If all you care about is keeping your ships alive,
then you might want to keep them grouped, although the resources lost
through blockades will probably outweigh the saved ships. Also, it
takes forever to attack a port on the other side of the map from your
ships.
If you haven?t noticed, tactics in land battle are pretty simple.
However, strategies build around the tactics, so they are actually kind
of important.
All of the units have a damage rate (ranged and melee), absorb rate (I
personally think the value on the chart is misleading), movement rate,
and most importantly, a priority level.
The damage rate is about the same for all units. Yes, this is a lie,
but damage seems pretty irrelevant in my experience. The other factors
are all more important.
The most important factor is priority. Because defending artillery gets
extra range, the attackers must get hit before even being in range to
hit enemies. Priority lets you send light cavalry (high priority) in
front of cannon to draw fire from your light artillery (high priority,
but not as high as light cavalry), which can then shoot up the opposing
artillery unmolested. The big advantage to high priority armies is that
they get to reinforce/attack before low priority armies. In other
words, an army of 2 light cavalry and 3 light artillery can attack a
province before the reinforcements of 6 heavy artillery arrive. The
artillery will still reinforce, but it occurs in a different battle in
which the light units are defending. From experience I can tell you
that despite the superior numbers of the heavy artillery, they will get
cut to pieces by the light cavalry alone. Remember, in fights, the
defenders move first, so the cavalry and light artillery will run up and
dice the slow units before they even fire a shot. This leads to one of
the few strategic elements of war in imperialism:
DO NOT ATTACK WITH HEAVY INFANTRY/HEAVY ARTILLERY
That?s it. Those units are great on defense, though, so do make some.
The idea is to make death squads of light units so you can run rings
around enemy units. With light units, you can attack a province before
it is reinforced, which lets you not only have an easier battle taking
the province but nets you loads of free kills on the reinforcements
since your fast units move at the beginning of the battle. Heavy units
with support from light units are more dynamic on offence, although I
never find myself needing them.
Also, don?t take provinces you don?t need when attacking a great power.
It just spreads your soldiers thin. The only times I ever take a
province is to get much needed resources or to take control over a key
province. Think Alsace/Lorraine; if you take a province that reduces
your border size, you get more soldiers in each province. This also
makes it cheaper to build forts. Speaking of which, don?t ignore the
forts. They let you win battles you shouldn?t win. Build them on the
border with great powers that you can?t invade and in your rich
provinces on the sea. Eventually you will want them everywhere.
This information is pretty pathetic, and probably self evident, but
hopefully I have got you thinking about army construction as opposed to
mindlessly cranking off 20 heavy artillery.
A very effective trick once you have unlimited resources and some
experience with the game is to build up units in anticipation of a
technology upgrade. For example, the Bessemer converter lets you
recruit and upgrade awesome sharpshooters and worthless scouts. If you
build up 40 or so light infantry before the technology is introduced,
you can upgrade them all on the turn that you get the technology while
everyone else is recruiting them. You will get them one turn early! If
you remember to declare war early, you can wreak havoc for one turn!
The most effective upgrade is to level 3 artillery. If you are loaded
on gas and arms, the upgrades will make your military invincible for a
turn. I fought thirty or so battles once after pulling this trick with
level three light artillery and won them all.
Alliances, public relations, and some economics-
Be careful who you ally yourself with, as you don?t want to get dragged
into a war. Good allies are countries that share borders with a country
that is a threat. That way, if you get dragged into war, the dangerous
border countries will be tied up fighting your allies. Prussia and
Italy can gang up on France for example. Or France can ally with A-H if
the Huns have a solid alliance with the Russians. An Italy-Turkey
alliance blows.
Also, an alliance is worthless in my opinion if it isn?t put to use.
Get a couple of nations together and beat down on the less popular,
weaker nations. It kind of reminds me of high school. My favorite
target is France.
You?ll notice that the computer players have different strategies. I
didn?t notice this until I started playing as Italy every game. Try
playing as one of the wannabe Great Powers (Italy and the Ottoman
Empire) and just watch the computer go at it. I think Britain is the
best computer player; its? diplomacy is awesome. If you?re playing
against the computer, you should take their strategies into account when
making alliances (i.e. ally with Britain fool!).
An alliance is usually built on good relations. To get these you need
to trade with a great power. This means you?ll actually want to
subsidize great powers. Normally a great power only sells crap like
clothes. But if you put out a bid for steel for several turns, great
powers will start offering you steel. These subsidies let you get first
dibs on the steel, since once there is steel up for bid other great
powers will want it. Also, if you are not a great power, like Italy,
you shouldn?t act like one. Put your raw materials up for sale if you
can?t process them. It gets you cash and improves relations. Subsidies
I think help computer great powers buy from you. Alliances will
naturally stem out of trade relations.
©Ed Randtke 2002
[email protected] if my strategies don?t work (very likely)
