Imperialism II: Age of Exploration

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Imperialism II: The Age of Exploration
Developer(s)	Frog City Software
Publisher(s)	SSI
Designer(s)	Ben Polk, Bill Spieth and Ted Spieth[1]
Platform(s)	Mac OS, Windows
Release date(s)	April 1, 1999[2]
Genre(s)	Turn-based strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Everyone
Media	CD-ROM
System requirements	Pentium 133 Mhz CPU, 16 MB RAM, 100 MB Hard disk space[3]
Input methods	Mouse & Keyboard

Imperialism II: Age of Exploration is a turn-based strategy game for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh computers, developed by Frog City Software and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) in 1999. It is the successor to the 1997 game Imperialism. In Imperialism II, the player starts as ruler of a 16th century European country, and must build an empire.

Since 2001 Ubisoft owns the rights to the Imperialism trademark.^[4]

Contents 1 Gameplay 1.1 The economic problem 1.1.1 Food supply 1.1.2 Financing scientific research 1.2 Victory Condition 2 Differences from Imperialism I 3 Reviews 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Gameplay

Imperialism II is a turn based 4X game, where you have to "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate" in order to achieve victory. The game however focus heavily on the economic aspect^[5] by introducing the concepts of variable worker productivity, variable terrain productivity, labor allocation, resource allocation and logistics.

[edit] The economic problem

The game presents the player with an economic problem that is composed of 3 allocative dilemmas plus the necessity to supply food for workers and military units plus the necessity to finance scientific research.

1. - Logistical dilemma: Where to allocate the limited transportation capacity of the merchant marine? The options can be to transport raw materials and/or precious materials from the New World, to import goods or to transport fish.
2. - Labor allocation dilemma: Given the collected raw materials, which semi-finished materials should the workers produce?
3. - Resource allocation dilemma: Which use should be given to the semi-finished materials produced by the labor force?

Raw materials which depend terrain improvements to be extracted and on logistics to be transported have to be processed by workers into semi-finished materials. Those semi-finished materials can then be turned into units or workers, used to increase terrain productivity or used to create and sustain workers of higher productivity. Logistics also depends on semi-finished materials for expansion through additions to the merchant marine and improvements to the road network.

This processing and transportation of raw-materials is one of the things that sets this game apart from others like Civilization, a game where just access to raw materials is required. On Imperialism II access is not enough, a specific quantity of raw materials needs to be transported and processed into semi-finished materials before it becomes possible to build a unit. An example, to build 1 Ship-of-the-line unit the following quantities of semi-finished materials are required:

• 14 timber + 8 bronze + 4 cloth + 1 worker

This requirement represents in raw-material terms the following:

• 28 wood + 8 tin ore + 8 copper ore + 12 wool

[edit] Food supply

Complicating the allocative decisions is the fact that every military unit and worker requires one unit of wheat or fish every turn. Sustaining and increasing the food supply also demands semi-finished materials to improve farms and transportation capacity for fish from the merchant marine.

[edit] Financing scientific research

The need to finance scientific research makes finding and transporting precious materials from the New World a top priority and because of that it will also affect the allocative decisions.

Unlike Civilization there are no city improvements, or concepts such as religion, types of government (Civics), corruption (City Maintenance) or happiness.

Only after the economic problem is dealt with is that diplomatic considerations such as war, alliances or peace come into play.

[edit] Victory Condition

The game is won when any of the "great powers" (France, Holland, Spain, England, Portugal or Sweden) controls more than one-half of the Old World. Control over other countries can be achieved by conquest or by diplomatic means (influencing "minor nations" Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Switzerland and even the "great powers", so they would finally join the player's empire), or most often a combination of the two. Control of the New World is not relevant for the victory condition.

[edit] Differences from Imperialism I

The main novelty in Imperialism II compared to its predecessor, is the addition of the New World, which is unknown and has to be explored.^[6] Unlike in Imperialism I, only part of the world is visible at the start and this part is the Old World. The other half of the world is the New World, which must be explored by ships and prospectors. The New World has resources that don't exist in the Old World, such as cotton, gold, silver, sugarcane and others.^[7]

Another difference between the games is that Imperialism II starts in the 16th Century during the Age of exploration whereas Imperialism starts in the 19th century during the Industrial Revolution.^[8]

[edit] Reviews

• Game Rankings - 8.5/10 score - Average based on 16 reviews of the game.^[9]
• Gamespot - 8/10 score - The review wrote: " Imperialism II is a more refined and interesting use of the same system" and added: "Frog City has done an excellent job of it with Imperialism II."^[10]
• IGN - 8.4/10 score - This review called the game "impressive" and said "It's complex as hell, but it's a lot of fun".^[11]
• ZDNet - 5/5 score- "With deeper gameplay, tactical combat, and AI, the new game system is easier to learn and play than the original."^[12]
• GamePro - 4.5/5 score - "A great update to a great strategy game."^[13]
• CNET's Gamecenter.com - 8/10 score - "In the long term, Imperialism II: Age of Exploration provides epic strategic gaming with random maps and multiplayer support."^[14]
• Adrenaline Vault - 4/5 score - "It’s a solid title that nicely combines some quality features into an attractive title. [T]hose of you who thirst for the thrill of constant combat might feel bogged down in some of the other elements."^[15]
• Strategy Gaming Online - 8.6/10 score - "In every aspect, then, Imp2 is an improvement over Imp1, which should give some idea of really how good a game this is". This review however considered excessive the ammount of importance given to the Economic aspect of the game. ^[16]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Daily Imperialist, featuring game editors and mods
• Imperialism II support page at Ubisoft
• Imperialism II guide at IGN