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This guide is based on version 1.1.7 of 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
ed_randtke@hotmail.com if
my strategies don’t work (very likely) |
