Posted on: December 4, 2020

Bob_Churchill

Games: 28 Reviews: 8

In a PC long, long ago

I was deeply involved in this game before it came out. In fact, it has a history with the Webby's. Back when I wrote reviews for a now defunct game site called gamerscentral.net, this was one of the games that I reviewed along with many other strategy games of equal stature. I played this game before it went retail when the developers sent me a burned copy written with a sharpie on a CD! I still have that CD and I still love this game. It was back when SSI was putting out some decent strategy games. Well, what do you know. Gamerscentral.net won the Webby Award that year beating out every other game review site on the internet. That's saying something and I have a feeling that we owe a little of that to Imperialism. I'm sure there are some knocks one could give it for the combat structure which is not really interactive but the economic structure of this game is absolutely solid and the AI provides a pretty good challenge but it's not in the realm of impossibility as games like Dawn of Discovery are apt to be. Of course, the graphics are outdated but it's really a thinking man or woman's game so the graphics only help to drive the thinking that has to go behind the game. If you like challenges, pick it and Imp II which I also think is more polished but not necessarily that much better.

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Posted on: February 7, 2016

TheDS

Games: 8 Reviews: 2

It's the economy, stupid!

I love this game! The AI isn't all that smart... up until you make a stupid mistake, like leave your capital open to attack, and then it's all over you. One thing it does know, though, is when you're about to have a runaway victory, and then it gangs up on you to stop you before you can pull it off. The key is to not piss everyone off for long enough to get everything into place before they all turn on you. It may seem annoying to have all of the AI players gang up on you, but that's totally reasonable! The only problem is, wars are usually all or nothing; they rarely wind down into stalemates that create peace. Once they start, they probably won't stop until they've conquered you. This game has it all. A multi-faceted economy that can be expanded meaningfully, technological research choices, battlefield tactics that, when mastered, provide substantial power on the field, diplomacy by monetary incentive, development of infrastructure, cutting off enemy supply lines, and even winning by vote. My favored tactic is to become an economic juggernaut; I do my best to monopolize the trade and stare off the AI players, peacefully annex the minors, and develop an economy capable of cranking out in a handful of turns what the rest of the world took the entire game to build because I starved them. Usually this leads to ALL the other players declaring war all at once, which gives the chance to put my economy and supply lines to the test. A hint: do not rely on naval supremacy to keep your economy going during war! Connect your resources by rail! Those clever bastards starved out my population by blockading my home port and I hadn't kept enough ships in defense of that because I needed them to conduct a massive invasion elsewhere. On top of the randomly generated maps, there are also several pregenerated scenarios that are very interesting to play.

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Posted on: July 31, 2019

mythtrip

Verified owner

Games: 92 Reviews: 4

One of the very greatest 4x....

Perfect balanced gameplay, clear graphics, love the design esthetics. A great great title, for less than a cup of coffee? Hello? Buy this one now, you will love it, one of my all time favorites, and I have played every 4X out there.

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Posted on: November 22, 2012

davem74

Verified owner

Games: 532 Reviews: 7

An oldie - but a goodie!

I first encountered this game from the long-lost and lamented 'Home of the Underdogs'. While completely different in its game mechanics and feel, I'd rate this alongside 'Alpha Centauri' mainly because of it's fierce originality and attention to detail. Alpha Centauri does the tech trees and exploration better - but Imperialism truly recreates the land grab and bullying of the 19th century. A very interesting game that should be played at least once by everyone.

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Posted on: October 28, 2014

donkuchi19

Verified owner

Games: 88 Reviews: 1

One of my favorites!

This is one of my favorite games of all time! I have had versions of this game from Windows 95 on up and have always been able to find a way to make it work until I went to a 64 bit system. Now I have a version that works on my 64 bit system and couldn't be happier!

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