Imperialism 2: The Age of Exploration

While most hold up Civilization up as the best of turn based strategy, my heart always went out to the Imperialism games. Rather than fiddle with dozens of individual territories and army stacks moving one tile at a time, Imperialism focused everything on your capital (more territories just add resources to it) and giant territories to simplify army movement while keeping the fun worker tile improvement aspect. I would highly recommend buying both the original and sequel, as each one is moderately different and satisfying in its own area. For the sequel, they improved on a number of things. You no longer have to worry about internal transport capacity for resources or the silly rules of placing depots (it was absurd how depots couldn't be placed next to each other and you often got cut off from your own resources); just built a road and an improvement and you're good to go. Diplomacy is also largely improved. Gone are AI players who declare permanent war and never accept peace until they're dead. The computer will cut its losses now in pointless conflicts. The new world aspect also provides a buffer against the computer gang piling on the weakest player (this was easy to exploit in the original, just make sure you weren't in last place and you were always safe). Invading other major powers might not even happen since victory goes to the first to reach a certain number of old world territories, minor nations included. There are some snags though that the original handled better. The whole look and theme is depressingly bland compared to the first game. Gone are the tongue in cheek newspaper headlines and any sense of humor (notices are barebones text). Gone is your bustling and visually interesting capital city screen, replaced by boring bar sliders. Gone is the feel of cutthroat capitalism. Trade is now a minor aspect and for the most part you must be self reliant. Turtling with forts is kind of crazy. For a cheap price and zero upkeep, forts come with their own heavy artillery that instantly regenerates between each battle. Not only that, but the size limit on attacking armies is much reduced. It's a good thing you can conquer minor nations for a victory, because unless you're an entire tech generation ahead you'll never take well defended forts. Gone is the industrial revolution. To me, starting in Napoleonic times and working up to WWI was more interesting than starting at the 16th century and working up to Napoleonic times. Then there's workers. You must harvest resources found only in the new world (sugar, tobacco, fur (huh?)) in order to "feed" your advanced workers. Do yourself a big favor and choose the "simplified worker resources" option because otherwise certain workers will only accept certain resources: apprentices will only consume refined sugar, journeymen will only consume cigars, and masters will only accept fur hats as payment. If you get cut off during wars you'll run into silly situations where workers are "starving" if you don't have enough hats but plenty of cigars. No thanks. In the end, definitely check out both games. The original scratches my itch for jolly jingoism and cutthroat stock market. The sequel is nice for the breathing room it allows with resource gathering and better diplomacy. Maybe some day Imperialism 3 will come along and merge the two into strategy perfection and rapture us to the promised land.