Imperialism - any good?

[hellrazor]

I liked both games a lot, but the strength of the games was in the economic and trade system, not tactical battles. Imperialism II had some changes which made it more difficult to with battles against the computer...in fact often games turned into big defensive struggles because fortifications were relatively cheap.

As I recall, you couldn't use the strategy of knocking down one corner of the wall like in Imperialism because defensive artillery had a longer range than offensive artillery. Also, artillery would only fire at units which were getting close so you couldn't waste a few cheap infantry units to draw fire in order to move your horse artillery up and take out the enemy. Even so, the computer was relatively easy to outmaneuver tactically.

[Henrik]

I found the computer in imp2 refreshinlgy intellegent when it came to the battle field, I could still outmanouver it, but it has gotten much smarter in imp2...
The battlefields available where still sadly few, one new thing though was that a fortress came whit an artillery, so if you had a level two fortress you would also have two heavy artillery (who where immobile), there isn't any millitia in imp2 though (probably since conscription as we know it came whit the 19-th centuries nationalism).
What I really like about the imp1 and imp2 battles is the morale part, the way you can winn a battle whitout any side loosing a unit (or loose a unit yourself, while the enemy lost none, and still winn the battle) I usually try to kill of as many units as possible though (I would be stupid otherwise).
Apart from the battles the most important change from imp1 to imp2 is the food economy, since there isn't any canned food, food is very important, I've had armies starve to death wile in a deadlock whit my opponent, just becouse he was blockading my food ports, and my navy din't get there in time.