The first economic milestone you must strive for is having two timber and two iron ore coming to your capitol for free every turn. The most important geographical features are swamps, where you’ll find tin, and barren hills and mountains, where you’ll find copper and iron ore. The most important resource is grain, since you can’t find it in the new world and, unlike fish, you can’t build improvements like harbors to gather more. The other factor when choosing your empire is its natural resources. Have a couple of engineers to connect the transport networks and build forts at strategic choke points. If things work out well for you, then, when you conquer your neighbor, you’ll be immediately able to declare war on its neighbor, and so on. Select a major power which borders only one major power. It’s entirely useless because you have to spend resources developing it, assign ship resources to transport the products and assign military resources to defend it. You do get a nice cash bonus.ĭon’t think about attacking the New World unless you need a specific resource, typically tin, copper or iron ore. When you conquer minor powers, you have to build the roads and farms and mines. Also, when you conquer a major power’s province, there’s a chance you acquire its technology. Why is it better to attack major powers than minor powers? Because when you conquer a major power, you already have all their developed resources and transportation network. Find a large continent with multiple major powers.
The most important step to winning is selecting the correct empire from the initial map. The quickest way to win a game is to share a continent with multiple major powers and conquer them one at a time, all the while maintaining a strong economy by connecting your conquests to your capitol via land transport. Here’s an alternate strategy that does make use of more of the game’s features.
In fact, I almost enjoy the game less now that I know how to win nearly every time at 400 level.
The official strategy guide is OK, and its suggestions allow you to enjoy the game’s diverse features, but I want to share with you a much more effective method of winning games. Imperialism II is a turn-based strategy game.