Thoughts on the gameplay so far - peaceful annexation style

Imperial Glory is an interesting addition to the turn based strategy game. Lot's of mods to enhance the gameplay.

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Broadside
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Thoughts on the gameplay so far - peaceful annexation style

Post by Broadside »

I'm about mid way through a campaign on the Medium level to get a feel for the diplomacy and foreign policy strategy. I am at 1809 and haven't even fired a shot yet as I wanted to see if I could win solely by peaceful annexation. Started off well, but it is getting tough now with high costs for commercial treaties and improving relations with countries. The tech. tree feels almost superfluous to the game at the moment. You can easily climb it as you are forced to research items whether you want to or not (unless I have missed a means of rejecting the next tech. level for a few turns). You very quickly build up more tech options than you can possibly use and it feels as though the tech tree gets too far ahead of the pace of gameplay sometimes. The quests offered by gaining higher tech look fun, but I have only had time to complete one as things get pretty hectic trying to manage your empire.

No major bugs so far and only one unrepeatable glitch when I was playing a quick game with a lot of troops on the GB castle map. I had an error flash up for a C++ Runtime Error - R6025 - pure virtual function call runtime error (whatever that is). The screen froze and I had to Ctrl Alt Del out of the game. Went straight back in and played the same quick game and had no errors at all, so not sure what caused that. Graphics stunning and gameplay is smooth with all settings turned to highest available.

Overall its is very enjoyable to play and a good rival to RTW. I think the
diplomacy, commercial management and peaceful annexation are a major
improvement over the rather lacklustre diplomacy in the TW series. The
battles are actually only as fast as the RTW ones and I have had some
battles (Salamanca historical battle) last 10-20 mins which is plenty long
enough for me. They do need larger army sizes, but it is not essential for
good gameplay at the moment. The sea battles are frenzied and fast, I can see why they only give you control of six ships as even that amount gets out of control fast in the heat of battle.

The various statistics views (there are tons of them!) are very well laid out, useful, and to my mind easily as good, if not decidedly better than, the RTW stats screens.

The whole thing gets a big :up: from me at the moment. Cannot wait for some blood and gore on my next campaign tho :yes:
Last edited by Broadside on Sun May 22, 2005 11:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
hunter
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Post by hunter »

I hope its "bloody" and not the british "bloody" but the old fashion way... hehe Like u fire a cannon and u hear. AAAAARGRGRGRHGGHGHGH NO!!! ARRGGGHH MY LEGG!! aaaah no!!! ..... total silence... lol, a bit to horror-ish? But i do hope u see blood.. Do u? and do the cannon balls bounce far... The Artillery ones? oh yea... hows naval? 1-10
Broadside
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Post by Broadside »

Yup, you do see plenty of blood as the artillery and infantry fire rips into an advancing body of troops. Looks like great gushes of it from a distance, haven't looked close up at the shattered remains - quite a good effect though.

My peaceful campaign ran OK until 1810 when I must have overproduced on troops and all the food ran out. If the food runs out you start to lose 2-3 units, or a commander or two, or a ship per turn. Not too harmful really as you can rebuild them if the rest of the economy is OK. Anyway, I panicked and thought I needed to gain land for more food production (actually what I really needed to do was tech up with more ministries of agriculture in each of my territories - realised this later on). At that point Prussia decided to go to war with my French allies (yup GB allied with France :eek: Oh the shame of it :no: ) This started a long drawn out war with Prussia, Austria and Russia V me and my cr*p allies who never helped at all :roll: By 1812 or so everyone had calmed down again except for the Prussians who clearly held a grudge and kept invading Hanover every couple of turns only to be decimated by my trusty howitzers and grenadiers. I completely wiped out the Austrian and Prussian navies and the Russian sued for peace as did the Austrians. Now I am back on track with a peaceful campaign again.

It seems you cannot assimilate France by diplomacy at all. I never get the option to drop a consulate in their territory. The only way to annex France peacefully would be to buy peace, but at a hell of a price as they only allow improved relations to increase if you slip them the odd 50,000 :eek:

I always autocalc naval battles now. I tried commanding the early ones, but it becomes rather tiresome constantly going round in circles chasing the tail of an enemy ship which is also going round in circles. As long as you outnumber the enemy and have some experienced crews amongst the fleet you are pretty much guaranteed victory playing on easy and medium level.

Land battles in the campaign are fun! best one so far was taking Berlin from the Prussians at Brandenburg. You fight in the gardens and courtyard of a huge palace which is quite visually impressive. I made a terrible mess of the neatly laid out formal gardens with my artillery, but an even bigger mess of the Prussians :yes:
Flying Scotsman
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Post by Flying Scotsman »

Ah, the Imperial Palace. I'd reccomend trying some quick battles and defending the capital provinces. It's great fun! :mrgreen:

Anyways, I'm doing a mix of peaceful/military annexation as Britain on Medium. I've already developed a foothold in Europe by attacking Batavian Republic, and am now working on peacefully annexing Portugal. I had a failed invasion of France. I was able to fight my way through the streets of Paris and begin the siege, but after a few turns my fatigued army lost to some French Militia and I was forced to retreat. Although I'm assualting France again. Yes, I do rule the seas! With my 1 frigate and 3 sloops. :p Only in the year 1797 though, so there's more fun to come!

Cheers!
Isledall
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Post by Isledall »

I cannot recommend playing on easy...

as I am now int the tech 2 without a shot fired.. and to be honest it gets boring.... also no one declares war.. or attacks... even on each other...

I have the most countries and the best troops and the money is in the 9999999999... you get the picture :) although raw materials do stay a bit to low.. also with the special quests there is one in which all your basic troops are upgraded to grenadiers.... woot :)

any way did went to war with a neutral with no allies.. but sympathy dropped 10 points and Prussia and Rusdsia declared war on me... next turn they offered me peace and 17.000 coins each ....

I miss the struggle and the AI on easy so stay of that unless you want to learn a bit... but do not go for a full game....

just play medium.... which I will do next...

oh tech 1 is pure economic preperations
for thech 2 where diplomatic annexation is the key... end of tech 2 there will be no more neutrals....
tech 3 seems to be the area of the great war.... will see what happends on easy.. but I think not much.... medium next week
Broadside
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Post by Broadside »

Yeah, I started on Easy to get a feel for the gameplay, but felt that it was giving me too easy a ride. I was flying through the tech tree and everyone else was just sitting there teching up their nations too. I switched over to Medium and things were still a little slow to start with, but after 1810 or so it got very interesting with shifting alliances and frequent short bursts of warfare followed by diplomacy and peace again - just like real life really. I think Medium will suit my gameplay best as Hard level will involve too many battles and too little diplomacy I suspect.
Silkysnoop
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Post by Silkysnoop »

Broadside wrote:Yeah, I started on Easy to get a feel for the gameplay, but felt that it was giving me too easy a ride. I was flying through the tech tree and everyone else was just sitting there teching up their nations too. I switched over to Medium and things were still a little slow to start with, but after 1810 or so it got very interesting with shifting alliances and frequent short bursts of warfare followed by diplomacy and peace again - just like real life really. I think Medium will suit my gameplay best as Hard level will involve too many battles and too little diplomacy I suspect.

What nation were you playing with on medium difficulty
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Officerpuppy
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Post by Officerpuppy »

I find the game pretty fun indeed. No major problems to report as well. I started on Easy to get a feel of things, I played with France. After getting pushed around a bit by the English, Prussians then Austrians, I was able to hold my own by setting up massive trade routes etc.
thepipe
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Post by thepipe »

I cannot recommend playing on easy...

as I am now int the tech 2 without a shot fired.. and to be honest it gets boring.... also no one declares war.. or attacks... even on each other...
problem is if you can surive the first few years hard the exact same way
Broadside
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Post by Broadside »

[quote="Silkysnoop
What nation were you playing with on medium difficulty[/quote]

British both times. Anybody know which is the hardest nation to play yet ? France seem pretty surrounded at the start.
thepipe
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Post by thepipe »

I would have thought Prussia would be the hardest, but after playing for awhile it seems france alway gets netralized early on so made they are the most difficult.
Yorkie
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Post by Yorkie »

I dont think you could win the game peacefully because you can not annex the emipres .. you can only suubdue them by stationing a force there.

but sying that ive played on medium and control all of N.Africa , Turkey, Italy, greece. (all peacefull) . And now no one will declare war on me .. The frogs are constanly shiftiing armies around thier boarders as are the others..

My Navy is massive but my land units are only the second strongest (russia being the strongest) and yet she wont attack ..

I saved the game and declared war of the frogs, liberated the dutch (dont ask why :roll: ) and then on the next turn France, Austria and Prussia formed a coallition against me .. talk about getting raped .. so sueing for a coalition of my own with Russia we (I ruissa dint do nowt) staved off attack after attack and then monies from peace negoations came in ..

Now i own Europe apart from the capitals of the Emipers .. .

Only Russia to take on and eliminate the pathetic forces in the other capitals..

..

Hope the Hard setting is more of a challenge... :eek:
Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!
thepipe
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Post by thepipe »

Hope the Hard setting is more of a challenge...
Unfortunately I my opinion it isn't. The First few years are hectic but after that the AI will never attack you unless they see you are weakened and its way to easy to use money and diplomacy to build yourself.

I think the problem comes down to the fact that you are trying to conquer the world and while all the other empires seem to be expansionist to one degree or the other they don't seem to have long term world domination plans nor are they able to recognize that is what you are doing.

As a result they are willing to do things like sell you territories b/c base on the immediate situation they think it’s a good deal. They do not take in to account that you are amassing the resources to overwhelm them in the future.

They do not factor the balance of power into the overall situation when making economic, diplomatic, and military decisions. What this means is if you survive the early years you don't have to worry about being attacked and you have no urgent pressure to attack. You are given the opportunity to decide when and were you will fight. If you look at any of the masters of warfare and empire building the say to a man that this is the most critical advantage you can have (especial since the other factors they usually consider important maneuver, surprise etc. are not incorporated in to this game).

The show piece of the game is suppose to be the management but due to the above it becomes trivial b/c once you get to the late tech 2/ tech 3 stage of the game there no need to be efficient. Were I’m at in the current campaign I have more than enough of every resource the only thing keeping me from final victory is the time it take to train units and the fact you can only have 3 armies in each territory, that is to say it’s only a matter of time, this is not exactly exciting.

Although I can't say I don't like the game b/c of the number of hours I’ve played it. I can say a few changes would make a drastic improvement:

1. Improve the game play of the battles so I felt like my tactical input had a significant bearing on the out come of the battle.

2. Either decrease the rate you make money or increase the price of things (not necessarily tech level 1 stuff but all tech 2 and tech 3 buildings and military units).

3. Have the AI consider overall balance power in making decisions so that it won't gladly sell you the tools you need to dominate it and make it more militarily aggressive.

The first thing is strictly to increase the fun in playing the game. The last two would make you be efficient and clever adding the correct degree of difficulty to the game and make full use of the management system.
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