Imperialism

Imperialism is a turn-based strategy game for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh computers, developed by Frog City Software and published by Strategic Simulations in 1997. In Imperialism, the player is the ruler of a 19th-century country and aims to become ruler of the world by conquest or by vote. Imperialism was followed by Imperialism II: Age of Exploration. Gameplay There are two ways to play Imperialism: in a fictional, randomly generated world, or in a historical scenario. In the first case, the player selects one of seven "great powers" and starts ruling in 1815, a year considered by many historians the beginning of the 19th-century era in the real world. The goal is to be voted world ruler by a two-thirds majority in the "Council of Governors", in which all provincial governors of the world convene once in a decade. Governors in "minor nations" tend to vote for great powers that have favored their country in trade and diplomacy, whereas governors in great powers vote for strong military powers. If no two-thirds majority is ever reached, the game continues until the year 1915, when the power with the largest number of governors behind it wins the game. Although victory is determined by the Council of Governors, the game score is determined by how much a player has built, including the size of a Great Power's military, workforce, transportation network, merchant marine, diplomatic standing and number of provinces controlled. Empire building can be achieved either through diplomacy or through conquest. In either case, the empire must have a solid economic grounding, which is established by the exploitation of the country's resources (wood, ore, etc.), by industry (for example, turning raw materials iron and coal into steel) and by trade.