Strategy & Tactics: Imperialism II by Justin Garcia I have learned my lesson. “Damn Portugal, damn them!” Having reached a stalemate, I give up and start a new game. I peak at the clock, it reads 4:01 AM. “Tomorrow your time is up Portugal! Tomorrow will be different!” I exclaim. I craw into bed... That game was a long one, and I failed because I forgot two very crucial tactics. Early in the game, when I was racing to contain the two dominate nations, England and Spain, I haphazardly swept through Spain’s long string of provinces and stalled at the far end, it’s capital. Having not the time, nor the resources to churn out more artillery to finish Madrid off, I simply capped their capital province up with a few heavy guns and went off to concentrate on my navy. About a half a century later I decided it was time to finish them off. However I found this quite difficult as they now had a more advanced military than I did! How is this possible you say? I’m asking the same question. The point is, strike while the iron’s hot. In Imperialism 2, I have noticed that it is often to my advantage to strike, and strike immediately after, rather then letting my troops recoup for a few turns. I’ll often loose a heavy gun or a few infantry, but it is often worth it to attack multiple levels into an enemies territory rather than attack, recoup. This is because your enemy generally only bothers to put up one line of defense. I’ve actually seen the same thing happen when the second line is the capital province! Spies help tremendously. They are best when put to use in defending countries. Before declaring war, design a plan of action for your attacks. Find out where your first attack will be along your borders, and then place a spy in the province immediately after the one along your border. Find out where the weakest spots are behind your borders, and attack there. Once you declare war, you may or may not pull your spy out. But once you have decided on your plan of action, move all the way to the capital province if possible. Generally the hardest fought battles will be at the front line province and at the capital. Because I hadn’t thought ahead to what might happened if I left Spain alone, especially overlooking the fact that they were strongly allied with Portugal, I ended up stuck at the end of the game. Always keep a watchful eye of the status screens and turn summary, and keep track of where your enemies stand, and also who is allied with who. If you notice “teams” developing, take measures to loosen up these ties with entangling alliances or even grants and favors to multiple nations (there's nothing like declaring war on little old Spain only to find out that England and Holland also want a piece of you). I would have been better off, had I looked up information on Spain's current economic and military status, and checked out its allies before deciding against an attack. When making a plan of attack, be sure to think about courses of action you would take, should you win or loose each battle. Prepare to fight out an easy defendable two or three province border. Especially in the clustered areas of the new world. Don’t attack recklessly and end up with a scattered difficult to defend border, or you’ll loose much of the ground you took this way. The ultimate test of planning is your technology research. It took me a good three full games to really understand the way the technology tree worked. You will eventually find for yourself which aspects of advancement are right for you, and find out how you best allocate researching funds. It only took me a few turns to get annoyed by the “Researchers are idle” reminder. But what I came to find out is, that research is relatively inexpensive, and very important. What I find most helpful is this: Early on, research military advancements, quickly churn out a small but effective fighting force, and expand my Old World territories by swallowing one Great Power. Then study my options a bit on the technology tree, make a goal, and stick with it. Later on I will develop a strong navy, and continue to spread into the New World. My continued naval advancements will allow me to maintain massive quantities of imported goods, and thus, create massive quantities of finished goods. The quicker I can stockpile finished goods, the quicker and can amass an army to continue my expansion in the Old World. Plan ahead and establish good relations with far away Great Powers, rather than your next door neighbors. When you expand, generally the first and easiest to be conquered are your neighboring Great Powers. I often find the “Join Empire” command to be useless early in the game, so establishing strong bonds with far away Great Powers will give me an awesome advantage in the end game if I can persuade an ally to join my Empire. If you don’t forget to think ahead, and you aren’t afraid to use blitzkrieg tactics, you’ll have find it much easier to conquer the world. Good luck!