Oh Dang,

It seems GOG give massive number of game sales at the start of the month where people just got their salary.

Then most of the games listed in this sales range from mildly interesting or very interesting or have games sequel / prequel fun enough to tick my collector itch......

The guy at the right of my shoulder keep telling me I have so much games that I can play different games every day for a year or two, I don't need more. The guy at the left of my shoulder tell me it is about a hobby like collecting stamps. Now that you have a nice bump in your wallet at the start of the month, to correct that click on a sequence of button that make it says "Nice you own all games in this promo".

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...................Sorry wallet.........................

Good promo. I'll glad to see more DRM-free Ubisoft titles on GOG.

When I get the itch to build and conquer infrastructure, Imperialism is the game I turn to. (How many other games let you cut off a nation's supply of some crucial material by conquering the territory the railroad they built runs through? How many combine that with blockades, blockade-running, sea patrols, and seizure of ships and goods to try to do the same to their sea-based infrastructure?)

When I want to build up my very own Military Industrial Complex, Imperialism is my game of choice. (A number of games such as Anno, Stronghold, Settlers, etc. let you build up an economy to find/extract/process raw materials into goods including military goods, but not only do I think Imperialism has the edge over those games on that aspect, there's no comparison when it comes to the actual application of that military force within the game -- Imperialism is an actual military strategy game whereas the combat in games like Anno, and I say this as someone who enjoys the Anno games, is laughable. Add in the fact that everything in Imperialism is turn-based including tactical combat and it's even better.)

When I want to manipulate entire countries -- economically, militarily (and I'm not just talking direct conquest here -- you can use your military to your advantage without firing a shot), politically, diplomatically, to get them to do what I want, and do this in an environment where I am competing with other major powers trying to do the same (with a better than average AI), Imperialism is the only game I know of that really pulls this off. That manipulation of countries is imperialism, hence the game's name, and the game does this so well it should be considered an educational tool.

Other than "even mores" and things generally applicable to most games, like having an even smarter and/or pluggable AI, higher res graphics, scripting support, more of those funny/random newspaper articles at the beginning of each turn, etc., I'm not sure how you improve on Imperialism (with the one exception I can think of being fixing the inter-depot proximity limit). It already does so much right. Rail and ship infrastructure is there and matters -- in addition to building railroads and depots (which control the 'where' of land transport) you have to build sufficient "rail infrastructure" (i.e., the trains - the 'how much' of land transport), but you don't have to deal with the micro-management of all of those trains -- you just allocate train capacity to type of goods. Likewise for shipping -- you do control your warships (except when used as escorts for cargo ships), but you don't have to micro-manage all of the cargo ships you make. (Like trains, cargo-ships don't show up on the map. Unlike trains, cargo-ships can be seized/sunk by an enemy -- the game automatically models their routes based on the trading ports.)

I have returned to Imperialism many times over the years -- whenever the desire to experience one or more of the above major features beckons. The game always delivers. If I knew of a game that did them significantly better (especially if it were available DRM free), I would play that instead. That hasn't happened yet.

How about Might & Magic X? Waiting for DRM-free version here at GOG... :) (patiently, I have plenty of time, more than Ubisoft will exist, bwahahaha)

Thank you for the good explanation TheJadedOne! +1
The game sounds great from your description. I'm off to buy and play it now :)

Yes, thanks for the in-depth info on Imperialism, never had the delight to play the full version of this, probably gonna pick up both now. It's much appreciated when people take their time to shed light on the content of these sales.

Which one do you tend to play more of and why? In your opinion does either one have any advantage over the other?

Question about Heroes Chronicles- does it have exact chapters from HOMM III, or is it that the chapters are related to HOMM III chapters?

edit: nevermind, it's the latter.

Well, I finally caved and got Beyond Good and Evil. :)

Could we get more Ubi here, so I don't have to see this obnoxious "Own all the games" on this list?

My post was describing the original Imperialism game. I have tried getting into Imperialism 2 a number of times, and if Imperialism 1 didn't exist I'm guessing I would done so on the first attempt and liked the game, but what happens is each time I go to Imperialism 2 to get my "fix" for those major features I described in my post I end up concluding that Imperialism 1 does it better. As a result I only have a very limited number of hours playing Imperialism 2 under my belt, and can't speak about it with the wealth of experience I can Imperialism 1. I also think some of why I prefer 1 over 2 may be unknown to me (due to never trying to analyze it in detail and not recording my experiences at the time). That said, here's some points where I think 2 falls short of 1:

* Imperialism 1 has railroads (with tracks, depots, and capacity to develop) whereas Imperialism 2 has roads (just roads - no depot substitute, and more importantly, no capacity to expand). In Imperialism 1 the decision to expand railroad capacity (which costs valuable steel) rather than selling the steel for money (and improving trade relations) or using that steel to construct military hardware or using that steel to improve your industrial infrastructure is the kind of choice that helps make the game great. Not improving rail capacity when such extra capacity could be used means leaving goods to rot (losing them forever) rather than getting them to your industrial center, whereas improving capacity means giving up on one of those other options - any of which could be fatal.

* This may be considered a personal preference, but I really like how tech development works in Imperialism 1 and really don't like it in Imperialism 2. In 1 what happens is someone somewhere discovers some new tech and that discovery ends up in all the papers (literally - it shows up as an article in the newspaper you see at the beginning of the turn). Any (major) country can then develop that tech for its own use, but it costs money to do so. The key here is pacing -- the availability of tech comes at a certain pace (roughly corresponding to real-world history, another plus for those who like historical accuracy). If your economy is reasonable, developing those technologies as they come along will only ever consume a limited amount of your income. Imperialism 2 does what all too many other games already do - it puts you on a tech treadmill where you are constantly having to sink resources into tech to try to stay ahead of your competitors. Another factor here is learning curve -- you really don't need to know a "tech tree" in Imperialism 1, tech happens when it happens. (There are tech dependencies, but they only matter if you fall behind and even then you only have to deal with a very small number of them at a given time and the game spells them out for you pretty clearly.) You do need to know the tech tree in Imperialism 2 or you may research the wrong path and not get where you need to be.

* I'll quote this one right from the Imperialism 2 manual as it shows even they didn't sound too sure of this choice:

Although there are more commodities in IMPERIALISM II, the goods that were such an important part of the IMPERIALISM economic model are no more. Players must balance the development use of a material like bronze or lumber directly against the need for cash obtained by trade. This new model seems to fit the earlier time period of the game. Players need to directly exploit the New World for riches instead of investing in factories and mills at home.

Or in other words, less infrastructure options (on top of the reduced land transport options mentioned above).

* Remember those random/funny newspaper articles that I said were one of the "even mores"? They don't exist in Imperialism 2 at all. (And it's not like there was any reason other than game dev costs to pull them -- they never obscured the "real" articles directly related to game play such as tech availability, diplomatic actions and territory changing hands because those "real" articles were bolded in Imperialism 1 whereas the other articles were not. They might have taken a different form than 'newspaper' though due to the differing time period.)

* This is definitely a personal preference, but Imperialism 2 gives up some of the character and immersiveness Imperialism 1 had in exchange for raw UI efficiency. (This is one case where I'm glad I played Imperialism 2 because I had previously noticed that some stuff in Imperialism 1 could be done more efficiently and originally considered those outright 'flaws' in Imperialism 1 -- it wasn't until I played 2 that I realized what is lost if you make those changes.)

* Another personal preference that comes into play is time period. Imperialism 2 is set in an earlier time period, so instead of playing with trains and (eventually) destroyers you end up mucking about in the dirt.

* Another personal preference: Imperialism 2 has the "make consumer luxury items to keep 'higher class' civilians happy" mechanic which I really don't care for, especially in this kind of game (diplomatic/military).

One feature in Imperialism 2's favor (?):

* Imperialism 2 does have more exploration than Imperialism 1. In 1 you only explore known territory for resources, whereas in 2 you have to explore the new world from scratch. (Unfortunately I really didn't find this aspect of 2 very compelling. I'm not sure why that is either, because normally I like exploration. Maybe it was just because I didn't know what I was doing and I would need to know the game better to appreciate that part more.)

If I had infinite time I would certainly spend some more on Imperialism 2 and try to find out if there are some features there that I could appreciate that Imperialism 1 is either lacking or doesn't do as well. But alas...

I did recall another item I would fix in Imperialism 1 though, and that is that units should be placed in initiative order (rather than whatever order the game currently uses). Otherwise you can end up having to shuffle troops around after initial placement in order to get higher initiative ones up front. (Imperialism 2 doesn't have an initiative system in tactical combat, so it's not an issue there.)

It seems strange to me that Ubisoft is releasing so much of their old titles to GOG.com, but still haven't released Myst III: Exile and Myst IV: Revelation. Well, maybe in the next batch?

Those require an agreement between Cyan and Ubisoft I believe.

Shame that Chessmaster 9000 still isn't back in the catalog yet. I'd have loved to have gotten it with this promo as it's still the best chess game ever.

Still a lot of great games though I've wanted to add to my catalog... which just so happens to be all of them. Thanks GOG.com :)