I know that with the merchant one can buy the Capital of the Minors Nations and maybe even the countries of the New World, but I never understood what it serves?

Another question, if I create an embassy in a New World country, and that a Great Power declares war on it, would I get the message who ask "intervene and declare war on the aggressor"?

And finally, what units are you putting to protect the NW and your own country? I had tried once to protect my province of the NW with artillery on horseback, but the AI is shown more smart than me and it is brought back with heavy artillery of last generation, and we we know what comes next ...

Thanks in advance.

If you buy the capital you can defend it by building walls there. That will usually keep other nations from conquering it unless they bring a big army - bigger than they usually have in the New World.

If the capital of a New World tribe is conquered, all their land is up for grabs to anyone, and you might not want that to happen.

If you ever convince the New World tribe to join your empire, you'll get all their units. Those units can be upgraded to your technology level.

It's easier to conquer New World minors, but then you have to defend them all by yourself.

If you want a tip for IMP II, try to conquer all the fur provinces in the new world. With fur and hats and a lot of paper you can upgrade your workers to Master level, which is a huge advantage.

It's usually not too hard, because the AI always goes for diamonds and gems and gold while it ignores fur.

I have already struggled to manage the new world and my army but thank you even for this advice.

some more tips ;)

Don't underestimate the experience, can make the difference between winning and loosing, although naval seems to be unaffected by it.

If you go to war, try to get the AI to join you when fighting against another AI.

The NW is mainly for resources, As mentioned above furs and similar. Try to get minor countries in the old world to join you. If you have a minor country on the same landmass as you, get them. What I usually do, I declare war upon them in the first turn, means even if they sign a treaty afterwards it will have no effect, you can conquer them without penalty later ;)

Only old world provinces do count for victory, theoretically you could win without taking any NW country. Always wanted to try, just to see if it is possible ;)

Also, try to do as much as possible with train. If possible avoid naval transport. Naval can be blockaded and if this happens:
a.) you might loose ships
b.) you do not get the resources.

Yes NW is only via naval. Hence important to get old world countries for the basic resources (and FOOD)

To defend, you do NOT need army everywhere. Normally you get a warning of a naval invasion. Pay attention to those messages (it tells you the province name), move your defending forces there and they will arrive in time.

One tip about building roads/train: Due to the above mentioned fact (improving cities), make sure that all resources in ONE province are being transported into the city of this province. Unlike CIV it has to be connected straight into the city and not just any road. Meaning, if the road collecting the resource is coming from another province (and not connected to its 'own' city) it will not count towards bonus production. But only interesting for resources which can have follow up products, so like sugar, furs, wood and similar. Money resources it doesn't matter.

Hence also be careful were you build harbours, they count as transport capacity 4.

Army: stationary artillery is good for defending, mobile for attacking. Always keep some units in reserve, meaning do not shoot them while it is your turn, this way if the AI will attack you they will run into your fire. Units behind fortification take less damage unless the fortification gets destroyed.
Attacking, you have two goals: Winning and destroying as much units as possible. Why? The units which can retreat will go back to another province and you will have to fight them later (again). Meaning IF you attack a nation, plan to win everything in one row, so that the enemy units can not recover from their injuries.
Also sometimes retreat is a good option. If you can not directly take a province because of fortification, keep in mind, if you destroy all artillery from fortification, the fortification will be downgraded one level, all what you have to do, get THOSE artillery into the yellow, stay one more turn that they disappear and than retreat. next attack you will face a fortification one level lower.

Hope it helps ;)

Cool, a ton of good advice it's great, thank you very much to you, I suppose you had to play a lot of game. ;)

Honestly? I usually completely ignore the new world. I'll send a single ship just to map it out and that's it.

Concentrate on developing the wood, iron, and food in your own country. Getting a ton of cheap workers is way easier than training them up. It also lets you maintain a huge army.

Set all research to $0 and let spies do the rest.

Then declare war on minor nations as soon as you have an army that can take their capitals. Look for an opportunity to join a dogpile war against a great power with a valuable diamond/gem province in the new world (that's really the only time I bother with the new world).

For military, make a beeline to Galleons (single most valuable unit in the game) and musketeers (cheap ranged infantry is more effective on attack than mobile artillery).

My game improved HUGELY once I went with this strat. It's crazy how much higher your goods output, population, and military will go up. The only thing you'll lag behind a tad in technology. Soon you'll be able to catch up though.

That's a completely valid, workable strategy, which is one reason Imperialism II is such a good game. What works best is to focus on a single approach, no matter what that approach is, and try not to get distracted by all the other things you could try to do at the same time.

You're actually a perfect candidate to add fur monopolization to your game. It's a good NW technique for players who don't care much about the NW.

If you get a map with only two or three fur provinces, and you own all of them, you can turn a small nation into an unstoppable powerhouse - master workers don't need sugar or cigars, only hats. Ignore sugar and cigars and become a haberdasher.

Sorry, strongly disagree ;)

The easiest way is to declare war in the first turn. No pact/treaty afterwards will count for you. Meaning you can invade the smaller country without fearing any conflict with a major nation. (reason, war was declared prior to those treaties)

Declaring later war might get you into war with another major nation.

Not using research........hmmmm.... I admit never tried this.

And how many spies do you use for your tactic? (they are not so cheap either).

And on the other hand, sometimes having a few turns with a better tech can help you quite a bit, so I really would like to know ;)

Haven't tried declaring instant war. Wouldn't that cut off minor nations as trade partners to buy your shit? This strategy is pretty much the only one where trade actually matters.

The cost of spies is negligible next to getting research for free. Just fill up your research slots with techs that other nations have already researched, and put a spy in each nation on the list. Occasionally there will be an important tech you want but no one else has researched yet so you'll have to spend money researching it, but at least 80% of research I do for free with spies.

re:fur, I've never found upgrading workers to be that great. Each new level only gives you a single extra labor point (once you subtract the 2 labor cost of producing their luxury good every turn) and they're vulnerable to "starvation" if a war cuts off your supply of that luxury good. If I focus on developing grain in the old world, I've never found myself suffering a labor shortage using just unskilled workers. The only reason I bother researching the advanced worker techs at all is that they're required to unlock army units.

Funny enough, not to my experience. (at least not till you really attack).

But be warned that you shall not waste money/resources prior to invasion, those will be gone with the invasion.
As I try to get them joining my empire *cough* as fast as possible once I persuade them, not sure if the blockade is only triggered while or after sending the peace keeping troops over ;)

With the spies, I might give it a try. Always annoyed me, spending loads of money and just being a few turns quicker. AI seems to get an insane bonus. (or being programmed as a rubber-band-AI maybe? )

Labour shortage, kind of.......the later upgrades are becoming quite expensive (also labour wise / level 4 specific)

And to get enough food you need the minor nations (evilgrin).

getting cut off: placing harbours in a few places does help against this. No idea how it is calculated, but the more harbours you seem to have the less blockading seems to work. (and no not sure if only see-cities count and/or self-build ones as well for import AND export).

Spies let you set a research to $0 and still research it in 8-15 turns instead of 99.

Found an old, more detailed Imperialism 2 strategy I wrote.

https://www.gog.com/forum/imperialism_series/any_videos_anywhere_of_a_complete_playthrough_of_imp_1