Your goal is to build the Empire through conquest, diplomacy, and trade (which is all-important in the game, since your country does not have the resources to be self-sufficient). Your role is as one of the world's Great Powers eager for world domination. Extracting these resources and maximizing your production is as involving and as challenging as anything this side of Capitalism and while that may not be everyone’s cup of tea (and the learning curve can be steep), Imperialism treats its subject with such care and detail that hard-core strategy gamers can’t help but be delighted. Different natural resources - foodstuffs, iron, coal, timber and cotton - are essential for fueling the empire, for creating the trade goods, and cannons necessary for survival. One of the best strategy games ever made, Imperialism is the rare turn-based game that strikes a near-perfect balance between economics, diplomacy, and military action set in a fictitious 19th century world.Īs in the real world, success depends on the ability to manage the economics - you can’t drive a war machine for long without a robust economy under the hood.

Turn based games for mac