This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Chuck Landry.

Remember that silly little game called Civilization? Remember how boring it sounded to control the growth of an ancient power, controlling its politics, technology, and army for years and years and years only to see how powerful it became in comparison to other emerging nations? It still sounds kind of boring but man was it a blast! Imperial Glory, developed by the very capable Pyro Studios team and published by Eidos (the house that Lara Croft built), can be thought of as the reincarnation of Civilization – updated for today’s demanding gamers.



I’ll be honest – I was expecting another generic RTS game when I opened the unassuming box that is Imperial Glory’s package. What I got on those three CDs was much, much more than a generic RTS (although that was in there, too). Playing Imperial Glory really took me back almost 10 years when I first played Civilization on a Windows 3.1x PC. It was that feeling of wasting hours on end with little to show for it other than some political progress yet feeling satisfied and even wanting more.

I spent a good 10 hours with the game’s campaign mode without fighting a single battle. My turns consisted of spending my gold on advancing my nation – be it by increasing trade and thus the amount of money I brought in per turn, focusing my nation’s researchers on the development of better equipment, or simply making political pacts with other foreign powers in my best interests. I avoided wars and was essentially the Switzerland of Eurasia. From the late 1700’s to 1830 my population spilled not a drop of blood yet was one of the three remaining powers left (from a starting pool of around 15). It’s that kind of game; if you want to start out attacking weak territories from the offset and expand your borders by force you may, or if you prefer to go my route and expand via negotiations and peaceful relations you’re equally free to do so. Either way you can enjoy yourself.

As I mentioned already there are about 15 or so countries represented when you begin a campaign in Imperial Glory. You can only choose to command five of them: England, France, Prussia, Russia, and Austria. From there the game is presented on a war board complete with chess piece-like tokens that you move around to represent your armies and ships. You’ll find yourself micromanaging everything from what buildings to start construction on and in which territories, where to create trade routes with connecting territories, which units to build to strengthen your armies, and which diplomatic offers (if any) you want to make to a foreign power. There are only four resources to worry about: gold, raw materials, population, and food (there are also research points but they are handled differently and take a backseat to the main four). The game is surprisingly complex and deep and you will never seem to have enough of every resource at the same time. Anytime you focus on anything, such as making farms so you have enough food to sustain your troops, you will certainly be neglecting something else like gold or creating a strong army.

This part of the game is played and presented like a turn-based strategy title. You take as long as you want on your turn. Some players will only take 15 seconds per turn while others might meticulously watch the situations of opposing countries and theoretically could take an hour per turn. After you are finished, the computer calculates the turn of each remaining country and one month passes. Repeat. The ultimate goal is of course to take over the world like those two rats from Animaniacs.

If you choose to use force Imperial Glory will show you it’s two other sides. The better of the two will be familiar to anyone who has played Sid Meier’s Pirates! on either Xbox or PC. Naval battles are real-time and are easy to play, though on the lengthy side. You can control your ship (don’t forget to watch the wind), tell your crew when and on which side to fire, and choose between three types of cannons. Depending on which you choose, you will damage either the enemy ship’s sails, the hull, or its crew. Land battles are also included and play out pretty much how you would expect, although they are surprisingly difficult compared to the rest of the game. You’ll need to know tactics such as using buildings as cover and which squad formations are best suited for each situation.

You can play the real-time strategy portion of Imperial Glory whenever you wish by simply skipping over the game’s campaign mode. You can battle it out to your heart’s content with the quick game mode or also against up to four friends with multiplayer over LAN or Internet. But I’m not sure you’ll get much out of those options. The real meat of the game is in its campaign mode. It’s addictive as all hell. Ask my neglected girlfriend.



At first Imperial Glory seems incredibly complicated. That’s probably because it is. After the three tutorials, my head was spinning like an MC Hammer record, which is a bad thing no matter which way you look at it. There are tons and tons of little details you’ll have to pick up along the way, but the good thing is it does become natural after a couple hours. The learning curve is a bit intimidating, though. The printed manual is only a few pages, but don’t overlook the 73-page behemoth in .pdf format that the game installs.

The only option I sorely missed was some form of multiplayer that incorporated all of the intricacies of the campaign mode, rather than seeing it limited to isolated battles. Even if it were done in a hot-seat manner I think it might have worked. In fact, I played most of the game with my roommate on the couch serving as High Council Advisor to my empire, and it was tons of fun for both of us. Keep in mind that there wasn’t much “action” in terms of explosions, blood, or even fighting yet we were still both stuck to our seats. The only way to feasibly implement a two-player campaign mode would have been to implement a time limit on each turn, though, and let the other human player control any AI armies that went into battle against the other human.

Finally, the real-time battles were sort of generic. There isn’t anything there we haven’t already seen. The ship battles are lengthy as hell sometimes (especially when the wind is fighting your movement) and that can get frustrating. The land battles, on the other hand, are pretty difficult and thus also frustrating. Luckily, in campaign mode you can opt to let the computer predict the outcome of each battle rather than manually control it all.



In the end, I was blown away by how much I enjoyed Imperial Glory. The box makes it look like it’s mainly a real-time strategy game but the real glory comes in the campaign mode, which heralds back to the days of Civilization. It’s one of those titles that just hooks you somehow. The graphics are above average but not groundbreaking yet the presentation is charming, and the same goes for the soundtrack and effects. Trust me, if you’ve got the time for an empire building simulation you will find that you won’t be able to explain exactly why you’ve told yourself “just one more turn and then I’ll say goodnight” so many times in the last five hours.

Some if it’s generic, some of it’s difficult, but its campaign mode is addictive as hell.

I’ve played tons of RTS titles and this is one of the sharpest looking.

The score is appropriate and sound effects effective although they take a backseat to gameplay.

Once you start it’s tough to stop. Campaign makes up for any shortcomings.

Campaign can be played with various strategies but multiplayer and battles don’t add much.

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