The layout of this blog and the forum has been aligned. I am particularly proud of the additional navigation line in the phpbb header. I will populate it with links soon. Elsewhere the design on the google code wiki is continueing. It is a tough nut to crack so far. I am worried that the game will not be that much fun and I simply want the best (not wasting the time for programming later). The original Imperialism was good but had many mediocre features. Some can be improved easily, others are more difficult. For example the whole economic/trading/influence system and the diplomatic hegemony system over minor nations is still not thought through.

So, work will continue and when coding starts I will also go for a public advertising attack. Stay tuned. 🙂

Let’s introduce the purpose of this project a little more. The aim is to recreate the classical SSI Imperialism game from 1997. It delivered a unique feeling of combining industrial, militaric and diplomatic power to outrun your rivals and finally rule the world. The original still runs: the DOS version in DOSBox, the Win version with compatibility mode even in Win 7. However buying it is difficult nowadays, used copies go for around 20-40$ over the counter on ebay. The rights will probably be at Ubisoft who dissolved SSI after taking them over.

Also nowadays some aspects of the game show its age. Other nuisances are based on design flaws like the not so diverse tactical fights, overpowering artillery combined with a bad militaric AI, or unsatisfying diplomacy.

It is reason enough to start an open source project to revive this classic in a modern outfit and with fresh ideas. Of course every help is strongly welcome. Even the tiniest bit of discussion of the game concept will make a difference. I’ll indicate best ways to help in a following post.

For now, I wish us a successful project that will bring back this strategy classic and even improve on it!