Imperialism downloads


The following is a collection of files related to Imps 1 and 2. For inquiries, or to have a file added, contact imp@adistantmirror.com

Other resources are:

  1. The wiki at http://imperialism.wikia.com
  2. The Imp subreddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/Imperialism_Frog_City
  3. Imperialism Remake Project
  4. Imperialism Remake Community

Imp1


Imp2

A new map for Imp2, based on Britain during the period of the heptarchy.

Playable powers: Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, Jorvik, Normandy, and Ulaidh. 

320Kb zip file. Unzip into the ‘Data’ folder in the Imp2 program folder.

It’s probably best played with with a non-precious, copied Imp2 folder…. (I find that the game works fine if I just copy the folder). Just copy the two .gob files and the Euro1500 folder into the ‘Data’ folder.

The Euro1500 folder contains the actual map files, and the .gob files contain all the text strings, including the country and province names.

The two .gob files are actually the same file with two different names – as far as I can work out, the U.S. version of the game and the version for the rest of the world read different files, so I’ve just included the same file under both names. I’m guessing that Imp.exe will just read the file it wants…

As for the map, every playable country has a strength and a weakness – e.g. they might have not much iron, or not much copper, they might have more iron than their neighbour,  etc….. except Normandy, which has everything, so, in theory at least, it should be the easiest power to play. The idea is that each major power should (hopefully) require quite different planning.

Also, no playable powers except Normandy and Ulaidh have horses, and the two Irish minors have them. And if you want tin, you pretty much need to talk to Dumnonia (Cornwall).

The layout of the powers, both playable and minor, is a rough version of Britain in the era of the heptarchy. If you just want to jump a few hundred years, and invade the whole joint 1066-style, play as Normandy.

Because there’s no way to hack the actual gameplay, I’m playing around with seeing whether resource distribution can influence the AI’s strategies. That’s why, for example, I’ve made the initial food layout for each player pretty tight– so the AI has to concentrate on getting food sorted, before doing anything else. I’ve tried to make life hard for them to start with. I thought that if all the great powers have to do some basic housekeeping before their wheels fall off, it might delay the land grab in the New World (which I’ve always thought happens too quickly, and doesn’t leave sufficient time for a diplomatic game….) … so far I’ve found that it works, and the rush to invade the New World doesn’t seem to happen so early.

It’s a pity that all the resources are displayed on the map. It’s the same in the official Europe map – I think it would be much better if the resources were all hidden and needed to be searched for, as in the randomly generated maps…

Misc.

  • ResHacker is a small utility which will open, view, edit and save the .gob files which Imp uses. The text strings (country and province names, etc) which Imp2 uses are in “str#eng.gob” and “str#enu.gob”. These are essentially the same file with different names; one is read by the US version of the game, and the other is read by the international version. ResHacker will also open the .gob files which Imp1 uses. In Imp1’s case, the .gob files also contain all the graphics and sprites.

18 Comments

  1. How timely, I just started playing Imp1 two weeks ago. Has anyone been able to get CDROM music to work with just available download?

    • music is directplay from cd.
      if you’re not skilled… NO

      else if you’re not good in adjusting your hardware settings then NO, play it from file (download music) or search youtube for it.

    • It is only possible with original CD and original installation, as far as I know. I made it work like this:
      * Bought original Imperialism box (German version unfortunately, as I live in Germany) from e-bay.
      * Ripped the CD into a .cue and .bin file on my old laptop with a CD-ROM drive using a CD-Ripper which can also rip audio tracks (not all rippers can do that).
      * Copied the .bin and .cue to my new laptop.
      * Set up a 86box machine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vlR7ERRDT4&ab_channel=Retr0Rewind) and installed Windows 98 SE into it.
      * Googled and found imperialism v1.1 update for german version, only one site has it.
      * Mounted the ripped imperialism .cue to the 86box.
      * Installed imperialism into the 86box instance.
      * Updated the exe using the v1.1 updater.
      * Installed Cinepak codec using Win98 Add/Remove Hardware interface.
      * Started Imperialism within the 86box instance.
      * Adjusted video scaling, full screen ratio etc.

      It seems cumbersome, but it is worth it. Because for me the music is important, I especially love the music that plays during battle reports.

  2. Hey DM, looks great, just a couple of questions:

    I downloaded both Imp1 and 2, both run fine, but I can’t tell if either is pre-patched.

    When I click on properties > details on the .exe files, both seem to indicate they may be patched (product version 1.1 and 1.0.0.3, respectively), but in-game I can’t find any reference to the patch number on either (I particularly remember seeing 1.03 in Imp 2 previously).

    Additionally when I try to patch either I get the same error: “Old file not found. However a file of the same name was found. No update done since file contents do not match.”

    Any light you could shine on whether the game is already patched or not or if we need to change something for the patch to update would be much appreciated 🙂

    No rush though, thanks for your hard reorganizational efforts!

    • Justin, yes, they’re both patched already. Those numbers that you see on the property tabs of the .exe files are correct. No worries re the reorganizing, hopefully it’ll be of use to folks 🙂 – David

  3. Thanks for all your work DM! I rarely posted on Yahoo, but looked in from time to time. Imp2 is still one of my all time favorite games. Every year or so, I return to it for another go.

    Are the old threads from Yahoo going to make it here too?

  4. It looks like there is a collection of maps for Imp2 available to download. Can someone tell me how to download and install these (step by step please)

  5. I have , in addition to the Imp2 maps included under Imp2-maps above, Revised Europe and Revised Europe – Denmark. I don’t know who created them, and haven’t played them. Are they of interest?

  6. Wow, this page is great. I love playing Imp1 and 2, can’t even say which one is better. The different maps / mods are really interesting, just played some in Imp1 and just downloaded the Imp2 maps. I would love to edit/manipulate a little myself, Any hint where I could start educating myself? not a lot to do now anyways thanks to corona… I started looking at .map files with notepad++, but no idea how to manipulate things there..

    any help is welcome 🙂

    • just tried the “Italy” Map – it’s cool that you can play italy, but the names are all wrong – the city names in italy are the portugese and vice versa. Did I miss something or is this a known bug?

      Any chance to make Germany playable?

      • Hi Berny, there would be a way to make Germany playable, i.e. the modding software could do it.

  7. Hi, custom maps for imp 1 are not avaliable. It shows

    “403
    Forbidden
    Access to this resource on the server is denied!”

    ;(((

Comments