Many codes have been recorded on various websites for selecting a particular map in Imperialism. Most are "randomly" generated, but some of them, such as "Dune", seem to have been engineered to have a characteristic related to the code wording. Some are found in the .exe file (noted below as "Code name found in executable") - see comment.
Choosing a map using a key
Click the globe on the second (map room) screen while pressing a "Control" key. You then type in a replacement for the expression in the popup "map key" window to get a different map, which may have a specific characteristic. Names are case-sensitive and can contain up to 32 characters.
Finding the key during a game
If you start a game without using a map key, you can later discover the "planetary map generation key" by clicking the "Zoom" icon while holding down a Control key. That may also show you the game's version number, e.g. "v. 1.1". Best to save your game first in case you get the "zoom bug" crash.
Far-from-exhaustive list
Please record more here when you find a map that looks really interesting or has a very strong GP: do the "Ctrl+Click" on the globe when the map appears, and the key for it will be visible: write it down then check out the available GPs, noting which have advantages or disadvantages (and note it briefly here, with a link to its own detailed page, as, for example, [[Fidmech]], which jumps to the Fidmech article).
- The wiki software starts each pagename with either a number or a capital letter, so we will have pages that cover the capitalized and non-capitalized keys. To separate them, we can have page names such as Key coonwist.
- (Some of these appeared also on a webpage headed "Imperialism II"; need checking to see which description fits Imp1 and which fits Imp2.)
| Key | Comments | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 051195 | All GPs except purple have lots of resources. | ||||
| 1815 | Wide range of continental arrangements; purple looks good sharing with only three MNs, and User:David4k advises you to choose a capital in a province that does not have resources useful in town development | ||||
| 71264 | Green GP has resource advantage. | ||||
| Antarctica | Most land is covered in tundra. Green and Red have no orchards. Code name found in executable. "Play the green nation on Nigh on Impossible. Good luck with having 0 apple orchards. Muahahhahaha." (This from tempe85 on zetaboards.) | ||||
| Bimboss | Three GPs each have nothing but 4 or 6 MNs sharing their continents; one GP has an island to itself; the other three are the only occupants of one island | ||||
| Brete | "Red. Lots of timber, coal, iron, and gold. Only two cotton and one wool. I build the capital next to one of the cottons and short myself on grain. Just a short distance over to the next province for timber and connection. There are several other good timber provinces. You will need a depot-port combination to get at your two excellent steel provinces. One of them has two coal and three iron. You can get a hardware just with level one mining and ultimately two hardware and four steel from the province. Brete has gold but none in convenient locations." (This from davidk on zetaboards.) Three of the minor nations list their exports as merely (1) cotton, (2) wool: an unusually restricted combination, though it is better than nothing, which is the apparent export list of the MN that has a standard name of "Idolon". | ||||
| bushwhacker | Any GP: lots and lots of timber (from Neoseeker: "Submitted by: THEFIREFLY on November 19, 2002") | ||||
| Cen | "I am winning with Cen. I play the blue nation (isolated with 4 minors), but the yellow original provinces are better (coal + iron + timber). My capital (blue) was on a river next to two mountains with gold. Beside one timber per turn, there is a quick access to timber two tiles away. With blue I conquered all minors on my continent " - from Archimed on Zetaboards; much more detail and replies there | ||||
| Congo | A map mostly covered in hardwood forests. Code name found in executable. | ||||
| Coonwist | Deneb (yellow GP) is stated to have grossly unfair advantages. See comments. | ||||
| Dune | Mostly desert and tundra (from Neoseeker and CheatCC); light blue shares a continent with seven MNs but has no grain farm and not many bare plains and only one fruit, with the nearest grain farm in Manx to the east; green is not much better but can build a capital with a grain farm and shares a continent with five MNs. Code name found in executable. | ||||
| Earth | One of the great powers is alone on a super continent with 8 of the minor nations. See http://s1.zetaboards.com/Imperilist/topic/5037251/ for more details. That characteristic is not unique. | ||||
| Eclectia | One great power has lots of farms and orchards; another has almost all swamps; another has almost all hills; etc. Code name found in executable. | ||||
| Eden | World map is mostly covered in farms and orchards. Code name found in executable. | ||||
| Eldorado | - from das_hs on Zetaboards | ||||
| Everglades | Lots of swamps. (This from splashinpool on zetaboards.) Code name found in executable. | ||||
| Eyfege | "... Kem (Red). Very good ressources despite weak capitol' potential locations. You will also love your neighbors ressources (lumber for Haxaco and mines and steel for Zimm). [I was quite sure that I found this map key on the Internet, but when I google it, I do not find anything..]" - from TheImp on Zetaboards, Sep 2014 | ||||
| Fidmech | Blue GP shares a continent with just six MNs, four of them adjacent to it, and it has several good port sites, lots of timber, and a fair sprinkling of food but only a few resources for fabric and steel | ||||
| frogcity | Green GP has lots of iron and even more scrub forest and quite a bit of coal with some gems, but coal and gems are not accessible till railroads can go through hills (i.e. till you get Compound Steam Engine in about 1837), so prepare to invade a minor nation! | ||||
| Hengtom | User:David4k studied Red, giving detailed analysis of how to maximize the value of Town development - see Hengtom (Imp1)/Red | ||||
| Hiynad | "Red country seems balanced resources with 3 good MNs on the same continent. 1xIron and 1xCoal is low but MN neighbours has lots of them." (from Canaris on Zetaboards) | ||||
| Holloxtast | "Red. Build your capital on the river close to the timber province. You can quickly build a depot giving you timber and establishing the province connection. The province has four hardwoods and five scrubs. You also have two provinces for hardware and one for clothing." (This from davidk on zetaboards.) | ||||
| Hothor | Green GP balanced resources (from Neoseeker and CheatCC) | ||||
| Kansas | World has only two iron deposits and not much fruit or timber. Mostly flat, with lots of cotton, cattle, and dry plains. Code name found in executable. "(There are only two iron mines in the whole world). One is in the light blue country. The countries without are pretty much minor countries. Orchards and Timber are also scarse. Horses, cattle and cotten are plentiful." (This from splashinpool on zetaboards.) | ||||
| Key | Yellow GP shares a continent with six MN's, three of them are directly adjacent and all three have abundant minerals. GP has only three seas, although you might want to make colonies of your three neighbors and guard other seas. GP has enough resources to build a strong economy. On Zetaboards, davidk said "Key with the yellow GP (Deneb) produces the strongest country that I have ever seen. Deneb shares the continent in a central position with six Minor Nations. Deneb borders only three sea areas. If you decide to make colonies of your three adjacent Minor Nations, then you will have all the resources you need . Not only does Deneb contain a good balance of plentiful resouces, but resources are also grouped for good industrialization. One example is a province with four timber, two coal, two iron, and one cotton. The coal and iron can produce an industrialization level of two for steel and hardware, regardless of the availability of Square-Set Timbering. Three good provinces can be connected and producing before the first election. A fourth province, containing three cotton/wool, will usually be also connected by that time, but a very late availability for Iron Bridges might delay that result." | ||||
| Kidasticks | Red GP balanced resources (from Neoseeker and CheatCC) | ||||
| LumberPlenty | Red GP lots of timber | ||||
| Meyfoshom | "using yellow. Good balanced resources with close good Minor nations. One port requires a port, but no depot needed, to connect the province. Another port will help support reaching getting your country connected. I placed the Capital up north close to two good timber provinces, but the default Capital is also pretty good." - davidk on Zetaboards, Dec 2013 | ||||
| Mirkwood | Map covered in forests, both hard and scrub. Code name found in executable. | ||||
| Nar | "Green. Lots of free things. Close to your capital there is a row of three mountains. The mountains have coal/gold, gold, and iron/gold. The three early gold mines makes this the easiet random map that I know to play on hard or impossible. " (This from davidk on zetaboards.) | ||||
| Nepal | A map mostly covered in mountains. Code name found in executable. See also Ocpal. | ||||
| Nirbuch | "with orange (Devron). This one looked worth trying because I could use some short rail builds to connect two big timber provinces and a wool province to the capital. Gets industrialization going very quickly. There was also another big timber province and the province with hills has three coal, two iron, and one gold. Enough timber to eventually be self-sufficient. The AI strategy for capital placement is largest amount of food, what a disaster on this map because their capital is blocked by hills and the only province that can be connected with a port has only three timber." - from davidk on Zetaboards | ||||
| Ocpal | Same code as Nepal and same map except that most of the mountains are replaced by normally-distributed terrains. ("Neped" is identical or nearly so.) | ||||
| Pethgahns | "as Devron (Orange). OK ressources and once again you will love yours neighbors ressources (Ordune has a lot of mines and steel). Globally there are plenty of steel producing provinces in great powers' territories (2 for Devron, 3 for Ordune, 2 for Zimm, 2 for Patagon and 1 for Haxaco)." - from TheImp on Zetaboards, Sep 2014 | ||||
| Pippin | Red GP lots of coal and iron (from Neoseeker and CheatCC) | ||||
| Robin | Four large or medium-sized continents close together, none having just one nation; no outstanding GP and all have less-than-perfect starts | ||||
| Scotland | Lots of hills. Code name found in executable. (from Neoseeker and CheatCC). Keys with the same value, such as "Scotlamf", are the same amongst themselves but are quite different from this. | ||||
| Siberia | A map mostly covered in scrub forest. Code name found in executable. | ||||
| StandardCode | Red and yellow GPs have good resources | ||||
| Teacklete | "Another map key I like is Teacklete with red and green, green has lots of lumber and red has three steel provinces. Neither red nor green have horses." - davidk on Zetaboards | ||||
| Unwun | "Red. Very balanced. Two clothing provinces, one hardware, and several furniture, a few gold." (This from davidk on zetaboards.) | ||||
| Yucatan | A map mostly covered in scrub forest. Code name found in executable. | ||||
| zYdAimp | Used in the second of the Imperialist forum Competition games - did it finish? |
Procedural notes
A page name that is just a simple map key should be an overview page listing pages in Imperialism and Imperialism 2, maybe in the category of the same name, with the game-specific page then using the game-specific suffix. See example at Coonwist. For the basic page with no introduction, just type "{{overview}}" on the blank editing screen. When creating the Imperialism page, just type {{subst:imp1key}} then publish then edit as you wish.
See also
- Map key/values
- Joe subpage for list in June 2013 posting to Imp list by joemithiran"at"yahoodotco.uk
- {{Imp1key}} for easy page creation
- Map key (Imp2)
External links
- Page with some of above and more, on zetaboards - still active in 2014; CC-BY-SA licensing, which allows us to copy it with acknowledgment, as for Copying from Wikipedia
- NeoSeeker map keys noted above
- CheatCC list - all are on the Neoseeker page, but who was first? These were apparently added to the CheatCC site on September 1, 1998
- GameFAQs page with some of the above