Impressiveness in Black and White 2 and its expansion, Battle of the Gods, is a town modifier. It tends to impact how big your influence ring is, how happy or not your villagers are, and is the only other way to capture towns, aside from by using force.
Building Impressiveness[]
All buildings in Black and White contribute a base amount of units of impressiveness (when a building is finished), which adds to the total impressiveness of the settlement it's built within (if all other impressiveness modifiers have a net value of 0).
Overall impressiveness (modifiers) of a building, can be determined/affected by the following:
- Location: If a building is placed on higher ground, or is on a cliff, it will add impressiveness to the building. However, if its at the base of a cliff, or is on lower ground, or on an otherwise bland or unsightly area, it will have negative effects on impressiveness.
- Number of same buildings nearby: If you have a pre-existing building of the same kind nearby (example: two villas), this will slightly lower their overall impressiveness; the more copies of the same building type, that are near to each-other, the more intense the decrease to impressiveness; this encourages thoughtful settlement and city building/planning.
- It is unconfirmed, if & when the total number of the same building, at whatever quantity of same-buildings, starts affecting the impressiveness of subsequent buildings (perhaps dependent on first reaching a sort of arbitrary, unknown, but specific quantity, of same-buildings in an area).
- Happiness, (industrial) productivity, and other modifiers: Impressiveness is also affected by how much happiness each nearby building provides, and how much productivity buildings yield, though this does not affect it very noticeably or substantially.
Impressiveness to Capture Rivaling Settlements[]
All towns and settlements, player-controlled or NPC, have an impressiveness value, determined based on a calculation that takes into account the town's impressiveness, population, (in the case of NPC settlements) its town center's effective distance from your town, its happiness (and, most likely, a static/base amount of impressiveness, added in afterwards to increase difficulty, depending on the land the settlement is in, and/or whether or not the settlement is presently controlled by the enemy), and/or if it is the capital city of that land.
All these factors considered, the game calculates the town's impressiveness, in which, if your settlement's impressiveness exceeds that of a settlement not under your control, you gain the favor of that settlement's populace, causing them to migrate to your nearest settlement or capital.
It is possible that a city's impressiveness also partially dictates how difficult it is for platoons of your soldiers, depending on your platoon sizes and how veteran they are, to forcefully capture a settlement.
Impressiveness is usually the easiest, most inadvertent way to win, seeing as you easily grow your impressiveness just by your settlements being grown in population and in expanse of buildings, & keeping your villagers pleased.
However, if it gets to the point where all your villagers wish for, is embellishment buildings, and buildings that add over 1,000 impressiveness... in that case, it may not be so cost-efficient anymore to try and capture settlements with your impressiveness, but rather easier to win by waging warfare, with the help of your booming metropolis' population.