Using the Age of Empires option, players can qualify for any Stage I objectives immediately and any Stage II objective after the third round.

The Imperial II SC says that as part of option a you can qualify for any number of Public Objective Cards.

So is all ISC II do is by pass the third round requirement? Seems a little less powerful. Don't see a whole bunch of 2nd or 3rd round wins in this game.

Honestly If someone can qualify for a stage 2 objective in the third round I would congratulate them. Remember that the Age of Empires variant is supposed to speed up gameplay. A thing that has helped our group complete games in a manageable time a lot. You also got the inbuilt timer which could make round three to be almost halfway through the game.

Ok I completely misread you post sorry(why cant I see the thread when posting?)

The Imperial II strategy card allows you to claim any number of public objectives that round. Normally you can only claim one public objective per round.

Since the Stage II public objectives cannot be claimed before the third round, I think that applies when using the Imperial II strategy card as well since those public objectives aren't able to be claimed at that time.