From: Skip Franklin Subject: COMP: Conquered Kingdoms review Conquered Kingdoms (CK) is a QQP computer game. DOS but survives ALT-TAB just fine in Win '95. Here is the advert on the back. * Plunge into a medieval world where only strategy and tactics can save you from becoming one of the conquered. * Strategically maneuver cavalry, archers, swordsmen or wizards, dragons & phantoms * 9 scenarios * Optional modem play * A random map generator for countless battle scenes. There are three basic ways to play CK. You can make a random map and take on your opponent, attack on any of the 9 pre-generated maps or enter Cascatia, a campaign game that uses the pre-generated maps. Cascatia has seven campaign maps, small (16 counties) to large (120 counties). You select a county on the campaign map as your home territory and then select a county to fight in. Some counties provide bonus charaters or gold that are added to your army every battle. At least eight (one is the computer) royal players may keep statistics of win/loss on each map. Random maps are one category and Cascatia campaign maps don't count, just the battle maps. When starting a new battle the players may decide if the damage caused is random or fixed; if a short, normal or long game is desired; if the fantasy creatures will be used; normal or small forces will be fielded; if normal, alternate or a single start city will be allowed; and the difficulty level. As far as I can tell, the difficulty level allows better placement of the computer opponent but they may also get better or more pieces. There are few different types of units in CK. To make these units you must "mine" gold, wood and coal then purchase the units. Gold can be used for anything but it is cheaper to buy the units with wood, coal AND gold. For instance, Knights can be bought for four gold OR two gold and two coal. Here is a description from the manual for each unit. Conventional Units: Knight - Good powerful units. Archers have no effect on knights. Knights can invade the gate square of an enemy castle. Swordsman - Cheap basic unit good for holding towns, castles and resources. It is the only ground unit that travels 2 through woods. Use of roads increases the normal movement from 2 to 3. Swordsman can invade the gate square of an enemy castle. Cavalry - Fastest land unit except spy with a movement of 5. Good strong piece. Archers - Fires with a range of 2. Great offensively against drag-ons. Archers are the only unit that can fire while loaded on boats. Archers should avoid knights and gargoyles! Lancers - Will kill cavalry outright without taking damage in return. Catapults - Fires with a range of 3, ineffective against cavalry, but normally kills archers outright. Catapults cannot return fire in hand to hand combat. Use of roads increases the normal movement from 2 to 3. Can bombard castles. Boats - Can transport most units, moves 5. The most effective piece against boats is catapults. Only archers have any effect when loaded on boats. Spy - Very exotic piece. Can see out 6 instead of 3 like all other pieces. Cannot be seen by an enemy unit unless it is in the same square. Moves 6. Kills 12 of an officer. A very sneaky piece. Fantasy (Advanced) Units: Gargoyles - Flies over anything. Kills Archers outright without incurring damage. Cannot move into or attack units in an enemy-owned castle’s keep. Troll - Regenerates 4 hit points per turn if not dead. Trolls can invade the gate square of an enemy castle. Rog - Can walk on water without boat and is effective against boats in combat. Ogre - The Ogre has a combat range of 1 square. Ogres can invade the gate square of an enemy castle. Phantom - If an enemy within 3 squares of your Phantom attacks your unit then it will be scared so that only so that only one half of the normal damage will result (Dragons are not affected by Phantoms). This piece only moves 2 squares per turn. Wizard - As a regular unit the wizard has a range of 3 and is very effective. The wizard uses special abilities which when used dissipate maria (which regenerates 1 per turn or 2 while wizard in a castle keep). Can bombard castles. Wizards have the following unique abilities. 1) Fireball: costs 9 mana, will cause 8 damage to every unit in target and adjacent squares. 2) Enhanced Vision: costs 3 mana, sees out 15 squares including spies. 3) Teleportation: costs 7 mana, Takes unit in same square plus first piece in adjacent squares around it and can move them up to 15 squares away. Dragon Flies over anything with a movement rate of four. 32 hit points are needed to kill a dragon. When attacking square will damage both pieces. Cannot enter keep of an enemy owned castle but can bombard them. To start a battle you will be prompted to select from 1 to 3 cities. These starting are the most important part of this game. If you don't start near the resource squares you won't be able to build new units. (Did I mention that this game doesn't have hexes but offset squares that work just like hexes?) If you don't select a city near a castle you can't place any newly built units on the map. The game is simple in nature using a paper, rock scissors relationship of units. If you use all Knights you might win but Kights and Cavalry may win. Lancers kill Cavalry outright, Knights, Gargoyles, and Dragons easily kill Archers but Archers can put a big hurt on dragons. Combined Arms will win the day but Dragons can do major damage to anybody. They are like having M1A1's, expensive, fast and powerful. There are other neat aspects of the game. Castles are 9 squares of defense terrain with the center square being the keep which only certain units can enter if controlled by the enemy. Dragons, Catapults and Wizards can bombard the Keep while Knights and Swordsmen storm the gate and Dragon's and Gargoyles fly over the walls to attack the outer defenses. Credits Original game design: Bruce Williams Zaccagnino, Thurston Searfoss Software development: Thurston Searfoss Computer requirements: 12 MHz AT, EGA/VGA, 3.5 Meg space on hard drive. This game can be had rather cheaply in places. I also found a free copy on issue 9 of Interactive Entertainment CD-ROM Magazine. I'd give this game an 7 on Graphics, 8 on Entertainment and a 9 on Replay Value. This game is on the Skip List(c). -- Skip Franklin Grognard Wargamer wargamer@swbell.net