From: "R. Koester" Subject: COM: Global Domination (was SSI Orgy) This is the second and probably the last of my reviews of the Definitive Wargame Collection bundle, since a good mass review was just done on this board. GLOBAL DOMINATION is almost always called a risk type game, which it is in the same way that History of the World, Axis and Allies, and Diplomacy are, in that you are one of several countries that try to take over an area based map with generic playing pieces. Each of the above games has a twist on the concept, and GD's is a tactical one. You build armies out of different kinds of forces (infantry, mech. infantry, airmobile infantry, light armor, heavy armor, light artillery, heavy artillery, air combat, air strike, air defense) and send them off to fight. They fight either in one abstract combat, a more prolonged abstract combat that can take several turns (and permits you to pull troops out at a penalty), or a miniatures-style combat. I have played almost exclusively with the middle option, as the first doesn't give much flavor and the third could cause the game to take forever (there are hundreds of battles per game). In this option, pieces take shots at each other somewhat randomly, with some pieces (infantry, for example) not able to shoot until enough "time" has passed for their weapons to become effective (for instance, air strikes can hit anybody right away, but infantry attacking infantry will forfeit early shots and infantry attacking heavy armor will forfeit even more). This works pretty well, with interesting strategies evolving, but of course lacks a feeling of control over the battle. You can have up to five opponents, chosen from historical personalities. Refreshingly, they seem inclined neither to line up and let you slaughter them one by one nor to all gang up on you at once. You can make alliances and offensive pacts with them, but whether they accept or not is completely out of your hands (no sweetners). It is playable with human opponents (modem or hot seat). The game takes place either on earth or a randomly generated world. Areas have an economic value ranging from one to three. There seems to be an area for every country in the world (except for the city-states) plus most of the individual United States and Canadian Territories (France, England, Australia, Germany, and, oh yeah, Russia, get multiple areas too). One interesting system is Revolt. Countries have unrest levels that respond to various conditions, particularly conquest and the use of special forces. Countries with high unrest pick away at their garrisons, and if the garrison is eliminated (or absent), they revolt. This causes the territory to be impassable for from a month to a year. Further, revolt is contagious, and it can be awe inspiring to see the much- fought over central asian or european plain suddenly throw all the imperialists out in one xenophobic rush. The movement system is unique among computer games, so far as I can tell. Each turn, you invest resources in buying land and sea movement for the next turn. In the early turns especially, this can be your largest expenditure, and thus calls for quite a bit of forethought. Naval combat is basically nil. To move over water, you occupy the end point of a shipping lane (printed on the map), and spend a naval point per turn to go to the other end. (this can take several turns). If someone is coming the other way, you have to invest more points. All in all, I thought it was quite a bit of fun, and may become more so once I learn how to use the miniatures system well. On the other hand, there are a few things that I find especially frustrating because they could so easily have been changed or made user definable: Setup: This is random, with about a quarter of the world's territories being scattered to the various players, the remainder starting neutral. This makes it difficult (though not impossible to set up historical and speculative-future political situations, which is really too bad, because the game could have been used as a WWII or WWIII simulator. And for gosh sakes, even the public domain Risk let's you choose starting positions. Victory: Like so many otherwise great games, this one forces you to take every single area in order to win, leading to either (a) 2+ hours of having beaten everybody but still not getting the victory screen yet or (b) unsatisfyingly quitting the game when you decide you're going to win. Games that admit defeat are all too rare. (Honorable mentions: Masters of Orion, No Greater Glory, and the Macintosh public domain game Empire Master). Another honorable mention for the Vikings/ Kingdoms of France/Kingdoms of Germany set, which let you set the victory threshold when you begin. I find this especially annoying in conquer-the-world games, since the chance of any entity actually controlling the whole planet at once is just about nil (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers notwithstanding). Unrest: Although I like the unrest system (even if, as a Miranda-design devotee, I would have liked a much more intricate and dynamic system), towards the end, once you have plenty of money, the special forces operations can become very reptitive and dull. On the other hand, that describes the whole game in the later turns. See Victory. Anyway, it's certainly worth giving a look, either by itself or in the bargain bins, for those who want a different spin on computer-empire games from Empire Deluxe and the great-but-dumb Command HQ. ______________ Bob Koester