Conquest of the New World

Overview

Conquest of the New World was a turn-based strategy game developed by Quicksilver Software and published by Interplay Entertainment in 1996. The game was set in the Americas during the era of European exploration, colonization, and conquest of the continent. Players could choose from 5 European and 1 generic Native faction to vie for control of a landmass that was uniquely generated for each game according to preferences set by the player.

The game never received a true sequel, but a Deluxe Edition was released with additional content.

Campaign

At the beginning of the game, the player starts out with a few weak military units, explorers and a settler. The entire map is blacked out, much like Sid Meier's Civilization series. In fact, the game could be viewed as a Civilization clone in most of its aspects. Players explore and expand, sending out settlers to found new colonies. The desirability of colony cites is based on the local resources that exist in the future colony's borders, which are limited and expandable up to 4 levels of development. You can expect to have to 'relocate' local native tribes for prime real estate, and things get really sticky when you encounter the other AI controlled factions, which literally always resort to instant, incessant warfare to achieve victory. While the option exists, diplomacy is totally worthless in this game, another hallmark of most strategy games which tout multiple paths to victory, when in actuality it all boils down to who can build up their military the fastest. Victory is achieved after all factions are defeated or a certain high score is reached; interestingly, players can continue building their empires even after victory is achieved.

The game took a few notable departures from Civilization, such as physical strategic placement of settlement structures. The longer attacks last on a colony, the more damage is done to the buildings of the colony, and the first buildings to be damaged and eventually destroyed are the ones facing the direction of the attack. Forts take much longer to destroy, encouraging the player to build them on the edge of colony borders and thus protecting the colony from attack. European factions also had to eventually declare independence from the 'mother country,' they were encouraged to do so by ever increasing taxes and demands being levied from across the Atlantic. The resulting war for independence could be short and sweet or prolonged and bitter, depending on random factors and the game difficulty setting. Players also received victory points for discovering and naming natural landmarks such as rivers and mountains. Names could be historic or as unique (read: inappropriate) as the player liked.

Turn Based Battles

Conquest of the New World features turn based battles between units moved on a 3X4 grid. Battles may be initiated during the campaign game or through a quick-battle option found in the Gold Edition of Conquest of the New World. Opposing sides take turns moving or firing units with the goal of either completely destroying the enemy army or to forcing them to retreat by seizing the enemy player's flag, which is found in the back middle square of each player's side of the battlefield. The number of moves a player may make is determined by the level of leadership present on the battlefield.

Units are produced by cities during the campaign game and carry over experience from previous engagements. There are three types of units: Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery; and each of these have distinctive combat characteristics. Infantry are inexpensive damage-sponges and are most effectively used with the support of the other types of units. Cavalry are faster units that are capable of moving and firing on he same turn. Artillery are expensive support units that may fire multiple squares down the column of squares they are deployed in.

Units in Conquest of the Empire may combine attacks, and receive bonuses for combining the types of units involved in an attack and for attacking from multiple squares simulatenously (flanking). For example, 6 infantry units firing straight ahead one square are much less effective than 2 infantry firing from 1 square, 1 artillery firing from 2 squares away, and 1 cavalry unit firing from the side.

System Requirements (PC)

Minimum

• OS : Windows XP / Vista
• Processor : 1 GHz processor
• Memory : 512 MB RAM
• Graphics : 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7
• Hard Drive : 95 MB available space

Recommended

• OS : Windows XP / Vista
• Processor : 1.4 GHz processor
• Memory : 1 GB RAM
• Graphics : 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 9
• Hard Drive : 95 MB available space

System Requirements (Mac)

Minimum

• OS : OS X 10.6.8 or newer
• Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz+
• Memory : 2 GB RAM
• Graphics : 64 MB VRAM
• Hard Drive : 95 MB available space