
Colonial Conquest (Geopolitical Conflict Simulation for one to six players)
Compatibility: 64K Apple II series
Requirements: one disk drive; joystick optional


     Since the advent of personal computer gaming there have been numerous attempts to capture the excitement, complexities, and back-stabbing intensity of war strategy/diplomacy boardgames. While a few offerings, "Dark Forest" and "Lordlings of Yore" for instance, have proved very entertaining, no computer game has seriously challenged the board favorites "Risk" and "Diplomacy". Now SSI, long respected for its battlefield simulations, has taken up the gauntlet. "Colonial Conquest" is a multi-player struggle for world domination set in the days when every major power lived by the motto: "Grom or be grommed"!

     A game of "'Conquest" always involves six players, one for each major colonial power: England, France, Germany, Russia, U.S.A., and Japan. Any or all positions may be human or computer directed. Your goal is grom up on enough minor and poorly managed major powers to achieve the preset victory score. Resources include armed forces, treasury, bases, and income producing holdings. The game employs six hires maps to cover the world and takes care of all record keeping (except, of course, secret agreements).

     Only a few minutes into a game I gradually began to recall why it is that I and other war strategy/diplomacy devotees conduct our geopolitical conflicts via boardgames. Naturally, fortifications, naval forces, provisions for espionage and subversion, and other such embellishments are welcome. Unfortunately, a nearly unreadable display renders the game, for practical purposes, unplayable. Ownership of an area is signified via color-keyed crosshatch patterns which blur into each other obscuring borders and obliterating naval base/fortification indicators. Hopefully SSI will recall "Colonial Conquest" perhaps with the aim of issuing a IIgs, upgraded display version.


Available from Strategic Simulations: 1046 N. Rengstorff Ave., Mountain View, CA 94043-1716. (415) 964-1353. $39.95


GRFX  S.M.  PLAY  DIFF  INTR  GAME
----------------------------------
 04    06    03    06    05    03

