After each turn, you see the Colonial Gazette which lists historical facts and stories of the approximate era you're experiencing. Some of these were completely new to me. For example, I never knew that when sailors traveling to the New World ran out of water, they used their own urine to wash their clothes. A daunting prospect to say the least but a very interesting bit of information. Facts about Columbus' popularity are also given and provide a new perspective to the history of Columbus.
Not only do you learn in this game but it's also a lot of fun. The game has many natural wonders just waiting for you to discover. Wheat and cornfields, gold and iron veins and medicinal herbs are just a few of the examples of what you'll find while exploring. The many different discoveries you encounter make the game very intriguing and keep you playing for hours on end. I found myself playing Conquest of the New World: Deluxe Edition for a very long time due to its addictive nature and the need to discover "what's out there" while waiting for the next great battle.
Gameplay can be very slow paced and for that very reason, makes you want to keep playing. Having said that, from the beginning to near the end, you won't fight that many battles and not a whole lot of action will occur. Your colonies only get raided every so often. When this happens, you must battle the raiding party with your troops but this is a rare occurrence and usually not a huge threat.
You find yourself playing the middle part of the game only as a means to witness the action at the end. This can get very boring at times and the designers could certainly have enhanced this portion to make it more exciting. The climax of the entire game occurs when you declare independence. It's here you finally fight a lot of battles or a final one.
The diplomacy in the game is nicely detailed and brings another level of interest to gameplay. Once each nation discovers your colony, they will establish diplomatic relations. Liam McDonald posted an excellent review that should convince everyone of how great the game is: "If the release of Conquest of the New World Deluxe does nothing else, it should reacquaint people with a sadly neglected gem of historical strategy gaming.
A far more entertaining experience than Sid Meier's Colonization [ uhh, I wouldn't go that far-- Underdogs ], Conquest puts you in the role of French, Dutch, English, Spanish, or Portuguese explorers in a "new world," with an option to play as Natives as well. In the grand old tradition of conquest games, you begin by landing on an unexplored piece of land, and must push back the black veil over the map by sending your explorers, settlers, and soldiers fanning out over the countryside. The landscapes these explorers will find are some of the best rendered in any such game to date, with mountains, rivers, valleys, and plains all done in amazing detail and a zoom feature that can take you right into the dirt.
An especially fun twist is the option of naming any new geographical features you may find mountains, rivers and getting credit in the form of points for their discovery. Also found in the countryside are various natural resources such as gold and metal, with the Deluxe edition containing new productivity-boosting items like gems, jade, mines, and medicinal herbs.
The point is to settle a good region that can support crops, colony expansion, mining, and possibly add a production bonus through proximity to special resources. This settlement will grow over the game as you build farms, mills, smiths, churches, houses, and other structures to increase your population, income, and the overall success of the colony. One particularly fascinating element of Conquest is the ability to zoom right into these settlements and watch them up close, playing with various levels of productivity, moving people from one job to another, and generally playing god with their little lives.
Of course, you'll need to protect these settlements and create a military force to expand and conquer the rest of the continent. To do this you can build infantry, calvary, and artillery, attach them to leaders, and send them out across the country side spoiling for a fight.
These battles are done in short, novel combat sequences that resemble a cross between miniature wargames and chess. The soldiers appear on a small grid, and fast, turn-based sequences let you move across the grid and attack the enemy - choosing exactly how you group your men and where they attack. It's simple to understand and adds a good combat element without upsetting the general pacing of the game.
The general pacing, however, is the big problem with this game. There is a mid-game sag as your explorers fan out and get the measure of the new land.
The structure of the financial and building systems makes it hard to maintain two good settlements during this exploration time, and too often turn after turn passes as you simply explore and build up the colony. A new trade element in the Deluxe edition reduces this problem a bit, since it allows you to form trade alliances with other units on the map and have more sophisticated control over the flow of goods between colonies.
If you complete your turn while this number is still black positive , you will earn the indicated number of victory points as a bonus for quickly finishing the turn.
If the number is red negative by the time your turn is complete, that many victory points will be deducted from your score. When you wish to move your units, you may cycle to your next unattached unit see Units chapter by clicking on the Next button at the top of the Game screen.
When all your unattached units have used up their movement allotments, this button will be grayed out. You may cycle through selected unit types by using the F1 through F4 buttons on your keyboard:. Note: The Next button will not take you to each of your colonies. To cycle through your colonies in order to manage them, use the F1 key.
Your first mission is to establish landfall and start exploring the New World. To disembark units from your Ship, click on the Ship. Then either click on Disembark All to move everyone off the Ship at once, or click on the Cargo button, highlight the unit you wish to leave the Ship, and click on the Disembark button. Your Explorers can move farther and more easily over all terrain types than any other unit.
Select an Explorer by clicking on it and direct it where to go by dragging it to another spot on the map. It will do its best to get there in the most efficient way possible. Note: Units cannot cross lakes or walk on ocean squares.
You may also change your destination by clicking on the unit even while moving and dragging it elsewhere. For more efficient exploration, hold down the CTRL key while units move.
If you click on the Game screen with the CTRL key depressed, the moving unit will start moving towards that spot. This is a very fast and efficient way to explore unknown territory especially when you are trying to follow a new landmark such as a river or mountain range. The unit will automatically explore local areas for you. Click on the Halt button to stop exploring in this way. As the unit expends movement points, the red bar will decrease in length and eventually disappear when the unit has moved all it may during the current game turn.
When this Persistent box is checked, units that can Explore will do so automatically at the beginning of every turn. For all units, clicking on this box will allow the unit to move to a desired destination over the course of several turns.
You may explore the coastline with your Ship in the same way. Either click on the Ship and drag it to where you wish it to go or click on the Explore button. Other units Leaders, Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, and Settlers may only be moved by clicking and dragging. They all move considerably less distance per turn than Explorers do, but their primary functions are different as well. To cycle to the next unattached unit with a remaining movement allotment, click on the Next button at the top of the Game screen.
When all units have expended all their movement points, this button will be grayed out. Note : Units attached to Leaders or Ships automatically travel with those units. Units attached to colonies stay within the colony until you detach them see the Attaching, Detaching, and Reorganizing section in the Units chapter. As your units explore the New World, they will uncover terrain of all types. Among the things they will discover are rivers, mountains, mountain ranges, and.
When you discover one of these, you will be asked to name it. Name your discovery in the window that appears. If you are the first to discover this landmark, it will be named according to your dictates at the beginning of the next game turn. You will gain victory points for discovering major landmarks. Furthermore, if you have discovered the longest river, highest mountain, etc.
If, however, someone else has found such landmarks at the end of the game, they will earn those bonuses! To see what bonuses you have earned, click on the Menu button and select Game Scores. When you have discovered three major landmarks, your first mission in the Tutorial scenario is complete. Note, you must discover three landmarks by the end of the tenth turn or the King will have you beheaded!
Even before that, however, he will become extremely impatient with you. Make an extra effort to look for mountains and rivers. By moving along any mountain ranges or rivers you come upon, you will quickly make important discoveries.
When you have completed your first mission, you will get a second edict from England. Place a Settler on a suitable location in the New World with lots of flat land and other goodies and found a colony. You must complete this mission before 20 turns total have elapsed. Settler units look like little pilgrim women. They are the slowest moving pieces in the game and have no combat ability, but they carry with them all that is necessary to establish a new colony.
Since Settlers move so slowly, it is a good idea to leave them on the fastermoving Ship until they are near a good colony site. Then disembark them, move to a new site, and found a colony by clicking on the Found button. Note: The Found button will be grayed out if you cannot establish a colony at the site you have chosen. Move your Settler around until the button is no longer grayed out.
Colonies must find land suitable for farming as well as for the production of Wood, Metals, Gold and more for the construction of buildings and the recruitment of soldiers and other units. A balanced colony site will include grasslands near rivers for the most productive farmland , access to the ocean for building a Dock and establishing trade with the Mother Country , forests or jungles for Mills and Wood , and mountains for Gold and Metal mining.
Proximity to a river will further enhance the productivity of Mines and Mills. It may be difficult to find the most ideal location. To determine whether or not a colony will do well somewhere, place the mouse cursor in a central location of some apparently suitable land.
Press the Z key and see that various squares are highlighted. Try to build a Dock on an ocean square so that you can build Ships; Docks built on lakes and rivers act as trading posts and do not build Ships. Furthermore, Docks on lakes or rivers without access to the ocean cannot be used to conduct trade with your Mother Country. Make sure that some of your land is forested so that you can build good Mills.
Finally, try to build by a river with neighboring grasslands. These grasslands will become your Farms. The lands near or flat areas on mountains are the richest sources of Gold and Metals. If the highlighted areas seem suitable, name your colony or accept the default name and click on the OK button. If you change your mind about this colony, and if you have not clicked on the End Turn button yet, you can double-click on the Colony Center and select Undo Found to get your Settler back.
When you have founded a colony, double-click on the Colony Center. This will bring up your Colony window. From this screen you can do a number of things. First, you can see how much you have of the various commodities, including Gold, Metals, Wood, Goods, and Crops. You can also see how much of any of these you are expecting to receive via trade or internal production by the next turn.
To build up your colony, click on the Build Building button. This brings up a list of buildings you can construct. By passing your cursor over any button even the grayed-out ones , you can see the materials required to build that building in the Status Bar.
To choose a building, click on its button. Your cursor will turn into the building type you have selected. All available land and water for Docks for building will be highlighted around your Colony Center. To place a building on a site, simply click with your building cursor on a suitable location. First, find some suitable farming land look for the highest productivity modifier you can. Place one or two Farms on the land.
Then click on the Mill button and find the land that yields the highest productivity modifier for producing Wood. Build several Mills. Otherwise the Status Bar will inform you that building at that site will be useless because the productivity modifier is so low that the mine will yield no Gold.
Build a Gold Mine if you can find a suitable location. Metal Mines normally yield at least one Metal per turn for a Level 1 building regardless of where they are built! Build several Metal Mines. Build some Housing and a Church encourages immigration on the least useful land you have.
Otherwise, settle for building a Dock on a river with access to the ocean so you can still trade with your Mother Country. In the worst case, you can build a Dock on an inland river or lake square. Docks built on such squares serve solely as trading posts, a necessary building for any new colony, but Docks without. Eventually you will want to build a Fort. Make sure you have a 2x2 square upon which you can build a future Fort. Note: The buildings listed above are those you should aim to include one or more of in your colony at an early stage in its development; this list is not meant to convey a rigid plan for building up your colony.
Minimally, you will need Farms, Mills, and Housing at the very beginning. Before too long, you should also build Metal Mines to obtain the necessary metals for upgrading the Colony Center and other buildings in your settlement. Beyond that, how many and what type of buildings you choose to construct will depend largely on your own strategy for playing the game. The Colony Center and all buildings start out as Level 1 structures. These are the least productive buildings. When you have enough resources to upgrade your Colony Center, the Upgrade button on the Colony window will brighten.
If you check this box, on the next game turn your colony will have increased in size by approximately one square around the perimeter and you will be able to upgrade any buildings currently in the colony.
Upgrade buildings by double-clicking on the building and clicking in the Upgrade box that appears. By passing your cursor over the Upgrade box, the Status Bar will tell you what is required to upgrade a building and by how much you are short in relevant resources. If you must rebuild a section of your colony, you can double-click on a building and then click on the Demolish button to remove the building from the colony.
This allows you to restructure your colony to best suit your needs as time goes by. On the following turn when your building is demolished , you will get back a small portion of the materials that were used in its construction. This will return your Settler, and you can choose a new colony site. There are several more buttons in the Colony window that provide additional useful information and options. The Population Detail button brings up the Population Detail window.
It also shows how much labor Labor Demand the current industries in the colony require and how much Free Labor there is. Free Labor is positive if not everyone in the colony is employed. It is negative when there is a labor shortage. This window shows how the various population parameters are expected to change by the next turn in parentheses. It also indicates the number of Crops needed to feed the current population and how any Churches are contributing to the immigration rate.
Note : You must have enough Crops from internal production, current supplies, or trade to feed your colonists or they will start emigrating. The Commodity Detail button brings up the Commodity Detail window. This window provides vital information on how many resources your colony is producing and consuming per turn. Production is given as how many units of a particular commodity your colony is producing out of how many it can produce based on its buildings. This window also shows how many Crops or other commodities your colony is consuming per turn.
Finally, it shows how many resources you are obtaining through trade as well as the total net production or consumption of each commodity. The Trade button allows your colony to conduct trade with the Mother Country, other players, native players, and other colonies and to create Trade Alliances.
You can only establish trade with other players once you have encountered them in the game by discovering one of their colonies. The Trade button brings up the Trade list and the Crate list. The Trade screen has a scrolling list of current trades as well as the following options:. New: Clicking on this button brings up a window with option from which you can choose to buy from or sell to your Mother Country, to trade with natives, to give or demand tribute from other players, to barter with other players, or to transfer supplies between your colonies.
Trade with your country involves buying or selling commodities. This is the primary way European players can buy the Goods needed to build a Commerce building which will produce Goods and to make later upgrades.
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