Lords of Conquest is a game that seems to be an excellent precursor (in some theories) to the much more modern series by Sid Meiers called Civilization. Lords of Conquest was actually made as a rival to Risk! and was based on the Eon board game, Borderlands. The developers at Eon Software, Incorporated were so confident that Lords of Conquest could compete with Risk! that they even marketed it with the tagline: “Better than Risk!” It was published by Electronic Arts, Incorporated and was released in the middle eighties for play on the personal computer, as well as numerous other formats (including the Apple, Atari, and the Commodore 64).
It is a third person, top down perspective strategy game that is operated in a turn-based nature.
As alluded to above, there are elements of Civilization, as well as Risk! in this fun little global domination game. The greatest resemblance to Risk! is the way the players (which can a single player versus computer artificial intelligence, or up to seven humans) set up their holdings. Players take turns choosing territories until all of them are spoken for. However, other aspects of setting up the game are much more like Civilization, especially the customization at the very beginning. For example, the user can delineate how passive, neutral or aggressive the computer players are. He can also change the conditions that are required for victory. He can also
change the level of the sea, which makes for more or less water and can control how thickly or thinly available resources are.
After the game is all set up, the turns will fall into a routine. Resources are gathered and stockpiled, then trading or usage can begin. (There are a total of five different types of resources. If the user chooses to trade some of his resources for something more urgently needed, there will be a shipment turn. There is a twenty-five percent chance that the shipment turn will not happen, which sort of works like random bad weather or something that can affect shipping. During these turns, the user is able to attack his enemy, and also develop his current holdings by purchasing cities, weapons and units.
Overall, this is a good game. It is not overly complex, and does not feature the massive micromanagement skills of a Civilization or Age of Empires type of game. At the same time, there is a lot more to it than simply rolling dice and attacking the enemy, as in Risk! Lords of Conquest is a nice, average game that is good for most any style of strategy gamer, since it does not fall radically into one wing or the other.
