Conquest of the New World
Thanks to the wonderful people at Good Old Games, I found one of my old favourite classic games. Conquest of the New World was the PC game that first exposed me to turn-based strategy games, and it was the one that first made me fall in love with the genre. When I saw it was available for download and updated to be playable on modern PCs, I immediately bought it, for the incredibly cheap price of USD$5.99. And I’ve been playing it all week.
I have many fond memories of this game. The best times I had with it was playing it in my former babysitter’s house, when I was young. I think I had borrowed the game from one of my school friends in early secondary school. Every so often, I would try and find a copy to buy for myself, but it took me 10 years before I was able to find it again.
Essentially, in this game, you play as one of the 5 European powers trying to build colonies in the New World (the Americas) and establish yourself, engaging in exploration, negotiation, trade or combat with Native American tribes and the other powers. It’s one of the best turn-based strategy games of all time, in my opinion, because it has just the right blend of simplicity and complexity – neither too difficult nor too easy. And the two things that really strike me as excellent about this game is the simple combat system (which is just 3 unit types fighting it out among a 4×3 grid), and a system that actually rewards you with victory points for exploration, building and diplomacy, instead of just mindless combat. It’s an excellent introduction to the genre.
Now, off to persuade more tribes to join my High Native Federation…
