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LC475 (25MHz 68LC040) |
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Reviewed by: Jon Ostenson
Castles: Siege & Conquest is set in the middle of chaotic 14th-century France, a time of great bloodshed and contention for the throne of France. During the course of the game you will conquer territories, build castles on them to ensure their allegiance to you, and maintain a delicate balance between the political, economic, and military aspects of your realm. You also have to keep your people happy and maintain a good relationship with the Pope. Your ultimate goal is to become king; to do so, you'll need to gather enough might and resources and petition the Pope to declare you king. If he grants your request, you'll win the game. If another player successfully petitions the Pope first, you lose.
Gameplay & Interface
An attractive graphical interface also serves to easily give you access to all of the game's commands. Events take place in real-time, so it would be easy for the game to get out of hand, but MacPlay has done a good job of making the interface work to your benefit. There are numerous tutorials included with the CD-ROM version that introduce you nicely to the game's features and what it will take to be successful. These tutorials function much like Apple's AppleGuide, taking you step-by-step through the game's interface and commands.
Quicktime movies and sound clips of old black and white movies add some realism and, at times, humor to the game. These clips often introduce numerous side plot lines that will demand your attention at the same time as you seek to conquer the realm. Successfully navigating through these plots may influence your relations with the Pope (an all-important figure in this game), alleviate your people's sufferings, or increase your stockpiles of resources.
As you move along conquering territories and subjugating enemies, you'll need to build castles on your lands to ensure their allegiance to you. The castle design stage allows you to either design your own or choose from historically-based designs. If you do choose to design your own castle, the process is simple and intuitive (and kinda fun!). Once you lose your first territory to rebellion, you'll understand the importance of these castles.
Difficulty & Replayability
Castles provides four different levels of difficulty (ranging from Easy to Impossible) that should provide many hours of challenge. You may also play as any of five different lords, each situated in different geographical areas of the map. As you try to conquer the other lords in the land, you can take a number of approaches (I.e., military domination, economic domination, etc.). These different factors make for a practically unlimited number of scenarios.
This is not an easy game, even at the simplest level. It will be long months before you're in a position to petition the Pope, and then after you petition him you must keep you total points above a certain level to keep his attention.
Graphics & Sound
Castles' graphics are nice, but nothing to write home about.Likewise, there's some nice sound effects, music, and speech, but this game won't make you run out and buy some Bose for your Mac. This isn't a game, though, that relies heavily on multimedia, but instead on strategy and skill. In those areas it is very successful.
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