Conquest of the New World

I played CoTNW back as a teenager. I have to say that I spent many many hours in awe of the strategy and complexity of the AI, which at the time I thought was very smart - and it was for the time it was created. Having downloaded and run through the game again, I have to say that I'm very impressed with the developers of this game. The game is 20 years old and has more to it then most games out today, complete with national advantages of the various factions. One bad thing about CoTNW is there are a few game breaking bugs. First, as the Natives the game freezes if you have too many units in the battle. The AI just doesnt know what to do so it just never ends its turn. Post turn 100-120 you are forced to autoplay a lot of battles otherwise you cant advance. Also sometimes the DOS BOX just crashes during the battles. The game can be restarted and picked up, but you have to start the battle over. Sometimes thats really annoying if you had a strike of luck and good strategy and beat a much larger force. One small grievance is that the AI, while at first is unpredictable, you learn that if you keep the computer player at "Understanding" or better they will never attack you. That leaves you to take over the whole map, all strategic items while the computer just sits there waiting to be annihilated. I personally just never come to an "understanding with anyone and the game becomes super hard mode.

This game is very VERY similar to Sid Meire's Colonization. In fact, it's almost the same game, just with the whole "independence" mechanic taken out and a tactical battle component put in. Short review? Colonization is the much better game and you should just go play that. And although the Imperialism games aren't quite the same, I'd recommend them as vastly superior games in a similar setting. Long review? What really sinks it is the lack of easily available feedback to make decisions. Like Civilization/Colonization, the early game is huge and even wasting 3 turns trying to find a first city site can set you behind big time. In Conquest, city & building placement is INSANELY finicky. You simply cannot tell the different between flat land you can build on, and "sloped" land which looks exactly the same but can't be built on. You waste so many turns moving your (extremely slow) settler around the green patches trying to find the one spot it will let you build on. When you finally do build a city, you find out you can't build anything around you because what you thought was more flat land turns out to be sloped. Same with other kinds of buildings. You get bonuses for placing near resources: mills get bonuses for being near forest, mines being near mountains, etc. There's no easy way to tell this though. You have to go to the build screen, select the building, then drag it over tile by tile looking at percentage bonuses. There's no one easy yield display to get all the information like Civ. Don't be fooled by those super zoomed in screenshots either; everything is a tiny blob you can't tell apart in-game. Tactical battles are not enough to make up for the strategic shortcomings either. Again it's a matter of no information. It never tells you your chance to hit. Should you fire separately or together? What kind of bonus does combined arms get? It never tells you. Mostly you just get bogged down and miss a lot. Give this one a pass and play Colonization instead.

I think that thanks to all this tiny pieces of historical info that are "published" in the "gazette" this game makes one feel just like it its real and one is a part of all that. I just love the game and I find it very hard to stop playing it. But there of course are drawbacks - uniforms - they are from XVIII century not XVI. ;) But I personally do not care. If someone is interested in the history of taming the native America, this game is a MUST. Howgh!

You need to want to play this type of a game to enjoy it. It's not a quick 20 minutes of excitement-type of a game, if that's what you're looking for. Conquest of the New World is a turn-based game of conquest, exploration and city building. It's the best hybrid of these game aspects that I've ever experienced. I've played the demo back in 1996, loved it, but couldn't figure out 70% of the games - I was a child and didn't know English. Decided to give it another try now, 20 years later, and absolutely loved it. You arrive on two ships, with settlers, explorers and a small garrison of soldiers, to a new continent (in actuality it is a large island) that is randomly generated every time you play a new game. You use your settlers to explore it, name newly discovered mountain ranges, rivers, plains and other geographic features. You settle and develop a colony, build it up, upgrade buildings, trade with the natives, other players and your mother country back in Europe. With long game in mind, always try to settle on the flattest possible land, use control key "Z" when trying to decide on a site for your colony to see the final extent of it. It's crucial to have access to the ocean for proper trade. Being close to other features provide advantages, but you can do well without them by upgrading your mines and mills. Combat scenes take place on a chess-like board, they're actually very fun. To gain a military edge over your opponents you have to upgrade your forts and spend money on the war college. You're also obliged to pay an increasing amount of taxes to your mother country. Once your forces are strong enough, you have the option of declaring independence and fighting your mother European brethren. Diplomacy is the weakest point of the game, but still exists. Your focus will shift from developing your colony economically to focusing on conquest in the later game. Difficulty levels are customizable. I recommend it if you want an old-school polished game experience.

CoTNW is an amazing game. A bit of city management, and a bit of war game. The battles are on a mini checkerboard. Coolest war screen even today in 2020 (not only in the 1990s)! Iconic!