COLONIAL CONQUEST

Colonial Conquest

Colonial Conquest is a War Game set in the golden age of warfare in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The object of the game is to become the major power throughout the world.


Colonial Conquest fan Alex tells us that it may be that the world will get a second go at Colonial Conquest. This as it appears to be a reimplementation of something Colonial Conquest-ish going on as a Kickstarter project. It does not appear to be similar enough to offer really the same experience, but I it may well be very good on its on merits. This is what they have to say about their project.

We started working on Colonial Conquest in early 2014. The game is almost ready, being currently in closed beta with ongoing internal testing.

We are looking to raise additional funds to help us polish the game, add cool new features and also bringing it to iOS and Android. We want to add a fully online multiplayer system, cross-platforms leaderboards, new scenarios and objectives, a new optional visual .retro. pixellized style and a scenario editor for all to add their own scenarios, skins and creations. If we are successful, we are currently targeting to release the game to our backers in May 2015 and shortly after on digital platforms.

Check it out this Colonial Conquest TNG on Kickstarter.

Upon booting up the program the player has the choice of selecting the scenario that he wishes to play. The options are as follows:

Start-up game settings, version 1.1 English
(Version 1.1 English)
Start-up game settings, version 1.1 French
(Version 1.1 French)

Standard Game: None Of the Major Countries has any overseas colonies.

1880: Race For The Colonies: The World Of 1880.

1914: Brink Of the War: The World Of 1914 before the outbreak of WW 1.

After the Scenario selection is made, the player must now select the positions of the Major Powers. These may be Active: Player controlled, Neutral: Acts as a Minor Country and Computer: Computer controlled. If a Major country is computer controlled, the player also has the option of selecting a strength for the computer. The default level is level 0 and may be increased to level 9. The level selects how many armies and navies a Major country starts off with and does not change its playing ability. It is advisable to begin with the computer players being set to default as level 9 for example in the case of Russia will give him 9 Million troops to begin with. Once you have played a few successful games you may then wish to increase the computer levels to match your own ability.

VICTORY CONDITIONS

After the player selection is complete the final thing to do is to set the level of victory points required to win the game. This can be set at 500, 1000, 1500 or Unlimited. In the case of 500 points the game will only take perhaps 30 minutes to play. I personally recommend 1500 points. You may also select Unlimited in which case the game will continue until every territory on the map is controlled by one Major power. I warn you now that this can take a long time, a very long time.

In order to accumulate points, territories must be conquered. Each territory on the World map has a value of between 13 and 50 points. These values are randomly generated at the beginning of the game and are not revealed. Additional points are given if a Major controls all territories in a given region. If a territory is conquered by Subversion (See Subversion Phase) the Major country does not get any victory points. In addition to receiving points for conquering, a major also receives points for successful attacks and defences. For example suppose England attacks France and he is unsuccessful, England will lose victory points and France will gain victory points even though there has been no change on the map.

THE WORLD MAP

The World Map consists of all the territories throughout the world. It also shows all the sea areas available. The 6 Major countries initial territories are coloured in their respective colours.

War map screenshot (Commodore Vic 64)
War Map C64
War map screenshot (Atari 1040 ST)
War Map Atari
War map screenshot (Apple II)
War Map Apple (Big pic.)

As a Major expands it's newly conquered territories will change colour to match it's Major's colour. As well as changing colour the territory will also show the Major's countries flag to show that an army is present. You will also notice that some sea area will show a little ship. This does not mean that a navy is present at that location. What it does illustrate is that of all the Major Powers, the Major power whose fleet symbol is illustrated has more fleets bordering onto that sea location than any other Major. For example at the offset of the Standard Scenario, an English fleet symbol is shown in the English Channel/Bay Of Biscay sea area. This shows that before any movement the English have more fleets bordering onto this area than anyone else. In this case the English have 80 Fleets whilst the French can only must 20 in Normandy and 45 in Paris giving a total of 65. In the case of two or more powers having exactly the same number of fleets, the first country on the standard movement list will be shown (England - Germany - etc.)

WORLD GEOGRAPHY

As you will know countries all vary on how they are made up geographically. Some are also flat and some are full of hills and mountains. Colonial Conquest takes this into account when working out the results of combat. For example a defending army in Greece which as we know is almost totally made up of hills and mountains is very difficult to defeat in view that it is able to use the land to it's advantage. This position can be further strengthened by fortification (See Fortification Phase).

World map
Scan of original map (bigger)
World map
Artificially improved map (much bigger)

In addition to this, each territory throughout the world has a financial value. This too is randomly determined at the offset of the game. If a territory is captured all it's wealth is taken by the Major power. This money may then be used during the Build Phase.

As many people already have pointed out, the resolution of the map unfortunately makes it difficult to see the actual values. They should use the improved map to the right, or use the table with the information in the world map above extracted from an Atari ST game binary.

MOVEMENT

Movement in Colonial Conquest is played in the following strict rotation: England - Germany - France - U.S.A. - Japan - Russia.

Nations listing, CC version 1.0
(Version 1.0)
Nations listing, CC version 1.1 French
(Version 1.1 French)

All movement is not simultaneous. Therefore it must be remembered that for example if France decides to attack Belgium and at the same time Germany also decides to attack Belgium, the German attack will be first. If he is successful he will occupy Belgium and then France will attack Belgium (German controlled) and the result will be shown on the map. This will result that a state of war will breakout between France and Germany even though neither country may have wanted it.

ARMY MOVEMENT

Armies may move to any adjacent land territory. Upon selecting a territory to move the computer will show all the territories that armies within that territory may move to. The player may then move as many troops as he wishes although he must leave a minimum of 1,000 as a garrison. A player selects the number of troops to move by using the arrow selections both to increase numbers with the left arrow icons or to reduce them with the right arrow icons. Selection is made with the right mouse button but to increase the speed of selection both mouse buttons may be held down. After a player is satisfied with the numbers selected he selects O.K. and then moves on to another territory. Once he has finished his army moves he must hold down the right hand mouse button to activate the pull down menu. He may then advance to the next stage under the Option Menu.

NAVY MOVEMENT

Navy movement is carried out in exactly the same way as army movement although the number of locations that a player may move to is much larger in view that he may move to any shore line throughout the world. A player may also decide to move armies with his fleets. Each single fleet may move 1,000 men. Therefore to move 50,000 men requires 50 fleets. Of course that number of men must also be available for movement from the sailing fleets starting point. The world is divided up into regions, as depicted by the coloured regions on the World Map.
Region   Description
1 North America
2 South America
3 Europe
4 Northern Africa
5 South Africa
6 India and the Middle East
7 Eastern and Southeast Asia
8 Australia and the Pacific Islands
If a player decides to launch an invasion into the same region that he is sailing from (e.g. Paris attacks Prussia) and he is unsuccessful his fleets and troops are returned to Paris sustaining any casualties that may have arisen. If however he attacks a territory in a different region from his sailing point and he is unsuccessful his fleets will return but all armies will be automatically lost. It is advisable to first land at a friendly overseas territory and then expand from there (See Subversion Phase). A player may also elect to launch a naval sortie only. That is he may order his fleets to attack a territory without any of his armies present. Although navies cannot capture a territory they will attack any foreign fleets that that may be occupying their destination location. This option can be useful to reduce an opponent's naval strength.

The game is played in four seasonal turns. After the Winter turn the Build Phase comes into operation:

BUILDING

Army/Navy Costs ($)

Army (10,000 Men) Navy (5 Fleets)
England:
Germany:
France:
U.S.A.:
Japan:
Russia:
600,000
400,000
300,000
300,000
300,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
400,000
500,000
700,000

In order to build additional forces a player must have control of at least one of his home supply centres. If he has lost control of all his own supply centres he is unable to make any builds until such time that he is control again. All the major countries start with 2 supply centres except U.S.A., which has 3, and Russia, which has only 1. As you will appreciate it would be a catastrophe for Russia if he were to lose his supply centre.

FORTIFICATION PHASE

During the fortification phase a player may decide to fortify any of his chosen territories. A player may fortify a territory only once, but may fortify it again if he loses and recaptures it. The effect of fortification is that it doubles the defensive factor of that territory (50,000 will fight as if 100,000). This defensive measure is also increased if the territory has a high defensive value (See World Geography). For example a fortified Norway is a very tough nut to crack. Supply centres are considered fortified automatically. The cost of fortification is a standard $1 Million.

ECONOMIC AID PHASE

During the economic phase a player decide to give money to another country. The effect of this on a Minor country is that the Minor country will use the money to buy arms and to protect itself. This option can be useful in an attempt to slow down another Major countries expansion. Money can also be given to a Major computer controlled country in an attempt to stop a war between him and you. No assurance is given that a cease-fire will occur but a 'bribe' of $8 Million will at least assure that he will cease actions against you for that turn. He may however re-start actions against you the following turn so it must be advised that this option on a Major country can often be a big waste of time and money.

ESPIONAGE PHASE

Screenshot
Spying on Marseille (Version 1.1 French)

During the espionage phase a player may decide to spy on another territory. The information given will be a reasonably accurate estimate of the number of troops that occupy that territory. No information on naval strengths will be given. The costs of spying are: Normal Territory - $ 200,000 Fortified Territory - $1,000,000

SUBVERSION PHASE

During the subversion phase a player may decide to attempt to take over a Minor territory from within by bribery. If a bribe is successful the country will automatically give 1,000 men as a garrison. There is no guarantee that a bribe will work. If a bribe is unsuccessful the Minor country will use the money to build up its army. This option can be particularly effective at the beginning of the game to begin your expansion throughout the world, without the risk of sending conquering armies (See Navy Movement).

MAJOR COUNTRY COMPARISON CHART

This is the comparison chart from the backside cover.

  England Germany France U.S.A. Japan Russia
# Areas 3 3 3 4 3 4
# Supply centre 2 2 2 3 2 1
Army Offensive Factor 1 1 3 2 2 4
Army Defensive Factor 1 2 2 2 3 3
Army Cost 10,000 Troops $600,000 $400,000 $300,000 $300,000 $300,000 $200,000
STD: # of Troops 155,000 365,000 430,000 175,000 255,000 520,000
1880: # of Troops 501,000 381,000 507,000 192,000 270,000 560,000
1914: # of Troops 1,782,000 3,465,000 1,495,000 570,000 900,000 3,030,000
Navy Offensive Factor 1 1 3 1 2 3
Navy Defensive Factor 1 2 3 1 2 4
Navy Cost/5 Fleets $300,000 $400,000 $500,000 $400,000 $500,000 $700,000
STD: # of Fleets 120 90 80 85 85 50
1880: # of Fleets 207 100 105 100 95 50
1914: # of Fleets 207 125 110 150 125 50
Note: The lower the factor, the better the army/navy is at offensive or defensive operation.

ABOUT

Producer/Publisher: SSI (Strategic Simulations Inc.) (Company website)
Published for: Apple II (1985) (Apple II)
Atari ST (1987) (Atari 1040 ST)
C64/C128 (1985) (Commodore 64)
Atari XL (1985) (Atari 600 XL)
Game Designer & Programmer: Dan Cermak
SSI Logo

GAME HINTS

At the beginning of every turn check to see who is at war with who.

Don't attack another Major power at the beginning of the game. If possible wait until you are attacked.

Always take care to defend your supply centres.

If attacking another Major, try all out to capture his supply centres. Remember you supply centres will be far away from the action.

Screenshot
Screenshot

Fortification is money well spent.

Attempting to bribe a Major into stopping a war against you is a waste of money.

If you have several overseas colonies ensure that you have sufficient fleets to transport reinforcements if necessary.

When you race for colonies, focus first on the colonies that might be captured by another major. Also go for those of strategic importance that might cut you off early in the game from important parts of the world if lost to another major.

Screenshot

If playing Russia, try to keep your ships out of battles. They might do for troops transport, although you should avoid that too, as far as possible.

If playing England, a possible strategy might be to attack your enemies with your navy of cheap and supreme ships alone, no troops onboard. That will make it hard for enemies to launch heavy attacks on colonies that have to be reached using navy, due to the shortage in troop carriers.

Screenshot
Screenshot

If playing Germany, keep a close look on France and Russia. You will most likely sooner or later have to take one of them out in order to be successful.

Economic aid to colonies might slow a competing major's initial expansion down very severely and will quite likely cause serious long-term economic damage.

Having a standard minimum number of troops in every colony might help greatly as it enables you to cascade your troop movements. Then, if one of your colonies is attacked and troops are lost, you can bring reinforcements directly from your supply centre by doing a cascade movement in every territory between there and the incident site (This of course requires that you have direct land link between the two places).

The defending number of troops can for practical reasons be a suitable multiple of 10 or 100 thousands plus one thousand. This enables you to do your troops movements much faster, as you can move all your troops from a territory without having to click on the single- thousand troops movement button.

START-UP QUESTIONS

There are a lot of versions of Colonial Conquest where the questions have been removed. However in the English version 1.1 in the download section they have not. Most players probably know all the answers by heart already. Three options are given for each question:

Screenshot

These are the questions:

Question

Answer

How much does it cost to spy on unfortified armies? 200,000
Which section identifies the game markers? 3.2
How much is the defence of a country increased by a major supply centre? Doubled
What is the range of victory points for an area in the standard scenario? 13 to 50
How many men are in a garrison in a subverted country? 1,000
Which country has the best trained armies? England
Combat consists of how many rounds of battle? Nine

DOWNLOAD

Colonial Conquest for Atari ST can be downloaded in two versions and two languages, English language version 1.0 (830kb), English language version 1.1 (360kb) and a French language version 1.1 (360kb). There is also a Commodore 64 (170kb), an Atari XL (62kb) and an Apple II version (140kb).

Version info, CC version 1.0
(Version 1.0)
Version info, CC version 1.1
(Version 1.1 English)
Version info, CC version 1.1
(Version 1.1 French)

Is there a Colonial Conquest for PC?

Nope. It is however possible to enjoy all (Or so I think. I have not tried them all myself) the other versions on PC using emulators for your preferred CC flavour. There are of course also several other RISK style games around that are available in native PC versions.

Where do I find an emulator?

For Atari ST(E) check out www.atari.st. There you will find loads of nice stuff, including links to emulators STEEM, WinSTon, SainT and Pacifist. I use Pacifist, which is obsolete and should thus probably not be recommended. WinSTon has been reported to work (Thanks, Chris). STEEM and SainT seem to be the most actively maintained emulators, so they should probably be preferred. Update: I have now also tried STEEM with CC; it worked liked a charm.

Colonial Conquest - Windows remake

Hard to believe, so check it out yourselves. On Kroah's Game Reverse Engineering Page you will find a CC remake, called CoCoNet. Networked and simultaneous turns, even. Epic effort, Kroah.
How about Macintosh and Colonial Conquest?

Yes, indeed, how about it? Rumour back in the days had it that there were a Macintosh version of CC. However, I have never actually run across anything that could confirm that, and there are people claiming that it was just a case of vaporware. There are however of course emulators for Macs too, and an Atari ST one that has been confirmed (Thanks, Rad) to work with CC is called NoSTalgia.

Mais alors, je suis français!

For all the gamers francophone out there, Colonial Conquest fan Thierry Houeix has done a great job translating this page into French. You might want to check it out even if you are not French, it is a much better read than that old 101 french class textbook.



Opening picture, CC version 1.0
Let the game begin. Opening picture, CC version 1.1 French





Joshua (joshua@ludd.luth.se)