Powermonger
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| Powermonger | |
|---|---|
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| Developer(s) | Bullfrog Productions |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Designer(s) | Peter Molyneux |
| Release date(s) | Amiga 1990 Atari ST 1990 DOS 1992 Sega Mega Drive/Genesis 1992 SNES 1993 Sega CD 1994 |
| Genre(s) | Real-time strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer (only 2 players over a null modem or modem link.) |
| Platform(s) | Amiga, Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, PC (DOS), Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, SNES, Sega CD |
| Media | Floppy disk, Cartridge |
| Input | Mouse |
Powermonger is a real-time strategy game developed by Bullfrog in 1990.
The game features a 3-dimensional game map, although camera movement is limited to rotating the map in 90-degree intervals and 8 pre-defined levels of zoom. Only the map topography itself is 3-dimensional, people, trees and other game objects are comprised of 2-dimensional sprites.
The game also features a fairly advanced (for its time) "artificial life" engine. Each person seems to have a mind of their own and will go about his or her job, fishing, farming, shepherding, collecting wood or making items without any input from the player. You also have a query tool that can be used to see the name, sex, age, allegiance, vital stats, hometown and equipment for any given person you click on. This aspect of the game have some clear resemblances (though less advanced) with the more recent Black & White game also designed by Peter Molyneux.
While you cannot form the land like in Populous your actions can still have some limited effect on the environment. For example if you deforest a big area the weather pattern will change and more rain or snow (depending on season) will fall, making movement slower.
[edit] Game play
You start out on each map with a small number of soldiers, and maybe a few towns already under your control. To win the map you need to tip the balance of power completely to your side (represented by a scale below the mini-map), by conquering all (or at least most) of the towns on the map, and kill any opposing captains. Once a town is under your control you can draft the locals into your army and take on bigger towns or enemy armies. Some of the bigger towns also have neutral captains and if these survive the battle and you conquer the town they come under your command as well. You can only control as many armies as you have captains so it's important to keep them alive, if a captain is killed his army is disbanded and his surviving solders go back to their town of origin. Unlike your main army which the main character commands, the subordinate captains have a "lag" time (indicated by a tiny homing pigeon animation next to their command icon) before their commands are executed. The further away from your main character they are, the longer it takes for orders to reach them.
Food is the single most important resource in the game, the expression "an army marches on its belly" is very true in Powermonger, therefore it is often smart to not to draft a whole town's population into an army, because an empty town will not produce food (or more people). Aside from friendly towns you can also slaughter wandering sheep (by ordering you army to attack it), barter food from neutral towns, or kill an enemy captain and pillage his food supply.
Aside from manpower and food towns can also provide equipment. Townspeople will occasionally make stuff, but to speed things up you can order an army to "invent" at a friendly town. Depending on nearby recourses, what posture your army is set to (passive, neutral or aggressive) your men will then go to work collecting recourses and make items. As the more useful items can usually only be made in one or two towns on any given map these have great strategic importance.
| Item | Conditions | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Catapult | Aggressive posture and a merchant in the town | Powerful ranged weapon, can destroy buildings |
| Cannon | Aggressive posture, merchant in town and metal nearby | Most powerful ranged weapon, can destroy buildings |
| Sword | no merchant in town and metal nearby | Men with swords are the most effective in melee combat |
| Pikes | Neutral posture | Men with pikes are more effective in melee combat than empty handed ones |
| Bows | Aggressive posture | Ranged weapons, useful to weaken enemy forces before engaging in melee |
| Boats | Passive posture | Only men with a boat can cross bodies of water, necessary to invade island towns |
| Ploughs | Passive posture | Not useful for soldiers, but makes farmers more effective |
| Pots | Can be made at any time | Works as a currency. Does not slow the captain down, can be traded for food or items in neutral towns, and used to grease the wheels when proposing an alliance. |
There is no micro management involved with equipment. Once you order an army to equip itself from a pile of equipment it is automatically distributed. If there are both bows, swords and pikes available soldiers will first pick bows, then swords and then pikes in that order. As long as there are solders without any weapon in the army no one will pick up more than one weapon. If everyone has something then people with the least valuable weapon will have first pick and so on. The captain carries any excess equipment. There is no limit to how much a captain can carry, but the more he carry the slower he (and his army) will move.
[edit] Expansion
In 1991 an expansion disk (for computers only) was released that changed the setting from the conquest of a medieval kingdom, to World War I. The game play was still essentially the same, but with more ranged weapons and war-machines.
