Conquest Demo Impressions

Conquest is a turn based strategy game that is about, you guessed it, conquest. Developed by Proxy Studios, Conquest is a simple and fast moving turn based game that is not heavy with rules that bog down the game. It’s relatively light and easy game to get into. No fluffing about with diplomacy, or city management here, just pure mayhem. Impressions after the jump…



In Conquest, the objective is to own 75% of territory. By conquering cities, your territorial control score increases. The board is a randomly generated hex grid with different type of hexes. In the demo you are just limited to the desert type hexes. There are plains, hills, mountains, lakes all having an effect on your troops(whether they are impassable or give some combat bonus).



The main focus of the game is controlling cities which litter the game board. Cities come in different sizes and they produce units for you when you occupy them. Each city has a production value which accumulates over several turns that will produce a unit(once its accumulated enough production points for that unit). For instance, an occupied city might produce troopers after a few turns, then a tanks, and then a bomber automatically. You don’t have control over what these cities produce. They aren't defensive strongholds either so it's easy to lose troops holed up in a city. You can expect a lot of cities changing ownership all the time from turn to turn.

Combat is rather simplistic in Conquest, all your units move one hex per turn. There is a clear rock paper scissors mechanic to it with troopers countering bombers, tanks counter troopers and bombers counter tanks. At the start of a game, all players drop drop pods(they get 3 drop pods in the beginning) preferably on cities in strong defensible areas. It’s then is up to you to move units around the board into other cities to control them.



Intelligence becomes key as knowing where you enemies are gives you an advantage. You can use satellites that you use on a single hex that will unveil the fog of war on that hex for a turn.

Every four turns, all players get a nuclear missile. These missiles destroy all units on a hex. This makes it crucial not to clump your units together as a single missile will destroy all the resources you city has generated so far. I found that the AI tends to use their missiles as soon as they get them which might not be the most optimal strategy(too predictable).



Conquest makes for a fast turn based multiplayer experience with other humans. There’s a lot more variety in the full version but the simplicity in its design remains intact. Playing against the AI is a little soulless as they tend to just rush out to grab cities(which isn’t necessarily what humans would do). Personally, too light for me. There isn’t enough here to hold my interest.

Try out the demo here. Tell me what you think.

Conquest is sold at USD$15. You can get it at their website.