Simply put, this has been one of the harder reviews I’ve had to put together merely because it means I’ll have to stop playing to write it!...Truly, if you only buy one RTS this year, be sure to make it Conquest!
A hidden gem among RTS games. Supplies, supply lines, fleet admirals, and multiple maps at the same time a thoroughly enjoyable experience. A game that was overlooked in it's day and worth picking up in today's modern PC world. Good fun.
Won award for "Best Strategy Game" in 2001, and with good reason. The gameplay is just amazing. Story is really good too. There was supposed to be a planned sequel, but it gets announced and then cancelled. Announced and then cancelled. To me, Conquest 2 is the Half-Life 3 of strategy games. But for now, experience this great game, now sold on GOG.
Despite some weakness rooted to the genre, Conquest's solid graphics, gameplay, and AI make it a title with enough reasons for RTS fans to join the fight.
[It] would have been much more innovative if it hadn't been kept locked in the attic until "Starcraft" and "Homeworld" had already come out in various iterations.
This game came out of nowhere and was a blast to play. At first glance, it may seem a little bland looking, but when you start playing it, it just surprises you at almost everything it does well.
You can obviously tell that inspiration for this game was pulled from Starcraft, its pretty blatant with the fact that the game features 3 races, humans, a bio-based alien race, and a super high tech alien race, after that, much of the similarities end though.
This is a very nice example of a space strategy game with a heavy focus on combat is like when done well. All the ships are very nicely designed, balanced, and all nicely varied, giving a good amount of tactical depth to the fighting. The feeling is somewhat like Sins of a Solar Empire (game released many years later), except its on a somewhat smaller scale, with the maps being connected with wormholes instead of warp-lanes, which makes moving units less of a pain, and much more about wormhole control than planet control. There is also supply for almost every ship, every time a ship shoots or uses an ability, it costs supply, and if you run out, the ship becomes an expensive liability in a fight, so strategy is involved when it comes to keeping your fleet supplied so they can properly fight, which will become more of an issue the bigger the guns and the more powerful the abilities become. For example, the ultimate human ship is the Dreadnaught, it is a massive flying fortress of doom that takes a ton of firepower to even faze, equipped with huge laser cannons that can blast most ships to smithereens from super long range, often with just a handful direct hits, and to make it even more of a problem, it's special ability puts its shields into overdrive, making it literally invincible while the ability is active. Sure, its a huge and powerful ship, but you will burn through your supplies in an instant if you continually have your invincibility on, making that particular ship an extremely expensive piece of flying junk since it cant shoot at all without supplies. Anyways, I digress.
Overall, I would say this is a very well put together strategy game, its a shame that it is relatively unknown. I had a ton of fun with it and would recommend that, if you find a copy lying around for sale somewhere, to put down the couple bucks that they likely ask for (its also available on GoG), if you love strategy games, and love seeing ships in space duking it out, then you will likely love this game.
Conquest: Frontier Wars is an extremely addictive RTS game with a stellar sci-fi setting. The gameplay is impressive and graphics look beautiful. In the beginning a bit overwhelming but if you stay on the ball, you won´t regret it!
SummaryMaster the technology and tactics of three clashing races as you control strategic wormholes, maintain precious supply lines, and forge an empire from hundreds of unique units to attain total control of the galaxy in this fleet-based real-time strategy game.