Dinosaur sightings: The world can be yours with Global Conquest
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Global Conquest is another strategy game in the 4X tradition (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) by Dani (Dan) Bunten. Global Conquest is a little more obscure than Dani’s other games like M.U.L.E., Command HQ, and Seven Cities of Gold, but it is one of my personal favorites. Global Conquest’s innovation was that it is was one of the first 4-person network games. That is, 4 people could play each other over a network, before this innovation there was only play-by-mail, hot seat, or via modem.
A game of strategy and exploration — sounds good to me. Another offer for Computer Game Strategy Plus magazine. I wonder what happened to that publication?
Notice the requirements of 640K. In 1992 we were still using kilobytes — soon it would be megabytes and then gigabytes.
The back of the box talks about strategy in detail. Sounds tantilizing even today.
In 1992 you got lots of stuff in your game box, but the game itself was contained on two floppy disks. In fact, you could play the game off these disks if you wanted.
Playing off the original floppy disk may explain why it was deemed necessary to buy backup copies of your games.
Ah yes. Do you rembember the days of the special installation instructions supplement to the manual. Getting a game to run in DOS sometimes required the creation of a special boot floppy disk.
Good strategy games require a big manual full of information about battle damage, offensive power, and much much more. The manual for Global Conquest is 84 pages long.
It was also important because each installation required you to enter a code found in the manual into the program before it would allow you to continue. Now game publishers slip copy protection into your boot sector without telling you. I think I prefer 1992’s method.
The initial splash screen, with credit to the developers. Dan Bunten eventually transformed into Dani Bunten, which is how most of recorded game history refers to this innovative game developer pioneer.
The art work was pretty good considering the limitations of graphical displays in 1992.
This image suggests a cross between Battleship, Chess, and an Avalon Hill hexidecimal board game.
Another one of Dani Bunten’s innovations found in Global Conquest is the idea of a film. This film feature will play back an entire campaign move-by-move so you could see where you went wrong (or right) to improve or enhance your strategy.
Several game styles were available or you could create your own custom game.
Choose your opponents. This is where you could set up hot seat or network games.
Building a random world. Exploring was a vital part of the Global Conquest game play. Finding a key city or resource could be the turning point of the game.
Resources were very important in Global Conquest. Controlling oil fields and gold mines to supply your armies was a necessay part of the victory equation.
Another Dani Bunten innovation was the use of ramdom events represented by these playing cards. A commong idea in board games, Global Conquest was one of the first computer games to use the concept.
After the world was established, each player was given a designated starting city. Time to conquer the world.
Before you can do battle with the enemy or neutral city-states you want to acquire you have to build an army. This is where many of your most important decisions will take place.
As you explore more of the map is revealed. The main objective is to find cities you can take over and use for production and resources that can keep your production machinery and army working.
With the destination view you can see where all of your units are heading. It is important to keep units out of trouble until you are ready.
One last innovation — and hidden menu bar. Hold the mouse at the upper limit of the play screen for a second and up pops a menu.
A fully revealed world would look something like this. Keep in mind that terrain can slow down the movement of your units.
