Deadlock: Planetary Conquest

Deadlock: Planetary Conquest, developed by Accolade and published by Atari and Nightdive Studios, is a turn-based 4X strategy game that offers a rich and challenging experience for fans of tactical and strategic gameplay. Originally released in 1996, the game has been brought to modern platforms, allowing a new generation of players to experience its unique blend of city-building, resource management, and alien warfare. Set on the planet Gallius IV, the game centers around a competitive struggle between seven distinct alien races, each with its own special abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. The objective is to expand your colony, develop infrastructure, and ultimately construct a set number of cities to achieve dominance on the planet. At its core, Deadlock combines exploration, resource allocation, and technological advancement. Players begin by choosing one of the seven alien races, which influences their initial strengths and playstyle. The planet is divided into hexagonal tiles, each with unique terrain types that affect resource output and unit mobility. Strategic placement of cities and resource-gathering facilities is critical, as mismanagement can hinder growth and leav…

Delete WAIL32.DLL otherwise it will not launch. Other than that great game with very good AI

Rose Vision Googles but this is a great game

I enjoy playing this game, a tiny amount of politics, a lot of strategy, the AI puts up a good fight, some buiding and development. There are more complicated and more challenging games, but when you want a quick game (1-2 hours) that's still gives a challenge, this fits the bill. Each game you play has a generated map so you never play the same map twice. You pick your race and location at the start of the game. Each race has different strengths and weakness that needs you to change how you play depending on the race you pick. The start location ideally has all the resources need, plus a defensible location. Then you have to build, defenses, troops, resources and housing. You need to manage it all and keep your eye on the enemy. If the AI thinks you have a weakness you will be attacked, even on Easy. So far no bugs, the game runs fine on my Windows 11 PC, and the AI doesn't cheat. BUT it is always working, so you have to.

Loved it back then, and its still not a bad game. Easy to play hard to master its hard cause riots will be your biggest problem once you grow. In generall it didnt aged to bad.

For the longest time, the Steam version of this title has been completely unplayable on any systems beyond WinXP, with the porting developer (Dan of NightDive Studios, with this being one of NightDive's first portjobs) apologizing years ago in the Community Page that he could not manage to get it working. Well, years later GOG has released a version of the game that you can copy the EXE of and slap into the Steam version to actually get it working again. So be sure to seek out the GOG edition or crack to apply to your steam purchase. As for the game itself in terms of design 30 years later, it's still completely playable but definitely shows it's age. Gameplay is fairly simple, even too simple and easy, if you're a fan of modern grand strategy. The battle animations of units fighting it out on city tiles that you've created is a fantastic feature and the real highlight of the game, that really needs to be ported over to new titles. Fun for what it is and great to go back and examine the DNA of early Windows grand strategy. Recommended but be sure to use the GOG patch.