Fantasy Empires

What you see is what you get. Much as I would love an updated version of Fantasy Empires, this is exactly the same as running the original game with DOSBox and a bypass on all the annoying late 80s and early 90s copy protection. That said, Fantasy Empires is as fun today as it was then, so it didn't need much to make me want to play it again. An inspired marriage of Risk and D&D, there's not really another game that can quite scratch the same itch. The music has also stayed with me all this time, and I still get a rush from hearing the epic score. Some issues (with modern gaming conventions in hindsight): Character creation was novel at the time, but isn't much to write home about today. You pick your name, the classic six D&D stats, a class, an alignment, a brief description for flavor, and from about a couple dozen premade portraits that one of the other NPCs is probably already using. - Documentation on what exactly the stats bring to the table are sparse. From what limited information I've gathered, and I could be wrong, STR affects hero combat damage, DEX affects hero armor class, CON affects hero hitpoints, INT affects mage spells, WIS affects Cleric and Druid spells…

Fantasy Empires is an unusual blend of kingdom management, strategy, role-playing, and real-time warfare that takes the Dungeons & Dragons setting in a direction quite different from the traditional party-based adventure. Instead of controlling a handful of heroes through dungeons, the player assumes responsibility for an entire kingdom and attempts to transform it into a powerful empire. Developed by Silicon Knights and published by SNEG, the game is unmistakably a product of classic PC design, yet the number of interconnected ideas packed into its campaign still gives it a distinctive identity. The basic objective revolves around expanding your influence through a combination of military conquest and diplomacy. You begin as the ruler of a kingdom surrounded by potential rivals, and the path toward dominance requires more than simply attacking everything in sight. Alliances can be established, enemy kingdoms can be challenged, territories can be strengthened, and military resources must be organized before committing to major conflicts. The campaign supports between one and four adversaries selected from twenty computer-controlled opponents, providing enough variation for repeate…

This was far and away my favorite childhood game growing up. If you like strategy games with a bit of mixed in rpg elements this is the one.

So far the worst of the SNEG releases I have tried, game is basically risk with a bit more frills, but astonishingly for the price they ask for, they couldn't even bother to include the manual; for a game from an era where there were no tutorials, no contextual anything, so either you go hunting for the manual or you won't understand what's going on. Bah, Risk in Mystara without any idea what any of the UI does. Not worth the hassle, refunded.

Game is cozy and awesome. A little obtuse, nothing is explained directly. There is no tutorial. You jump in the deep end and learn to swim. But once 'it' clicks, once you "swim," it feels damn good. Gameplay is strategic, challenging, but also not that deep. There is a learning curve, this game is not intuitive at first. It takes time to understand the flow of turns, base building, and combat and adventures. But once thats done, it becomes a meticulous tactful experience. Music is great, art is extremely beautiful to look at. Vibrant and high fantasy. Recommended if you're a hardcore fantasy nerd and love strategy games. It has its fair share of performance issues due to its age(like periodic lag with menus), but that didn't stop me from enjoying it.

Pretty simple Topdown Wargame. Has aged fairly well and is still playable today