Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!umix!nancy!msudoc!straney
From: straney@msudoc.ee.mich-state.edu (Ronald W. DeBry)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.games.bugs
Subject: Abusing the rules in Conquer
Message-ID: <379@nancy.UUCP>
Date: 6 Apr 88 06:15:06 GMT
Sender: usenet@nancy.UUCP
Reply-To: straney@msudoc.egr.msu.edu (Ronald W. DeBry)
Organization: Michigan State University, Engineering, E. Lansing
Lines: 33


I've discovered a cute way to become monstrously powerfull right from
the start in Conquer, but it can easily be fixed.  It involves the option
to double raw resources when you are setting up your country.  By just 
buying some reproduction, and spending the rest of your points to get the 
maximum of 10 doublings you get:

     - enough jewels to buy 4-6 magic powers, depending on how many you 
	start with
     - enough iron to up your combat bonuses to truly gross levels 
     - a sh*tload of food

By themselves, the magic and combat bonuses usually work out to about 3-5
points above what you'd get if you bought them directly, which is an 
advantage, but nothing compared to what the food does.  It, of course,
converts to gold during the first update - something like 12 MILLION
in gold.  Enough to buy and maintain, oh say, 10,000 mercenaries, more
if you're really greedy.  In one game, I was able to take out noria on
about the fifth turn.

The solution, obviously, is to limit the number of resource doubles allowed
to something more balanced.

I like the new unit types, but I haven't had time to set up a big multi-
player game yet, so it remains to be seen (by me that is) how they really
function and interact.

Two other bugs I have noticed: The Cavalry Power doesn't seem to work, but
since it doesn't really make sense now that you can buy Cav units, I just
made it go away.  Second, when you start the game as a Destroyer, it also
turns your Capital to desert, which makes it pretty tough to draft troops
for several turns, until you build a city outside the desert zone.

Cheers, Ron