Conquered Kingdoms
Fantasy strategy and territorial conquest. Version 1.0.1.
How to begin
The title sheet asks for three things: the country, the machine's marshal (Cadet, Veteran, Marshal) and its temper (Bold, Steady, Wary), and a seed. The seed fixes the country and everything the dice do, so the same seed always gives the same season. Press Take the field. You are the first house; the others are played by the machine. A season already saved is offered on the same sheet.
Controls
Drag the plate to shift it; the wheel or a pinch closes in on the point under the pointer. Click a body of yours to take it up: pale hexes are within its march and ringed hexes are what it may strike. Click a pale hex to march, a ringed hex to strike. The strip along the foot of the plate names the ground under the pointer, what it costs to enter, the holding and its garrison, and — with a body of yours in hand — either the march cost or what the blow would do.
Keyboard: N next body with orders left, E end the turn, 0 fit the country, + and - zoom, arrow keys pan, Esc to put a body down.
Turn order
Each house plays a whole turn: crowns come in, masons work, bodies get their movement back, and then you raise what you can afford and give every body its orders. Press End turn and the machine houses play theirs. A season lasts 60 turns.
Crowns come from the ground you hold — a keep pays 5, a castle 3, a village 1 — and the treasury holds at most 140. Your holdings also set the muster ceiling: keep 4, castle 2, village 1. Reach the ceiling and no yard will raise another body until you take more ground.
Movement
Ground costs movement to enter, and cover on it helps whoever is standing there. A body with any movement left may always take one hex, however heavy the going. Stepping into a hex beside an enemy halts the march there. Knights will not climb a crag, engines will not enter marsh or crag, rangers walk wood and marsh for one point, and a dragon flies over everything for one.
| Ground | Cost | Cover | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Field | 1 | 0 | |
| Wood | 2 | 2 | |
| Hill | 2 | 1 | |
| Crag | 3 | 3 | no horse, no engine |
| Marsh | 3 | -1 | no engine |
| Water | impassable | 0 | water |
Combat and stone
An assault runs 3 rounds — never to the death — and each body of yours beside the defender adds 12 in the hundred to the blow. A salvo is one round and draws no reply. Cover raises the defence by 15 in the hundred a point, and every standing course of wall by 35.
Against a walled holding the blow falls on the outermost course still standing, multiplied by the striker's figure against stone: a catapult tells three times as hard as its shot, a dragon two and a half, a sorcerer twice, and a man with a ladder a quarter. Masons lay 1 point back each turn no enemy stands within 2 hexes. When the last course comes down the holding stands open, and any body that can hold ground may walk in and raise your banner; it renders nothing for 3 turns afterwards.
| Design | Crowns | Strength | Assault | Defence | Move | Range | Shot | Vs stone | Holds ground |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Levy | 6 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | — | — | 0.25 | yes |
| Men-at-Arms | 12 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 2 | — | — | 0.25 | yes |
| Longbowmen | 14 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 0.30 | yes |
| Rangers | 10 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | — | — | 0.25 | yes |
| Knights | 20 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 4 | — | — | 0.20 | yes |
| Engineers | 16 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 2 | — | — | 0.80 | yes |
| Catapult | 22 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3.00 | no |
| Sorcerer | 26 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 2.00 | no |
| Troll | 18 | 10 | 6 | 6 | 2 | — | — | 0.60 | no |
| Dragon | 40 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 2.50 | no |
| Holding | Output | Bodies kept | Courses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keep | 5 | 4 | 8 + 8 + 8 |
| Castle | 3 | 2 | 6 + 6 |
| Village | 1 | 1 | none |
The siege slate
The right-hand plate is where a siege is read. Point at a holding and it draws its courses of stone with the damage on them and names the garrison. Take up a body with a blow in hand and point at the same holding, and it quotes the order before you give it: how much stone this shot brings down, how many turns to a breach at that rate, and what the reply will cost you. After the blow it stamps what actually happened.
Winning
Take every enemy keep and the land is yours: a house that loses its last keep quits the field and its remaining bodies disperse. If more than one house still holds a keep when turn 60 closes, the mandate decides it: 10 a keep, 6 a castle, 2 a village, and a tenth of a crown for every crown of strength standing in the field.
Losing
Lose your last keep and the season is over for you. Short of that, the way seasons are lost is quieter: villages taken while your army is elsewhere, an engine lost to a raid so a siege stalls, or a treasury at its cap because the ceiling is full and there is nowhere left to spend.
Saving and restarting
The season is saved to your own browser after every order, under the single key tronsoft_conquered_kingdoms_save, and the title sheet offers to resume it. Nothing is sent anywhere: the game has no network access at all. Camp shows the state of the houses and offers a new season, which clears the save. If the browser refuses storage the game plays normally without saving.