99 lines
5.6 KiB
Plaintext
99 lines
5.6 KiB
Plaintext
|
||
|
||
|
||
CONFLICT
|
||
|
||
In CONFLICT, it's the mid-1990s and you are the new Israeli Premier. You must
|
||
balance the various antagonisms of the Palestinians and your Middle Eastern
|
||
neighbors, and ultimately attempt to neutralize all of the various threats to
|
||
Israel's security. CONFLICT's diplomatic emphasis and power brokerage give the
|
||
game the flavor of a compact BALANCE OF POWER. (This review is based on the
|
||
IBM-PC version.)
|
||
|
||
Play is quite straightforward, with turns representing a month of real time. At
|
||
each turn, you're first presented with news summaries in the form of headlines;
|
||
these highlight important events that occurred as a result of the last turn's
|
||
actions. Once these are read, you may then dictate policies for each of the
|
||
other countries involved. In addition to Israel, represented in the game are
|
||
Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, and Libya.
|
||
|
||
For each country, you must determine your diplomatic posture: Improve
|
||
relations, spoil relations, or leave relations at their current level. Your
|
||
ability to change posture is restricted by your current relations with each
|
||
country, ranging from Deplorable (on the brink of open war) to Excellent. If
|
||
relations are very bad, you may be advised that improvement is unlikely. Also,
|
||
if you have good relations with a country's enemy, it may be unwilling to
|
||
improve relations with you.
|
||
|
||
In addition to diplomatic initiatives, you may also engage in intelligence
|
||
activities. You may foment rebellion in other countries by supporting
|
||
insurgents, or aid the government by helping to suppress insurgency. Or, you can
|
||
simply leave things alone. As insurgency rises, it's possible to instigate a
|
||
coup or assassination attempt. Success in these endeavors throws a country into
|
||
turmoil, which effectively eliminates it as a threat.
|
||
|
||
Once diplomatic and intelligence activities are decided, you'll receive the
|
||
strategic policy-making screen. Here, you may review your defense forces and
|
||
decide on acquisitions and deployment; you may also elect to fund nuclear
|
||
weapons research. The various acquisitions cost money, as do nuclear weapons
|
||
research and intelligence activities.
|
||
|
||
At the end of each turn, the results of your actions and those of the other
|
||
countries are resolved. This may involve conflict resolution, as well as
|
||
resolution of diplomatic and intelligence activities. Results are reported by
|
||
the headlines at the beginning of the next turn.
|
||
|
||
Despite its name, CONFLICT is not a game that emphasizes open warfare. Instead,
|
||
you'll find that a careful combination of clever diplomacy, sly intelligence
|
||
activities, and a firm defense is required to do well in the game. In fact, the
|
||
overall ability of the Israeli defense forces is rather less than past
|
||
performance might lead you to expect. For example, the IDF can barely beat
|
||
Syrian forces in a protracted battle, much less other countries. Against Egypt,
|
||
the IDF was simply overmatched. While this forces you to search for subtler
|
||
solutions to Israel's security problems, it strikes me as unrealistic.
|
||
|
||
Another anomaly is the exclusion of Saudi Arabia from the game. Though Saudi
|
||
Arabia has never been belligerent in past conflicts, its presence cannot be
|
||
ignored. Also, the Palestinians are present as a "problem" that the player may
|
||
have to deal with through deployment of one of its precious IDF brigades. Each
|
||
year there is a summit; sometimes it allows you to eliminate the Palestinian
|
||
problem by creating a Palestinian homeland. This seems altogether too
|
||
convenient, particularly as creation of this homeland has no discernable impact
|
||
on Israeli security.
|
||
|
||
Lack of realism is one problem with CONFLICT. Additionally, the subject matter
|
||
is highly controversial, and the game's creators have clearly imposed their
|
||
views on various aspects of the game. Those with a heavy emotional commitment to
|
||
one side or the other in the Middle East conflict will no doubt find something
|
||
to take offense at in this game. For others, I can only suggest that CONFLICT's
|
||
perspective be taken with a heavy grain of salt.
|
||
|
||
CONFLICT supports EGA (640x350x16), CGA (320x200x4), and Tandy graphics modes.
|
||
It runs on PCs and compatibles, and requires 384K of RAM. The program may be
|
||
installed on a hard drive; it is not copy-protected in any way. Input is via the
|
||
keyboard. No sound boards are recognized.
|
||
|
||
The caveats are few, but significant. First, the documentation is sparse, with
|
||
little hard data. For example, nowhere in the rules does it say that nuclear
|
||
funding requires $20 million each month, nor are the costs of other activities
|
||
detailed. Worse, the actual victory conditions are not described, except in
|
||
vague terms: While it's nice to leave some things for the player to discover,
|
||
this seems excessive. Finally, only a single-player option is provided, although
|
||
the game is a natural for multi-player capability.
|
||
|
||
That all said, I confess that I enjoyed CONFLICT. Play varies from game to
|
||
game, and is always intricate. It's _hard_ to win, but the program does present
|
||
an evaluation in the event of ultimate defeat that lets you know how you
|
||
performed. Thus, you may console yourself with the knowledge that your
|
||
performance was good, even if events weighed against you. The small number of
|
||
countries and options makes play less overwhelming than in BALANCE OF POWER,
|
||
allowing you to focus more on the intricacies of international relations in the
|
||
Middle East.
|
||
|
||
I recommend CONFLICT for fans of power-brokerage and diplomatic games, but
|
||
beware if Middle East politics are a personal hot-button.
|
||
|
||
CONFLICT is published and distributed by Virgin Mastertronic.
|
||
|
||
*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
|
||
|