DESCRIPTION

Conflict is a turn based, military strategy game using weapons systems from the Cold War. Playing against the computer or a friend, air and ground units must be carefully maneuvered across16 different maps to destroy the enemy's factories and ultimately their commander's tank. Although the maps are not based on real world locations, each one provides a unique tactical situation as suggested by their names. In the map "Crossing the Barrier," for example, units have to be moved over a large mountain range to meet the enemy. Similarly, "The Tale of Mid Cities" has an island in the middle of the battlefield that has a large number of cities.

Besides the one or two-player option, you can also choose to play in "3 unit" mode, which allows only three units to be moved per turn, or "all unit" mode, which allows you to move all your units every turn. Finally, when playing the computer, you can choose the one of three difficulty levels. This does not improve the computer's play, but simply increases the discrepancy in "fame points" between you and the computer-controlled commander.

At the beginning of each map, both sides start with two factories from which one unit can be produced per turn. However, fame points limit the type of units your factories can produce. When you have more fame points, your factories can produce much more sophisticated weapons. Fame points are won by occupying cities and airfields and defeating enemy units. They are lost by losing units in combat.

In addition to simply moving units across the map, you can also give tactical orders to units in combat. So you can tell units on the offensive which weapon to attack with and units on the defensive what evasive maneuvers to conduct. Careful decisions in this respect can give you an advantage over your opponent. While a winning strategy may decide who wins an aerial dogfight, you shouldn't expect miracles to occur. A supplied surface-to-air missile battery, for instance, will defeat a enemy helicopters almost 100 percent of the time, regardless of your in battle decisions. ~ Zachary Knowlton, All Game Guide