''Dukedom'' is a

turn-based strategy A turn-based strategy (TBS) game is a Strategy video game, strategy game (usually some type of wargaming, wargame, especially a wargaming#Unit or map scale, strategic-level wargame) where players take Time-keeping systems in games, turns when pla ...

text-based In computing, text-based user interfaces (TUI) (alternately terminal user interfaces, to reflect a dependence upon the properties of computer terminals and not just text), is a retronym describing a type of user interface (UI) common as an ear ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

about land management and was created as an expanded version of '' Hamurabi''.

Gameplay

The player is one of several Dukes chosen by the High King to help run the Kingdom. Their Duchy is not in the best of shape, the gameplay goal is to build up its population, land holdings, and grain reserves, ultimately hoping to become powerful enough to overthrow the High King. The player has to manage their duchy, while paying taxes and sending, on occasion, peasants to the King's service, undergoing

epidemics An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics of infectious d ...

locusts Locusts (derived from the Vulgar Latin ''locusta'', meaning grasshopper) are various species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumst ...

and rival lords secretly helped by the High King; they can buy and sell land, itself divided in several categories depending on

fertility Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertili ...

, and engaging in

offensive Offensive may refer to: * Offensive, the former name of the Dutch political party Socialist Alternative * Offensive (military), an attack * Offensive language ** Fighting words or insulting language, words that by their very utterance inflict inj ...

defensive war A defensive war (german: Verteidigungskrieg) is one of the causes that justify war by the criteria of the Just War tradition. It means a war where at least one nation is mainly trying to defend itself from another, as opposed to a war where both s ...

fare, sending both subjects and

mercenaries A mercenary, sometimes also known as a soldier of fortune or hired gun, is a private individual, particularly a soldier, that joins a military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any o ...

against the enemy and winning land and grain.

Development

Dukedom was written in

PL/I PL/I (Programming Language One, pronounced and sometimes written PL/1) is a procedural, imperative computer programming language developed and published by IBM. It is designed for scientific, engineering, business and system programming. I ...

D by Vince Talbot in 1976 as an expanded version of ''Kingdom'', which itself is an expanded version of '' Hamurabi''. The game was rewritten (with extensive revision) in I.T.S. EXBASIC by Jamie E. Hanrahan. It was adapted for /GAMES/ by David C. Barber. It was re-written from I.T.S. EXBASIC to

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

level F BASIC then to DEC

RSTS/E RSTS () is a multi-user time-sharing operating system developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC, now part of Hewlett-Packard) for the PDP-11 series of 16-bit minicomputers. The first version of RSTS (RSTS-11, Version 1) was implemented in 1 ...

BASIC-PLUS BASIC-PLUS is an extended dialect of the BASIC programming language that was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for use on its RSTS/E time-sharing operating system for the PDP-11 series of 16-bit minicomputers in the early 1970s thro ...

. The game was converted to

Microsoft BASIC Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first ve ...

by Richard A. Kaapke. The BASIC version appeared in

Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format th ...

in February 1980 and was republished in ''Big Computer Games'' (1984). A

Small Basic Microsoft Small Basic is a programming language, interpreter and associated IDE. Microsoft's simplified variant of BASIC, it is designed to help students who have learnt visual programming languages such as Scratch learn text-based programming ...

version called ''Dukedom Small Basic Version'' exists in

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

form on

CodePlex CodePlex was a forge website by Microsoft. While it was active, it allowed shared development of open-source software. Its features included wiki pages, source control based on Mercurial, TFVC, Subversion or Git, discussion forums, issue trac ...

. A complete

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

version is also available on

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...

. It inspired the game ''Manor'', which purported to be more historically accurate.

References

{{reflist, 30em

External links

1984 Big Computer Games
edited by

David H. Ahl David H. Ahl (born May 17, 1939) is an American author who is the founder of ''Creative Computing (magazine), Creative Computing'' magazine. He is also the author of many how-to books, including ''BASIC Computer Games'', the first computer book t ...

Strategy video games City-building games 1976 video games Video games set in the Middle Ages Video games with textual graphics Public-domain software with source code Video games developed in the United States Video games with available source code