''Fantasy Empires'' is a role-playing

fantasy wargame A fantasy wargame is a wargame that involves a fantastical setting, and employs rules for elements such as magic and non-human intelligent creatures. History The rise in popularity in wargaming of the 1950s through to the 1970s largely coincide ...

for MS-DOS made by Silicon Knights and published by Strategic Simulations in 1993. The game uses the '' Dungeons & Dragons'' license, and is set in the fictional world of Mystara.

Gameplay

The player is first tasked with creating a character along iconic ''Dungeons & Dragons'' roles. This persona serves as the leader of the army during battles, but does not fight. The main portion of the game is played on the 'strategic map'. In this portion of the game, the main tasks include expanding territory by invading and conquering provinces either neutral or enemy owned, constructing building improvements on provinces already owned, and hiring troops. Troops can only be hired if the appropriate buildings are constructed. Apart from humans, the game also has provinces where orcs, dwarves, elves, halflings, and shadow elves can all be built as units in the army. The game comes with a full view or fog of war option. The full view allows the entire world to be seen, while the fog of war only allows knowledge of adjacent kingdoms. The AI uses a neural net. Some features of the game are making truces (the breaking of which could cause lawful or neutral characters to become chaotic), creating different types of heroes ( fighter, dwarf, elf, magic user, cleric), setting the battle scale (from 20:1 to 1:1) and casting magic spells based upon the points derived from heroes (magic user, clerical, and druidic). Multiple battles with the same troops against 50 or more opponents could cause them to become veterans or even elites in rank. The game comes with a number of NPC opponents, some of whom go all the way through the 36th level and present a formidable challenge.

Reception

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' in 1994 stated that "''Fantasy Empires'' succeeds at all levels", approving of the randomized countries and "seamless integration" of human and computer opponents. The game was reviewed in 1994 in ''

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

'' #207 by Sandy Petersen in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Petersen gave the game 3 out of 5 stars. A review in the German computer gaming magazine POWERPLAY 12/1993 rated 61% (of 100%) for the original 1993 floppy disk version. According to

GameSpy GameSpy was an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware for video games founded in 1996 by Mark Surfas. After the release of a multiplayer server browser for the game, QSpy, Surfas licensed the software under the GameS ...

, "''Fantasy Empires'' was a solid and fun strategy game, as well as an oddly forgotten credit for an excellent developer".

Reviews

*''

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'' (Dec, 1993) *''Génération 4'' (Dec, 1993) *'' MikroBitti'' (Jan, 1994)

References

External links

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Review
in '' Compute!'' {{Dungeons & Dragons video games 1993 video games Computer wargames DOS games DOS-only games Dungeons & Dragons video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Multiplayer hotseat games Mystara Role-playing video games Silicon Knights games Strategic Simulations games Turn-based strategy video games Video games developed in Canada