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Star Trek: Conquest

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Title:	Star Trek: Conquest
Released:	Nov 2007 (US)
Platform:	Playstation 2 & Nintendo Wii
Genre:	Strategy/Action - Turn Based
Publisher:	Bethesda Softworks
Developer:	4J Studios

[edit] Overview

STAR TREK: CONQUEST is a single-player game of galactic conquest featuring a blend of turn based strategy and arcade style action. It is set in Star Trek: The Next Generation era. Players take control of Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, Dominion, and Breen forces and lead them in a campaign to control the galaxy, one planet at a time. Players must build and manage their growing empires in turn-based strategy, and then engage in all out starship combat in real-time action.

Strategically, players must effectively manage their limited resources to expand their empire. Players can decide how to best achieve objectives by managing fleets, admirals, building support structures, researching technology and engaging enemies in combat. Once battle is initiated, the game switches to a ship level tactical view allowing players to take direct command of their ships and engage in real-time combat.

[edit] Console Platforms

The game will be released on the Nintendo Wii and Playstation 2 platforms with the preferred platform being the Playstation 2i.

The Wii version has faster load times and runs at 60 FPS utilising larger textures with a greater color depth resulting in sharper visuals than the PS2. The game was also built specifically with the Wii controller. On the galactic map, you can use the Wii Remote like a virtual mouse, allowing for a true point and click interface. This simplifies makes things like selecting planets, building fleets, constructing starbases and issuing combat orders to your admirals.

The Wii controler also improves the arcade combat gameplay. Players use the nunchuck to control all of the shipâ€™s movement and speed, while the Wii Remote controls all of the shipâ€™s weapons. This allows the player to quickly aim and fire anywhere in a 360 degree arc around their ship. Combined, the two controls make each ship feel like a true weapons platform, able to move in one direction while simultaneously firing in another.

[edit] Backstory

It is a time of unrest, all the major races are at war. Age-old alliances are forgotten, diplomacy is dead. Powerful fleets prowl the galaxy establishing outposts and vanquishing indigenous and enemy fleets alike in the pursuit of the ultimate prize - the capture of all home worlds and galactic domination.

[edit] Gameplay

Conquest can be described as a hybrid of Star Trek: Legacy and Star Trek: Armada. Itâ€™s less combat simulation, like Bridge Commander, and more space action combat with a strategy wrapper. The game is a follow-up to Star Trek: Encounters, which takes the arcade style combat found in Encounters, enhances it, and then adds on strategic turn based elements to the game.

Players will control a fleet of up to seven ships that can be made up from scout, cruiser or dreadnought class ships. Players can swap control between any ship in their fleet at any time and choose fleet formations. They can also control starbases, if their system contains one. Additionally, the player can choose to resolve combat using a strategic combat system. In this mode, players can choose standing orders in a real time combat simulator.

The objective of the game is to capture the home worlds of the other enemy races and dominate the game board. In order to achieve this, the game is split into two sections:

A turn-based strategy
An arcade space combat

During the strategic phase players can give orders to fleets, commission new admirals, purchase new ships and build structures such as starbases, research stations and mining facilities.

As fleets move around the galactic map, when they enter hostile systems or encounter enemy fleets, then a battle occurs. These battles can be resolved by either watching a top level strategic visualization of the battle or by entering arcade mode and taking direct control of your fleet and engaging the enemy on a 2D plane.

[edit] Races

There are six playable races and three unlockable races. Playable races include:

Federation

The Federation is the most well-rounded of all the Races but because of their central map position, can be hard to defend.

Klingon

The Klingons have the toughest ships including excellent Scout ships - these are cheap to buy and have high Hit Points. Expect to face many squadrons of these smaller, faster ships from the Klingon Empire. The Klingons are the most aggressive of all the enemy races in terms of quickly expanding their empire.

Romulan

The Romulans are much more cautious and tend to construct larger ships and fortify their systems well. They can construct their Dreadnoughts for a relatively cheap price. The Romulan turrets also have a high Hit Point value.

Cardassian

The Cardassians have two movement Admirals allowing them to really move around the map. They have cheaper, yet weaker ships and starbases.

Dominion

The Dominion have a great location on the map, with only one entry point to their Home World. Like the Romulans, the Dominion also prefer to build Cruisers and Dreadnoughts and have expensive, but tough starbases. They also make good use of their Wormhole Generator super weapon.

Breen

The Breen like to build larger ships and are equally balanced in terms of seizing and defending systems. They also have cheap Cruisers and turrets compared to the other races.

Additional races the player could encounter:

Ferengi
Borg
Orion
Xindi

[edit] Ship Classes

The specific ships available are not known at this time, however the classes to which they are assigned are the following :

Scout - Fast moving, light shields and weapons.
Cruiser - Medium speed, medium shields and weapons.
Dreadnought - Slow speed, heavy shields and weapons.

[edit] Special Weapons

Special weapons are very powerful weapons that can be built once sufficient research has been conducted. The speed of research is dependent on the number of science stations the player has, with more being faster. Once a weapon is built the research must be redone to build another. These weapons can only be built at a players homeworld and only if a fleet is not there.

Each race has access to only three of the six different special weapons which are predetermined and never change. Effects last for a single turn with any damaging or healing that resulted from a special weapon being permanent.

Special Weapons are:

Genesis Device - Damages all ships and structures in a targeted system..
Pulse Device - Temporarily freezes a target system prevent movement of or changes to ships and structures in that system.
Wormhole Generator - Creates a link between the players home system and any other system.
Virus Emitter - Reduces the effectiveness of enemy admirals in a targeted system.
Sub-Space Disrupters - Breaks the links to all non-friendly systems in the targeted system.
Healing Device - Heals all ships and stations in the targeted system.

[edit] Stations

There are several types of stations a player can purchase or capture. These include:

Starbase - Allow the player to build star ships and are strong defense platforms.
Science Station - Conduct research to gain experience in order to use special weapons.
Argus Array - Capturing this removes the fog-of-war and allows player to see entire map.

[edit] Admirals

Players assign admirals to fleets which confer the special abilities of the admiral to the ships in their fleet. There are three types of admirals:

Attack - Provides enhanced weapon damage.
Defense - Provides enhanced shield strength.
Movement - Provides the ability to move further distances per turn.

In addition admirals accrue experience through battles which increases their base ability. For example a movement admiral with maxed out experience can move halfway across the map in a single turn, which is very useful for long range attacks.

Federation Admirals
- Aaron
- Bullock
- Savar

Klingon Admirals
- Martok
- T'Ong
- Nu'Daq

Dominion Admirals
- Weyoun
- Gelnon
- Velgrun

Cardassian Admirals
- Dukat
- Damar
- Turel

Romulan Admirals
- Jarok
- Tomalak
- Toreth

[edit] Campaigns & Skirmish Modes

Conquest has two modes of play: Campaign and Skirmish.

Campaign Mode is the main mode of play. The player must try to eradicate all other opponents from the map and achieve galactic domination. It can be played against a variable number of opponents, which allows players to set up preferred battles (i.e. Federation Vs Dominion) and also affect the map layout. Variables such as AI difficulty, fog-of-war, and starting credits can also be changed.

Skirmish Mode allows the player to set up one-off arcade battles. These battles can be fully customized, allowing the player to choose the opposing races, their fleet sizes and composition, whether or not Starbases and defensive turrets are included, sim or arcade bttle mode, opposing admirals and their experience levels, whether you are attacking or defending, and in which of the 38 game levels the action takes place.

[edit] Unlockables

By completing the campaign at different difficulty levels you can unlock new ships and levels that can be used in Skirmish play. Nothing is given for campaign completions on Easy, only on Medium and Hard.

The specific unlock task for each is:

Win a Federation Campaign to unlock the Federation #2 ship set (Sovereign, Nebula, Oberth)
Win a Klingon Campaign to unlock the Borg ship set.
Win a Dominion Campaign to unlock the Xindi ship set
Win a Breen Campaign to unlock Sha Ka Ree skirmish level
Win a Romulan Campaign to unlock Talos skirmish level
Win a Cardassian Campaign to unlock the Borg Unicomplex skirmish level.

[edit] Turn Based Actions

During the turn-based round, the player makes strategic-level decisions to: move fleets, construct new fleets, build new ships, build structures, or fortify any systems owned. The player can also decide on upgrade paths or to construct special weapons.

If during the turn the player moves his fleets into neutral or enemy systems, then a battle occurs to decide who will gain ownership of the system. The battle can either be resolved through arcade play or by simulating the battle.

In both modes, the player can order their fleet into offensive, defensive, or neutral stances. These stances affect how the other ships in the fleet choose targets and attack the enemy. The player also has the option to retreat if the battle is not going his way.

After the player is finished moving his fleets and/or conducting any base building, he can end his turn. It is now the AIâ€™s turn to move, and the player may need to engage in further battles to defend his territory from marauding AI players.

[edit] Strategic Elements

Conquest focuses on the big decisions in order to allow players to spend more time across the playable races. Strategical elements of the game include:

Planets - Identified on a large galactic map, capturing these provide various bonuses to the player. Capturing all the planets and destroying all enemy fleets wins the game.

Credits - Earned through mining. Credits can be spent on on starbases, factories, research facilities, and starships. Credits cannot be regained by selling or recycling purchased items.

Infrastructure - The stats of the static constructions such as starbases, research facilities and mining colonies vary per race. Some races have great research rates and can upgrade technology very quickly, whereas other races may be strong in mining, giving them more income per turn, etc.

Technology Tree - Each race has itâ€™s own technology tree, areas they can research and upgrade. For some it is more focused on ship performance, or weapons power, for others it will be increased industry or better infrastructure.

Special Weapons - Each race has a different set of Special Weapons, powerful weapons that are unlocked via research and can have a devastating effect on the galaxy map during strategic play.

Race - Each race has different strengths and weaknesses and different starting positions on the map. Please see the Races section for details.

Admirals - Each admiral owned by the player can command up to seven ships. The more admirals you have the more ships you can command overall. The types of admirals you choose, attacking, defending, movement, plays a role in the overall way in which you try to conquer the map. Admirals gain experience as they survive combat which translates to improved stats for their respective strength (Attack, Defense, or Movement).

[edit] Tactical Elements

Real-time Starship control allows the player to control fleets of ships during conflicts. The player can issue orders to the rest of your fleet and switch command to any ship. The two tactical elements the feature prominently in the arcade combat mode include:

Ships Types - Attacking, Defensive and Maneuvering capabilities of all ships are unique per race. The cost of ship construction also varies per race.

Shield Facings - The game provides for a multiple arc shield facing system similar to other titles such as Starfleet Command.

Weapons Loadout - Ships can be selected with different weapons load-outs.

Admirals - There are three types of admirals, Attacking, Defensive and Movement Admirals. Each type offers different strengths in the tactical play. The Movement Admiral for example can make two moves per turn. Each race has a different spread of Admiral types, for example, the Klingons have more attacking admirals to reflect their warrior nature. Admirals with more experience are stronger then less experienced admirals of the same type.

[edit] Difficulty Levels

There are three difficulty levels for the game. Currently the only confirmed difference is the amount of credits the players begins with.

Easy - 200 Credits, Fog of War - off
Medium - 150 Credit amounts, Fog of War - on
Hard - 100 Credit amounts, Fog of War - on

Alternatively the player can make any level more difficult by adding more rivals on the map. It is easier to win against 1 rival then it is against 5 rivals.

[edit] Multiplayer

Conquest is single-player only.

[edit] Voice Acting

While the game includes a wide assortment of context appropriate voice overs there are no well known actors from Star Trek providing voice talent.

[edit] Soundtrack

Some of the soundtrack is composed by Michael Shapiro. Previous works by this composer include Empire Earth 2. You can find samples of his work at his website, Mike Music.

Other tracks were composed by Rod Abernethy ofRedNote Studio for Star Trek: Legacy and were reused in this game (as well as for Star Trek: Tactical Assault and Star Trek: Encounters)