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2022-08-26
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ADVANCED SPACE BATTLE REVIEW
by Shaun Bebbington
from Retro Mart:
Platform Game Designer
This week, Shaun takes a look
at Protovision's latest offering.
Advanced Space Battle
Price TBA
Publisher Protovision
Website www.protovision-online.de
Required Spec Commodore 64/128 with
disk drive
Advanced Space Battle - which you
may remember us talking about last
week - is set in a galaxy of 36
civilisations strewn over the same
number of planets. Long ago,
warmongering was in abundance there,
with each planet wanting ultimate
power over all others. But after many
generations of this power struggle, a
peace was forged. With the galaxy
still in a peaceful and stable state,
there are plans to bring it under the
control of one supreme ruler. Err...
that'd be you. With the game set, it's
time to move your armies to invade and
take control of the surrounding
planets. Sounds simple, eh?
Advanced Space Battle is a
turn-based strategy game for one to
four players and comes in two
versions, being 'Classic' and
'Advanced'. In the former, it can be
played against a computer-controlled
opponent called 'Deep Jones', whilst
the latter may only have real human
competitors. Once you've selected the
version that you want to play, you can
then decide how long the game will
last (counted in years, from 20 to
1000) and how many orders (or 'turns')
each player can make per year.
Finally, you must choose the shape of
the galaxy and then you're then ready
to play. I'll deal with the classic
version first.
COMMAND AND CONQUER
The classic version is a much
simpler and quicker game than the
advanced one. Each player will start
with 100 ships to command (except for
Deep Jones, who will have more due to
not having a human brain). Initially,
you must send out fleets of ships to
invade and conquer nearby planets, and
each invaded world will have its own
industry that will vary from 0 to 15,
and will therefore produce that number
of ships per year. Worlds still under
control of its natives will carry on
producing ships throughout the game,
and will build formidable defences as
time progresses.
Occasionally, native worlds will
send out their own fleets to invade
other planets, which can cause a
problem for all players, including
Deep Jones. As your empire grows, so
does your military prowess, unless
things go drastically wrong. In
theory, it's important to look at the
map and grab important strategic
points then accumulate your forces'
attack. Doing so will also act as an
important part of your defence, but
often you are invading blindly or on
old planetary data, as the game allows
you to view the number of each world's
armed forces.
Each battle is weighted in favour
of the defending world, so it's
necessary to send out more ships to
assail than needed. When the game is
over, when the number of years have
come to an end, the score for each
player is calculated on the total
fleet size and how vast each player's
empire is.
In the advanced version, the rules
are basically the same as above, but
you must remember that a good dictator
is a caring one. As you expand your
empire, you will need to build
research and development units,
industry, infrastructure and modernise
each world, as most will be left
without anything after your invasion.
This is done by turning each planet
into a self-sustaining one; by
ensuring that industries are
profitable and the public sector meet
the demand of the population.
Well-balanced planets will never
riot and produce capital that can be
exported to other parts of your empire
to help them out. And as you modernise
industry, you get the opportunity to
do the same with your armies, making
you a fearsome and successful emperor,
in the hope that your adversaries
aren't doing as well as you so that
you may take control of their planets
and thus win the game.
Advanced Space Battle is entirely
engrossing, as it's not just a
turn-based strategy game, but has
elements of Sim City and the like that
keeps the player compelled. If you
only buy one new Commodore 64 game,
make it this one. You won't be
disappointed.
SB