Conquest: Frontier Wars

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Conquest: Frontier Wars

Developer(s)	Fever Pitch Studios
Publisher(s)	Ubi Soft
Latest version	1.07
Release date(s)	8/14/2001
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Media	CD-ROM
System requirements	Windows 2000

Conquest: Frontier Wars is a Real Time Strategy engine released in 2001 by Ubi Soft and Fever Pitch Studios. The bulk of the development was done at Digital Anvil in Austin, Texas, a startup developer originally owned by Chris Roberts. Conquest was a very innovatively-designed game, with many new aspects unique to the Real Time Strategy genre. Unlike most other Real Time Strategy games, Conquest's campaign levels were played out on multiple maps, linked with wormholes.

Bases could be constructed on planets in any system, but not before the player had secured their supply lines between systems. Supplies played a vital part in offensive operations, as each ship carried only a limited amount of supplies, which were depleted as weapons and special devices were used. Ships with fully depleted supply stores were then rendered completely ineffective until they returned to a supply base for reloading. For this reason, players could not maintain the momentum of their assaults in enemy-controlled systems unless their fleet was accompanied by supply vessels.

Conquest featured a number of Admirals in the single-player campaign, which functioned similarly to hero units. In single-player skirmish and multiplayer games, Admirals acted essentially as leader units (Warlords for Mantis and Magistrates for Celareons). Entire squadrons of other ships could be grouped with an attached Admiral shuttle; this endowed the Admiral's combat bonuses upon the entire fleet and allowed the player to better control their forces.

Unfortunately, the game was not very popular when it first came out, though it stayed on the market for some time. UbiSoft continued to support the game with a number of patches and a multiplayer gaming service, but the game never truly gained large numbers of players. The release of modding tools to the community did not make much of an impact, as they were fairly ineffective and difficult to use.

In July of 2004, Warthog Studios announced that it was developing a sequel to Conquest: Frontier Wars, titled Conquest 2: The Vyrium Uprising. In addition to the original three races, the game will feature a new, fourth race, the reptilian Vyrium, and will also feature polygonal 3D environments and particle effects. At this time, the game currently is without a publisher or release date.

[edit] Races

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Terrans

Humans have long waged war with each other. This has not changed when interstellar travel was discovered. The game is vague on the events between now and the beginning of the campaign; however, a war is mentioned to have occurred just before the Tau Ceti Incident. After the war, humanity is more or less united, and the Terran Navy (very similar to the Terran Confederation Navy of Wing Commander) is as strong as ever.

Harsh realities of war have forced Terrans to create powerful warships to defend themselves. Since energy shields are a fairly-recent addition to ship defenses, most ships are forced to rely on their great hull strength to keep them intact. This, in turn, forces humanity to constantly expand in search of resources necessary for ship construction. The Navy is made up primarily of capital ships with Corvettes making up the bulk of the fleet. The most powerful ship class in the Terran Navy is the Dreadnought with powerful lasers and a shield that can be overloaded to make the ship invulnerable to damage. The Terrans also possess powerful battlestations called Ion Cannons, capable of destroying most ships with one shot from half of a system away. An Ion Cannon's main drawbacks are its slow turning speed, long charge times, and high supply use.

Mantis

"Mantis" was a name given to the first alien race discovered by humanity for lack of a better name. The Mantis are insectoids with a hive-like social structure, ruled by a queen. Unlike Earth insects, the entire Mantis race has only one queen, and the firstborn female offspring of the queen is the sole heir to the throne, often causing sibling rivalry. Because of their high reproduction rate, the Mantis are constantly searching for new worlds to colonize and, if necessary, conquer. They tend to see all other races as inferior.

Driven by their need for more worlds, the Mantis have created powerful fleets to further that goal. Because of their hive-like mindset, the majority of the ships tend to be carriers, sending swarms of fighters to overwhelm the enemy defenses and crush them without putting the carriers themselves in jeopardy. This same mindset explains why the strongest Mantis ship is the supercarrier Tiamat, which can launch multiple wings of heavy bombers to leave the enemy no chance of escape. If all fighters/bombers are destroyed, however, the carriers are completely defenseless. That is why they are also supported by Frigates and other plasma-firing craft.

Celareons

Very little is known about the origins of this race of pure energy. Cursed to spend their lives trapped in mechanical containers, they nevertheless praise their mythical creators. Celareons possess extremely advanced technology. They are even able to create artificial wormholes, the knowledge coveted by the Mantis and is one of the reasons the two races are in conflict. Celareons consider themselves to be peaceful and are only interested in the pursuit of knowledge. They do, however, realize that they live in a hostile universe and must, therefore, protect themselves. While usually Celareons are unified, there have been disagreements regarding the war with the Mantis: some believe that peace should be made at any cost, including handing over the artificial wormhole technology to the Mantis; others claim that the Mantis cannot be allowed to get their hands on the technology, as it could allow the enemy to bypass the static wormhole network and strike at the very heart of Celareon space.

Like Terrans, Celareons prefer capital ships to fighters. Unlike Terrans, they have no fighter capability. To a human eye, Celareon ships look like giant creatures of the sea. Their graceful, nearly-transparent looks hide deadly weapons and defenses, which they do not hesitate to use when threatened. The most awe-inspiring ship - the Monolith, ensures that most enemy ships do not survive an encounter with the Celareon fleet.

[edit] Storyline

Conquest's storyline is set several hundred years in the future. Following a series of internal conflicts, mankind has colonized a few star systems linked to the solar system by wormholes, and the small Terran Navy is in the process of exploring several new worm holes. Arriving in the Tau Ceti system, the TNS Andromeda, under the command of Admiral Tacweather Hawkes, is caught between a small, fast, unidentified alien spacecraft and its pursuers. After the Andromeda is destroyed in a collision with a massive alien warship, you, as the anonymous "Commander" are ordered by Admiral William Halsey to investigate. With the help of Captain Thomas Blackwell, you begin exploring uncharted wormholes in order to discover what happened to the Andromeda.

After learning that Admiral Hawkes escaped the destruction of the Andromeda and has been taken prisoner by the unidentified alien race, dubbed "Mantis", you penetrate deeper into hostile territory in order to rescue him. Soon, Earth and its navy find themselves embroiled in the middle of a Mantis civil war, with the usurper Queen Ver'Lak fighting her sister, Warlord Ker'Tak. Fearing for its own safety in the face of the massive Imperial Mantis fleet, Earth assists Ker Tak in the fight. In response, Ver Lak assigns her chief Lieutenant, Warlord Malkor, to hunt down and destroy Earth.

During a dangerous mission to rescue Mantis warlords still loyal to Ker'Tak, Captain Blackwell's corvette is lost in a rogue black hole while scouting beyond an uncharted wormhole. In spite of this tragic loss, Halsey and Ker'Tak order a large-scale offensive against Malkor's supply lines in the Orion Arm, assigning Admiral Benson to assist you. Benson is a good soldier, but is hardly pleasant to work with, as she fully blames you for her friend Blackwell's death.

Blackwell turns out to be very much alive, however, returning in a critical moment with yet more alien reinforcements. The rogue black hole turns out to have been a passageway to Celareon space, and a meeting is soon arranged between the Terran Admiralty and the ruling council of the energy-based Celareons. The territory of this advanced species sits astride the raging Mantis Civil War, and the conflict threatens to engulf their systems.

The two races agree to an alliance against Ver'Lak's forces, but the meeting soon reveals a surprising and dangerous development. Admiral Halsey is shown a data transmission, sent from the heart of Terran space to the Mantis, which was also intercepted and recorded by the Celareons. Vital information on Earth's location and defensive systems has been leaked to the Mantis by a Terran traitor, prompting a massive investigation to discover who has betrayed humanity to its enemies.

The ambitious Admiral Smirnoff discovers and provides proof to Admiral Halsey that Admiral Hawkes is the traitor, apparently coerced during his captivity by the Mantis. However, Captain Blackwell remains thoroughly unconvinced, and uses his Celareon-retrofitted corvette to shadow Smirnoff's dreadnaught. Listening in under cloak, Blackwell discovers that Smirnoff is the real traitor and that he is trying to eliminate Hawkes. The depth of Smirnoff's treachery is revealed when he destroys his own ship after boarding a nearby Mantis vessel. Blackwell is able to retrieve Hawkes' prison pod from the explosion, and the exonerated Admiral returns to service.

It was Admiral Smirnoff who gave the Mantis the plans of Sol System's defenses, in the mad, megalomaniacal hope of ruling all mankind as a Mantis proxy following their invasion. Warlord Malkor, however, has no intention of letting the human race survive to pose a threat, and betrays Smirnoff. As a result, you and your forces find yourselves making a mad rush to defend Earth against the Mantis onslaught.

Admirals Hawkes, Steele, and Takai hold back the assault and soon take the war to Mantis territory. They discover from Warlord Ker'Tak that Malkor, nestled deep in the heart of Mantis space, is building a massive superweapon that is powerful enough to render an entire planet uninhabitable. Once completed, Malkor will go on a rampage with this new weapon and the bulk of the Mantis fleet, launching an unstoppable onslaught against the Rebel Mantis, Terrans, and Celareons.

Thus the race begins to get to Malkor's building site before he can launch this devastating weapon. After a series of furious battles, the combined Rebel/Terran/Celareon fleet manages to break through the Mantis defenses, destroying Ver'Lak, Malkor, and his superweapon. The cost, however, has been high. Earth herself has been attacked, thousands of Terran warships and several colonies have been destroyed, and mankind's casualties alone rack up in the millions. Celareons themselves have disappeared shortly after victory, erasing all trace of their existence from Terran computers.