The game is set in England's Dark Ages. You are a Lord and you own a small portion of land. However, the country itself is divided. The king has been assassinated, and Normans and Saxons are accusing one another of commiting the crime. If that wasn't enough, the King's crown has also disappeared! Now someone (you, with some aid from Robin Hood) :) must unite the land under his rule, and discover what has happened to the crown and who killed the King.
That is the story of this legendary game. The name Defender of the Crown will certainly bring back good memories to former Amiga owners. With this game, Cinemaware was the first company (in 1986) that really utilised the vast capabilities of the Amiga, and that fact looked like a miracle to the astonished eyes of the gamers of the time. In the title screen the gold letters on the stone wall looked really golden. The knights and other people depicted on-screen looked almost alive, and the cinematic scenes looked like something taken from a fairytale book.
But the game did not appear only on the Amiga. Shortly after the Amiga version, Cinemaware made a PC version. The PC version is worse than the Amiga one in the graphics part (EGA is not a match for the 4096 color Amiga version), and it also has small differences in gameplay.
Defender of the Crown is a turn-based strategy game. The main screen of the game is a map of England, divided into provinces. The goal of the game is to conquer all of them. At the start of the game you choose a character. There are 4 characters to choose from, each with a speciality in one of the skills needed in the game. Your starting location is also affected by your choice of starting character. For beginners, I suggest choosing a character who is good at fencing. After your choice, you start with a single province under your rule, a castle, and a small number of soldiers. In each turn you have a set of actions to choose from. You can buy soldiers, knights or catapults for your army. You can also transfer your soldiers from the "home" army (the soldiers you have in your home castle) to your "campaign" army (the army you use to take provinces). There is also the option of raiding an enemy castle, or holding a tournament.
You can buy as many army reinforcements as your gold allows, and you gain more gold as you conquer more land. Moving the campaign army to a province will conquer it if it is not already owned by someone. However, if there is an enemy campaign army in that province a battle will start. The battles are pretty simple and they are depicted by simple numbers on screen (the only really bad part of the game - you never see, or command a battle). You just give orders, like "ferocious attack" or "wild retreat" and simply see what happens. Most of the time the one with the biggest army wins and stays in the territory. Battles on provinces with castles are somewhat different. At the start of the battle you must batter down the walls with your catapult (you must have at least 1 catapult in your army in order to attack castles), but after that part the battle is the same as the others (whether or not you destroyed the walls).
Raiding a castle is the "arcade" part of the game. You choose a castle to raid, and immediately the action is transferred inside the castle, where you and two of your men are fighting in the castle's courtyard and the inner hall against 3-4 enemies. The only thing you have to do is to point at an enemy with the mouse pointer and right-click as fast as you can. If you win against your enemies you will get some more gold for that game turn. It must be noted that enemies never raid your home castle. But thieves can decrease your gold reserves - this is one of the random things that can happen in any turn. More on those later.
The tournaments are jousting matches, and 99% of the time you always lose (it's the most difficult part of the game), so at the choice that you are given at the start, about jousting only for glory, or for land, it's better to always choose just fame.
Lastly, there are 2 random things that can happen in any turn. The thieves are one, and the other is the abduction of a lady. If that happens you get to choose if you will try to rescue her. The rescuing is exactly the same as going for a raid. The only difference is that you do not gain gold at the end, if you win, but instead you gain a bride...you get married! The game also rewards you with a cinematic scene where you see your bride and your character in a somewhat romantic scene in front of a fireplace.
About the game's graphics I will not say much, since you can pretty much see it from the screenshots. The only thing I will say is that they are no rival to the Amiga version's.
I know the game sounds pretty simple, but I assure you that it is fun to play. It is easy enough, it can be learned immediately, but it's also pretty hard to finish. I especially recommend this game to younger gamers or those new to turn-based strategies.
You find yourself back in the time of Robin Hood and are one of 4 landlords trying to unite the country. Defender of the Crown is surely a classical Strategy-Game. Challenging and involving. It doesn't only concentrate on the strategical aspect, but also on some action, like fencing or jousting. Hold tournaments, where you can fight for a piece of land or simply invade it. Also some diplomatical aspects in it. Overall still one of my favorite games of this genre. This game set standards and it's style dominated the strategy-genre for many years, take a look at games like Kingmaker for example, though that one lacks the action-aspects. The atmosphere and historical background of this game remained unbeaten for a long time.
This EGA version of Defender of the Crown was released a year after the original CGA version and the better graphics surely add to the gameplay. However you also have the option to play in CGA should your graphic card not be able to handle the enormous number of 16 colors. *grins* Please note that the sound of this version as well as the CGA version belongs to the VERY annoying sort. And I haven't found a way to disable it.
One of the most famous games ever made. I don't think that there's a serious gameplayer that never heard about DOTC. The story is simple - English king was killed, and 6 lords, both Norman and Saxon, are fighting for the crown. Choose one of them and conquer others with the help of Robin Hood! The game includes sieges, ground battles... True masterpiece by Cinemaware. This is an advanced, EGA (Extended Graphics Adapter) version of the game.
One of the greatest and most popular games, which has also managed to be popular on several different game platforms including the Commodore 64, Amiga and PC. You start the game by selecting from a group of different powerful people living in Great Britain. You then have to conquer all the enemies' lands as well as the current abandoned lands. There are several different things included in the game and they will be explained below.
Of course the combat is a huge factor in the game. When you attack an enemy army it's showing the battle in text format and calculating the losses for each army. This is done fairly good calculated on how many men you have in your army. When a castle is attacked you also have to hit down the castle walls with a catapult. The more you destroy the easier it will get afterwards. Finally sword fighting is included when you either have to free a person or capture your upcoming pride. This is probably the best part of the game as the atmosphere and graphics in this part of the game is very well done. Finally you also have to collect taxes from the lands you own and you are very dependant on this as you can buy new armies for the gold you collect from this.
Several minor features are included and one of the better ones is that you can meet up with Robin Hood and also convince him to help you when you attack the enemy. This can result in that the enemy will have less men which helps you in the end. Overall the graphics are quite detailed although it doesn't mean that they are good looking but at least it's always easy to navigate around in the game. Defender of the Crown is a bit difficult game so I recommend you give it some time, as you will most likely find it good once you have learned the basics in it. Note that this is the EGA version of the game. It doesn't look as good as the Amiga version but still much better than the CGA version also made for the PC.
Defender of The Crown is unquestionably Cinemaware's best game, and one of the best Amiga games ever released (although the PC version offers no less gameplay, it pales in comparison to the vibrant graphics and amazing soundtrack of the Amiga version). What makes this game a classic is the masterful blend of action, adventure, and strategy game elements.
The basic object is to take over all of medieval Britain by capturing the home castle of each leader. You do this with a campaign army made up of soldiers, knights, and catapults. Besides fighting other armies and taking over their castles, you can also conduct raids and participate in jousts, which can be played either for fame or for land. In a raid, you can raid a rivals castle for gold, or if the chance arrives, rescue a saxon maiden who will become your wife.
If there is any criticism that can be levelled against this excellent game, it is that the action elements are sometimes too difficult-- jousting experienced opponents can be a chore, as can the side-scrolling sword fights that take place during the raid or maiden rescue. Aside from this minor complaint, Defender of The Crown is one of the most atmospheric and truly cinematic games you'll likely find. As with all other Cinemaware games, beautifully drawn intermissions and cutscenes are included. This is the rarer EGA version of the game released by Mirrorsoft which puts it on par with the Commodore 64 version, with vibrant graphics and the same gameplay that we all know and love.
People who downloaded Defender of the Crown (EGA Version) have also downloaded:
Defender of the Crown, Defender of the Crown, Civil War Generals 2, Decisive Battles of American Civil War Vol. 1, Fields of Glory, Fields of Battle, Conquest of The New World: Deluxe Edition, Lords of The Realm
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