Conquest of Elysium II Now Available As A Free Dow

[Annette]

News Release For Immediate Release


Witness The Birth Of A Classic Series!
Conquest of Elysium II Now Available As A Free Download!


Hampstead, NC, 30 May 2007

It's 1997. You're in Sweden, where the women may be hot but the winters are cold, and
you have some free time on your hands. Do you:

(a) Participate in historical reenactments of the Thirty Years War?
(b) Drink beer until your blackouts last weeks at a time?
(c) Form a new black metal band based on the teachings of Swedish philosopher
Emanuel Swedenborg calling it "Swedenborgasmic Satanas"?
(d) Create a highly addictive turn-based computer fantasy strategy game that signals the
beginning of the greatest fantasy game on a computer?

Well, if you're Illwinter Game Design your choice would have to be (d), although in all
honesty they may have chosen (a) through (c) at some point too, maybe all at once. From
what we hear drunk Swedish black metallers in period costume were all the rage in 1997.

In 1997 Illwinter Game Design, best known for their award-winning series, Dominions,
released on an unsuspecting world Conquest of Elysium II. The direct descendent of
Dominions 3: The Awakening, Conquest of Elysium II is where the addiction originated.
Unfortunately, for fans wanting to see how their favorite fantasy series began, acquiring a
copy has been difficult, at least until now.

Illwinter Game Design and Shrapnel Games have just made Conquest of Elysium II
available to the world as a FREE download. This is the full game, no strings attached.
Download and play it forever!

Available for all the major operating systems (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux-sorry,
Sinclair ZX81 users!), Conquest of Elysium II allows gamers to step back in time and
discover a true strategy gem that emphasizes gameplay over glitz, and rewards players
with a rich tapestry of carefully woven fun. Dominions players will instantly recognize
the themes and options explored in the game, although at a smaller scale than they are
used to.

Just as Dominions is about choices, so is Conquest of Elysium II. A game of warfare,
players can choose from twenty different character classes to represent their faction in the
gameworld. Each class differs in traits and powers, with some influencing the battlefield
and others controlling vast wells of magic. There are five different societies to play in,
akin to the different ages in Dominions, and the world map is generated anew for each
game. Besides battling other opponents, neutral creatures are scattered throughout the
world. There are over three hundred types of critters, and over one hundred special
abilities possessed by them.

Conquest of Elysium II supports up to eight players, although unfortunately it does not
support multplayer outside of hotseat play. It is also not moddable, although with the
random world generation, the score of characters, various societies, and the Monster
Manual worth of denizens, Conquest of Elysium II is a game that can be discovered fresh
for years.

Discover it for yourself by downloading the full, FREE game here:

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/CoE2/1.htm

For more information on Conquest of Elysium II, or the latest Illwinter Game Design title,
the almighty Dominions 3: The Awakening, please visit us at www.shrapnelgames.com,
which is home to a discriminating collection of the best independent strategy gaming on
your computer. Besides plenty of demos to download, we also feature two other
absolutely FREE games, winSPWW2 and winSPMBT.

[lch]

Cooooooooooooooooool! Many thanks to the devs, I'm going to download it right away. You should get some screenshots of it ASAP, too. Thanks for the freeby!

[Reverend Zombie]

The direct descendent of
Dominions 3: The Awakening, Conquest of Elysium II is where the addiction originated.
Unfortunately, for fans wanting to see how their favorite fantasy series began, acquiring a
copy has been difficult, at least until now.

Bolded word should be ancestor or something similar.

[lch]

Heh, yeah, I wondered about that aswell. It's meant to be predecessor, I guess, but ancestor is maybe more appropriate...

[Actuarian]

I actually bought that game. It's a fun short-term diversion. If I remember correctly, it behaves strangely with big armies. I think armies are limited to a certain size in battles, and after an army gets over that size the program will randomly choose which troops get to participate in a battle.

[Gandalf Parker]

I bought mine many years ago. It is very retro. People who used to play on commodores or ataris will get a kick out of the graphics. At one time it was an excellent example of what could be done on those machines with programming languages that anyone could use. Its also rather addictive.

[Kristoffer O]

> If I remember correctly, it behaves strangely with big armies. I think armies are limited to a certain size in battles, and after an army gets over that size the program will randomly choose which troops get to participate in a battle.

It might behave strangely, but not random. THere are three positions on the battle field. -1, 0 and 1.
-1 = support etc
0 = archers and commanders
1 = melee
THere are room for 16 units in a row IIRC. All melee units fill up rows until all are used. If you have too many melee units the 0, and the -1 are moved outside the screen and cannot be targeted until you kill off a few.

Units recruirted latest have higher nbrs, meaning they are placed behind the older units in the same position. If a unit is killed his nbr is available for newly recruited units.

[Nix]

Cute game. Some of the icons carried over into Dominions, like the symbol for regenerating units.

[B0rsuk]

QQ: Is the game anything like Master of Magic ?

[Kristoffer O]

I don't thinks so. More like net hack, regarding the fairness of the game anyway. Perhaps MoM'ish in the random world stuff. It is not too difficult, so you can easily get a clue what it's all about. Quite quick game. Not very big either. Fun. Unfair. Unserious. Fun. Random. Likable. Unpretentious. Pompous. All in all: fun!