American Conquest

American Conquest's basic gameplay mechanics and economic factors are shared with the earlier GSC Game World title Cossacks: European Wars and its add-ons. As in Cossacks, American Conquest allows the building of a base with which the player will conduct military and economic activities to prepare for victory in a scenario.

While the difference between playing for the European factions and the Native Americans are discernible in terms of military strategy, the basics are the same. The usual chain of activities involve building dwellings for peasant workforce and to gather resources like wood, food, and gold, stone, coal and iron from mines which the player will have to construct at designated areas. Generally, wood and stone are used to construct buildings whereas the others are primarily used for creating and maintaining the army. Food may be harvested from either a mill or by hunting wild animals with specialized units like the trapper or the buccaneer unit.

GSC Game World designed American Conquest to attract the United States computer game market, which had been unreceptive to its earlier game Cossacks: European Wars, a hit in Europe and Russia.

In the United Kingdom, American Conquest sold roughly 20,000 units during the first half of 2003. Kristan Reed of GamesIndustry.biz wrote that these were "not figures that spell H.I.T."