Ludography
70/100
Critics1 review
80/100
Metacritic13 critic reviews
More scores
Metacritic usersuser score
78/100
GameFAQsTough
3.94/5
Player reviews
100% positive16 reviews
Runs on
Windows
Price
US$5.99

Where to get it

Conquest: Frontier Wars cover

2001 · Real-time strategy · Science

Conquest: Frontier Wars

Mankind has finally learned how to explore the outer regions of space using wormhole technology, but Man is not alone in the Void. Two other races are also exploring and exploiting the cosmos for its resources and living space: the Mantis, an insect-like race whose technology relies on large numbers of quick fleets, and the Celaerans, beings of energy cursed by their creators to spend their lives in strange, armored canisters. Expand your fleet, explore your universe, and crush your opponents!

Released
14 August 2001
Platforms
Windows
Genres
Real-time strategyScienceStrategy
Developers
—
Publishers
—
Modes
MultiplayerSingle-player
Perspective
Bird view / Isometric
Themes
Science fiction
Country
United States
Age ratings
CLASS_IND LESRB TUSK 12
Languages
English
Time to beat
22hmain story23hcompletionist
Composers
James Hannigan

About

Conquest: Frontier Wars is a real-time strategy game released in 2001 by Ubi Soft and developed by Fever Pitch Studios. A good amount of the development was done at Digital Anvil in Austin, Texas, a startup developer originally owned by Chris Roberts, Erin Roberts, Eric Peterson, John Miles, Tony Zurovec, Marten Davies and Robert Rodriguez. Once Microsoft purchased Digital Anvil, Eric Peterson and Tom Mauer left to form Fever Pitch Studios Inc, and lead a team to complete the game as originally intended by the team. On December 9, 2013, the source code was bundled with every copy of the game purchased on GOG.com.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Bases can be constructed on any discovered planet in any system, but would not be operable until a wormhole connecting that system to a friendly one was locked with a jumpgate or until a friendly Headquarters, Cocoon (Mantis) or Acropolis (Celareon) was constructed in the system. Supplies play a vital part in offensive operations, as each ship carries only a limited amount of supplies, which are depleted as weapons and special devices are used. Ships with fully depleted supply stores are completely ineffective except as cannon fodder until they return to a supply base for resupply. For this reason, players usually cannot maintain the momentum of their assaults in enemy-controlled systems unless their fleet is accompanied by supply vessels.

Conquest features a number of Admirals in the single-player campaign, which function similarly to hero units. In single-player skirmish and multiplayer games, Admirals act essentially as leader units (Warlords for Mantis and Magistrates for Celareons). Entire squadrons of other ships can be grouped with an Admiral shuttle; this endows the Admiral's combat bonuses upon the entire fleet and allows the player to better control their forces. When a Leader is joined with a fleet, every ship in the fleet is given at least a 10% bonus to supply, damage, speed, etc., and usually depending on the Leader's flagship in the Terran campaign, an additional 10% bonus is given to certain ships in the fleet for all statistics.

Story

Conquest's storyline is set two hundred years in the future, where interstellar travel was possible by jumping through networks of wormholes leading to other systems.

Following a series of internal conflicts, mankind has discovered a wormhole leading to an unknown system, Tau Ceti. Arriving in the Tau Ceti system, the TNS Andromeda, under the command of Rear Admiral Tackwhether 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 and to find and rescue Admiral Hawkes if he is still alive.

Development

Work on Conquest began shortly after the founding of Digital Anvil, with the intent that it be Digital Anvil's debut game. The project was initially headed by Erin Roberts, and Eric Peterson took over while at Digital Anvil, and then at Fever Pitch Studios.

Reception

Conquest: Frontier Wars received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. The game won the awards such as IGN Editor's Choice and RTS of the Year.

The game sold around 300,000 copies.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

Releases by platform
PlatformReleasedRegions
Windows14 August 2001North America · Europe 15 November 2001 · Brazil 31 December 2001

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Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.