Colonial Conquest has landed on our shores.  But how all-conquering is it?  Jim O takes a look.

Jim Owczarski, 29 August 2015

I love the moment in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” when Napoleon, having told the protagonists how he will conquer Europe with water slides, is gainsaid by them and proceeds to smack what I’ve always taken to be a “Risk” board with his sword declaring, “triomphe Napoleon!”  It’s not only wonderfully silly, but it reminds me of why “Risk” remains one of the best games ever designed — for all its faults.  It’s simple, it’s nasty, and when you finally do kick your opponent out of Australia (yes, it can be done), it makes you feel like a conqueror.  Lots of games since have tried to capture what it is that makes “Risk” special — there’s enough branded adaptations to fill shelves — and so Argonauts Interactive’s “Colonial Conquest” (hereafter CC) joins a crowded field.  It’s far from a bad game, and it’s nicely priced, but I can’t help but feel it was shipped a bit sooner than it should have been.

Much here will be familiar and I think that works in the game’s favor.  The learning curve is certainly gentle.  CC is played out over a map of the world divided into national areas and sea zones.  The board is more granular than “Risk” (although some familiar friends are present) which tends to lengthen play.  There are some strange geographic decisions relating to which territories are adjacent to which.  If I read the support forums for the game correctly, some of these were unintentional and are being fixed.  Others, like that below, remain and cause no small amount of frustration for reasons I’ll get into shortly.

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