Conquer

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What is Conquer?

Conquer is a turn-based fantasy strategy game for many players, first released on Usenet in 1987 by Ed Barlow and Adam Bryant. This server runs version 4.12 of the original game, now free software under the GPL. Each player rules a nation: build cities, raise armies, cast magic, trade and negotiate with other rulers, and expand across a shared world.

The story behind this revival: how the game was found again, relicensed with its authors' permission and brought to the web.

Android app

Conquer for Android is free and is the same game as this website. Install the APK directly, no store needed. It needs Android 10 or newer.

Your phone will ask to allow installing apps from your browser. The app does not update itself: download it again for a new version. Check the APK's SHA-256 against the SHA-256 file if you want to be sure.

What the app stores and asks for: Privacy

How to join

Joining takes three steps: ask for your seat, wait for the administrator to approve it, then found your nation inside the game.

1. Ask for your seat: choose I want to play (under the buttons at the top), and pick an account name and a password. No email is asked. An invite link skips the wait.
2. The administrator approves it. Nobody emails you: come back and press Play. Until then Play shows the practice world and the state of your seat. Your account is for this website only: it opens the door, and the sign-in page asks for it when you press Play.
3. Your nation: press Play now and sign in with that account. The 1987 game asks you to found your nation: its own name (up to 9 letters), race, class and a nation password. From then on, Play now opens it directly. If the game is already under way, your nation starts late, with extra points to catch up.

How turns work

• Log in as often as you like to give orders: move armies, draft troops, build, trade, send messages.
• All orders are resolved together at the next turn update, on the schedule shown under Current game; the in-game menu shows it too, with the last update.
• Before each update, players still in the game are warned and, a few minutes later, disconnected; their orders are saved. Press q to quit the game when you are done.
• When you quit, the menu asks whether your orders for the turn are done. Once every nation is done, the update can run right away instead of waiting for the schedule.

Before you play

• Conquer is controlled entirely with keys, so a computer keyboard is the most comfortable. On phones and tablets a touch layer lets you tap the map to move, and offers command chips for the current screen and a d-pad; sound is optional, in the options. Use the Keyboard button to type names and passwords.
• The game needs a terminal of at least 80×24 characters. If the menu warns that the screen is too small, enlarge the window or zoom out with Ctrl + -.
• If the screen looks garbled, press Ctrl + L to redraw it.
• The game itself is in English.

Key reference