Defender of the Crown

Millennium: Return to Earth, despite the very primitive graphics (although the lucky owners of EGA cards and monitors, which were very few in those days, saw sixteen colors on the screen instead of the “standard” four) and a fairly uniform gameplay, the game is here but it won the hearts of millions of people around the world - everyone played it: both schoolchildren who read out novels about the Middle Ages, and their fathers who did not know how to pass a boring winter evening.

The game took place in medieval England (the opposition of the Saxons to the Norman conquerors in the middle of the XI century). In order to win, the player had to conquer all the Norman castles, however, the Saxon allies could at any time inflict an insidious blow in the back and delay the attack for a long time.

At the very beginning, the player needed to choose one of four game characters: one of them was a great horseman, the second was a born leader, the third had no equal in fencing with swords, and the fourth was a "middle ground" - he had all the necessary skills, but he did not particularly succeed in any of them. Choosing a character, the player immediately transferred to the strategic map. In the beginning, he could control only one province, in order to maintain a large army and gain at least some space for strategic maneuvers, it was necessary to urgently begin expansion. Moreover, it was not necessary to conquer new lands - it was possible to arrange a knightly tournament - the winner received the allotment of the defeated (of course, this is risky, but it was possible to annex new territory without losing a single soldier). In any province, one could hire troops, and the size of the army was limited only by the thickness of your wallet and your common sense. Residents of the player-controlled provinces regularly paid taxes - this brought a low but stable income. It was possible to raid enemy castles - in case of success, the player could improve his financial situation, but in case of failure, he lost a significant part of his savings (he bought himself from captivity).

The player could not control military operations at all - the outcome of the battle was determined by chance, sometimes even a handful of soldiers could defeat a huge and well-trained army. This is a significant drawback, but it is unlikely that the developers had any alternative.

In the game, almost everything has been done quite schematically, but anyway, if at one time you somehow missed it in some incomprehensible way, I strongly recommend immediately fixing it, because this is a real classic of the genre. Not so long ago, several remakes of "Defender of the Crown" were released, they differ from the original in modern graphics and sound, as well as improved gameplay.