Sword of Aragon
Encyclopedia
Sword of Aragon is a turn-based strategy
and role-playing game
developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc.
in 1989. It is also considered to be of the 4X
genre. Set in the fictional land of Aragon, the games casts its protagonist as the duke of a city named Aladda. After assuming rule over the city and avenging his father's death, the protagonist embarks on a quest to unify the land through conquest. Accomplishing this goal entails developing cities, recruiting armies, and directing the troops on the fields of battle to victory. First published on the MS-DOS
platform during the emergence of electronic wargaming
, the game was also ported
to Amiga
machines. Reception towards Sword of Aragon tended to be more positive than negative; reviewers called it an exciting game, but criticized its method of copy protection
and cited problems with its documentation. There were also opinions that the game was more of a niche product, catering to hardcore strategists.
The game is principally split between city management and tactical combat. Gameplay is turn-based, alternating between player and computer, and much of the game is played on the World Map, a representation of the land of Aragon. Each turn on this map represents a month in the game. The map shows cities and the player's units; unexplored areas are blanked out until they have been explored by the player's units. By using the keyboard and mouse, the player moves a cursor to select units and cities, and issue orders via keystrokes. Cities under the player's control provide monthly income, which is supplemented by tributes from vassals and loot from battles. Income from a city is improved by expending funds to develop the city's economic sectors, such as agriculture and mining, or by increasing taxation. Tax rates, however, affect the loyalty of citizens; high taxes in a city lead to a decreasing population.
Armies are recruited in the cities, and their maintenance contributes to the monthly expenditure. Troops consist of infantry, cavalry, and bowmen. The game enters the tactical battle phase when enemies attack one of the player's cities that is garrisoned with troops, and when the player's forces move onto a hostile city. Encounters might also take place as the player's forces move on the World Map. On such occasions, the game switches the display to a large-scale
map of the encounter. The battle maps differ from the World Map in that each spot has a limit on its number of occupants—a stacking limit. The player and computer take turns to deploy and move their forces. Units move move at their standard pace or at a forced march to cover greater distances per turn in battles. Certain terrain gives defensive bonuses to their occupants, reducing the damage they suffer when coming under attack. Offensives take the form of melee
, charges
, missiles, and magic. The player has the option of letting the computer take control of his or her army to fight the battle. The game switches back to the World Map after a battle has concluded. Units that survive a battle gain experience points, improving their combat abilities on attaining certain amounts of experience points. They, with the exception of commanders, can also train in cities to improve their experience. Video games designer Alan Emrich
considered Sword of Aragon gameplay typical of the "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate" nature of the 4X
genre.
, a video game company that dominated the 1980s market for digital wargames
. Their products typically "copied the board game formula without adding revolutionary new elements." Most strategy games at this time featured hexagon-based maps and a sequence of turns among players. Sword of Aragon plainly exhibits the influence of traditional board games in its design. Its maps are laid out in hexes, and the concept of stacking limits plays a strong part in the game's strategies. Written in Microsoft QuickBASIC
and other languages, Sword of Aragon features a copy protection
system that uses the game manual. On starting the game, the icon of an Aragonian city is displayed, along with a cue for a word in the manual's description of that city; a separate poster identifies the cities with their icons. The game proceeds only after the correct answer has been entered.
s John Minson, Sword of Aragon complied with part of this trend; its huge complicated set of rules would have made it an unplayable board game, but by hiding its mechanics from the player, the digital version could be played by anyone. However, as Minson further explained, the scope of the game was too large for casual gamers to handle, overwhelming them with "the number of factors under their control", and hardcore gamers are more likely to appreciate the game's complexity.
The Lessers of Dragon magazine
believed that while the game was exciting, it suffered several design flaws that made the game too difficult for them. The computer-controlled enemies constantly outpaced their economy and military might, and the game gave them no immediate opportunity to retreat their army when ambushed by superior forces, forcing them to suffer heavy losses. Conversely, Compute!
s Adam Starkweather found it too easy in later stages of the game, as his character's well-developed armies "steamroll" their way through the opposition. The Lessers and Amiga Jokers Werner Hiersekorn felt the game ran slow on their computers, while Starkweather reflected that battles could take up to one and a half hours to complete.
Several video game observers doubted the classification of Sword of Aragon as a role-playing game. Science fiction and fantasy novelist Orson Scott Card
and Amiga Computing
s Lucinda Orr considered it more of a strategy than a role-playing game. Minson was of like mind, and further elaborated that unlike the Dungeon and Dragon series
of video games, Sword of Aragon failed to inspire players to identify themselves with the characters, giving a "coldly mechanical experience" instead. Datormagazins Hans Ekholm thought otherwise. He said the gameplay did not require any strategy, and considered Sword of Aragon "a fantasy role-playing/adventure game and nothing else".
Critics had minor grouses with the game's quality when comparing to its contemporaries. Minson called its interface "old-fashioned", and Biff Kritzen of Computer Gaming World
said it was "clunky". Graphically, Orr and Zzap!64
s Phil King found the game "primitive", though "adequate". More troubling to several reviewers was the game's copy protection system. Ekholm was not pleased that he had to unfold a flimsy poster to identify the requested city. His copy was falling apart after several identifications. The game further frustrated him when it failed to acknowledge the correct key. The provided hints were incorrect, a situation also experienced by the Lessers. The inaccuracies were not restricted to the copy protection. Starkweather pointed out discrepancies in the documentation—several features of the game were either not explained or wrongly documented.
Ekholm dismissed Sword of Aragon for its flawed copy protection and perceived lack of strategy. Hiersekorn was more condemning; rating the game poorly for its graphics and sound, and confused by its presented lists of military and economic data, he called the game a "cheap clone". Regardless, such issues did not deter other reviewers from praising the game. Pleased with the large amount of options to manage their cities and to order their armies in combat, they felt the game was deep and offered many exciting moments; Kritzen judged the system "challenging and ultimately rewarding." According to Retro Gamer
magazine, "Sword of Aragon is considered by many to be the best fantasy wargame ever." Starkweather was equally pronounced in his opinion. He called Sword of Aragon addictive and was willing to overlook issues with the game, finding pleasure in formulating strategies and tactics to overcome the enemy.
Turn-based strategy
A turn-based strategy game is a strategy game where players take turns when playing...
and role-playing game
Role-playing game (video games)
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...
developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Strategic Simulations, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher with over 100 titles to its credit since its founding in 1979. It was especially noted for its numerous wargames, its official computer game adaptations of Dungeons & Dragons, and for the groundbreaking Panzer General...
in 1989. It is also considered to be of the 4X
4X
4X games are a genre of strategy video game in which players control an empire and "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate." The term was first coined by Alan Emrich in his September 1993 preview of Master of Orion for Computer Gaming World...
genre. Set in the fictional land of Aragon, the games casts its protagonist as the duke of a city named Aladda. After assuming rule over the city and avenging his father's death, the protagonist embarks on a quest to unify the land through conquest. Accomplishing this goal entails developing cities, recruiting armies, and directing the troops on the fields of battle to victory. First published on the MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
platform during the emergence of electronic wargaming
Wargaming
A wargame is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short. When used professionally to study warfare, it is generally known as...
, the game was also ported
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
to Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
machines. Reception towards Sword of Aragon tended to be more positive than negative; reviewers called it an exciting game, but criticized its method of copy protection
Copy protection
Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy obstruction, copy prevention and copy restriction, refer to techniques used for preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media, usually for copyright reasons.- Terminology :Media corporations have always used the term...
and cited problems with its documentation. There were also opinions that the game was more of a niche product, catering to hardcore strategists.
Background
Sword of Aragon is a "strategic fantasy role-playing adventure" video game published in 1989. The game's setting is the fictional land of Aragon. A powerful human empire once held sway over the land, but infighting and raids by monsters such as orcs, goblins, and titans have broken it apart. The protagonist is the son of the Duke of Aladda, ruler of a city that used to be glorious under the old empire. The duke died during a raid by orcs and tasked his son through his will to fulfill his dream of reunifying the land. To achieve this goal, the young duke builds up his cities and expands his army, conquering or allying with other cities and races. Furthermore, he recovers three artifacts required to claim the throne, slays a dragon, and destroys the strongholds of monsters that plague the land. Eventually, he deposes the ruthless Emperor of the Tetradan Empire, Lucinian IV, and assumes the Aragonian throne.Gameplay
The player begins a game by choosing a character class for the protagonist. The choices are warrior, knight, mage, priest, and ranger. Each class has an affinity to a certain class of soldier—warriors are more apt in leading infantry, and knights, cavalry. During battles, mages, rangers, and priests can also cast spells that damage foes, alter terrain, and heal friendly forces. The player can hire commanders of these classes to accompany the protagonist in his quest. After winning a number of battles, the player's character might receive offers of service from such commanders as well.The game is principally split between city management and tactical combat. Gameplay is turn-based, alternating between player and computer, and much of the game is played on the World Map, a representation of the land of Aragon. Each turn on this map represents a month in the game. The map shows cities and the player's units; unexplored areas are blanked out until they have been explored by the player's units. By using the keyboard and mouse, the player moves a cursor to select units and cities, and issue orders via keystrokes. Cities under the player's control provide monthly income, which is supplemented by tributes from vassals and loot from battles. Income from a city is improved by expending funds to develop the city's economic sectors, such as agriculture and mining, or by increasing taxation. Tax rates, however, affect the loyalty of citizens; high taxes in a city lead to a decreasing population.
Armies are recruited in the cities, and their maintenance contributes to the monthly expenditure. Troops consist of infantry, cavalry, and bowmen. The game enters the tactical battle phase when enemies attack one of the player's cities that is garrisoned with troops, and when the player's forces move onto a hostile city. Encounters might also take place as the player's forces move on the World Map. On such occasions, the game switches the display to a large-scale
Scale (map)
The scale of a map is defined as the ratio of a distance on the map to the corresponding distance on the ground.If the region of the map is small enough for the curvature of the Earth to be neglected, then the scale may be taken as a constant ratio over the whole map....
map of the encounter. The battle maps differ from the World Map in that each spot has a limit on its number of occupants—a stacking limit. The player and computer take turns to deploy and move their forces. Units move move at their standard pace or at a forced march to cover greater distances per turn in battles. Certain terrain gives defensive bonuses to their occupants, reducing the damage they suffer when coming under attack. Offensives take the form of melee
Mêlée
Melee , generally refers to disorganized close combat involving a group of fighters. A melee ensues when groups become locked together in combat with no regard to group tactics or fighting as an organized unit; each participant fights as an individual....
, charges
Charge (warfare)
A charge is a maneuver in battle in which soldiers advance towards their enemy at their best speed in an attempt to engage in close combat. The charge is the dominant shock attack and has been the key tactic and decisive moment of most battles in history...
, missiles, and magic. The player has the option of letting the computer take control of his or her army to fight the battle. The game switches back to the World Map after a battle has concluded. Units that survive a battle gain experience points, improving their combat abilities on attaining certain amounts of experience points. They, with the exception of commanders, can also train in cities to improve their experience. Video games designer Alan Emrich
Alan Emrich
Alan Emrich is best known as a writer about and designer of computer games, who coined the term "4X", contributed to the design of Master of Orion and Master of Orion 3, and wrote strategy guides for video games. Before the rise of computer games Emrich wrote about and designed board games and...
considered Sword of Aragon gameplay typical of the "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate" nature of the 4X
4X
4X games are a genre of strategy video game in which players control an empire and "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate." The term was first coined by Alan Emrich in his September 1993 preview of Master of Orion for Computer Gaming World...
genre.
Development
Sword of Aragon was developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc.Strategic Simulations, Inc.
Strategic Simulations, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher with over 100 titles to its credit since its founding in 1979. It was especially noted for its numerous wargames, its official computer game adaptations of Dungeons & Dragons, and for the groundbreaking Panzer General...
, a video game company that dominated the 1980s market for digital wargames
Wargaming
A wargame is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short. When used professionally to study warfare, it is generally known as...
. Their products typically "copied the board game formula without adding revolutionary new elements." Most strategy games at this time featured hexagon-based maps and a sequence of turns among players. Sword of Aragon plainly exhibits the influence of traditional board games in its design. Its maps are laid out in hexes, and the concept of stacking limits plays a strong part in the game's strategies. Written in Microsoft QuickBASIC
QuickBASIC
Microsoft QuickBASIC is an Integrated Development Environment and compiler for the BASIC programming language that was developed by Microsoft. QuickBASIC runs mainly on DOS, though there was a short-lived version for Mac OS...
and other languages, Sword of Aragon features a copy protection
Copy protection
Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy obstruction, copy prevention and copy restriction, refer to techniques used for preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media, usually for copyright reasons.- Terminology :Media corporations have always used the term...
system that uses the game manual. On starting the game, the icon of an Aragonian city is displayed, along with a cue for a word in the manual's description of that city; a separate poster identifies the cities with their icons. The game proceeds only after the correct answer has been entered.
Reception
Sword of Aragon was released when fantasy-themed wargames were gaining popularity and computer wargames were starting to flourish as the rules of the board games grew in complexity. The digital versions were simpler in terms of their gameplay, as parts of the complex mechanics were handled by computers instead. Freed of dice rolling, complex calculations, and coordination of the sequence of play, casual gamers were more amenable to playing these games. According to Advanced Computer EntertainmentACE (games magazine)
ACE was a multi-format computer and video game magazine first published in the United Kingdom by Future Publishing and later acquired by EMAP.-History:...
s John Minson, Sword of Aragon complied with part of this trend; its huge complicated set of rules would have made it an unplayable board game, but by hiding its mechanics from the player, the digital version could be played by anyone. However, as Minson further explained, the scope of the game was too large for casual gamers to handle, overwhelming them with "the number of factors under their control", and hardcore gamers are more likely to appreciate the game's complexity.
The Lessers of Dragon magazine
Dragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
believed that while the game was exciting, it suffered several design flaws that made the game too difficult for them. The computer-controlled enemies constantly outpaced their economy and military might, and the game gave them no immediate opportunity to retreat their army when ambushed by superior forces, forcing them to suffer heavy losses. Conversely, Compute!
COMPUTE!
Compute! was an American computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994, though it can trace its origin to 1978 in Len Lindsay's PET Gazette, one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET computer. In its 1980s heyday Compute! covered all major platforms, and several single-platform...
s Adam Starkweather found it too easy in later stages of the game, as his character's well-developed armies "steamroll" their way through the opposition. The Lessers and Amiga Jokers Werner Hiersekorn felt the game ran slow on their computers, while Starkweather reflected that battles could take up to one and a half hours to complete.
Several video game observers doubted the classification of Sword of Aragon as a role-playing game. Science fiction and fantasy novelist Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...
and Amiga Computing
Amiga Computing
Amiga Computing was a monthly computer magazine of a serious nature, published by Europress and IDG in both the UK and USA. A total of 117 issues came out. The games section was called Gamer, although later Amiga Action was incorporated into the magazine and became the games section.- External...
s Lucinda Orr considered it more of a strategy than a role-playing game. Minson was of like mind, and further elaborated that unlike the Dungeon and Dragon series
Gold Box
Gold Box is the name for a series of computer role-playing games produced by SSI. The company won a license to produce games based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game from TSR, Inc...
of video games, Sword of Aragon failed to inspire players to identify themselves with the characters, giving a "coldly mechanical experience" instead. Datormagazins Hans Ekholm thought otherwise. He said the gameplay did not require any strategy, and considered Sword of Aragon "a fantasy role-playing/adventure game and nothing else".
Critics had minor grouses with the game's quality when comparing to its contemporaries. Minson called its interface "old-fashioned", and Biff Kritzen of Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World was a computer game magazine founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
said it was "clunky". Graphically, Orr and Zzap!64
Zzap!64
Zzap!64 was a computer games magazine covering games on the Commodore International series of computers, especially the Commodore 64 . It was published in the UK by Newsfield Publications Ltd and later by Europress Impact....
s Phil King found the game "primitive", though "adequate". More troubling to several reviewers was the game's copy protection system. Ekholm was not pleased that he had to unfold a flimsy poster to identify the requested city. His copy was falling apart after several identifications. The game further frustrated him when it failed to acknowledge the correct key. The provided hints were incorrect, a situation also experienced by the Lessers. The inaccuracies were not restricted to the copy protection. Starkweather pointed out discrepancies in the documentation—several features of the game were either not explained or wrongly documented.
Ekholm dismissed Sword of Aragon for its flawed copy protection and perceived lack of strategy. Hiersekorn was more condemning; rating the game poorly for its graphics and sound, and confused by its presented lists of military and economic data, he called the game a "cheap clone". Regardless, such issues did not deter other reviewers from praising the game. Pleased with the large amount of options to manage their cities and to order their armies in combat, they felt the game was deep and offered many exciting moments; Kritzen judged the system "challenging and ultimately rewarding." According to Retro Gamer
Retro Gamer
Retro Gamer is a British magazine, published worldwide, covering retro video games. It was the first commercial magazine to be devoted entirely to the subject. Although launched as a quarterly publication, Retro Gamers soon became a monthly...
magazine, "Sword of Aragon is considered by many to be the best fantasy wargame ever." Starkweather was equally pronounced in his opinion. He called Sword of Aragon addictive and was willing to overlook issues with the game, finding pleasure in formulating strategies and tactics to overcome the enemy.