American Conquest was released earlier this year, and even though it is a great strategy game, it met with little fanfare. Part of this could be blamed on its setting, as American Conquest takes place in the Americas during the 16th to 18th centuries. It’s a time period that hasn’t been heavily explored by real-time strategy games, which is rather unfortunate since the history is interesting. American Conquest: Fight Back is a stand-alone expansion pack that returns to the same setting. Unfortunately, it will probably be overlooked again. As before, however, the strategy, combat, and even history lessons are excellent.
The core mechanics of the game haven’t changed, which is a good thing. The unique RTS elements found in American Conquest are a refreshing change of pace from other real-time strategy games, though they’re reminiscent of Ensemble’s Age of Empires series. As in most RTS games, there is resource gathering and base-building in American Conquest, but AC’s got its own spin on them. Resources are practically infinite, but you need to protect your workers because the enemy can easily capture or kill them. You can build a base, but each subsequent building of the same type costs you more resources. So if you want a third fort for building more troops, expect to exponentially pay more resources for it than you did for the first one. The buildings themselves are relatively weak. They’ll go down after receiving a few cannon volleys, or they’ll catch ablaze after a few fire arrows. The enemy can also capture buildings by sending troops into them…
