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This was a game I waited for with great anticipation. The number of Amiga god-games released in recent years hasn't been much to brag about, and since it is my favourite genre my anticipation was even greater. The game arrived along with my PPC 240/060 accellerator, and that was a great advantage. Foundation requires a rather beefy Amiga to run comfortably. You might get it to run on a vanilla A1200, but unless you have at least an 030 and some fastram, you won't get much enjoyment from playing it. A graphics card is also recommended. On my 060 AGA machine it is very slow at 640x256, and it crawls at 640x512. AGA users will have to do with the lowest possible resolution, 320x256. The graphics at that resolution are functional, but with a graphics card they can get quite georgeous.


Getting started


Foundation comes on a CD, and all the documentation can be found both there and on the Internet. Installation is quite painless, with an elegant little utility dedicated to the task. Usually I prefer the Commodore installer program, but this custom installer is far better suited for this game. It can also be used for changing game preferences. The documentation is in HTML format, and a demo of AWeb has been put on the CD for viewing it. The layout of the manual is good, with links to Internet sites that contain more updated information, and updates to the game itself. The manual is comprehensive, and explains most of the nearly ridiculous high number of little buttons and knobs in the game, many of the buildings, and nearly all the units. However, it could have covered all the buildings, units and buttons. The idea by not telling you everything, is to keep some excitement, as more buildings and units will be available as your technology advances. This would be a good idea, if you got a description of all new buildings in-game when you discovered them. But you don't. The only way to figure out how some of the buildings work is by actually constructing them and see what happens. That is not good, as constructing a new building is rather expensive.

Playing the game

For those who don't know, Foundation is a Settlers clone. From an isometric viewpoint you order your little men and women around, construct buildings, optimize production and organize raids and attacks against your enemies. Many things have been improved from the classic Settlers, including:
*no roads, making transport easier
*buildings are constructed quickly by use of magic
*you can advance in technology
*every unit can be controlled manually, and has features such has age, health, and morale
*your troops may attack any enemy building or unit, and several can attack a single unit together
*it is possible to steal resources, torch enemy buildings and even capture buildings
These are just a few of the many improvements. Foundation is a very complex game, and it is also unforgiving when you do something wrong. For instance, if you start by erecting many buildings, you will soon notice that your population is shrinking, and resources slowly stop coming in. An unexperienced player might then try to improve the situation by making more farms and pumphouses, only to find his population shrink faster. You must be very careful not to expand quickly in this game. If you make to many buildings, all your peasants will be tied up inside them, and food will no longer be carried around. Morale drops, production drops, your settlement dies. This makes Foundation very difficult before you get used to it, but after a while, monitoring every little detail and adjusting production orders to optimal efficiency becomes second nature, and you will grow strong enough to start kicking some butt in the battlefield.

The combat part of the game is quite good for a game of this type. In addition to the the normal soldiers, you have knights (and the fearsome black knights), archers and turrets. I have been informed that hot-air balloons will be available on higher tech levels, but I haven't actually gotten that far into the game yet, as advancing in technology takes ages. Your peasants can also be used in combat, but you shouldn't use them for attacking enemy armymen, as they would probably get slaughtered(the peasants,that is). You may however use them for torching buildings, stealing resources and battling enemy peasants. The control of your forces is fairly intuitive, and resembles the method used in C&C clones (left mousebutton selects, right mouse button directs).

There are two main game modes: conquest or custom. In conquest you will be given missions, which range from simple kill'em all to things such as rescuing allies. In custom games you may set preferences such as number of players, which map is to be used, game objective, tech level at start (but the higher levels are not available) and some others.

The final word

I am very pleased with this game. There are some flaws, and the slow progress in science as well as population growth can make it slightly dull at times, but if you're into strategy games, it'll keep you entertained most of the time. The presentation is very good, the documentation is good as well, and the game is very system friendly. It is also in constant development, with frequent updates available from the Internet and magazine coverCDs. Features planned includes a two player split-screen mode and TCP/IP support, which will allow you to fight other Amigans around the world. I can't wait.