Arthenia was not built in a day. In fact, the origins of Conquest date back to 2002. In the history section we'll try to give you glimpses of the process of making Conquest, and tidbits from a time long since past.

The year was 2002, the scene Windsor Colorado, and the heroes of our story three brothers. On a bright Spring day, the eldest of the brothers, Mark, got married and moved to the neighboring Greeley Colorado. With Mark's departure, Dan and Brian were lamenting, reminiscing on the good old days of playing cards at Collectormania in Parker. Disheartened by the dominance of a few broken cards, they dreamed of a better way. Drawing from their fantasy knowledge, they set out to create a superior card game. Thus, Conquest was born.

The original four locations in Conquest. Fortresses were later called strongholds.

Conquest was a strategy war game played by two opposing generals. There was a large emphasis on all aspects of running an army, from accumulating resources, paying salaries for mercenaries, and assaulting an opponent's locations. Each player could play up to 7 locations, which consisted of four types: villages, shrines, fortresses, and castles. Villages provided both gold and mana incomes, as well as assorted abilities. Shrines were used to regenerate mages' mana, which they used to cast spells. A player could only play one fortress, and it was like a powerful village. Generally fortresses required a number of villages to be played. For instance, "play only if you have 4 or more villages." Each player began the game with a castle in play. This gave a player their initial income, which was 2g. 2 cards were drawn each turn, but this was not a part of income. At this point there was no notion of upgrades.

In the initial game there were two types of units: monsters and mercenaries. Monsters were summoned using mana, and mercenaries were hired for gold. Only mercenaries had upkeep. This was a cost that had to be paid each turn in order to keep the mercenary in play. There were three types of mercenaries: warriors, archers, and mages. Warriors were generally the strongest fighting mercenaries, archers had the ability sniper, and mages could cast spells. Sniper allowed an archer to nullify (the old term for disable) to deal damage to a local unit. Mages had mana, which had to be built up in a shrine. For income, a mage's mana would be regenerated if it was guarding a shrine (in the original game units in locations were said to be guarding them). After casting a spell, a corresponding amount of mana was consumed. Spells were named; for instance, "Freeze, 3m: Deal 10 damage to a local mercenary." Monsters tended to be immeasurably better than mercenaries, because they had much lower costs and were much stronger. This trend continued for a very long time.

Eager sentry had 30 vigor, 0 valor, and 0 conviction (could not defend). It costed 2g to deploy, and 1g to sustain (obviously not very good).

Monsters and mercenaries were marked by two characteristics: vigor and valor. Sometimes these qualities were denoted by words, for instance: "vigor:20 valor:10" and other times they were denoted by "20/10." There was no uniform templating at this time. A unit dealt damage equal to its vigor to another unit, and could withstand damage equal to its valor. Later in this phase conviction was added. This was a third number, which denoted the number of times a unit could defend (the old term for block). When a location was assaulted, units guarding it had to defend it in order to protect it. If a unit had 0 conviction, then it could not defend.

This mage made skeletons that could refuge.

Units were played into locations. They could not act the turn they came into play, unless they had the ability "fervor". The next turn (for units without fervor), they could assault a player's locations. Units assaulted directly from locations - there was no concept of a battlefield at this time. There was no limit to the number of times a unit could assault as long as it remained in play (however, each unit could only assault a specific location once a turn). There was a legendary beast, The Red Dragon, which was extremely under-priced, and was known to destroy 5 locations in a single turn. Units could vector (move), in order to move directly between locations.

One keynote ability was refuge. With refuge, a mercenary was able to hide in a location. Refuging mercenaries could not be targeted. Archers and mages on refuge could still target monsters and mercenaries with spells as if they were defending the location. Refuging mercenaries could not defend. Monsters could only refuge if a mercenary with the ability linguistics was in the location. Uncivilized locations could not be refuged in. If a location was destroyed, all refuging mercenaries and monsters were destroyed.

Local and Global modifiers were also a part of the original game. Modifiers were played on top of other cards, in order to modify their characteristics. Global modifiers were played and modified the game as a whole. Local modifiers could modify any specific card, be it a location, a mercenary, or some other. Bridges, for example, were local modifiers that "merged" two locations, allowing the same mercenary or monster to defend multiple locations.

Most of these modifiers weren't so good. Angry mob could create an angry mob of 10/10 units.

There were even cards with multiple alignments.

Eventually a capability known as mounting came into being. Steeds could be mounted by mercenaries with mounting. When a unit was mounting, it became stacked upon a steed. Each steed had a specific mounting bonus. For instance, a unit mounting Dark Wyrm got a +40/+40 bonus. While being mounted, a steed did nothing else. It acted like a modifier. In many cases, the mounting bonus was less than the steed's vigor and valor.

Effects were created and resolved through a very complicated system called te chain. All abilities and effects were placed on the chain to determine the order in which they occurred. Some effects interrupted others, and occurred first. These effects required subchains to occur.

The initial conception of Conquest was a long way from what Conquest is today, but all great things must start somewhere. In fact, the original game of Conquest was so awful that it prompted radical ideas. Not long after its initial conception, the standard layout of Conquest was scrapped, and the game began to be played on a map. Stay tuned for next time to find out about Conquest on a map...