Description
The objective is the same as the original
Balance of Power: use your military, covert, and industrial forces to make your country the most prestigious in the world while avoiding nuclear war. However, it is now 1989, and the Communist Block is crumbling...
Chris Crawford, who rarely ever made a sequel to a computer game, was besieged by mail asking him to update his classic from a few years before to reflect the new state of the world. Russia was falling, the Iron Curtain was shattering, and smaller countries were beginning to assert their own regional power with more freedom from the bipolar world of the Cold War.
The result was the 1990 Edition. This game featured an updated database, but the most significant new features were:
- The multipolar level, where small countries could go to war with their neighbors on their own. Of course, you could help them out (or encourage them!) by sending in military aid.
- 18 more countries, bringing the total to 80.
- A "Crisis Advisory Board" of four people, who would give you advice during international crises. The nice thing about being a Superpower is that the little countries do whatever you tell them, but you still have to watch out for your main rivals (USSR or the US)!
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Trivia
Covermount
The game was included as a free game on the coverdisk of issue 24 (May 1991) of Amiga Format, the UK's biggest Amiga magazine (at one point it's biggest computer magazine). The magazine also included
Interphase,
Vaxine and
Archipelagos at different times.
The practice of cover-mounting older games was common in the UK for several years, but in mid-1991 it was banned for 16-bit systems, and restricted to 2 ex-commercial games per issue for 8-bit systems (such as the Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum)
Credits
Chris Crawford in the Acknowledgements
section:
I conceived, designed, programmed, developed, and tested this game. Yet, no
such project is truly single-handed; every designer owes a debt of gratitude to
a large number of people who lent him their advice, their assistance, and their
sympathy.
He credits his wife, Kathy, for consulting him about all "big decisions" (he
mentions helping with the images and posing for the pic of an anti-nuke
protester).
Disks
This game came on an unprecedented twelve floppy disks!
Information also contributed
Martin Smith
