Defender of the Crown

aka: Conquering England, DOTC, Defender of the Crown: Obrońca Korony
Moby ID: 181
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Description official descriptions

Defender of the Crown puts the player in the role of one of four Saxon knights in medieval England, in a time where the land is in turmoil as the King is dead and his crown was stolen. The Saxons and the Normans blame each other and fight for control of England.

After a short introduction by Robin of Locksley himself, the game starts with a single castle and 10 soldiers at your command. From there, you have to build your army, take control of additional territories and fight and defeat the three Norman lords - and sometimes your Saxon friends as well.

In addition to the basic 'build your army and conquer your opponents' the game offers several events and options that can be used to fine tune your play style: You may engage in a jousting contest where you have to knock your opponent off his horse, gaining either fame or land, or you can go raid a castle for loot or the hand of a princess, joining your houses and territories.

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Credits (Amiga version)

15 People

Written by
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Computography and Mical Game System by
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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 72% (based on 49 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 235 ratings with 10 reviews)

Not as good as the Amiga version, but great fun nonetheless

The Good
Like (for example) Hero's Quest: So You Want To Be A Hero and Moonstone, Defender of the Crown is a triumph of atmosphere over modern considerations such as 3d graphics and cd-quality sound. The wars and intrigues of old Saxon/Norman England come to life in truly remarkable fashion, especially considering that underneath it all is a fairly straightforward strategy game. Castles can be raided, jousts held, maidens rescued, and lands seized - what more could a proud young noble want?

The Bad
The PC version reflects the period when the Amiga (and Atari ST) were far superior in terms of graphics and sound. The luscious backdrops and portraits of the original don't quite have the same appeal when translated to EGA.

For the gameplay, DOTC has the annoying quality of severely punishing mistakes -put one foot wrong at any point and you'll likely lose the game within two turns. Getting in front and staying there is paramount; it's extremely difficult to come from behind and win. Further, the combat is nastily arbitrary; the "tactics" options when raiding a castle have little or no effect, and you'll frequently find a battle unwinnable regardless of the size of your forces.

The Bottom Line
If you want an object lesson in why old games are still good, play DOTC. It shows that atmosphere and playability are NOT functions of how fast your computer is or what graphics chip sits inside. To be still enjoyable after all this time is a remarkable feat - how many steroid-frame-rate games of today will be around in fifteen years?

DOS · by Colin Rowsell (43) · 2002

This is one of the greatest of the classics.

The Good
The play control was excellent, the sound was as good as the Commodore give, and the graphics were stellar. The strategy was one of the best I have ever encountered, and the gamer interface set the industry standard.

The Bad
This is a tough one. Most likely the only thing that I didn't like about the game was the fact that you couldn't actually play as Robin Hood, even though getting help from him was pretty cool it would have been nice to be able to choose him as a playable character.

The Bottom Line
Considering the platform, the time, and the limited capabilities of the Commodore 64, this game should go down as one of the greatest of all time.

Commodore 64 · by Tarzan Dan (25) · 2004

Wow.

The Good
As the story goes this Amiga classic stunned people not only for its gameplay but its amazing graphics, it is the game that introduced us to Cinemaware (I'm not sure why this is credited to Mindscape when Cinemaware has its name plastered all over the box). Most people experienced it on the IBM in the CGA version, a rare EGA conversion exists but I have not played it. While the conversion lacks the sounds and sites of the original Amiga, the game did not lose one bit of the fun factor. If anything its gameplay is better than the Amiga!

The basic story is the Saxon and Norman lords are trying to unite England under their rule. Battles take place over provinces which provide different amounts of gold per turn. Gold can be used to buy infantry, knights, catapults or castles. Each turn you can move your army around the map and invade enemy provinces. You can also raid castles for gold or hold jousting tournaments, which are arcade sequences in the main straregy game. You played the Saxon side as one of three lords, you could pick your character from 4 lords with different strengths and weaknesses but I always picked Geoffry Longsword. I havn't played the game in 10 years and I still remember that name!

Its hard for me to describe what made this game such a joy. It had simple gameplay, a great game atmosphere and just seemed to be out at the right time for me. I was learning medival European history in school when I was playing this game. It was just tons of fun to be raiding castles, rescuing fair ladies and visiting Robin Hood for help in your quest for the crown.

The Bad
Well the CGA graphics are orange based which is rather bland. They are pretty acceptable but I wish I could have played the EGA version. Also because the jousting is in tweaked CGA the graphics might crash when you play. In the day my EGA card could be set to CGA mode to avoid this.

Its not multiplayer! The game would have been amazing if you could battle another person.

Learning how to use the catapult was challenging as without good catapult skills you could never take a castle.

The Bottom Line
Really one hell of a fun game. One of the best to come out of the 80s, strategy players and fans of the historical era should play this at least once!

DOS · by woods01 (129) · 2001

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
PC CDROM version got released in the 90s abstauber Oct 11, 2018
Screenshots at the wrong entry? ZeTomes (36297) Jul 19, 2017
Links Cavalary (11445) Sep 20, 2014
Interview with Bob Jacob St. Martyne (3648) Dec 13, 2009

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Defender of the Crown appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

CGA version

The CGA version "tweaks" the screen during the joust; the furious riding on your horse makes the screen "shake". This locks up the game on VGA cards, but if you can avoid this if you play it under a pseudo-emulator like Windows or OS/2 (or just don't joust during the game).

EGA version

There was bootable version released that supported EGA/Tandy graphics and Tandy 3-voice sound, which greatly enhanced the PC version of the game. Unfortunately, this version is extremely rare and most people only have the CGA/PC Speaker version.

Freeware release

A full version of this game is available online at Cinemaware.com (the full link is in the links section). The game plays in any browser.

Version differences

  • The C64 version of the game has three Saxon ladies that can be kidnapped, and the NES version only has one lady while every other version has four.
  • The Commodore 64 version of Defender of the Crown was also released on tape in Europe, as disk drives were expensive in Europe at the time and most people still used tape drives. The tape version is trimmed down to fit on the smaller storage of tape, and is missing several pictures found on the disk version. Some of the missing pictures are Robin Hood at the start of the game, and the closeup views of the Saxon damsels after you rescued them.
  • The DOS and the NES version have inferior graphics and audio quality compared to other systems. However, these ports feature more in-depth strategic elements - most of the strategic movements of the Saxons and Normans are not determined but randomized.
  • The Amiga version does not contain some features like Greek fire and disease attack options, which were include in other ports. According to Bob Jacob (Cinemaware founder) the most complete version of "Defender of the Crown" was the Atari ST release (interview in "Your Amiga" magazine issued in, June 1988 on page 16).

CD audio version

In 1988 Rick Levine programmed a CD quality audio version of Defender of the Crown. The Defender of the Crown code still resided on and ran from the PC, but hooks were placed in the code to play the CD quality audio off the CD -- on a Hitachi CD-ROM player. David Riordan had the CD quality audio created. That special CD-ROM version was demonstrated at a conference (might have been the Game Developers Conference that year), but it was never released to the public. However in 1991 the Amiga CDTV version of the game was released and next to minor graphical improvements contains major sound enhancements including two CDDA soundtracks.

Awards

  • ACE
    • October 1988 (issue #13) - Included in the Top-100 list of 1987/1988 (editorial staff selection)
  • Commodore Format
    • February 1991 (Issue 5) - listed in the A to Z of Classic Games article (Great)
    • November 1994 (Issue 50) – #17 The All-Time Top 50 C64 Games
  • Computer and Video Games
    • May 1988 (Issue #79) - Golden Joystick 1988 Award: Runner up in category Strategy Game of the Year
  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #92 in the “150 Best Games of All Time" list
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #2 Most Rewarding Ending of All Time
  • Gamespy
    • March 2000 - Introduced into the Hall of Fame
  • ST Fomat
    • May 1990 (Issue #10) - Included in the list "ST Format's 30 Kick-Ass Classics"

Information also contributed by PCGamer77, Ricky Derocher; Terrence Bosky and Tomer Gabel

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Tomer Gabel.

Browser added by Picard. Commodore 64, NES added by PCGamer77. Jaguar added by Indus. ZX Spectrum added by twitek. Macintosh added by Dragom. Android, CDTV added by Kabushi. Atari ST added by ZZip. Apple IIgs added by Eli Tomlinson. iPad, iPhone added by Pseudo_Intellectual. Windows added by Alexander Schaefer. Game Boy Advance added by Xa4. Amstrad CPC added by cafeine. CD-i added by Geoffrey Palmer.

Additional contributors: JRK, Ricky Derocher, RodeoInTheGreatWhiteNorth, Richard Levine, Patrick Bregger, mailmanppa, Jo ST, FatherJack, ZeTomes.

Game added August 4, 1999. Last modified March 3, 2024.