Attention Armchair Political Freepers : Simulation of the Mid East

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[maquiladora]

Way back in 1990 a political/military simulation game based on the conflict in the Middle East ( from an Israeli perspective ) was released.
It was called Conflict. It supposedly takes place in 1997 when the Israeli prime minister dies (either by assassination or by bomb blast), and you're appointed as the new prime minister.

In the game you have to make and follow political policies regarding other countries in the middle east, control intelligence and purchase arms, try to beat the other countries in the nuclear race and solve the Palestinian problem and, of course, conduct battles with other countries.

The game is not what you'd call flashy, there's no sound and the grahpics are very simple. But regardless of this I have found this simulation very interesting and entertaining. Yes, it is quite old now and it's a keyboard driven game, no mouse, but it's still amazingly addictive.

A guy from Israel named Tomer Gabel reviewed the game and had this to say:
This is a piece of genius, original and innovative and should've got a lot more attention than it did. The graphics are decent (if somewhat minimalistic) and work without being slow on a simple XT, the strategy and managerial portions of the game are nothing short of amazing. It is without a doubt one of the most interesting games I have ever played, with varied and exciting - even if somewhat short lived - gameplay.
An innovative strategy game, which is (since I live in Israel) close to my heart. It remains to be seen what other historic events this game will predict.

A screenshot from the game:

The game has a very simple interface, even if you've never tried a strategy game before, this is pretty easy to get to grips with. If you'd like to be in Ariel Sharon's shoes for a while then try this out.

You can download this game ( its a very small file ) for free on this page.

Just scroll down to
"Where to get it: Here! [123KB]"
I've enjoyed it a lot. I hope some freepers might like it to.
NOTE: You'll need the popular little Winzip program to open the file after you download it.

-Maquiladora

[l33t]

I remember playing this game. I must've erased it from the hard-drive of my then 386sx. Thanks for the link.

[weikel]

386 LOL that was way back in the day.

[maquiladora]

Opps, looks like they won't let me use that screenshot.
Nevermind...
Yeah, it's a pretty old game, but still it has a great feeling of realism.

[Hugin]

I remember that game also. Actually quite challenging. I only won about a third of the time, with the Arabs winning about a third of the time, and everybody getting nuked the other third. I'll have to try downloading it and play it again.

[maquiladora]

Yeah, it is a very difficult game. I'd always be building up my forces for an attack on Syria then suddenly there would be a surprise attack by Egypt.

[Ziva]

Thanks for pointing out this interesting game.

[VA Advogado]

Yeah, it is a very difficult game. I'd always be building up my forces for an attack on Syria then suddenly there would be a surprise attack by Egypt.

WOW what an addicting game. Jordan was usually pretty easy to crush if you got on them early in the game but you're right, either Egypt or Syria would turn around and bang ya. Thanks for finding this. I used to play a multi player game in the early 1990's on a computer BBS. You each had country and allocated taxes, and resources to your people and eventually could invade other countries or ship your dissents there. I would give anything if I could find that game. The game would cycle every night and you would either have more or less resources.

[maquiladora]

I might be able to find that game for you.
What was it called?

[VA Advogado]

I might be able to find that game for you. What was it called?

Thats my problem, I can't remember for the life of me what the name of the program/game was. It was cool though because you could expell your country's dregs and send them (ala Castro) to an enemy to try and disable their government.

[maquiladora]

If you get an option saying "Program would run better in DOS mode" or something like that, click on NO and then just continue playing.
If you must use DOS then you run it by going to:
Start>Programs>MS-DOS Prompt
Then just type the address of the program, for example;
C:\Program Files\QuickTime\QuickTimePlayer.exe
If you don't know the address, you can find out by right clicking the file and take a look at its properties.