The Hundred Years War wasn't a hundred years long and the War of the Roses wasn't over flowers. Lies, all lies, but nonetheless these were two protracted campaigns that make a good historical base for Conquest: Medieval Realms to challenge the player. There are four campaigns comprising 31 scenarios in total, with both sides covered in both conflicts.

Conquest is an indie-developed, turn-based strategy game with deliberately simple mechanics based around hexes and zones of control. The more territory you take, the more income you gain, with two resource upgrades possible to swell those coffers further. Money is used to buy and maintain three different types of troops: archers, cavalry and spearmen.

Armies fight rock-paper-scissors style, so spearmen defeat cavalry, cavalry whup archers and archers beat spearmen. However, there are three different levels of troop, and a higher level will always beat a lower level regardless. The interesting nuance is that units exert a zone of control (ZOC in hex wargaming speak) which bars inferior units from entering, meaning that a lower level can be defended by a level 3 hard-man when positioned adjacent.

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Thus the game is about positioning your troops so they cover each other's backs, and placing towers and castles to defend the frontiers of your territory. Your land is vital, as should it be split by enemy hexes it devolves into two kingdoms with separate incomes. That doesn't sound too bad until you realise that if a lot of armies are on one side of the split, they probably won't be supported by the new halved kingdom's income and will be forced to disband.

It's very much a thinker's game of tactical manoeuvring, and an intriguing one despite some annoyances. For starters, the AI turns happen too quickly; the computer moves in the blink of an eye and you're often left wondering exactly what happened. Secondly, the camera view sometimes shifts in a rather disorienting manner when you select a unit. Neither of these were big issues, but sadly our final moan is, and it's about scenario and AI balance.

The campaign clearly needs some balancing work. A few of the missions are laughably easy (we completed one in two turns flat, which was just bizarre), and the AI doesn't help to make things much more challenging. Even on the highest level it makes some odd moves at times, although it can be reasonably canny at others. Patchy would be a good word to describe it, as well as a good word to cure it (let's hope the developer gets on the case and prioritises improving these areas).

To be fair to Slitherine Software, the AI does seem to run more smoothly in the one-off skirmish games that Conquest also offers (which can also be played online against human opposition). We enjoyed these the most, except for the time the game decided to crash in the midst of a particularly tense four player struggle. There are definitely plenty of balance issues and bugs still to iron out here, but there's a promising game underneath.

There are balance problems, buggy bits and an erratic and overly easy to beat AI. But despite Conquest's issues it's an indie game with definite promise. It's playable enough as it stands, particularly in the skirmish mode, and with some tuning work over the next few patches it could polish up nicely.