The Strength of Nations
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| The Strength of Nations | |
|---|---|
| Designer(s) | Israel Del Rio |
| Platform(s) | MS-DOS |
| Release date(s) | 1988 (first version) September 1, 1991 (most recent version) |
| Genre(s) | Strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player Multiplayer (up to 3 players) |
The Strength of Nations is a 3-player world domination shareware DOS game created in 1988 by Israel del Rio.
[edit] Summary
This video game takes place on January 1, 2019, in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. About 6,000,000,000 square miles (3.8×1012 acres) are still habitable - about twice the size of the continental United States.
The players represent new nations seeking to expand and prevail against their enemies. Each player takes turns budgeting their funds to various programs (including as Research & Education and Defense), buying and selling assets (Land, Food, Industries and Hospitals), and setting tax rates (income and corporate). After budgeting, if they have chosen to buy land, they choose which direction to buy it in and whether to buy an extended or concentrated parcel of land. After all three players have budgeted, if two nations physically touch, they will go to war. Victory is determined by an unknown algorithm encompassing several different variables. A player wins by conquering all their opponents' land, or, if the game goes a certain number of turns with no military victory, by having the largest quantity of oil fields, land, or total assets.
By trial and error, it is possible to get a rough idea of the algorithms behind the game and figure out how to win consistently. Indeed, in some situations, the problem is figuring out how to avoid getting too much money that it causes the variable to roll over into negative numbers. Problems with divide overflows and other kinds of overflows are especially common in the later versions. The game had five versions published between 1988 and 1991; the last version was version #2.2, released September 1, 1991. It is not listed in very many file bases, but one filename it is sometimes found under is nat22.zip.
