Defender of the Crown Download (1987 Strategy Game)

Defender of the Crown puts you 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, you start the game 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 the three Norman lords - and sometimes your Saxon friends as well.

The game has several different styles: You may either engage in a jousting contest where you have to knock your opponent off his horse using a lance, you can go raid a castle for loot or you can attack another territory/castle.

You find yourself back in the time of Robin Hood and are one of 4 landlords trying to unite the country. Defender of the Crown is surely a classical Strategy-Game. Challenging and involving. It doesn't only concentrate on the strategical aspect, but also on some action, like fencing or jousting. Hold tournaments, where you can fight for a piece of land or simply invade it. Also some diplomatical aspects in it. Overall still one of my favorite games of this genre. This game set standards and it's style dominated the strategy-genre for many years, take a look at games like Kingmaker for example, though that one lacks the action-aspects. The atmosphere and historical background of this game remained unbeaten for a long time.

This is the original release of the game - it's in CGA... so basically, it is pretty ugly. An EGA version of this game was released a year later and the better graphics surely add to the gameplay. Compared to other CGA games the graphics of Defender of the Crown are definitely above standard. But that's pretty much it. Please note that the sound of either version belongs to the VERY annoying sort. And I haven't found a way to disable it.

One of the most famous games ever made. I don't think that there's a serious gameplayer that never heard about DOTC. The story is simple - English king was killed, and 6 lords, both Norman and Saxon, are fighting for the crown. Choose one of them and conquer others with the help of Robin Hood! The game includes sieges, ground battles... True masterpiece by Cinemaware.

One of the greatest and most popular games, which has also managed to be popular on several different game platforms including the Commodore 64, Amiga and PC. You start the game by selecting from a group of different powerful people living in Great Britain. You then have to conquer all the enemies' lands as well as the current abandoned lands. There are several different things included in the game and they will be explained below.

Of course the combat is a huge factor in the game. When you attack an enemy army it's showing the battle in text format and calculating the losses for each army. This is done fairly good calculated on how many men you have in your army. When a castle is attacked you also have to hit down the castle walls with a catapult. The more you destroy the easier it will get afterwards. Finally sword fighting is included when you either have to free a person or capture your upcoming pride. This is probably the best part of the game as the atmosphere and graphics in this part of the game is very well done. Finally you also have to collect taxes from the lands you own and you are very dependant on this as you can buy new armies for the gold you collect from this.

Several minor features are included and one of the better ones is that you can meet up with Robin Hood and also convince him to help you when you attack the enemy. This can result in that the enemy will have less men which helps you in the end. Overall the graphics are quite detailed although it doesn't mean that they are good looking but at least it's always easy to navigate around in the game. Defender of the Crown is a bit difficult game so I recommend you give it some time, as you will most likely find it good once you have learned the basics in it. Note that this is the CGA version and isn't really recommended unless you have a computer that can only view CGA graphics.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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Defender of the Crown, Defender of the Crown (EGA Version), Defender of the Crown: Heroes Live Forever, Crusader Kings, Cossacks II: Battle for Europe, Crusader Kings II, Civilization 2, Rise and Rule of Ancient Empires