Liberty or Death Download (1993 Strategy Game)

The European Wars against Spain and France have been costly to the British Empire. In order to gain additional funds for the war effort, the Crown raise taxes from the New World colonies without representation. This act compels the New World colonies to protest and boycott against British rule. By 1775, the Crown alarmed by the protests, boycotts and politically instability in the New World sends troops to subdue any rebellious efforts by the New World colonists. This threatening approach provokes the Thirteen Colonies to revolt. Thus starts the War for Independence in the New World (American Revolutionary War).

For a long time, KOEI used their resources on making realistic strategy games based on asian history, but this time they put their efforts into making a very good and accurate gaming version of the American War of Independence. In Liberty or Death you play as either the American or the British forces, trying to take supreme control over the American continent.

Playing as the Brits will be easier as they had more resources, but veteran gamers should give the American forces a go. Once you select you country, you have to appoint your Commander-in-Chief. This will be your key player, and must be protected at all costs. If you loose your Commander, you will loose the war as well. So play it safe with him, and withdraw him from combat if things turn bad.

As usual with KOEI games, you can use both your mouse and keyboard for control. Personally I would recommend using the num-pad for the battles, as the mouse has an ability to hide itself from time to time.

The graphic is pleasing for the most, but the battlefields are just ugly. This is mostly due to the fact that the old KOEI games used a really weird resolution (640x200 pixels) and the fact that they tried to use as few colors as possible (which means that the most screens have less than 10 colors in them). Why KOEI decided to do this to their games is a mystery, but it does give their games a unique touch you won't find in other games.

All in all Liberty or Death is a decent strategy game, that covers an important era in the American history.

The game supports multiplayer up to 2 players.

Based on the U.S. Revolution, Liberty or Death puts a new spin on KOEI's main game engine in various novel ways: to raise popular support, "give food to the populace" is replaced by "write a gazette"; soldiers are now allowed "furlough" (i. e. shore leave) to bolster their morale, and so on. Although most commands will be familiar to longtime KOEI fans, the addition of budget allocation and requests for support from political figures add a welcome level of challenge.

Another strategy game from KOEI which is very similar to KOEI's other strategy games. In Liberty or Death you are in control of either the American or British in the US revolution. Like with the other games from KOIE the graphic interface is really what puts Liberty or Death apart from other strategy games simply it looks so special but still quite easy to use once you have looked at it for a while.

The main changes compared to the earlier KOEI games are that you will have different of your counsellors to ask for further support likes extra wages which you then have to decode on whether you should receive extra money. In my opinion there are a few flaws with this feature though like you are told the expected wage and if you offer a bit more than that you are still told that the soldiers will need more wages in order to be in perfect shape.

Generally the game offers a bit more economically challenges than earlier games and overall I find the game a bit more interesting as well compared to KOEI's earlier games but this is also based on the plot of the game. Still a long way to go to be a really good strategy game in my opinion.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

People who downloaded Liberty or Death have also downloaded:
P.T.O. II, L'Empereur, NAM 1965-1975, Operation Europe, Gary Grigsby's Pacific War (2000), Kingmaker, Gengkhis Khan 2, Revolution '76