From: jj51@umail.umd.edu (Jeff Janoska)
Subject: Review of Rise of West (aka Comp. Emp. of Mid Ages) 

A very quick review...

Conquest and raiding are done by armies.  A new endeavor is the "raise
armY" endeavor.  It costs $1 to raise an army.

Armies require maintaince if in a low population area ... $1 per army in
excess of the pop level.

Armies add to defense of an Area.

Conquest of an Area can take a minimum of 1 endeavor or a mximum of
alot.   Conquest is _NOT_ a function of the pop level of an Area, though
higher  Pop Areas will take longer to conquer since opposing Empires can
keep  more "free" armies in an Area with a larger population.

Religious Conversion of an Area is accomplished by holding an Area for 5
or more consecutive rounds (Christian --> Christian is 5; Ch --> Pagan =
5, Christ --> Moslem is 10).  If the player has a diplomatic tie during
the turn in which the critical level is reached, the Area is converted.
IF you lose control of an Area at all, the clock starts over.

Colonization takes between 10 and 20 rounds depending on how differnet
the language is in the target area.  If at the end of the critical level
you have a claim to the Area, then the language changes.

There is no schism table - the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches
always have religious differences.

A serious flaw is that there is no benefit for holding Rome.  The
battles  for control of the Pope won't happen in the game.

The game allows for the appearance of "minor" powers, i.e. magnates,
raiders and mongols.  This is the least satisfying aspect of the game.
There is NO (NADA, ZIP) way to prevent the appearance of a magnate in an
Area (other than not playing with the minor power option).  You can
spend  alot of money garrisoning an Area and building its Fortifications
and the  next turn, the Area is a Minor with a fort level of 3.  Minors
can be devestating to smaller empires since they don't pay money to
raise armies  or launch conquest endeavors.

The Mongols also have a flaw.  The game allows them to launch raids by
sea.  Sorry, but this should have been a no-no.  They should only get to
conquer adjacent land Areas.

One plus is that the game includes a scenario editor, so you can create
your own scenarios.  Want to see what would happen if the Protestant
Reformation occurred in he 1200's? Well the scenario editor allows you
to  try it out.  There is one downside to the scenario editor - you
can't  edit on ongoing game file.  So if you want to play the grand
campaign  scenario from the original game (700's to 1400's), you'll find
that  you'll need to write down the values for every Area and set-up the
scenario by hand. (The Franks vs the Byzantine scenario is included with
the game, but you have to do the manual edit when its time to split the
Franks into 3 Empires.)

All in all, I'm glad I forked over the $40 for the game, but there are
some flaws in the game.  I believe these flaws can be overlooked, but I
hope they are corrected in later versions of the game.

I will answer any specific questons if anyone asks...

Jeff