Fate of the Dragon

by Eidos

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004ZBOB
• Item Weight: 12.3 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: March 16, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #34,047 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

In the confusion following the collapse of the Eastern Han Dynasty in second-century China, rival warlords take control of their respective territories and set up their own kingdoms, splitting China into three parts. As one of these three warlords, you must build your own regime, develop new technologies, and create a mighty army in an attempt to control the Three Kingdoms and reunify China.

Fate of the Dragon is a real-time strategy game based on the 14th-century historical Chinese novel entitled Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Known as one of the most famous and turbulent periods in Chinese history, the story has been passed down the generations throughout Asia through books, plays, puppetry, and storytellers. Now, Eidos Interactive brings the story of the Three Kingdoms to a worldwide audience with the release of Fate of the Dragon on the PC.

Product Description

Build Conquer and Reign.Product InformationSecond Century China. In the confusion followingthe collapse of the Eastern Han Dynasty rival warlords take control of theirrespective territories and set up their own kingdoms splitting China into threeparts. As one of these three warlords build your own regime develop new technologiesand create a mighty army in an attempt to control the Three Kingdoms and reunifyChina.Product Features Establish comprehensive power through production construction trade science and technology alliances and war. Multiple paths to victory – military control through war and strategic deployment economic control through trade and the development of new technologies or political control through diplomacy and strategic alliances. Each kingdom contains unique technologies buildings and characters uniquely modeled from the actual technological cultural and social development of the time to accurately reflect the Three Kingdoms’ culture. Campaigns are based on historical significant events of the Three Kingdoms’ period. Head-to-head or cooperative multi-player support for up to 8 players via LAN or the Internet. Minimum Requirements Windows 95/98/Me or XP Pentium II 200MHz or equivalent processor 32MB RAM 320MB available hard drive space 4x CD-ROM Drive DirectX 7.0 or higher [included] 100% DirectX 7.0 compliant video card with 16MB VRAM 100% DirectX 7.0 compliant Sound cardRecommended Requirments Pentium II 300Mhz or equivalent processor 64MB RAM 510 MB available hard drive space 8x CD-ROM Drive DirectX 7.0 or higher [included] 100% DirectX 7.0 compliant video card with 16MB VRAM Pentium II 300Mhz or equivalent processor 64MB RAM (Minimum) 128MB (Highly Recommended) 8x CD-ROM Drive 100% DirectX 7.0 compliant video card with 16MB VRAM 100% DirectX 7.0 compliant Sound card 

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another great one from Eidos, July 22, 2001

By 

DJ Lee (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fate of the Dragon (CD-ROM)

I played Age of the Empires II prior to my purchase of Fate of the Dragon and as much as I liked AOE, FOD was far more interesting. In fact, it is more realistic, fun and practical as opposed to AOE, which was already pretty good.

A little comparsion for those who have played AOE and not FOD:

On farming:

AOE - You create villagers and place them to farm.

FOD - Upon assigning the labourers to farm and their functions, they will automatically function. What's more, beside wheat, you can breed pigs!

On food:

AOE - Creating a farm automatically means you have food.

FOD - Just by growing wheat and breeding pigs are not enough - you have to build a workshop and assign men to make food and wine!!!

On warriors:

AOE - You just pay tribute and negotiate.

FOD - You have to assign warriors and scholars to positions before actions can be taken - titles such as prime minister, premier, commander-in-chief, great general and much more are assigned. You have to hire the talents through Inns and pay for their services making things bit harder to get a great team working for you.

On gold:

AOE - You just get villagers to dig.

FOD - You have to apply tax to your people and as such, loyal and happiness are associated with it. What's more, you can conquer outer towns and impose taxes to ensure more money!

On fighting:

AOE - You build barracks, archeries, stables and workshops.

FOD - Very much similar but barracks fall between swordsmen and pikemen while archeries are the same. The main differences are the fact that upon building a stable, you have to assign the army men on the horses in order to become 'knights' - once they lost the horse, they automatically become swordsmen, pikemen, etc, etc Also, the workshop in FOD provides more interesting options to invading other cities.

On fighting 2:

AOE - Army does not need to eat.

FOD - If you army leaves the city, their energy levels go down and affect their fighting ability. You would need to build outside camps and constantly fill the camps up with food and wine by assigning labourers with horses to transport the goods.

On fighting 3:

AOE - You build villagers and army personnel separately.

FOD - You train your labourers into sergents and vice versa balancing your population accordingly.

On technologies:

AOE - You develop technologies to improve your equipments.

FOD - Pretty similar but you do all that in the National Academy and there are hundreds of developments.

On disasters:

AOE - There are no disasters.

FOD - Lots and lots of them! (famine, flooding, locusts, etc) In fact, so many, it can make the whole game much harder and frustrating!!! To combat disadters, one would need to build temples and offer sacrifices to the Gods or improve technologies.

On loyalty:

AOE - Nothing there.

FOD - You have to constantly reward yoru generals and scholars to prevent them from defecting.

On citizens:

AOE - No one cares about their happiness.

FOD - You have to ensure you have to popular support.

On graphics:

When I first heard of FOD, I could not understand why it would need a 3D graphics card. But having played the game, I can understand why... the graphics are excellent (compare to AOE) and it is much smoother. Eidos did a very good job to bring out the first english version of Romance of the 3 Kingdoms on PC (I may be wrong there).

Final note:

The game is very good and I have told you so much from six hours of playtime. There may be lots of benefits that I have not seen. The scearnio games are excellent and follows the historical development of Three Kingdoms, which remains to be one of the most famous story in Chinese history.

Good job Microsoft but Great job Eidos!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good game, March 28, 2001

By 

Tom Shi (Columbus, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fate of the Dragon (CD-ROM)

A excellent Age of Empire like game. But with enough game play difference to make it unique and refreshing. I particularly liked the military aspects of the game, it's somewhat more complicated than the Age of Empires, including army camps, the need to supply field armies, and the individual unit gradual depletion of strength. The massive city walls looks great and ways to attack a city using scaling ladder attacks add a interesting dimension to the game.

New innovative units based on legends and history include Kalfeic Kites, which rise like a hot air ballon and can illuminate a large area of the map. Also there are giants kites that can catapult your soldiers passed the city walls to launch attacks.

The graphics is superb all around. A very enjoyable playing experience.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An RTS that truly test your intelligence., March 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Fate of the Dragon (CD-ROM)

The game is a retelling of a mass popular Chinese story that has been told hundreds of generations. And the developer made a huge effort to make it appealing to Westerners like us. But they've done something none of other RTS had done before, and they've done them right, and realistic. The graphics, the sound effects and voice over (I know some Chinese, and I can tell you that what those little soldiers said were reall cool) are all great. But two most impressive things are the resource management and millitary management.

You need to collet many different resources, which sounds very hard. But the developers made what would be complex job easier, because your workers are the smartest of all RTS. Once assign them a job, they do it forever. You don't need to tell them re-plant the farm and go find trees somewhere else. And the fact you can actually produce some reall stuff out of raw materials makes the game much more realistic.

The military management includes hero system, which is a lot more real the the hero effects of the Age of the Empire. Think about it, when you have a legendary hero of some sort in your army, of course your army will fight better. And the developers are so smart to integrate this in the game, and almost all heors were real people. And the supply line for soldiers out in th battle field is brilliant. It makes the game way more challenging and gives both sides of the players more room to use strategies. Unlike many RTS games, you can simply win by outnumber your enemy, you can't do it here because a large number of army means a huge usage of food. And your enemy can destroy your supply line at ease. So it forces you to really think and plan before an attack. It may get hard sometimes, but I enjoy it. And there are always cheat codes...

Over all, it is a very challenging game that will put you on a test - especially if you play on internet against other players.