King Arthur's Kort - on SynTax Disk 793
                 (Strategy wargame for PC)

                   Reviewed: Paul Johnson

King Arthur's Kort is set in a time of knights and castles when
King Arthur is due back any minute and the Knights are fighting to
see who can hand him back his kingdom. Although personally having
conquered all of Britain when he turned up I would lob him in a
dark dismal place and go back to the feasting.

You take on the persona of Lancelot and have to defeat your
fellow four knights. The U.K is divided into 18 areas (Wales being
three areas) and at the start each knight is given an home area
and a castle. The screen shows the whole of the U.K. with the
neutral areas in white and the various knights in their colours. To
the left of the map are 5 icons which allow the following actions:

       1/.Enlist men into your army.
       2/.Scout an neighbouring area.
       3/.Transfer men to the area from the army.
       4/.Transfer men from the area to the army.
       5/.Save the game.

To the top-left is a small window which shows information on the
area you have just highlighted, ie who owns it or ? or a
neutral. Below are various icons which show the number of
castles, mountains, rivers and peasants. The Castle and terrain
improve the defender's capability. The number of peasants show how
much taxes you will get. (You have no control over the peasants
apart from not waging war in the area, this is a wargame with no
economics).

Icons depicting your troops are on the bottom left and they are;

       Knights   - Best in attack of all.
       Swordsmen - High in defence, low in attack.
       Archers   - High in attack, low in defence.
       Catapults - Castle-bashers, reduce the defenders benefit
                   from castles.

At the beginning of each turn you are told how much you have to
spend and then hitting the enlist icon you spend it. Simply move
the arrow over the icon you want and press left to increase it by
one or right by ten.  You only get one army and as it only moves
one area per turn it may be a good idea to leave a garrison behind
as you move on. To do this hit the transfer to area and then as
enlist to transfer the type you want. Or pick up troops as you
retreat in the same way.

To attack an area you move the area to it and press the right
key, a window opens and you answer yea to attack. Another window
opens showing the strengths of the various types represented by a
barchart. You have no input to the battle, you just watch the bars
shrink. If yours is shrinking too fast you press a button and your
army advances to the rear at high speed. Otherwise your opponent
does the same or is wiped.  Once you conquer a knight's castle he
is out of the game and all areas and troops become part of the
conquerors. So do not leave your home area without a sizeable
force to defend it.

Overall the game is fun, the strategy is simple and it plays fast
ie 10 minutes average. I had problems with the sound enabled, for
no reason the game would hang despite my computer having a
soundblaster card. With the sound disabled, no problem, your
machine may have no such worries.

The game appeals to me in that it is quick because overall there
is not the depth of tactics or strategy to appeal if it was any
longer. For example you cannot trade guns for butter or have more
than one army.

Strategy in the game is divided into two parts and depends on the
initial positions. With a neighbouring knight you have little
option but to attack, if you move off to conquer a neutral he will
attack your castle. The problem is that at first you cannot have a
reasonable garrison and a decent army, so he will attack the
weaker. Your best bet is to enlist and strip your area and go for
his throat as fast as possible.

If you have neutrals around you then gobble them up as fast as
possible, but do not wander too far from home, remember you can
only move one area at a time. Once you have a reasonable area you
can really start building your forces and once past 5 or 6 areas
you can build an unstoppable steamroller.














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