Clash is a turn-based strategy game set in fantasy realities developed by the now-defunct Leryx Longsoft company (later known as Longsoft Multimedia or Longsoft Games) and released in October 1997 by Optimus Pascal. The game is modeled on the popular games in the "Heroes of Might & Magic" and "Warlords" series.
The plot of Clash tells the story of the recently discovered land of Karkhan, which became the destination of expeditions by wealth-hungry warriors from all parts of the world, but where the people, who had lived for centuries, did not want new rulers and a new, foreign faith, so that soon a bloody conflict engulfed the entire land.
The game can be played alone, choosing one of two campaigns of 10 missions each, or up to 5 players at a time, choosing from 20 single missions. In the case of a campaign, we are informed of the goal of a given mission at the very beginning, while when it comes to single missions the goal is always the same, namely to destroy all other players or get them to a situation where they surrender themselves.
One of the unique aspects of Clash is the choice of the faith we want to follow, which means we can side with Christians or pagans. Unfortunately, regardless of our choice, however, this has no bearing on the difference in buildings, units or abilities, and the difference basically boils down to a plot issue in the campaign and the holy places we are allowed to visit on the main map. These holy places are religious tabernacles in the form of temples and places of worship whose visit brings us various random consequences, both positive and negative.
In order to achieve victory, one must constantly take care of the development of our kingdom, both by erecting and expanding new castles and fortresses, as well as by conquering territories and capturing buildings belonging to enemies. The only raw material in Clash is gold, which we can obtain in several different ways, including digging up treasures, imposing taxes on peasants, acquiring it in sacred places or seizing it from enemies. Gold is used primarily to expand our castles and fortresses with various types of buildings such as barracks, workshop, forge, hospital and school, each of which gives us some benefit in the form of the ability to produce new units, heal them or train them. In addition, it also serves us to buy licenses for new units and cover their production costs. In addition, in case we decide to marry the queen, with the help of gold we can finance her whims, as well as bribe an enemy commander to our side in a situation where we manage to capture him.
In Clash, we have as many as 31 combat units at our disposal, including various types of infantry, mounted, throwing or flying units, as well as mixed units combining features of the above. Thus, we can find here a typical medieval army and other peculiar units, such as the Common Rush, the Builder, the Light and Heavy Infantry, the Pikinier, the Halberdier, the Highlander, the Archer, the Forester, the Crossbowman, the Musketeer, the Light and Heavy Cavalry, the Knighthood and the Dragoon, several types of war machines, such as the Ram, the Catapult and the Cannon, and even a number of creatures and fantastic characters, viz. Dragonfly, Eagle, Scorpion, Red, Troll, Elephant, Cyclops, Ghost, Pegasus, Skeleton, Winged, Dragon and Mage.
All units in the game have a varying number of action points (PA), which primarily determine the distance they can travel each turn, both on the main map and on the battlefield. In the case of combat, they also allow you to perform several other actions, such as attacking, firing a shot or digging in, each of which also takes a certain number of PA.
If at least most of a unit's available PA is used in a given turn while moving around the main map, its fatigue level will increase in the next turn, so it should be monitored on an ongoing basis and regular rests should be taken if necessary. In a situation where fatigue exceeds a certain value, the unit will have less and less PA at its disposal until it loses the ability to move altogether, or in the case of low morale it will disband, thus losing it irretrievably.
Other important indicators in the game are morale and status. The former determines the level of satisfaction of units, while the latter determines their level of training. Both of these indicators can be raised in several different ways, including winning battles, taking over gold, peasants or buildings belonging to opponents or visiting holy sites, and in the case of status, also training or joining a given unit commander. Depending on the level of morale, the attack, defense and firing parameters of a given unit change, but if it reaches level 0 it may end up disbanding. As with morale, status also affects the aforementioned combat parameters, but in addition to this, a sufficiently high status also allows us to hide in ambushes as well as detect ambushes and traps set by enemies.
Another unconventional idea in Clash is the possibility of marrying the queen, who every few turns asks us to fulfill various expensive whims. A reward for the persistent is the birth of a commander, a special unit that eliminates fatigue and increases the battle skills of the troop having it in its ranks.
One of the more important aspects in any game is to gain higher technology levels, so we can produce better units. Each player starts the game at level 1 in technology, while a maximum of level 3 can be achieved. The same is true of walls, or defensive fortifications, whose task is to make it difficult for enemy units to lay siege. Depending on the technological level, we can have a wall in 3 types - the higher the technological level, the harder the wall we can build, which makes the opponent have to toil longer to destroy it.
In every castle there are peasants on whom we can impose taxes and thus make a profit. However, one must be careful, because if the tax is too high then the number of peasants will begin to decrease and we will earn little. On the other hand, if the tax is too low then the peasants will begin to increase, which will consequently lead to overpopulation and the outbreak of a plague among them, resulting in a temporary decrease in their numbers in each successive turn and a lack of tax revenue until the plague stops altogether.
The game also allows you to set traps, for which Builders are used, and to hide in ambushes, which all units in the game are capable of after reaching at least silver status. In the event that an opponent walks into a trap, all units in his squad lose a considerable amount of their energy, often becoming virtually useless in battle. On the other hand, falling into an ambush automatically ends with the start of a battle during which the unit in the ambush has 2 rounds of movement in a row.
As for the times in which Clash was created, it stands out from other Polish games of that period for its excellent audio-visual design, which would not be the pride of many Western productions from the second half of the 1990s. Slightly weaker point, however, are the animations, which are characterized by low quality and displayed in a small window. Admittedly, the game did not bring to the genre of turn-based strategies any revolutionary solutions that would later be copied by competitors in the industry, but a few original ideas I mentioned above and the overall level of its performance certainly contributed to its considerable success in Poland.