Deadlock: Planetary Conquest

""Son, be a colonist", is what Dad said to me

"It's a cushy life, and you'll get alien real esate for free"

So I talked to the recruiter, to see if this was so

He smiled at me... the nicest smile... and said "Kid, don't you know?"

A colonist's job is easy, a colonist's wage is high

A colonist's pension plan would make a civil servant cry

There's never any danger, there's always lots of fun

And as for job security, it's better than a nun's"

"[spoken:] Kid, I'd like you to meet somebody. His OFFICIAL title is

"Commander", but I'd like you to think of him as more of a Social

Coordinator."

"[Chorus:]

If I ever get back home again

If I ever get back home again

If I ever get back home again

That recruiter's gonna die."

"-- the Deadlock song, by Paul Kwinn. Read the rest of the lyrics here."

Gallius IV, the pearl of the galaxy! With a great climate and loads of resources, it's a shoo-in for colonization. You lead your merry band of pioneers to this pristine new world, ready to expand and enrich your nation. Unfortunately, it looks like every other race in the galaxy had the same idea, and sent their own people to stake a claim to it.

Chaos ensues.

Released in 1996, Deadlock is a turn-based strategy game with a few city building elements thrown in for good measure. The planetary map is divvied up in to different provinces (a la Risk), on which you can build colonies. The colony screen is akin to Sim City, letting you tailor each colony to support population, grow food, mine ore, raise morale, and the like. When your units meet the units of a hostile faction, combat happens. This is controlled by the computer, though you can tip the odds in your favor by researching technologies to improve your units. Troops that survive multiple battles also gain toughness points.

A fairly simple game, it stood out by virtue of the creative art design. Each of the seven races has a distinct look that can be seen in the residences and cultural centers of their colonies. Originally, the look of units was intended reflect the race that built them, but this was scrapped in favor of generic units (though the infantry still has species-specific appearances). It also took a tongue-in-cheek approach to the setting, with the voice-acted colony advisors either showering you with praise or snark, depending on your performance.

Deadlock was followed by a sequel called Deadlock 2: Shrine Wars.

This work provides examples of:

 * All Planets Are Earthlike: When starting a game, you can set Gallius IV to be Earthlike. You can also make it icy, tropical, arid, or like Mars. These settings are purely cosmetic, however.
 * If memory serves, the default settings change gameplay slightly, in that an arid planet like Mars would have more mineral resources but less food, while something Earthlike-wet would be the opposite.
 * Actually and heavily averted ingame. the whole plot of the story is that there are very few habitable planets, and the one in the game is desired by all races.
 * All There in the Manual: the game came packaged with a highly detailed book, giving an abridged history and overview of every single race, including the two present that aren't actually playable.
 * Amusing Alien: Most of the aliens qualify.
 * Awesome but Impractical: the missiles. They do quite some damage and a swarm of them can cause a colony to need a ton of repairs, but they're expensive and disposable and they can't win you colonies without supporting forces. Really, they're better at saying "I've got so many resources I can waste them to annoy you" than at actually winning wars. It's far better to spend the resources to build military units instead.
 * Bee People: The Chch't qualify, being a hive-structured species in which the members resemble bipedal scorpions. They are run by queens, though there are apparently more than one. Judging by the Chch't colony advisor, they also have at least some degree of individual personality.
 * Bizarre Alien Biology: What does an Uva Mosk look like? Imagine a shrub with two stubby arms and legs. You might describe the head as looking like an anteater's, but you could also reasonably say it looks like a turnip with a tongue.
 * Blood Sport: Some of the documentation said that the Chch't participated these. Three of them would enter a ring and try to kill each other with their stingers. The way it was set up, sooner or later two would gang up on one (though that one could still win, if sufficiently skilled).
 * Brainwashed: The Re'lu can mentally dominate the units of other races.
 * British Accent: The Re'lu.
 * Crystal Spires and Togas: Crystalline towers stand tall in the Re'lu cities. The human colonies, with their sleek, vaguely Art Deco stylings, might also qualify.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Games that end in military conquest tend to finish like this. As more and more territories are conquered from your enemies they lose the ability to make advanced units in sufficient numbers, making it harder and harder to defend what territories are left. One can derive a perverse satisfaction from conquering everything but one territory, then gathering all available military units and throw the lot of them on the territory that's left. The battle is usually over in about one second, plus one more to mop up civilian militia.
 * Cyborg: The entire Maug race. The nasty Cyth evicted the Maug from their home planet, forcing them to settle on a world that was far from ideal. As a result, the Maug began to sicken and die off, and now depend on cybernetic implants to sustain themselves.
 * Days of Future Past: Possibly the humans. The human colony advisor (as well as the humans seen in the opening cinematic) wear outfits that look like something from a futuristic Italian Renaissance.
 * Death From Above: You can build missile units that can strike colonies from afar.
 * Drop Ship: The opening cinematic shows some of the races using these to reach the planet's surface.
 * Dumb Muscle: This is the Tarth for you.
 * The Eeyore: For whatever reason, the Cyth tend to be very depressed. Maybe all the evil just gets to them. You'll almost always have a few colonists who refuse to work when you play as them. However, their morale is fixed and never changes, even under oppressive taxation. Essentially, you give up 10% of your workforce in exchange for having the remaining 90% guaranteed all the time.
 * The Greys: Or the blues, as the case may be. The blue-skinned Re'lu visited Earth in the past, and were the source of the Grey legends. Contrary to popular belief, they never probed anybody.
 * Henchman Race: The Chch't and Tarth acted the part for the Cyth at some point in the past, though this is no longer the case.
 * Higher Tech Species: The Maug provide an interesting example of this. Utterly dependent on their cybernetics, they also get significant research bonuses. However, they're a relatively weak race recovering from the depredations of the Cyth.
 * Humans Are Traders: At least when it comes to trade. Humans generate more money than any other race.
 * Humans Are Warriors: The Skirineen blew up Earth's moon, thinking that the humans (who hadn't fought a real war in a long time) would be easy pickings. Instead, the humans went berserk and stormed the Skirineen Empire. In the game, human units have the Berserk ability, which gives them massive combat advantages, though it destroys the unit at the end of the battle.
 * It also gives them a pre-ass kicking Battle Cry.
 * Instant Win Condition: Build the prerequisite number of city centres and all you enemies give up their claim on the planet, for some reason.
 * Isometric Projection: The colony screen.
 * Non Entity General: Partly averted, in that each race gives the player a specific title. Chch't: Hive Imperius. Cyth: Veil Lord (or Dark One). Human: Commander. Maug: Chieftain. Re'lu: Overseer. Tarth: Ubergeneral. Uva Mosk: Grand Hortus.
 * Obviously Evil: Their faces hidden under gas masks and garbed in dark robes, the Cyth look every inch the villain. The colony advisor sometimes refers to you, the player, as Dark One (though Veil Lord is probably the official title).
 * Plant Aliens: The Uva Mosk.
 * Powered Armor: The most advanced infantry units use this.
 * Proud Warrior Race Guy: Somewhat subverted by the Tarth. Though they're big and strong and love to fight, they don't seem inordinately concerned about honor.
 * Psychic Link: The Re'lu can do this, as can the Cyth (though the latter tend to use it to make peoples' heads explode).
 * Reinventing the Wheel: Every campaign mission you have to research everything again. Attempted to justify ingame stating that the treaty (Xythra Accords) that is part of the main plot requires each colony to develop its own technology.
 * Scary Dogmatic Aliens: Possibly the Cyth. The Uva Mosk may be an ecologically-themed version of this.
 * Send in The Clones: Featured in Deadlock 2: Shrine Wars.
 * Space Pirates: The Skirineen. Once the bullyboys of the galaxy, they got on the bad side of several races (most notably humanity, who really walloped them). Unable to lay a claim to Gallius IV by nature of them being unwilling to sign the pact the rest of the other races agreed to, they lurk in orbit, selling black market goods to the various races. You can buy from them, but if you get caught the resultant scandal will lower colonist morale, especially if you're playing humans.
 * Spikes of Villainy: Seen on some of the Cyth buildings.
 * Suicidal Overconfidence: If you so much as scratch someone's territory they'll automatically set you as their enemy, and their advisors will occasionally pop up and threaten and taunt you, even as you proceed to methodically squash them out of existence. Occasionally subverted after an attack, when the enemy advisors will whine and plead for you to leave them alone.
 * The Symbiote: The Re'lu are actually two races, each individual consisting of a symbiotic pair. The fragile Re are blue and skinny anthropoids. Throughout their history, they depended on the vaguely canine Lu for protection. In return, the Re use their psychic powers to broadcast soothing thoughts in the Lu's brain. Background fluff states that the human animal rights groups became outraged when they found out about this symbiosis, saying that the Lu were being exploited. This soured the relationship between the two formerly allied races. It's worth point out that, thanks to their advanced technology, the Re probably don't really need the Lu any longer.
 * We Are As Mayflies: The Chch't, who get an in-game population bonus, very helpful for early expansions.
 * Your Head Asplode: The Cyth mind blast does this.