Liberty or Death

Liberty or Death is a turn-based strategy video game for NEC PC-9801, MS-DOS, Super NES, and Sega Genesis released by Koei in 1993. It is part of Koei’s Historical Simulation Series.

Gameplay – Liberty or Death

The game is set during the American Revolutionary War. The player can choose to control any of six Commanders-in-Chief (C-in-C), three each on the American Continental Army or British Army sides.

For either side, the general objective is to eliminate all enemy troops throughout the Thirteen Colonies by defeating them in battle. The strategies used to accomplish this change are based on which side the player has chosen: the American side needs to hold out against the British and slowly gather its strength, while the British need to fortify their existing positions and quickly move against the Americans.

The gameplay focuses mainly on the military aspects of the conflict, but relationships with civilian, and particularly political, entities are of vital importance as their approval determines the budget for military spending, and in the worst-case scenario, they can vote for your ouster as C-in-C. Very historically accurate, the game faithfully reproduces the strategic situation of the war as well as many historical figures in great detail.

Liberty or Death is known among players for its thoroughly researched historical detail, great complexity, level of difficulty, and the immense amount of time it takes to complete one game (similar to the experience of other Koei games). One could easily spend upwards of 250 hours on one game and might still be defeated in the end. The user interface showed many improvements over previous Koei games, including mouse support. The game can be played in one-player mode, two-player mode, or zero-player mode (i.e., with two computer AIs playing against each other).

Beginning the game – Liberty or Death

The player begins by selecting which side to play, the British or the American, and then must select which Commander-in-Chief will represent their side. The choices are George Washington, Artemas Ward, or Charles Lee for the Americans, and Thomas Gage, Sir Henry Clinton, or William Howe for the British. (In the console versions, players cannot choose their Commander-in-Chief.

George Washington and Thomas Gage are the leaders of their respective sides.) Each turn lasts half of a month, for a total of 24 turns per year. The Continental Congress or British Parliament (depending on which side the player has chosen) meets quarterly to set the budget for military spending over the next three months (equivalent to six turns), and the player chooses to allocate the funds between the navy, the districts he controls, to pay debts and salaries, and various other concerns. He can also set general strategy with his naval forces that are not under his direct control.

In each month, the player manages the military affairs for each district (as do any commanders they have authorized to do so on their own, as well as the enemy and his commanders). There is a number of actions that the player can take in each district he has, including purchasing materials, bribing enemy generals, holding parades to gain popular support, and training his troops, among many other options.

An interesting facet of Liberty or Death is that there are also Patriot and Loyalist militia regiments and German mercenary regiments, organized and paid for by the Americans and British, respectively, which will fight and collect resources on their own, unless they are recruited.

These groups will continue to run the districts they are in and can also attack and annex adjacent districts if they choose to. If a regular commander for their side moves into the district, these militia units will place themselves under his authority if he is of equal or higher rank, swelling his ranks.