Theocracy (video Game) - Gameplay

Gameplay

There are two modes of playing: province view, and realm view. In province view, the player view a particular province under their control/attack. Here they assign tasks to their persons, however time stands still here, and the player must go to realm view for time to move and his/her actions to take effect. There is a time-scale in realm view, along with a hand-drawn map of Central America, showing all the province borders, and using colour-code to show which of the eight factions controls it. The player's tribe is represented by the colour blue, while other tribes are red, yellow, green, purple and cobalt. Provinces under control from a random tribe with no possible relations to others are paper-coloured, and provinces controlled by the Spanish (once the Spanish arrive to invade) are grey. Each tribe has a unique 'personality' dictated by its AI; the red tribe the Izhuacans for example are an 'aggressive and warlike theocracy' and will generally be the first tribe to make an aggressive move in the game. The green tribe, the Huaputecs, are more peaceful and will never attack the player unless the player has already initiated hostilities. Tribes also have varying military tactics and units, the Yellow Tribe has an army consisting of almost entirely sword units supported by spearmen, jaguars and nature priests, while the Cyan tribe, the Teotitlans, have enormous crossbow units known as Wonderbows and soul priests supporting their warriors.

Players can also build Aztec-style pyramids to harness the power of magic from the five spheres of Magic: Sun, Star, Moon, Nature and Soul. The amount of magic available to the player is limited and measured in "Mana", Mana is used by Priests to cast spells, this Mana can be recharged by performing sacrifices at the Pyramids where priests are trained, the amount of Mana per unit depends on the Unit type. Each sphere of magic has different spells available with a vague focus on a specific type. Sun Priests specialise in attack spells, Moon in defensive ones, Nature Priests in Healing, Star Priests in 'debuff' or distraction and while Soul Priests are equally skilled in all fields.

The time scale can be used to determine how fast time passes. It can be paused to make time stand still, and at slowest rate, a year passes in approximately 10 or so minutes, and at fastest rate, a year passes in approximately 20 seconds.