Теократия: Орталық Америкадағы тайпалар күресі

Theocracy is a real time strategy game for the PC developed by Philos Laboratories and published by Ubisoft in 2000. The game takes place in Mexico and Central America in the 15th century. The player controls a tribe in this region, and has 100 years to prepare for a Spanish invasion by expanding their territory across the Central American map, by conquest, or by allying and trading with other tribes.

In Theocracy, the player is the leader of the Atlan tribe (a fictional tribe), who has escaped from oppression under the Axocopans, and now must improve their tribe in order to survive in Central America. As the player's empire's borders expands, the player is able to conduct diplomacy with other tribes. The game also allows players to play through several "Chronicles", a set of objective based missions detailing supposed heroes of Aztec history. These mostly serve for tutorial purposes rather than being a serious part of the game however.

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 their 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. However, in March 1999 publisher Interactive Magic had decided to abandon boxed releases for their future titles, putting Theocracy in jeopardy. Philos eventually managed to buy back the publishing rights, and started updating the game to allow for a future release. These changes included redrawing most of the games graphics, switching the game resolution to 800x600, and the addition of "chronicles". The French publisher Ubisoft picked up the publishing rights, and work began on finishing the game for release. The game was finally released for both Windows and Linux on March 24, 2000. There was consideration towards a follow up, focusing on as then undecided new civilization and using features thought up after the original game's development entered feature freeze.

Theocracy received mixed reviews upon its release. Its strongest praise came from Eurogamer, with one reviewer stating that the game's "mix of real time and turn based strategy means that Theocracy takes place on a far larger canvas than a purely real time game ever could." The reviewer praised its wide scope and original ideas, separating it from many of its contemporaries. The British publication PC Zone was also impressed with the games originality, describing it as being "as refreshing as a pint of lager after a chicken vindaloo, and definitely worth shouting about." Other members of the press were less impressed, causing the game to only score a 72 on MobyGames. Reviewers criticized the game as being simple and archaic, while at the same time others thought that the interface was cumbersome and the learning curve was too steep. Even though it was mostly unknown outside of Europe, the game managed to sell well enough, especially on Linux where it became a best seller. One reviewer of the game's Linux port stated that "the game is a world apart from a lot of the linux games I've been playing lately. It's solid and feels nice to use the buttons click with a satisfying sound played at the right moment, and it feels professional." The port was also plagued with negative comments however, with many complaining about installation problems and about various technical faults (such as only being able to play the game in 16 bit colours and the lack of a proper full screen mode). Even with these problems, it still holds an average of four out of five stars at The Linux Game Tome. A review in German print magazine LinuxUser was mostly positive.