Game #226: Fortress of the Witch King (1984)

Fortress of the Witch King was developed and published by Avalon Hill and released in 1983 for the Apple II and then in 1984 for the Commodore 64 and PC-88. Your goal here in this game is to explore the realm of the Witch King, find him, and then slay him, thus gaining the orb, scepter and crown, and releasing the land from his thrall.

The game can be played with up to four players. You choose the game difficulty on a scale of 1-4 and then the map difficulty as well on a scale from 1-20. Higher map difficulty includes more mountains and less sanctuaries. Once you’ve customized the kind of game that you want to play you are ready to begin.

You start with a small band of scouts and warriors with which to explore a 40 x 40 map which consists of forests, mountains, towns, sanctuaries, and then the witch king’s fortress hidden somewhere on the map. The map is randomized with each new game.

You move your small band across the map in the hope of finding aid to help you in your quest to defeat the witch king. Aid comes in a variety of forms – enlisting warriors, scouts, and clerics requires gold. You acquire gold by defeating opponents and then you can spend that gold in towns by recruiting new players. The bigger your band of merry men becomes, the more rations you will need to buy.

From the main menu you can choose to look at the map of the surrounding area but it will only show you areas where you have been. The rest of the map is blacked out and awaiting exploration. You can also choose to look at your Inventory which will display all of your belongings, including the amount of each item.

When the game began, I started with 2 Clerics, 3 Scouts, and 50 Warriors. Scouts are used to search the surrounding area of your map. For every two scouts in your inventory, you increase your range on the map by 1 square. The purpose of your warriors are to fight your battles for you. If you are wiped out, you can pray for more warriors and there is a good chance you will be given 15-25 warriors. If you do not have enough rations your warriors can die of starvation. You can obtain warriors than three different ways: 1) through prayer 2) in the marketplace, and 3) through parleying. Clerics are important because you can use them to pray for more warriors when wiped out and they can heal some of your troop after a big battle. In the absence of clerics, you will suffer more casualties.

You can also purchase a wizard in the marketplace though the opportunity to do so is rare. They are also very expensive to acquire. A wizard can aid you a great deal in combat. He adds a 20% bonus to your strength and damage done to the enemy is increased by 25%. There is also a chance that the wizard will cast a spell against monsters in combat, resulting in additional damage. A fireball and/or lightning bolt goes a long way. Lastly you can also purchase raiders whose sole purpose is to raid enemy camps. The more raiders you have the more loot you can steal from enemy camps.

While you’re exploring the map you may come across bands of elves, dwarves, or warriors and you may be given the opportunity to parley. If you decide to parley, the chance that they join your troop is based on how many rations and gold pieces you have. Late in the game I came across huge bands of dwarves and elves who then joined my party. This aided me a great deal and helped me find the fortress of the Witch King.

The larger your troop is, the greater the number of enemies you’ll face. The computer seems to match encounters to your current strength. Enemies that may encounter include goblins, orcs, trolls, giants, hydras, and dragons. Once you choose to fight the computer automatically generates the outcome of the battle for you.

Scattered about the map are four very special magic items that you’ll want to find before entering the fortress of the Witch King. Each of these items are guarded by a dragon. It is the only time in the game that you’ll encounter the dreaded beast. I found each of these four items in mountain locations where random encounters are not only more numerous but more difficult.

Horn of Opening: gives you a 75% chance of entering the fortress. Without the horn, your percentage chance equals the number of scouts in your party.

Boots of Stealth: adds one to your movement factor. Without the boots, all encounters in the fortress will be against a double-strength opponent.

Armor of Defense: reduces your opponents attack factor within the fortress by one-third.

Sword of Strength: multiplies your attacks by 1.85

There are a couple of minor magical items which can aid you as well in your travels. The Hammer of Thor which adds a 15% bonus to your combat strength and the Talisman of Speed which gives you an additional movement factor each turn.

There are three different spells too that you can acquire as treasure items. Once you use the spell then the scroll disappears. A Teleport spell allows you to teleport to anywhere on the map. These become very useful late in the game. A spell of seeing allows you to see the entire 40 x 40 world map, regardless of whether you’ve explored the space or not. This spell helped me find the fortress of the Witch King. The most value of these spells is the Spell of Seeking. This spell, when cast, displays the location of the four special magic items that you want to find.

Once you enter the fortress, you’ll lose your entire troop, and you’ll suddenly find yourself alone in the fortress. The gameplay changes gears here and plays much like an interactive text adventure as you explore the fortress. There is a combat situation with every move you take so survival in the fortress is difficult. Once you find the witch king you have to fight him and killing him is very difficult.

I really enjoyed playing this game. The game took me about five hours to complete which was the perfect amount of time for a game like this. I liked the idea of searching the map for four unique magic items to help me in storming the Fortress of the Witch King. I also liked how it was very difficult for you to die and you got to avoid starting the game over time and again. Even in the darkest of times, if your entire troop was wiped out, you could pray for more warriors and then limp your way back to the nearest town to purchase more.

Fortress of the Witch King seems more of a strategy game with RPG elements than an actual RPG, however many places had it listed as a role-playing game. In the past I’ve found that strategy games can sometimes fail to hold my attention but there was such an old school RPG feel to this game that I stuck with it. Many of these games you have to get into them to see whether or not they really do fit that role-playing game rubric. I found the game to be entertaining so I saw it all the way through to the end. You have to give Avalon Hill a couple of extra points for the title as well. Fortress of the Witch King has such a cool ring to it.

Next up on the docket is Shadowkeep.

Until next time…