Theocracy (2000)

by Philos Laboratories

Genres:Strategy, Real Time Strategy (RTS)

Themes:Historical, Warfare, 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate)

Game modes:Single player

Story: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.Show more

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Stories about this game (7)

@ion00

January 30, 2025

I played a demo of this back in 1999 I think. I never managed to get a hold of the full game. It was very unique. You controlled a tribe of aztecs trying to conquer rival tribes and to fend off the conquistadors. The gameplay was very unique. Sadly I don't remember much about it but it would be amazing to see this game here. PLEASE GOG!

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@RyudoTenjin

February 06, 2025

I used to have the CD for this game when I was a kid but sadly I think it got scratched or something because the music never played again. This game was so different to other RTS games because it acts like a Turn Based Game too. You take control of a tribe called "The Atlans" and start doing the usual for any RTS game: Getting resources, building, creating an army. But the interesting part of it was that the game got a "Province View" where you control all your territory and move troops to attack your neighboors or explore (Some are neutral provinces that got special missions), but when you enter a province or get attacked the game works as a RTS like an Age of Empires where you and your enemy control their armies in real time. Each one of your neighboors got a different personality and should be dealt with in a different way. Now, Theocracy also got a "Hero System" where you can equip special weapons to your heroes (Special, stronger characters fixed and adquired doing missions), so finding those weapons was a great feature too). It once lead my hero and it's army to a neutral province that was home of a legendary dragon-like creature and I remember finding a lot of weapons there. In regards of combat units there's not much variety: You have a sword warrior, a lance warrior, an archer (Melee combat-mid combat-long combat distance unit), then you got a Chief (You can ascend any troop filled with xp to a Chief so they can manage better strategy formations), you got Priests which have up to 6 different spells each one according to what element you're devoted too (Sun, Stars, Moon, Nature, Souls), and endgame you get like an Arbalest-like unit). You also got Jaguar tamers and Jaguars, so you can use animals to attack. The final feature of my review? After a long, long campaign the inevitable happens. The Conquerors come and destroy EVERYTHING and EVERYONE at their path, and you better be prepared because you gotta survive, that's the endgame.

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@Jakokdybyholub

February 07, 2025

I was obsessed with this game. I still have a CD. I run it time to time using !native! Linux version. I was hacking the game to run in Full HD, which is difficult and cannot be easily done (I failed, but made some progress), I tried to decrypt game files (with some success). Overall, this game sent my life toward IT. I still want to make the Full HD version of the game (somehow). There are issues to run this game natively on Linux, namely: sound, it is using /dev/dsp which is no longer supported on Linux (but can be emulated), 16bit colors, it requires emulation, no CD can be done, music is a problem as it is CD audio, resolution, and speed of the game. Also made some cheat codes through encrypted config file. One day maybe, one day... the game will be in fully playable state.

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@lukeant115

February 09, 2025

Bought this from the Scholastic book magazine at school because it looked similar to Age of Empires. It was turn based, with the player letting time go by and deciding when to jump back in and see what resources had been collected, warriors created and buildings built in the jumps. You had a certain time to conquer your neighbors and expand to many provinces before the conquistadors showed up and you had to fight them. They were very difficulty, swarming and way stronger on a unit by unit basis. I became obsessed because I could never beat it. Even with the Wonder Bows, and most of the provinces I always got wrecked by the conquistadors. I like to think I could do a better job now. The time jumping in the turn taking, and deciding how to use your resources were very unique. I could build huge pyramids, but then you had nothing to defend the provinces with. You could conquer widely, but then you had more to manage. Hero's could wreck a whole army, but losing one was a huge blow. If you conquered a province but didn't kill all the soldiers, they became your villagers. But if you tired to leave them all alive they could overwhelm you.

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@Mageskyfire

March 04, 2025

Theocracy was my first ever city builder/strategy game, I played it on disk back in the early-late 2000's, part of my formative years in gaming. I think I can strongly attribute my love of city builders and strategy games today to this. Those are fond memories but because I was young I wasn't very good at games and I had to get my mum to help me out with it. The game also helped foster my love of history as an interesting Aztec city builder. GOG it would mean the absolute world to me if this came to your platform, to have the chance to relive such fond memories and *actually* be good at the game now would be a treasured experience. Please bring this to your store so I and others can experience or re-experience this hidden gem of a game.

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@Rudobrody88

February 20, 2025

Mam ogromny sentyment do tego tytułu. Niesamowita, wyróżniająca się tematycznie gra, ze swoistym klimatem i prawie niezliczoną ilością możliwości podboju. Przeróżne taktyki do przetestowania. Magia kapłanów, a na końcu wspaniała walka z przybywającymi Hiszpanami. Nigdy nie zapomnę pierwszego zwycięstwa w tej grze oraz wspaniałej wizualizacji na koniec gry.

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@SilverMaxy

February 23, 2025

Potężna gra, w której miesza się aspekty ekonomiczne, wojskowe oraz duchowe. Zdobywanie prowincji jako małe misje, dyplomacja, walka oraz magia. Dosyć duży poziom trudności, ale jak się wgryzie można naprawdę polubić tą grę.

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