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The West Marches are controlled by the King and the Bishop. Each resides in his own castle with a court, where decisions are made democratically by the courtiers. These noblemen are presented to the court by knights such as yourself. If you find yourself with more courtiers than anyone else in one of the courts, you can replace the resident ruler with a pupper ruler. Despose both King and Bishop and you win the game.

So, how do you gain a place for your courtiers? Money, of course. It's the key to the game. The source of your wealth is the towns you own - every year each town gives you the cash earned by selling wheat and pottery. Supply and demand play a big part here, so it is wise to keep a watchful eye on the prices asked - then you can switch from farming to pottery or vice versa. You can't keep all the money though, some much go back to the town for its general upkeep, and some to the King and Bishop as taxes. You can vary the numbers of farmers and craftsmen by varying the supply of food.

Giving 15 bags of wheat to a town with 12 farmers and/or craftsmen will attract a further three peasants. Paying the two courts' taxes is a good way to 'buy' places for your courtiers. Pay too little and you will lose places as you'll be 'out of favour'.

However, that does not mean that you can just starve the peasants whilst bleeding them dry with high taxes. If your town is unhappy with you and it's attacked, your peasant population will all but invite the invaders into the town!

You can place a militia in the town to fend off any invaders but the numbers will be taken from your own army, which could make it too weak to successfully invade other towns belonging to your rivals: three other knights.

Looking on the map screen you will be able to see who owns what by pennants over each town. Using this screen, you will be able to move your horse icon to any town you wish or, alternatively, to another knight's town. When this happens, if there is no militia or opposition, the town is automatically declared captured. Otherwise, you'll be transferred to the combat screen.

Betrayal is full of intriguing ideas, the use of the court and the actions within it being the most inventive. However, the combat denigrates a good idea into one of pure parce. Yet again, we see a game that just *has* to have a pot pourri of game-styles: a bit of strategy, a bit of arcade action, etc. As if to sell a strategy game you must insert some arcade action. *Wrong*!!!

The only people who will be attracted to Betrayal are tacticians and strategists. Arcade players have more professional shoot-'em/beat-'em-ups to tackle. Meanwhile, the strategy players will become very disappointed once they've tackled the combat.

Combat takes the form of a sideways scrolling beat-'em-up. The battle area can hold up to six combating militia, all with a variety of weapons. Fighters are controlled by joystick, with three basic moves: step back, step forward and swing weapon.

The battle bar at the base of the screen allows you to change the order of your fighters and which one you control. Unfortunately, animation is poor and control fairly dire. With no real tactical play, this is a disaster.

Using the function keys, you can access the court screens of both King and Bishop. Whilst there, you do sneaky things such as assasingating or spying on your competitors.

Spying allows you to collect incriminating evidence that may result in the Bishop or King denouncing another knight, resulting in some of his courtiers being executed!

Presentation 71%
Presentation report screens tell you everything you need to know. Disk access is bearable.

Graphics 78%
Useable in general, but nice static screens in the court areas.

Hookability 40%
The strategy area is surprisingly easy to get into. The combat sequence is the big turn off, though.

Lastability 31%
The tedious, meaningless, pointless, combat will result in Betrayal gathering more dust than fans.

Overall 43%
I wish software companies would stop making games with mixed game-styles. Betrayal is a wretched victim of this sad trait.