Talk:Conquest (board game)

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Marketing by Donald Benge

In or around 1972, if not somewhat earlier, Mr. Benge traveled to USCF-sponsored chess tournaments in the Pacific Northwest, in an attempt to market his game. He was a slim, ordinary looking guy, usually wearing a business suit. When he came to the tournaments, he'd go into the skittles (rehearsals or practicing) room, and got people started playing them. He even had a few that he just gave away for free. If my memory serves me right, they came complete with the cardboard pieces, and another way he did it, was to supplement the advertised prizes that the tournament director authorized, with prizes of his own. For instance, if you took first or second place in your division, he would give you a free copy of Conquest too. He might even have given away free copies to people coming in third or fourth place in their division. Anyway, that is how I remember him from 1972 or so.

It has been many decades since I have played Conquest, but if my memory serves me right, there were two islands separated by a channel, and you had to load up your men onto your elephants, and this took movement points. Similarly, you had to spend movement points to get your men down from their elephants. You constantly had to keep track of your movement points, and use them to your best advantage. This was a great game, my best friend in the neighborhood always beat me, but I still had a lot of fun. Just coming across a reference to it here at Wikipedia brings back a lot of old memories from 35+ years ago. Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 22:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Conquest Business Partners?

I have a hard time believing Conquest was the sole product of a one-man show. The mere fact that Mr. Benge managed to get a derivative game published in Germany implies he had business contacts, or connections of some kind, and implied partners-in-fact, even if he never got around to executing Articles of Partnership to limit his liability. His father was Elden Eugene Benge, who died back in 1960. Did he have any sisters or kids? There is a question here, whether partners had an interest in his business as a result of an oral contract. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dexter Nextnumber (talk • contribs) 22:43, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Donald had a brother who died very young (a twin, I think). Not sure who owns the rights to the game now, as his will was barely adequate when he died (drunk driver hit him head on at 4 in the morning....wrong way on the freeway). He had almost no family left...took awhile for investigators to find a distant cousin in Utah. He was in his early-mid 70s (although he LOOKED about 900). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.218.70 (talk) 06:09, 30 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]