2. Pieces
|
2. Pieces |
|
On this page: |
Go to: |
How you play ConQuest Online greatly depends on the group of pieces your character has. When you first start playing, you create a new character and ConQuest Online generates the character’s starter group of 50 pieces. This group has a balanced selection of pieces that work well together. Some pieces are common while others are rare. Rare pieces, while not necessarily more powerful than common ones, often possess unique or exotic abilities. You can find a complete listing of the pieces on the ConQuest Online website (www.conquestonline.com). You can also trade your pieces with other players… but more on that later.
There are five different types of pieces in the game:
|
Q Pieces
|
Q are arguably the most important piece in Star Trek ConQuest Online. Your Q is your “king” piece—lose your Q to enemy forces and you lose the game. You have a variety of Q to choose from for your Control Group. The Q you choose helps determine your strategy of play. Some Q allow you to generate more Control Points each turn; others give you the ability to gain extra Q Points. You must have one, and only one, Q in every Control Group you build.
|
|
People Pieces
|
People are the Human, Klingon, Romulan, Vulcan, Borg, and any other race in the known universe, You use them both to attack your opponent and to defend your home planet. People can move around the system in ships, beam down to hostile and neutral planets, and attack enemy forces. You spend Control Points to deploy each person. Once you’ve deployed a person, you can order that person to attack, beam, or whatever. People have attributes on how well they do things like attacking or gaining control of planets. These attributes can be enhanced when you equip a person with items. Some people have special abilities or follow special rules. These are indicated on the piece. (See Special Abilities below for more information.)
|
|
Ship Pieces
|
Ships move people about the system. Ships come in various forms and are usually very well armed. Ships can move from region to region and can be ordered to attack enemy ships. Ships also beam people to and from planets. Ships have attributes, similar to people, that indicate how strong and efficient they are. Again like people, these attributes can be enhanced when you equip a ship with items. Some ships have special abilities or follow special rules. These are indicated on the piece. (See Special Abilities below for more information.)
|
|
Item Pieces
|
Item are various equipment, weapons, and ship enhancements that can enhance the capabilities of a ship or person. Only ships and people can receive items. Examples: Weapons increase the damage a piece does in combat; improved shields let a piece withstand more damage; communicators improve influence attributes of pieces; etc. Each item costs a certain number of Control Points to deploy. The effects of each item are described on the piece. Item Attribute:
|
|
Event Pieces
|
When playing the Advanced Game, players can use event pieces. You place events in your Auction Group, and they create random and powerful effects during play. During the Auction phase of every turn after the first turn, a random piece is drawn from the combined Auction Groups of both players. The players then bid to see who gains the benefits (or avoids the penalty) of the drawn piece. See the Auction phase in Chapter 4 for more details. |
Each turn, you earn Control Points by controlling planets:
|
Type of Planet You Control |
Basic Game |
Advanced Game |
|
Home Planet |
6 Control Points |
6 Control Points |
|
Planet in the Neutral Zone |
3 Control Points |
A Random Number of Control Points |
In the Advanced Game, you can also gain Control Points by using a piece’s Action to gain Control Points equal to the piece’s Influence value.
You use Control Points to deploy ships, items, and people. You also spend Control Points to deactivate the special abilities of some pieces. In the Advanced Game, you can spend Control Points to gain Q Points.
Your opponent’s Control Points are displayed at the top of the Game screen, and your own Control Points appear at the bottom of the Game screen. These numbers are always visible to both players.
People and Ships
Some people and ship pieces have special abilities. You can invoke your piece’s special ability when the piece is in play. For example, when you have the Borg Queen in play, you can use her special ability to gain ownership of an enemy piece.
The rules governing the special ability of a piece are described on the piece. Examples:
Some special abilities can only be used when the piece is in the same location as the target of its special ability.
Some can only be used once per game.
Some cost Control Points to use.
Most special abilities require the piece to use an Action.
Some items have special abilities. An item’s special ability can be used if the item is in play on a ship or person, and the player who controls that ship or person can invoke the item’s special ability.
Managing and Tuning Your Groups
You know the saying “practice makes perfect.” To play ConQuest Online to maximum advantage, the saying becomes “practice and tuning your Control and Auction Groups makes perfect.” Tuning your groups is one of the most important aspects of playing ConQuest Online, and takes a great deal of skill and experience.
The default character you get when you install the game includes pre-made Control and Auction Groups. You can play the game with these groups, and they are designed to be effective. At some point, however, you will want to “tune” your groups—your starting groups may not be to your liking, or you think you can come up with better groups on your own. Also, since there are so many different pieces in Star Trek ConQuest Online, you might want to include some different and fun pieces in your groups.
Control Groups must contain exactly one Q piece (no more, no less) and 40 other pieces (41 pieces total). You can have any type of piece except Events in your Control Group. The standard rule for ConQuest Online is that you can have no more than three copies of a single ship, person, or item piece in your Control Group. (Experienced players can change this limit in the Game Settings screen by raising or lowering the copy limit. Experienced players might do this for special tournament rules, or just to add some variety to gameplay.)
Auction Groups must contain exactly 10 pieces, no more, no less. Any type of piece (including Events) can go into your Auction Group, except Q pieces. There is no limit on the number of copies of a single piece you can put into your Auction Group. If you want to include 10 Red Alerts in your Auction Group, go ahead.
Bringing up the My Pieces screen: Select the My Pieces button from the Main Menu screen. From the My Pieces screen you can view and arrange all pieces in your collection, change the pieces in your groups, and create new groups.
Opening a group: When you first enter the My Pieces screen, all your groups are displayed in the top row (if this is your first time in the game, only one group will be there… the one we have provided for you). To open a group, select it and click the Open button. The Piece window opens on the My Pieces screen, and the pieces in the group are displayed in the top row of the window.
Viewing pieces when you have many: If there are more pieces than can be displayed on one row, a small arrow appears on the top right side of the screen. Click it to scroll to the next piece. You can also use the slide bar to scroll through your pieces quickly.
Viewing a piece in detail: The left side of the My Pieces screen is a Piece Viewer. Whenever you click a piece on the screen, a large view of the piece appears in the piece viewer, along with the piece’s statistics and information on its special abilities.
Modifying the current group: The top row of pieces is your current group. The rows underneath it are scrap piles where you can arrange your pieces and keep any that you don’t want in your group. You can select pieces and drag them individually, or you can select blocks of pieces by holding down the Shift key while clicking on the first and last pieces that you want to select. Click on the label to the left of a row to select the entire row or to sort the row by name, piece type, or rarity. You can also export a list of the pieces in the row to a text file.
Creating new scrap piles: Click on a Split button on the bar above a pile. A scrap pile divider appears at the center of the row, and the New Pile button change to Merge. Pressing Merge merges the two piles together again.
Creating new groups: Clicking the New Group button to begin designing a new Control or Auction Group. Newly created groups are empty. To add pieces to a group, simply drag and drop the desired pieces into your group. Groups must have specific numbers any types of pieces, as described in Forming Your Groups above.
Switching between Control and Auction Groups: At the top of the screen are a pair of buttons, Control Groups and Auction Groups. Simply click the button for the type of group you wish to build. When building a Control Group, all your Auction Groups appear on the bottom of the screen. You can open an Auction Group and see its contents so that you can build a Control Group that complements it. The reverse is true when you are building an Auction Group; your Control Groups appear at the bottom of the screen so you can view them.
Thinking more about the tuning process: First familiarizing yourself with the pieces in your collection. Then try to weed out any pieces that you think are too expensive to use or don’t complement your other pieces that well.
Next, take a look at what you have left. Make sure you have an adequate number of ships. It’s usually wise to have eight to fourteen ships in your Control Group, since you must use ships to move your people from planet to planet.
Any pieces that depend on other pieces to be useful are potentially risky. There are great rewards when a combo works. Example: When you can pair up Lursa with B’etor and Toral you receive great Control benefits, but this combo takes a while to get working. Depending on your Group strategy, it might be better to use this time to more productive ends.
Keep people with good influence values in your Control Group. Using people to boost your Control Points (in the Advanced Game) can help you to dominate the Auction phase and to put out more expensive pieces quicker.
If you run short of space in your Control Group to have everything you want, try putting ships, people, or items into your Auction Group. These pieces come up for auction during the Auction phase. If you win them, then they immediately enter play (without costing Control Points to deploy them). This is a good way to try to get expensive pieces into play at a cheaper price, but you risk your opponent winning them and using your own pieces against you!
Test your groups against the computer. When you start beating the computer often and you feel comfortable with your group, it is time to try a living opponent (unless you like racking up victory after victory against the hapless computer).
Go to:
Top of this page
Help System Home Page
Previous chapter:
1. Introduction
Next chapter:
3. Basic Game