Playing and Trading with Others

Playing Against Another Player

From the Main Menu screen, click the Play button.

This connects to the ConQuest Online server and allows you to chat with other players who are ready to play. If you should fail to connect, see the troubleshooting guide on the ConQuest Online website (www.conQuestonline.com).

Check out potential opponents.

The right part of the screen shows the potential opponents currently on the server.

Chat with the person you want to play with.

The bottom part of the screen has a chat area where you can talk to other players. Clicking on the chat room name (the Lobby) brings up a menu of other available chat rooms. Additionally, you can create new private chat rooms at any time.

To send private messages: Normally, your chat messages go to everyone in the chat room. Use the Whisper option (click the button on the right side of the screen, or press Ctrl+Enter) to send private messages to the person whose name you select. Click on any name to select that person, and you see the spinning ConQuest Online logo appear on either side of the name. On the upper right side of the screen you see that person’s ranked game record, including wins, losses, and ties, and the percentage of unresolved games. You also see a gold Challenge button.

Make a challenge or accept a challenge.

• To challenge an opponent: Select the person from the list, and then click the Request Game button. The other player should then click his or her Accept button to accept the challenge.

• If you are challenged: If someone challenges you, two gold buttons appear: Accept and Decline. Click Accept button to accept the challenge; click Decline if you are not ready to play.

• Wait for the Game Settings screen to appear. (Be patient—if you or your opponent have a slow Internet connection, this might take a minute or so).

Set up the game.

When the Game Settings screen appears, chat with your opponent until you agree on the following:

• Basic or Advanced? Decide what kind of game you want to play.

• Ranked or skill test game? If both of you are registered, you also decide whether you want to play a ranked game or a skill test game. (Ranked games count towards each player’s rating and therefore directly affect each player’s overall rank.)

• Game Map? Decide which map you want to play the game on, either the Preceptor Nebula or the Elemental Rim.

• Number of Duplicates? You can change the maximum number of duplicate pieces each player is allowed to have in a Control Group. The base setting is three, but you can change this number to be higher or lower.

Only the person who originally made the challenge can change the game settings. He or she is called the Game Controller. Once you have agreed on the game settings, click the checkmark button to begin.

If the Game Controller changes the game settings after his or her opponent has clicked the checkmark button, the button will become unpressed, and the player will have to click it again.

From this point things proceed just as they did when you were playing the computer trainer, except now there’s a thinking, blood-thirsty, power-hungry human being on the other end of the game.

Trading

Registered players (only) can trade pieces with one another. To trade:

• Select the Lobby button from the Main Menu screen.

• Highlight the person you want to trade with and click the Trade button. Initiating a trade with someone is similar to challenging that person to a game. The person can either accept or decline to trade with you. If your partner accepts, you both go to the Trading screen, described below.

The Trading Screen

There are three rows of pieces:

• The top row contains the pieces that your partner is offering to trade.

• The middle row contains the pieces that you want to offer to trade. You can drag pieces from the bottom row to the middle row. Any pieces in that row are visible to your trading partner.

• The bottom row shows the pieces in one of your groups. To switch groups, press the down arrow on the status bar at the top (just like the Manage Pieces screen). This screen also has an option to show only the pieces in your collection that are not part of any group.

Trading Basics

To offer pieces for trade:

1. Drag the pieces: Drag them from the bottom row to the middle (trading) row. You can drag as many pieces as you like.

2. Unlock your pieces and pick the ones to trade: Once all of the pieces you are offering are in the trading row, select Unlock to allow your partner to rearrange the pieces in your trading row. At this point, you should also unlock his/her trading row (the top row) so that you can rearrange the pieces he/she is offering.

3. Lock your trading row: Once you have both decided which pieces you want to trade, lock your trading row and drag all of the extra pieces back to the bottom.

4. Execute the trade: To execute the trade, click the Trade button on the left side of the trading rows. If the other player agrees to the trade, you both then get a Confirm button. If both of you confirm, the trade is completed and the pieces in the two rows switch places. It is possible to trade pieces for nothing in return, if you want.

As soon as you confirm the trade, every piece in the middle row is traded for every piece in the top row. This includes pieces in the scrap pile. Be careful!

Helpful Hint: Resolving unsuccessful trades: In the rare instance where a trade might fail to complete for some reason, you must exit ConQuest Online, restart, and log in using the same character. The game will then connect to the server again to either complete or cancel the unresolved trade. Until this is done, additional attempts to trade with that character will probably fail, because the previous trade was partially completed.

Advanced User Concepts

Giving Pieces To Other Players Using the Give To Feature

The Give To feature in ConQuest Online allows players to give pieces to each other without having to meet in the Lobby for a trade session. To begin the process of giving a piece to another player, you must enter the My Pieces screen and click the Give To button at the top of the screen.

The screen then changes so that only your Give To group is visible. Open this group to see your entire piece collection laid out before you. Decide which pieces you want to give to another player and drag them into the top row. When you are done putting pieces into the top row, click the Give To button on the bottom left of the screen. You are then asked to type in the name or character ID number of the player you wish to give the pieces to. When you have entered that information, the pieces are sent to the other player. The next time the other player logs in and clicks the Retrieve Gifts button in the My Pieces screen, he or she will retrieve the pieces you sent and have them added to his or her collection.

The Storage Box

If you have a very large collection of pieces, you may find it difficult to tune your group, especially if you have a small screen. One solution is to put pieces that you don’t use often in the Scrapbook. You can open the Scrapbook from the menu in the Manage Pieces screen. When you open the Scrapbook, you see all the pieces you have put there (by default, the Scrapbook is empty).

If you place pieces in your Scrapbook, those pieces are not visible when you are tuning your other groups. If you want to use those pieces again, you can go back to the Scrapbook and remove them from there.

There is also a shortcut to Scrapbook from each of the pile menus (where the sorting options are). From any other group, you can select some pieces and move them to the Scrapbook. Those pieces disappear from your group. You can get them back by going to the Scrapbook and moving them back to the lower piles.

Shortcut Keys

The following keys help streamline some of the common gameplay functions:

<F1>	Show ToolTip information for the item the mouse currently is on
<F2>	End phase
<F3>	Commit Bid
<F4>	Pass Bid
<F5>	Instructions
<TAB>	Expand/Collapse Control Group
<UP ARROW>	Increase Bid Amount
<DOWN ARROW>	Reduce Bid Amount

Game Options

When you press the ESC key, a popup appears. One choice on the popup is the Options button. Click this button to go to the Options screen, where you can turn on or off different options for the game:

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