About my account
Every new player starts out with a rank of 1000. The formula that determines how many points you get for a win, tie or loss is a complicated formula created by myself. It's a dynamic formula similar to that used for chess. Basically the lower rank someone is, the higher points they get or lose. As you approach the highest of ranks, the point value has decreased significantly. The points are also determined by who is ranked higher. The higher player is expected to win so if they do, they don't get as many points if the underdog wins. The loss for the underdog is also lower than what the higher player would get if they lost.
For those who have played a game, you can leave feedback relating to that game. To leave feedback with someone else, you must first play them. You can also leave feedback for someone as many times as you have played them, but again, only in relation to each game.
Ranks that haven't been updated in 40 days are not listed. Your rank and statistics are still there but it is concidered 'stale' and only those accounts that are active get their ranks listed. Anyone in an active game is not concidered active until the game is over when the system recalculates all the ranks.
Questions on the rules of the game
Yes but you must announce it. Be warned that the game currently does not support alliances so you'll be playing an honesty game. Also, it is easy to spot secret alliances with even just the results page as it tracks everything you do, should you not announce an alliance.
How to play, before the game starts
To create a game, click the 'create game' link at the top. If that link is not there, you may need to log in first. Once at the create game page, enter in the necessary details like game name, game password (if you want only specific people to join your game), etc. Click save, and you should now be looking at a board that has been generated for you. If you don't like that board layout, click the Generate board to create a new board based on the same settings. You can go back to the settings at any time to change then and create a new board. At any time you are satisfied with the board settings and layout, click Accept Board. That ends the creation process. On to Joining or Managing a game.
There are two types of games to join. Private and Open. Open will allow anyone to join a game as long as they meet any requirements (if set. i.e. rank limits). A private game, the player must know the password to join the game. After joining, you will be shown the screen to edit your profile for this game. It will not change for other games so you can edit whatever you want here. The last thing to do now is indicate you are ready to play. Do so by clicking the 'Ready' link near the top. When it shows a checkmark, then you are ready to play. After joining a game, you now have access to the game's chat.
This is the only time you can leave a game. Once started, you cannot leave the game for any reason. To leave a game, go to 'Edit Profile' and click the button at the bottom 'leave game'. You will not be presented with a confirmation so if you did not really want to leave, quickly join the game again.
You can change the board and any of the settings at any time. See the creating a game faq on the instructions there. The only difference is if you want to keep your existing settings, don't click 'accept new board'. Should you click accept new board, the ready status of all players is reset to ensure that they also agree on the new board settings. You have access to a different players page than the other players. Here you can kick specific players out, or change their profiles if they put something inappropriate. Once all is ready, you can proceed to start a game.
Before starting a game, all players must be 'ready', you can click on the players page to see who still isn't ready. There must also be more than one player to start a game. If the number of players is not equal to the player limit (there are open positions) but there are two or more players, a warning will show asking if you really want to start the game. You can click yes or wait until all positions are filled up. When all players are ready, the game starting is up to the owner. The first round will begin immediately upon starting.
What are all the options for creating a game?
The game's Name, neutral planet count and playerlimit should be self explanitory. The player limit specifies only the maximum number of players allowed to join a game. The minimum is always two.
The size of the game board is defined here. The grid is a hexagon based grid but the dimensions are still # x #. So many high and so many wide. It is always as equally high as it is wide.
Leave this blank if you want anyone to join. Setting the password only restricts people from joining a game. It doesn't stop people from watching once it has started.
By default, this is turned off. With it turned on, you can only tell the location of your opponents, but not the details like the number of ships, production nor kill ratio. Selecting this will also result in no chart details to be available.
The game pace is in minutes. The scheduler runs every 15 minutes so that is the minimum that this value can be set to. Currently the maximum value is a 24 hour period. The player only has to worry about their own turn as since every players' orders are carried out at the same time. If at least one active player has not clicked 'end turn', then after the stated game pace amount of time has passed, the turn is forced. Everyone clicking End Turn and forcing a new round is called a premature turn (at least for now) as the turn has ended before it was scheduled to. From that moment on, is when the next turn is to be scheduled. For example:
A new turn started at 4 p.m. (for a game with 24 hour turns)
Players A and B make their orders by 4:30 p.m. and clicked end turn.
Players C and D made orders but did NOT click end turn.
A new round starts automatically at 4 p.m. the next day.
Players A, B and D make their orders by 5 p.m. and also clicks end turn.
Player C makes their order at 7 p.m. and clicks end turn.
A new round has started at 7 p.m. as player C was the last to click end turn.
Nobody makes any orders and a new round starts at 7 p.m. the following day.
If you want to restrict players by having games available only to beginners and those with low rank points, set a low rank limit here to prevent good players from joining. You can also do the opposite and have a game where only the top 10 ranked players can join.
How to play, during a game
Everyone starts with one planet of ratio 0.4 and production 10. Each player makes their order(s) as they see fit by clicking the source then destination and then finally specifying the number of ships to send. All neutral planet details are hidden until someone captures it, as are other players if 'Fog of War' is turned on.
Simply be the last player still owning planets. If the game is still going when you own every planet, there may be a fleet or two still in transit to another planet.
First click on the planet you have ships on. Now when you hover over a different planet, both planet's details are now shown and you can see it's 'ETA' or how many turns it will take for the ships to arrive. Now if you click on that planet as a destination, the Order's box now shows. Enter the number of ships you wish to send and click send. You've now made an order.
All orders as well as irreversable orders (known as fleets) are stored on the 'Fleets' page. It shows the source and destination as well as how many were sent (#), what their effectiveness is (Kill %) and what turn they will arrive on.
Easily done on the fleets page. There are 'edit' and 'del(ete)' buttons. Delete to remove the order, or edit to bring you back to the board page and automatically highlight the two planets. Just enter the new number and click send. Setting the order to a different number will edit the order, not send a new one. Setting the order to 0 is the equivalent of deleting an order and it will sown on the fleets page.
Each planet has three numbers associated with it. Number, Production and Kill ratio. Number is how many ships are at this planet; this is the only number the player can manipulate (either by reinforcements... getting more, or by orders... transfering them, also losing by being attacked). Production is how many ships are produced by this planet per turn; this number is between 5 and 15 inclusively. The final number is kill ratio; this number is between 0.3 and 0.9 inclusively. The kill ratio means that ships from this planet (whether defending or attacking another planet from here) will have this as their ratio. When the random number is generated, between 0 and 1 inclusively to about 5 or so decimal points, if the number is lower than the ratio, it is concidered a 'hit'. Therefore, the 0.9 ratio is highly sought out, but also very hard to get.
Any order that has been made on previous turns. These fleets are ships that have been sent out from a planet and are part of the way to their destination.
There is the forced end round method. This is letting the round end when the timer goes out. This measure of time is determined when the game was created. The other method is when every player has clicked 'End Turn.' This forces the turn to end prematurely or before the game's 'pace.'
For now there's nothing to do. Once I get feedback to work, you would leave positive or negative feedback for those you have played against. Leaving feedback does not mean that they HAVE to leave feedback for you so don't get upset or send me messages if they don't return the favour.
There is no way to leave after the game has started. The best you can do is either fight and win, or send one ship out to every planet every turn to help keep your numbers down and let others take you out easily... but that's not the point of the game.
Other aspects of a game during play
There is no wall. The warped field enhanced hypersubspace bubble allows ships to travel between two points regardless of what's in the way.
All fleets are still very much alive and the game goes on until all fleets have arrived. When all your planets are gone, you may see in the results that your empire has crumbled. But if one of your fleets successfully captures another planet, you'll then see in the results that your empire has stumbled back to life.
No. They enter a warped field enhanced hypersubspace bubble that disrupts all communication and therefore cannot return from their destination. Their engines take one full turn to cooldown and be ready for use again so they must fight it out to the death with any enemies of the planet before they try to return home, if you choose to do so.
It's the statistics. How many fleets were sent out, how many kills or losses one has taken, Planets controlled etc. Understanding all of the statistics is not a requirement to play the game.
The results page holds all 'results' from games. It shows if you have received reinforcements. It also shows who won battles and who lost.
Battle is done at the same time but it is all automatic. There is no dice to roll as you have no control over it anyway. For each fleet that arrives at a planet to attack, that player gets one extra attack, so if three different fleets arrive at the same time, the attacker gets three attacks to 'spend' per attack round. The defence always only gets one but their attacks will hit every fleet of one attacker. This is further complicated when there are two or more different attackers. At this point, the attacker has to decide who to attack before attacking. This is chosen by a roll and not the player's choice. So in the end, sending multiple fleets against a planet will not have an extra advantage over the defenders. But sending multiple fleets when you know another attacker will arrive at the same time can give you an advantage over the other attacker.
Reinforcements are automatically joined with the planet's defence force. They then acquire the kill ratio of that planet. This is done before the attackers get to fight.
A deadbeater is someone who doesn't make orders or clicks end turn several times. Not an issue on facepaced turns like 15 minute turns, but on those that last 24 hours, if everyone is online at the same time at some point, having one person not make orders or clicking end turn will slow the game down a lot. There is an upcoming feature that will distribute a penalty based on how many consecuative turns the player has been idle. after too many missed turns, the rounds will not depend on this player anymore. This will allow for fast iradication of them by the other players.
Viewing a game in progress or a game that has ended.
Yes. There is and never will be restrictions on viewing games.
Passwords only restrict players from joining games, but anyone can view it once it starts.
Anything but play and chat. If the game has fog of war on, you can't view the statistics. But you can see the results and the board or watch the chat.
Other ...
Antihero is the developer for iKonquest. I may not play many games as I'm too busy developing. As of yet, there are no moderators or hunters yet. Once the community grows, I'll post some 'Jobs' on the news page. I said it as 'jobs' because they are really volunteer positions.
For all bugs report or suggestion / feature request, head to bugs.ikonquest.com and fill a report there. There's a section that lets you specify that what you're asking for is a feature instead of a bug. If it's really minor or just general feedback, go to the contacts page and fill out the form there.
troubleshooting
I'll wait until either their's a forum with recurring questions or people keep posting the same thing on the bug site.
The partner project of iKonquest by Robert Rasche of Germany. It brings with it a number of unique feautres such as: Diplomacy and missions (autosend units).
