The Waronliner - The official WarOnline.Net fansite

WarOnline.Net Newbie Guide
By MOG, June 2004

A brief introduction to WarOnline

Welcome to waronline.net. This is a truly great game system, built singlehandedly by Australian programmer and game designer Alex Fiedler, known as Requiem in the game. We are all beta testers (one who helps work out the bugs before a game is released commercially) and are expected to help test new features and comment on them and find bugs and report them. You will have a great time playing...but there are some very un-obvious features that this essay hopes to clear up. We hope that many more players will stick around if they find answers to the most asked questions in one place.

Let's start with the two major game types, Battles and Campaigns. A battle is a short two or four player game. A campaign is a larger and longer five to twenty player game.

BATTLES

Take anywhere from half an hour up to 3 or more hours depending on the game size, the player's skill in moving pieces and the respective connection speeds of the players. Average time is about one and a half hours. Players choose their pieces before the battle and meet each other for a Medieval and/or Demonic showdown on a map with two or four castles. Medieval class pieces are the standard and the only pieces in the campaigns currently, Demonic class beings are only used in battles currently, along with Medieval class pieces. More classes are slated to appear in later releases of the game. Mythological and Undead classes are in the planning stages.

Battles are turn based games. One player has control and moves and/or attacks, then the other player has his/her turn.

Recently (July 2004) Requiem has changed the battle rules a bit. AutoBattles used to be 1 or 2 of each piece and weren't very popular. Req changed this so that the AutoBattles now choose random Medieval or Demonic pieces, the same choices for each player. He wants to eliminate luck from the game, and considers choosing pieces to be luck. In the next version of this game, Novice battles, where one chooses one's own pieces, will be un-ranked games. AutoBattles really do test your skills, since each player has identical pieces. In Novice games, one can overwhelm the other player with an unexpected attack, winning despite the other player's skill, since some combinations in battles are sure losers no matter how skilled the player, I believe. In any case, AutoBattles are the only type of battle presented to a beginner, so learn to love them. I'm trying.

Here's a tutorial on how to join a battle. It tells you how to get a battle going with someone, but doesn't include much information on how to actually conduct the battle. More on that later because, much like chess, it is a deep subject. Everyone has their own style and favorite pieces!

CAMPAIGNS

Campains are much larger than battles. There are campaigns that have very short turn times, like four hours, and turns that happen only once a day. A 120 turn, "12 hour turnover" game takes 60 days if you last to the end.

Join campaigns by clicking on the "Games --> Campaigns" menu item on the "Who's Online" page. Follow the instructions there to join the game that suits your fancy. You will be entered in a queue of active players waiting for the game to fill up with players. When enough have joined, the game will begin and you will be notified by message that it has started. Please don't bother asking others to join a campaign just to get going faster. It's annoying and they probably would have joined already if they wanted to. It can take a few days to fill a large game, so be patient and battle for practice!

Pieces regenerate their movement and battle points at regular intervals and increments. In a 12 hour turnover game, pieces regenerate 1/12 of their full strength and movement each hour. Likewise, in any game, divide 1/hours per turn. You may move pieces at any time, up to the current amount of movement points, attacking whenever you are ready, whether anyone else is playing at the same time or not.

Campaigns are a mix of warfare and economic strategy, unlike battles, which are purely fighting, no building. In campaigns one builds barracks, military academies and other useful buildings, each of which increase your capabilities and/or income. You can take over mines, woodmills and other outlying buildings for more resources and income.

You can't do anything but move your initial pieces on Turn 0. No building, no deployment of troops, researching or taking over buildings on this turn. Move your pieces out of the castle and position them to start grabbing goodies on Turn 1.

Try to build a military academy, blacksmith and training guild as quickly as you can. You won't be able to research vital technologies or buy and sell resources until you do. Most players research Military and Taxes early on. Other items can wait until later, usually.

Your barracks produce troops. You must activate and assign what your barracks will produce on your "military" page on turn 1. You will not produce troops the next turn after learning some new type. You can start with only basic troop types like Spearmen, Swordsmen and Scouts and you must upgrade your individual barracks to produce better troops such as Marksmen, Heavy Cavalry and Knights.

You may build additional barracks. As you conquer other's castles you will be able to have more barracks. One extra barracks per new castle.

This technology tree will help you decide what to build or research next.

One thing I like to make new players aware of is that there are no ranking points awarded for "Beginner" level games. Get right into a "General" level game if you think you can handle the competition and want to advance your rank. As you get higher ranking you will be allowed to join higher ranked games. This means you will play against your peers, more or less.

You may be in a maximum of three campaigns and two battles at once, although you can queue for any amount of campaigns. The exception is for Gold Members. They have donated at least $20 US ($10 US for Silver status) to Requiem and have a gold medal next to their name. They can play in more than 3 campaigns at once, although very few actually do, because they are time consuming. Please consider supporting this game financially if you decide you like it enough to continue playing. Requiem could spend more time designing and less time at a regular job, and we all want him to be concentrated on this great game as much as possible!

I will put a link here with further information on Campaigns soon.

MOVING & FIGHTING

MOVING

To move a piece, first click on it, then move the cursor to where you want the piece to go. Four inward moving arrows appear over that spot. Your piece will attempt to move to that position. However, it may not pass through forests, mountains, other troops, resource buildings, walls, other people's drawbridges and other obstructions I can't think of! (However, some Demons can fly, and over anything, too) Movement points are needed to move a piece. Different terrain types are more difficult to move across, such as deep snow or cursed earth.

The computer attempts to move your troop the shortest possible distance to get where you want it to go. Sometimes it is better to make short "hops" rather than trust the computer to go the direction you want automatically. This is also a good scouting technique, since you can refresh the map (using the red "Refresh" button on the pop-up menu at the bottom of the map) and see new territory carefully. Not much fun to teleport into the middle of 10 Heavy Cavalry you couldn't see before your move!

Sometimes in battles the map will "hang" on a move, never completing it. I find that closing and re-opening the map from the game window usually solves this problem.

FIGHTING

To attack another player's piece, move next to it, so that the hex you are on is adjacent to it. Click on your piece, then move the cursor over the piece you wish to attack. A sword moving up and down will appear over the piece. Click the mouse and a window appears showing the damage or deaths that have occurred.

In this game, most pieces are assigned to a group in the Rock, Paper, Scissors categories. Some troops are better at attacking certain other troops and vice versa. If a winning combination is used, there is 140% damage, and if a losing combination is used, there is 70% damage. So for example, if a Swordsman who is paper, meets up with a Spearman who is rock, the Swordsman is at a great advantage since paper wraps rock. You can see charts of the various types in the online manual, and double-clicking on a piece on a map shows a list of its capabilities including R-P-S type. Ranged troops such as Marksmen and Arbelestiers are not part of this system. Siege weapons are a different group as well. Commandeers are neutral.

Something else to bear in mind, bloody ground takes 10 points off attacks! This can mean the difference between life and death, so tread carefully. Rubble is similar to bloody ground but also affects defense.

--> A Flash movie of moving a piece and an attack <--

RANKING SYSTEM

You'll notice on the "Who's Online" page that everyone has a set of numbers after their names, such as 1:1 or 35:76. This is the person's rank in campaigns and battles, respectively.

You gain rank points in CAMPAIGNS by not dropping out, firstly, and how well you do in the game, secondly. A first place win in a campaign gives a high score. For instance, in a 1-40 game, the first place winner gets 40 points, second place gets 36, etc. These scores are averaged for your last five campaigns, or however many you have played below five. Note that your starting rank of 1 is counted in as a game, so your first real campaign is averaged with the 1 point. To win a campaign it is not necessary to wipe out all your opponents (try to, though!) but only to have the highest score in the game at the end. You gain experience points when you destroy your opponents' armies, and a lesser amount when your own pieces are destroyed by others.

In other words, playing entirely defensively is a poor idea. You will not gain points as fast as someone who is actively campaigning and taking out other's castles and pieces.

Your rank changes when the game ends, whether you are still in it or not, so this can take some time to change if you are wiped out of the game. If you are the last player then it changes when you win.

You gain rank points in BATTLES by completely destroying all the opposing forces. Here's where it gets interesting. You gain more points for defeating a higher ranked opponent and less for defeating someone with a lower rank than you. Playing the higher ranked players will gain you rank points (and know-how) much faster than the lower ranked ones. Beating a higher ranked opponent is a thrill and very rewarding. Getting beaten by a lesser ranked player is expensive and more rewarding for your opponent! Your rank changes immediately after the battle.

QUITTING

In both Campaigns and Battles, quitting is punished by giving an extra penalty to the quitter. Even going inactive is better than quitting a campaign, and quitting a battle is disastrous.

Exceptions:
In a battle both players can agree to quit by voting. The player with the higher score at the time of the turn before the vote is the winner. However, if one votes when he is winning, the other could wait to vote until HE was winning, so there is a small danger there. You can't "un-vote" a quit.
In a battle you can also quit before turn six with no penalty. You might do this when you realize your pieces are all wrong or you have to go to the movies with your significant other. I advise staying in a battle until the end if at all possible, even if you think you'll lose. For one thing, it's a hassle to play someone for half an hour only to have them drop out and there is always the chance you will pull it off and win!

COMMUNICATING WITH OTHERS

There are at least 4 ways to communicate with other players in the game. The quickest and most aggravating is the instant message.

Click on the white square button at "1" on the "Who's Online" page. You may select multiple players to message with the same information.
Next, click on the button at "2" and a window appears to write your message. This is then sent to the recipient(s) instantly. However, if the player is offline it will appear when they next log on. This can be a bit confusing since one thinks it was just sent. This method of messaging can be abused by sending inappropriate messages to everybody with useless information. Acceptable messages include invitations to Battles or pleas for you to vote for waronline.net at MPOGD (Multi Player Online Game Directory, go vote right now!!)
Feel free to use this with those you know will be happy to hear from you. Mass spamming is frowned on with a "frowning mace" to the head!

The second, and more preferable way to send a message is to click on the player's name on the "Who's Online" page. This opens the biography window for that player. Here you will see a button reading "Send Private Message". The message only goes to that particular player and can be opened from their message inbox. Get to your inbox by clicking "messages" to the left of the screen.

If a player isn't online, you can message them by going to the "Find Player" page. Another way to "bookmark" people is to add them to your friend's list.

The third way to send a message is that many players give their email addresses on their bio page. If it's there, they obviously don't mind you emailing them.

There are two kinds of chat rooms to visit for meeting players and asking questions or finding a battle partner.

IRC Chat
You can enter the chatroom by clicking on the IRC link on the left of the "Who's Online" page or using the "IRC" menu item at the top of the page, second row down. This brings up an in-game IRC chat room, but feel free to download other IRC programs like "mIrc" for Windows or "Ircle" for Macs.

WEB Chat is a simpler room. Some people find they can't enter IRC chat so they go here. It works fine but has less features than the other room.

Another way to communicate is by using the forums. Here you can ask questions, get tips on strategy and tactics, report bugs, or just have a general continuing chit chat. Some players start jokes or continuing stories, other complain about bug abusers (someone who knowingly exploits a bug to their advantage, and this is not allowed!) and others just get weird.

Although this should go without saying: abusive language, racial or ethnic slurs or any offensive behavior will result in your being banned from the game. Report any instances to the moderator, Requiem. Please don't bother Requiem for any but serious offenses as he is very busy and shouldn't be sidetracked by minor issues that could be resolved in another way, such as messaging the person to stop their abuse or starting a forum thread to denounce crummy behavior. A link to Requiem's email is at the bottom of the "Who's Online" page as "Alexander".
See the link "Terms" for the official version.

Here are players as young or younger than 10 in this game. Don't assume that someone is your age or older. Please bear this in mind while chatting with or messaging another player. You may ask a person's age but they don't have to tell you. Some of the best players in the game are very young so skill isn't a way to know a person's age!

CLANS

Clans are groups of pals who battle other groups of pals. You can join an existing clan or start a clan of your own. There are minimum requirements for keeping a clan alive, you must have 4 active members. Existing clans are either open to all comers or will ask you for a password to join. The higher ranked clans want better players. You may want to wait until you are a better ranked player before attempting to join a clan. The games are fantastic, with mutual communication and combined forces battles. Can you handle the responsibility to your clanmates?

COMMON PROBLEMS

You must have cookies enabled on your computer to see any maps.
You need Flash Player version 5 or better.
You need Internet Explorer 5 or better, and other browsers don't seem to work fully, we've noticed.
Always refresh your map and game windows when you go to them in battles. Otherwise it looks like you can't move. If that doesn't work, perhaps your opponent hasn't ended his/her turn and needs to be reminded. Chat is great for battles since the other player can respond immediately.
The game slows down occasionally due to server speeds and the number of players online. This is frustrating, especially in battles. Sometimes it's your own computer that needs a booting to clean out the crud and speed it back up. Sometimes just closing and re-opening your browser is enough to solve a lock-up problem. If you think you will take a long time on a turn in a battle it's polite to tell your opponent. This also keeps them from "forcing" your turn after 11 minutes.
Google toolbars sometimes seem to affect gameplay.

Visit MOG's Site by clicking here. Visit this tutorial at MOG's Site by clicking here.

Guide to Clan Games
MOG's Newbie Guide
How To Join A Battle
Castle Defend
Rock/Paper/Scissors
Ranged Troops
MAX Damage/Siege

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