Chapter 2. How to Play

When you start Konquest, press New to start a new game. You will see a dialog in which you need to enter various information to setup your game. Listed below are the following parameters for the new game:

Players

  • Amount of players with Add or Remove players

  • Names of players

  • Type of players (Computer versus Human)

  • Difficulty of computer players (Low/Normal/Hard)

To change the name of the player, double-click in the Name column and edit it. To change the type of the player, open the drop-down list by double-clicking in the Type column. It is also possible to select the type of the new players using the drop-down list of the Add button.

There are two types of the human players in Konquest, namely Human (Player) and Human (Spectator). The latter option allows watching the game without taking part in it.

The type of AI player can be chosen from Default (Weak) (a player that is neither aggressive in attacks nor in defense), Default (Offensive) (an aggressive attacking player) and Default (Defensive) (a player with defensive strategy).

Besides these classic AI players, Becai (Balanced) is a balanced player taking most of the section called “Strategies and Tips” into account.

Keep in mind that the actual difficulty of any opponent depends on your very own strategy. If you play aggressively yourself, an aggressive AI player might be easier to defeat than a defensive player, and vice versa.

Map

Neutral planets: Number of neutral planets.

Width: and Height: of the map in tile units.

Changing the Owner:, Kill percentage:, and Production: level of a particular planet.

Change the distribution of planets. Press Randomize to make it random.

You can select the planet using the map thumbnail in the middle of Map pane. Just click on the planet with the left mouse button, then change the desired options.

Options

Blind map: Whether or not you can see information about opponents' planets.

Cumulative production: Whether or not it is enabled.

Production after capture: If it is enabled immediately.

Show ships: Allowing amount of ships and other stats to be displayed for neutral planets.

Show stats: Set the production level for neutral planets.

When you are done changing these settings (optional), click OK to start the game.

New game dialog of Konquest

New game dialog of Konquest.

Once the game starts, you will be presented the game board. Blank squares are empty space. At first, each player owns one planet. The planet's background is the player's color. If you move the mouse over a planet, you can see additional information. Without the Blind map option enabled when selecting a game, you can see any information about the planet if you hover over it with mouse. If you had selected the Blind map option when starting a new game, you will only see the planet's name on planets which have been conquered by opponents. The information can include:

  • Planet name:

  • Owner:

  • Ships:

  • Ships due:

  • Production:

  • Kill percent:

Playing Konquest

Playing Konquest.

The Planet name: is how the planet is referred to in the game. Planets are named alphabetically with uppercase letters. Owner: is who owns the planet. If the planet is conquered by another player, this will change. Ships: is the current number of ships on the planet. Ships due: will only appear if you have selected a standing order for that planet, otherwise it is not there. Production: is the number of ships the planet will produce each turn. The production varies from planet to planet, but always remains the same. Kill percent: is a measure of the effectiveness of the ships produced at that planet. Attack fleets take the kill percentage of their planet of departure, and defense fleets use the kill percentage of the planet they are defending. You can get easily see the planet name, the owner and the current number of ships on a planet in the square in which the planet lies. The owner is represented by the background color of the planet, the name is in the upper left corner and the number of ships is in the lower right corner.

To send ships from a planet to another, select the planet you want to send ships from, enter the number of ships in the green box in the upper right corner and press Enter. Repeat this procedure until you have sent out all the ships you want. If you wish to send a constant amount of ships from one planet to another every turn, enter that number and check the Standing order box, and press Enter. The ships due to the standing order will be sent at the end of the turn. When you are done, press End Turn. When all players have played one turn, dialog boxes will appear and give you the latest news. The game will proceed like this until one of the players owns the entire galaxy.

Tip

A keyboard shortcut for End Turn action can be configured using the SettingsConfigure Shortcuts... menu item.

For more information read the section about Using and Customizing Shortcuts of the KDE Fundamentals.