Raceconflicts
RaceConflicts is a massively multiplayer online browser-based strategy game that takes place in a fantasy world populated by orcs, gnomes, humans, undead, elves, nightelves, dwarfs and demons.
The game is heavily oriented to single player and city-building style.
Raceconflicts went live in August 2004.
The game has been heavily criticized for the long learning curve required to effectively play the game and for the lack of a detailed manual.
A lot of useful information can be found directly in the in-game pop-up tips and probably that is probably why the producers do not bothered to write an in depth manual.
The game has it's own time, seasons, weather, and a fully developed universe, still growing and expanding.
The player will start with few resources, but a wide range of possibilities. His actions define the development, and the gameplay experience thus varies from one player to another. Other things you have to take care of are gods, religion, health, food production, mercenaries, spies, and various army and city upgrades.
Certain parts of the game are not available from the beginning and they get unlocked at later levels. This is a good thing because it ease the learning curve of a player.
All players share the same server and the game never ends and so no account reset will ever happen.
Gameplay
The game mostly is text based with no animations or other graphical interaction.
Every player upon entering Raceconflicts has to choose between 8 races: orcs, gnomes, humans, undead, elves, nightelves, dwarfs and demons and then they will start with a small kingdom. The kingdom initially has almost no buildings and some features are locked till the player is of a higher level thus being more experienced.
Firstly the kingdom will need houses so that immigrants can have a place to stay. Those immigrants can be hired to do a variety of things such as: work on fields to generate gold, food, wood and stone, be hired as scientists, be hired to the health, engineering or religion department or trained to become soldiers.
Previously other buildings can be bought with gold, wood and stone to unlock other type of weapons / armors / units / features.
Experience
The player's Hero will gain experience points every time a victory is obtained or by leading a very advanced and pacifistic kingdom. When the hero gains enough experience points he will advance in level. Everything in this game depends on the hero's level like, how many buildings a player can build, availability of some game functions and how quick a research will progress.
At first a player gains levels pretty fast but later, at higher levels, you need months of play to gain a new level. What some people like it, some don't is the experience gained every turn by having an advanced kingdom. This experience may force you to advance even if you don't want to. The fix the producers found is to advance a level only if you win a battle no matter how much experience you gain every turn. If a person don't want to advance all he has to do is to not attack anybody and he will stay at same level as long as he pleases.
Hero
The hero is the central pillar of the whole kingdom development. He gains experience by winning in battle or by ruling a very prosper and advanced city. The hero has some attributes like agility, strength, perception, charisma, endurance and luck which affect the starting skill points. Skill points greatly affect all aspects of the game from offense and defense of player's army, soldier recruitment price till reduced costs for forging or buying weapons, more efficient workers and so on.
Skills a hero has are: Archery, Polemastery, Swordmastery, Unarmed, Doctor/Shaman/Necromancy, Sneak, Sentinel, Trade, Lead, Mercenary cost, Forge, Build, Outdoorsman, Estates, Speech, Traps, Veteran and Mercenary.
With each level gain, a hero will earn skill points and the player can distribute them as he sees fit.
Extra skill points can be gained by slaying monsters.
Research
Researches are the second most important part of the game right after the Hero. You can have a lot of researches and each research has levels. Each level costs much more research points than the previous level. To gain research points you need to hire scientists. The more scientists the more research points and so your kingdom will get more advanced.
Types of researches are: Weapon Improvements that takes care of soldiers weappons, Physical Training that takes care of soldiers muscles, Spy Research that takes care of your spies, Economy Improvements, City Improvements, Engineering Improvements and Miscellaneous where all researches that can't be categorized are stored.
Researches will usually improve a component of the game with a bonus of 50%-100% so a research definitely has a big impact in the game. Other players may steal your researches or even sabotage them and not let you become too advance.
Goal
Raceconflicts is a game designed to be played forever with no ending in sight. Players will want to advance in levels, develop their kingdom, research new technologies, build massive armies in order to become invincible and high ranked.
A ranking system exists and players can see on what position they currently are in a large amount of aspects of the game. There is also a global ranking system and all top players are listed there.
