Ronan Sandford
Over 2.2k subscribers
Hi everyone! Here is a long overdue update on Conquest. If you follow our devlog, you'll know that our plan has been to improve Conquest's tooling and to explore new gameplay mechanics.
This is what we have been doing these last 2 years. We explored a 24h simultaneous turn mechanic with Stratagems and some other game prototypes with the goal of making our games even more human-friendly: slow-paced and social. We presented this topic under the title: "Designing Permissionless Games For Humans" in our talk at ETHCC last year.
We also built new tools, all open-source as usual, including FUZD, that let us execute player secret moves without ourselves knowing them beforehand, and our client-side indexer that reduces maintenance for games like Stratagems to the bare minimum: no indexer server to rely on!
Conquest.eth is a open-source game of diplomacy with no time limit nor limit on the number of players. It is permissionless and persistent. To achieve this, it requires players to stake $ for each planet they want to acquire. This, in turn, makes these planets produce spaceships (the only in-game resource) that players can then use to attack or defend other players' planets. Spaceships sent this way take between real-time hours and days to arrive. Upon winning battles, players can acquire other players' planets. Then, when they decide to, they can exit the planet and get the stake back from it. This takes 3 real-time days though, and they thus need to ensure they can defend the planet until that time.
As you can imagine, this game is not for the faint-hearted, but that's what makes the game special and thrilling. Ask previous players and they will tell you it feels like you play in a real universe inside ours where mistakes have real-world consequences. Be prepared and enjoy!
Paradoxically, not much. This upcoming release is a re-release of the same game you might have played in 2021 or 2022 except for bug fixes (AllianceRegistry is now fixed!) and general improvements (better support for wallets, etc.). For those new to it, it will be a great opportunity to experience the unique gameplay of Conquest, and for veterans, we are confident you'll enjoy Conquest again with new stories to tell. And for us, it is an opportunity to revive the community and get fresh feedback on the game moving forward. On that note, we invite you to join our Discord.
While the game itself remains the same, there have been some important changes behind the scenes. First, we now use our new tool: FUZD that we tested with Stratagems. Not only does it prevent us for knowing your fleet destination, it also simplifies the user experience of sending fleets as there is no need to top-up the agent-service; it is taken care of automatically when sending the fleets. Furthermore, we simplified our deployment process and the basic alliances and the spaceship marketplace plugin are now embedded in the game client. The plugin system still lets you import third-party plugins though; similarly, you can still create your own alliance smart contract and alliance management website. We actually encourage you to do this to get an edge. See our doc for more details or contact us directly for help.
In terms of gameplay, we also added something new. Let me explain.
Conquest had 4 versions prior to this one. 2 alphas in 2021, plus 1 beta and the "DEFCON" edition in 2022. Only the latter was launched as designed, that is permissionless and persistent. And while we consider the latter a successful launch (it is, after all, one of the few on-chain games that embraces the medium to its full extent and will remain on Gnosis chain forever) it was not easy to attract players to come and play for 2 reasons:
There were no extra rewards from the base game.
The game demanded 24/7 attention non-stop and exiting the game required careful diplomatic maneuvering.
That's where a slight change of mechanics comes in. This new version will also be persistent but will start with a 1-month session mode, where players will get extra rewards, including our beloved sponsor planets (that players need to capture and hold for getting the reward placed on them).
And once the 1-month period is over, players will be given the choice to exit immediately. They will have 24 hours to make that decision, after which the infinite mode will start for eternity. So if you feel like you can continue your strategy for the long run, you will be able to. But if you feel like stopping after 1 month, the choice is yours.
Note that we intend to look for new ways to engage with those who choose to continue.
We intend to continue with the 2 types of rewards we used in our previous releases: "planet rewards" and "leaderboard rewards".
The planet rewards will consist of various sponsor prizes placed on random planets at certain intervals. The goal for players interested in capturing the prizes on these planets is to capture them and either exit successfully or hold them until the end of the 1-month session. This reward spices up the game as it creates points of contention on the map. And if you know us, we love drama ;-)
We have so far 2 sponsors for this:
Blockscout is giving $200 in total that we will position on various planets at different times. They are also going to launch their Merits points program for players playing the game. More details will come soon. Grateful to have them onboard. We are using their open-source blockchain explorer locally while developing and we are happy to have them supporting our game.
Soccerverse, a fun decentralized football management game, live on mainnet, is giving $500 worth of football clubs in total that we will also disperse in the universe over time. Soccerverse is made by Xaya, the team behind Huntercoin, an inspiration for us and a team that has continuously supported us. So glad to have them on-board again.
And we are looking for more sponsors. So if you are interested in having your logo on some planets, reach out to us. We are happy to discuss any kind of partnerships.
The second type of reward is based on the amount of stake players are controlling in the game. This will be shown in-game in the form of a leaderboard. And contrary to previous launches, the reward will be linear to remove the incentive for players to combine their planets into one account in order to take first place. Furthermore, a time element is added and the scoring will thus be based on both the stake controlled and the time the stake stays in the hands of each player. It is comparable to liquidity incentive pools. And to give players starting later a fair chance, we would only start the timer later in the session, after 10 days or more. We will keep you updated.
For the leaderboard rewards, we currently put in $1,000 that will be given to all players with enough points earned through the system. More details will come at launch.
We intend to launch the game on February 3rd. Stay tuned. You can register for our newsletter or even better fill out our survey
Our goal with this release is to revive the community (don't hesitate to join our Discord) and gather feedback for our future work.
You'll need a web3 wallet like Metamask or Rabby Wallet and while the game technically runs on mobile browsers, wallet user experience there is subpar. We thus recommend you play on Desktop.
You'll also need some XDAI (1 XDAI = $1) on the Gnosis chain. XDAI is used to stake on the planets with a range between 1 and 12 XDAI per planet. You'll also need some XDAI to pay for the network fee, but this is relatively small.
Note again, that the amount you stake can be taken by other players if they manage to capture your planets. So while if you play your cards well, you can leave the game with more than you put in, there is a chance that you lose more.
Our rewards will balance things a bit as they make the game positive sum, but the risk of losing is still very present. We believe this is what makes the game unique and even more thrilling. You have been warned :)
::: info For previous round winners for whom we owe $ worth of Etherplay token (as we called it), we will offer you the choice of withdrawing some of it in the form of "Free Play Token" that can only be converted back to XDAI after a continuous 6 day in-game use.
You are free to skip this though, and your previous winnings will be given at another oportunity, ideally when we are ready for a new release. We are still unsure if we will launch a token of some sort but rest assured that we did not forget about it. :::
While this Conquest version is a re-release, we are excited to start working on our v2 and would love to get your feedback to ensure we are going in the right direction. We now have all the tooling we need and our focus will be on the player experience and game mechanics. Fill out our survey and join our Discord and we will reach out to hear about your experience if you wish to.
We already have some ideas. For starters, we intend to use the 24h turn mechanics of Stratagems along with the idea of pre-established clans. But we are keen to get your feedback after playing this version. We are also working on an NFT collection that should be ready this year. This will add new mechanics to the game as you will be able to use these NFTs to improve your planets and more...
You can subscribe to our newsletter. And it will be much appreciated if you could fill out our survey.
And if you haven't already, join our Discord.
Thanks, see you in space!
