Reign (online game)

Infobox VG
title = Reign Online


developer = Ty Kauffman, Mark Caudill, David DiBattiste
url = [http://reignonline.com Reign Online]
designer = Ty Kauffman
version = 2.0
modes = "Normal, Classic (w/ solo)"
released = April 9, 2004
genre = Massively multiplayer online real-time strategy
platforms = PHP ("Client OS independent")
requirements = Web Browser with AJAX compatibility

Reign is a free browser-based multiplayer online game hosted online at [http://reigngame.com/ reigngame.com] . It was designed and developed by Ty Kauffman from April 5 to April 9, 2004. Since then, Ty, Mark Caudill and David DiBattiste have built on to the game by adding new features and improving the code. Reign was, and still is, developed using Notepad and Photoshop exclusively. It is a PHP / Javascript web-based strategy game that a MySQL database for data storage.

Rounds

Reign exists as a series of "rounds", each typically lasting approximately one calendar month, generally with one to three day recesses between each consecutive round. At the conclusion of each round, the game is reset, and an entirely fresh cycle of gameplay begins.

Beta

From April 2004 until September 2006, Reign was in Beta mode. During this time, new features were continually added to Reign. Player feedback greatly influenced the Developers' decisions on what aspects of the game to update each round.

This extended state of "beta" triggered much criticism from players, who sometimes grew annoyed with the frequent, often unannounced, changes in features and the glitches that seemed to accompany any major alteration. Many players left or threatened to leave the game and return only when Reign was no longer in beta mode.

Version 1

Reign is no longer in beta mode; however, changes are still being made to the game on a regular basis. As of January 2007, the game is in version 1.2.5.

Version 2

In addition to the old information, reign has been updated to version 2, and can be found at http://reigngame.com. The old reign is still online, but is reserved mainly forveterans who have played reign for many rounds or have won medals in it.

Worlds

Currently, Reign has five different worlds to play in. Each world has their own characteristics and different level of players. World 1 and World 2 contains players who are familiar with gameplay. World 3 and World 4 are beginner worlds, and are much less competitive than 1 and 2. Most of the veterans on Worlds 3 and 4 will help beginners to get familiar with the controls and game play. World 5 is the closed port or solo world. In World 5, alliance cache and Foreign Trade has been disabled. This is done to ensure complete independence of a nation.

General Gameplay

At the onset of each round, each player selects a world and a real-life nation to represent for the duration of the nation's survival. All nations begin the round with a specific and identical amount of land, money, resource capabilities and nation specialization points. The only differences between individual nations at the beginning of a round are the nations' names and flags.

Land

Land is the most important unit/resource in the game. A nation's land count determines its eminence in the world. At the end of each round, the nation with the highest land count in its world is proclaimed to be the winner. However, there is a downside to land, the higher land count a person has, the more difficult it is to defend the land. Also, the more land you own, the more each additional land will cost.

Land is obtained in one of two ways. The first is through the purchase of land. The second is the capture of another nation's land through war.

Money

Money can be used in Reign to purchase land for expansion, to produce buildings and military units, or to give to other nations.

Money is obtained in one of five ways: through tax revenues from a nation's towns, cities and metropolises; from selling uranium on the international Black Market; from selling units or resources to other nations though the international Foreign Trade; by selling units already owned; or by being given it by other nations.

Nation Specialization

Nations may choose in what areas they will specialize through the use of nation specialization points. Every nation in the game is given a certain amount of points at the beginning of the round to invest in the nation specialization tree as they will. Every day, an identical amount of additional points are given to each nation.

Using Nation Specialization points and the Nation Specialization tree, players can focus in areas such as increased income, increased resource collection, and increased military and espionage efficiency, among others.

Units

Wars in Reign are fought with various military units, ranging in scale from individual soldiers and guards to highly destructive fusion ICBMs. A unit has two measurements of its power: its defense rating and its offense rating. Both defensive units and offensive units are generally needed to successfully wage war against another nation. Units are stored in barracks on a nation's land.

Units can either be produced by a nation through means of factories, airbases and silos, purchased from the Black Market or Foreign Trade, or obtained from a nation's alliance's unit cache.

Resources

Resources are another integral part of the game. There are four types of basic material resources in Reign: uranium, oil, metal and trude.

Uranium

Uranium is used in the production of several units, including Nuclear ICBMs and Attila Tanks. It is also necessary for the production of nuclear power plants. In addition to be able to make advanced units, Uranium can be traded on the Black Market for money or for units not able to be constructed. Uranium is able to be extracted by all nations every eight hours.

Oil

Oil is the fuel extracted from oil rigs. There are two forms of oil: crude and refined. Crude oil is the base form of oil extracted from oil rigs. Refined oil is obtained by constructing an Oil Refinery. Refined oil is the final type of fuel used to power and produce certain units. 75 crude oil converts to 1 refined oil. The oil extraction rate per hour is currently up to 120 crude oil.

Metal

Metal is necessary for the production of most military units. It is mined with metal extraction mines on a nation's land at the rate of 30 per hour.

Trude

Trude is the rarest of the resources in Reign. It is a powerful substance that is used in the production of trude power plants and a few very powerful units such as the razorback and trudeship. The razorback has over 1k attack and the trude ship has 2k defense. Trude is randomly extracted from metal mines. The chance of getting a Trude crystal can be increased with National Specializations.

Foreign Trade

Different types of units and resources can be sold and bought by a user-controlled foreign trade market. Players can set up emporiums to sell a certain type of unit or resource, and can edit them according to what they see fit. Before your 120 hours of protection by the United Nations (see Military below) are up, you can sell a certain cheap unit (such as a Guerrilla) or a cheap resource (such as 1 metal ore) for a high price for another player to buy, allowing cash to be traded. Under normal circumstances, you cannot give money using the Give Money function while under protection.

Military

=Unit Da

Most military units have an attack damage value. A soldier, for example, does 1:0 damage. This means the soldier does 1 attack damage when he attacks and 0 defend damage when he defends. A J11 Tank does 48:36 damage. This means the J11 tank does 48 attack damage when it attacks and 36 defend damage when it defends.

Defense Bonus

When a nation is attacked, that nation gets a defense bonus. The amount of bonus depends on the amount of land that a defending nation is defending. If a very small nation is defending itself in war, it will have a higher defense bonus. If a large nation is attacked and its troops are spread too thin, that nation could receive a NEGATIVE defense bonus, which will actually hurt his chances of winning the battle. To simplify: the more land one has, the more defense needed to defend it properly.

Invading

To invade a nation you must first wait 24 hours for the war to become active due to UN regulations. You have several ways of then starting to invade the nation.

The three primary levels of attack are the following: attacks made with infantry units; attacks made with vehicles (ground or air); and attacks made with nuclear weapons. The higher the defender's defense, the more necessary the nuclear option tends to become. Nuclear weapons have the ability to destroy large amounts of defense, but also render unusable a significant amount of land, which decreases the benefit of the war for the attacker. A common option is to make an initial attack with nuclear weapons, and then, once the defender's defense is substantially diminished, to continue the war with infantry or vehicular units.

Paid Accounts

In order to support Reign's costs, its developers have created a system whereby users can purchase upgrades to their account. By paying the developers and Ataya Creative, the user in return receives several innovative features which, while beneficial to the user, do not directly affect public gameplay (or in other words, make the game "unfair"). Some of the features include:

* Live statistics using AJAX technology,
* Automatic uranium collection, even if the player is offline,
* Extensive anti-cheat support,
* Production queue reordering.

External links

* [http://reigngame.com/ Official Reign Website]
* [http://reigngame.com/forums/ Official Reign Forums]
* [http://reign.fizor.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page ReignWiki] - link is dead