Conquest Tutorial

Here is the tutorial on how to play the game.

Areas that are marked with red arrows and numbers are not in the game, but are used in the tutorial to show you how to play

	Splash Screen This is the very first screen you will see when you start the game. If you have not registered the game yet, you will see how many games are left. Tap on the Ok button to start the game.
	Starting the Game From here you setup how you want to play the game. You can play against up to 5 computer players and choose the difficulty of the other players. These are the names of the computer players Select using the popup menu the difficulty of the computer player. Easy or Challenging. If a computer player is marked with Don't Play that computer player will not be used. The games are easier if you only play against a few opponents. If you want a real challenge, play against 5 computer players set on the Challenging level. Once you have the game setup, tap on the Start button to start the game
	Game Board This is the main game board. Most of your time will be spent looking at this screen, so get used to it! Messages will appear at the bottom of the screen, like now it says "Place a tile". This is the amount of money you have left. As you spend the money on stock this number will go down. Each dot "." represents a part of the DotCom world which is not developed yet. The solid box is an area where someone placed a tile, but it is not part of a company yet. It will become part of a company at some point. If you place a tile which is not next to anything else, it will just become a solid box The X is a tile you own, and can develop. Each turn you get to place a single tile, and you will get a replacement tile on your next turn. Here the X is next to a solid box. If you place this tile, you will be able to form a company. We will go ahead and place this tile to start a company. Just tap on the X and the tile will be placed.
	Forming a Company Once you place a tile which forms a company, you will see this screen. From here you can pick the company to form, or you can Cancel and go back to the game board. If you form a company, you will get 1 free share of stock since you started the company. There are only 7 companies that you can form. Once they are all formed you cannot place a tile that would form one. You can see the icons which represent the companies. Here you can see the initial cost for each share of the company. Some companies are worth more than others, and the cost of the shares are more expensive. Since they cost more, you get more bonus money when the company is merged. To start a company, just click on the company name button. We will start a company by clicking on "GetCommonSense.com" which has the yellow "G" icon.
	Buying Stock: Part 1 After selecting the company to form, we are taken back to the game board. Also, after placing a tile (whether you start a company or not), you then have the option of buying stock in any company which has been formed. Here is our newly formed company GetCommonSense.com. It is the only company on the board. To buy stock, just tap on the Yes button. If for some reason you don't want to buy stock, just tap the No. We will go ahead and buy stock.
	Buying Stock: Part 2 Once you say, Yes to buying stock you are taken to this screen. Each company which is currently formed will be listed here. Each player is limited to purchasing 3 shares of stock per turn. For example, if there are three companies formed, a player could purchase 1 share from each company, or 3 shares from 1 company, or any combination which results in the purchase of 3 or less shares for that turn. You will have to plan your purchases wisely, and think hard about where to spend your money. Currently, "GetCommonSense.com" is the only company we can purchase shares from, so we will buy its stock. Here you can see how many shares you already own in that company. We own 1 share of "GetCommonSense.com" since we formed the company. Each company starts with 25 shares of stock. You can see here that there are still 24 available in GetCommonSense.com The total cost of your stock purchases are shown here, as the amount of money you will have left after buying the stock. We have selected to buy 3 shares of stock. You can use the popup menu to select anywhere from 0 to 3 shares. Once you have selected the shares you want to purchase, go ahead and tap on the Buy button.
	Game Board After you buy stock, you can continue to look at the board until you decide to end your turn. This Info button will take you to the "Players Info" screen. This will show you information about all the players, what stocks each player owns, and how much a company is worth. To finish your turn, just tap on the Done button.
	Computer Players After you hit the Done button, you will get to watch the computer players take their turns. The tiles will flash when they are placed. The messages are displayed down here. You can see that "Total Loss Inc." formed the company "AsteroidVictims.com"
	Players Info If you select the Info button from the game board, you will be brought to this screen. Here you can get all the information about the competition, and find out the details of the companies. We can see that "SellOut Partner" has bought 4 shares of the orange "W", "WirelessRants.com" company. If you tap on the various colored icons at the top, you will see the details of each company. The size is how many tiles are currently part of a company. You get the Major Bonus when you own the most shares in a company when it gets merged. After you have finished viewing and found out what the others are doing, hit done to go back to the game board.
	Merging Companies: Part 1 Merging two, three or four companies can earn you money. The way to earn money from having one company take over another is to be the major or minor shareholder in the company that was taken over. Even if you are not the major or minor share holder, but still own some of the stock, at the time of the merger you can choose to sell that stock and thereby earn some money. Once a company gets to a size over 10, it cannot be taken over. It has grown big enough to afford its own super lawyers to protect itself. BUT, all those smaller companies are fair game. You can see we have a tile that is between two companies. If we place this tile, we will force the companies to merge. Normally, one company is bigger than the other -- and would automatically take over the smaller one. If the companies are the same size, you will get to decide which one lives and which one goes out of business. We will go ahead and place this tile.
	Merging Companies: Part 2 You now get to decide which company will survive, and which one goes out of business. Use the popup menu to select the company that you want to survive. The other company will automatically be selected. If there are more than 2 companies, you will get to choose the order in which the companies go out of business. If you forget how many shares you own in each company, or want to remind yourself which one you should sell -- just select the Info button. Once you have decided the fate of the companies, tap on the Merge button.
	Merging Companies: Part 3 Here is the final part of merging companies. We are merging "M" "MobileFreon.com" into "A" "AsteroidVictims.com". Yes, this part is a little tricky -- but it is simple once you understand what happens. When a company merges, you can either Keep, Sell or Trade your shares. If you Keep them, the next time this company forms you will still own stock in the company. This is good for the beginning part of the game, since you will not have to buy the stock again. If you "Sell" them, you get the money for the stock. This is a good idea if you need more money. If you "Trade" them, you get 1 share in the surviving company for every 2 shares you trade in. Why would you trade? Trading allows you to get an edge on the number of shares you have in the surviving company, since normally you can only buy 3 shares each turn. If you are behind, you can trade in all your shares and spring ahead of the competition. If you are just starting to play the game, a good rule is to keep your shares at the beginning of the game, and sell them near the end of the game. Here is the info about the company going out of business. You currently own 4 shares and they are worth $300/share. Here is the info about "AsteroidVicitms.com" which will live. You currently own 3 shares, they are worth $200/share, and there are still 18 shares available. Use the popups here to decide how many shares you want to Trade/Sell. You will automatically keep any stock that you do not trade or sell. Once you have decided, tap on the Done button to confirm your choices.
	Merging Companies: Part 4 We have chose what to do, and which company was to survive. After the merge happens we go back to the game board. You can see that "MobileFreon.com" is gone, and "AsteroidVictims.com" has replaced all the "M" tiles, and now is much much bigger.
	Game Ending You keep taking turns, and buying stock, and selling stock, and merging companies, until the game ends. The game ends when either a single company reaches a size over 40 tiles, or if all the active companies are bigger than 10 (which means they are safe and cannot merge). You can also change the preferences to make the game go until the very very very very end, by making everyone continue to place the tiles. Sometimes, this creates one HUGE mega company which covers the entire board. When the game ends, all the current surviving companies are sold off in a "Fire Sale". You get bonus money just like a normal merge, and all of your shares are sold. Here you can see how much Bonus money each person received, and how much money they received from the sale of their stock. You can use the up/down arrows to go through each of the surviving companies. And, once you have finished seeing the results, tap the Done button to continue.
	Final Scores Now the game is over, and we see who has the most money. You can also check out the high scores to see well you do over time. Hopefully you will do better than I did, since I got beat by one of the other computer players, "Total Loss, Inc". Just tap on the New Game key once you want to try your luck in the DotCom businesses again.
Good luck!