Coal War Tactics – Things Are Heating Up In Neovia

Come explore another of the deep tunnels stretching under Neovia – this time the Grand Neovian Mine. Access it quickly through the secret entrance located in the game room. Once there, you may notice a bit of a war going on. It seems that both Madam Salt and Barry Goldnose think they have a claim to the same coal vein. Quickly choose a side and jump in for fun and profit.

You and your opponent each have a diagonal game board. Together they represent the two sides of the mine you are fighting over. On those boards, hidden from each other's view, are five minecarts of varying lengths. Each car is full of coal. A word on terminology is in order here. In the game, a string of cars is a "minecart". I sometimes refer to a string of cars as either a minecart or a mine train. I will always refer to a single portion of a minecart as a "car".

You and your opponent each have a 2-car train, two 3-car trains, a 4-car train, and a 5-car train. If you have chosen to use them, there are five booby traps on each player's board. Additionally, there are three hidden piles of minerals that will give you bonus points if you discover them. Your goal is to destroy all of your opponent's minecarts before your opponent can destroy yours.

SET-UP

When the game opens, you choose whether you will play in Easy, Medium, or Hard Mode; whether you will play as Madam Salt or Barry Goldnose; and whether or not you and your opponent will use booby traps. After clicking your choices, click "OK".

Your side of the mine is displayed as a diagonal board divided into 100 squares in a 10 x 10 arrangement. Your next step is to place your minecarts and booby traps. You can put these anywhere on your board by clicking the item and dragging it into position. To rotate the mine cars, click the train you wish to rotate and press the spacebar. The placement screen has easy-to-use instructions for this step, so no worries there. If you want to shortcut the placement step and jump right into the action,, click "Random" and let the computer set up the mine for you. Cars and traps can be picked up and moved after placement until you click "Done". When you are happy with the arrangement of your carts, click "Done" and get ready to play!

GAME PLAY

It's time to throw that dynamite! You and your opponent take turns placing dynamite onto each other's side of the mine in an attempt to discover and destroy the other's mine cars. Your opponent's board is on the left; yours is on the right. When it is your turn, your opponent's board is enlarged and moves to the center of the screen. Click on the square that you wish to dynamite. If that square is empty, a red dynamite stick is left behind; if you hit a mine car, a bright yellow flame shoots up, leaving a burning yellow square. You might get lucky and hit one of the mineral piles, revealing a small pile of ore. It could be gold, silver or bronze and discovering it adds points to your score. If you are unlucky enough to hit a booby trap, you will see a lump of coal surrounded by orange. A booby trap takes 50 points from you, limited by how many points you have when you hit it. No negative scores allowed! When all of the cars in a minecart have been blown up, a warning sounds and small explosions mark the destruction of the complete minecart. Sometimes you get a helpful power-up after destroying one of your opponent's trains. The game ends when either one of the players loses all of their cars.

See the information block near the bottom left of your screen? This block moves up as your opponent's game board moves to prominence, becoming larger and easier to read during your turn. The top line counts down the time/hit bonus while waiting for you to move. The number shown is how many hit points you will receive if you hit a mine car right then. The second line tells you how many individual mine cars you have hit. The third line is the number of misses. Ore piles are counted as a miss, but misses don't hurt, so don't worry about that! The next line shows your current score. The last line tells you the number of complete minecarts you've destroyed. A line of small icons just under this text block represents your opponent's five minecarts. From left to right, these are labeled "2", "3", "3", "4", and "5". The number tells you how many cars are in each minecart. As you destroy your opponent's complete minecarts, the icons representing the destroyed carts are surrounded by yellow rays. A similar information block displaying your opponent's progress shows up on the lower right portion of the screen.

POWER-UPS

There are seven power-ups which can be randomly awarded when a complete mine train is destroyed. The four red ones give you a chance to blow up more than just a single square on a future turn. When you use these red power-ups you receive any bonuses uncovered, but you will also take a hit from any booby traps you uncover. The three blue power-ups can help you to find your opponent's cars or to hide yours. To use a power-up, click it at the start of your turn.

Red Power-ups:

1. Row Bonus – Blow up an entire row on your opponent's side

2. Column Bonus – Blow up an entire column on your opponent's side

3. Box Bonus – Blow up a 3 x 3 square on your opponent's side

4. Free Bonus – Get an extra turn

Blue Power-ups:

1. Spyglass Bonus – See what's inside a 2 x 2 square on your opponent's side. This power-up does not detonate those squares, just temporarily lets you see what's there. Since the view goes away after a few seconds, you'll want to remember where any revealed booby traps are located. The booby traps and ore piles should look familiar, but any mine cars in the area show up as a square outline in orange; no clue about what direction the cars face.

2. Dustcloud Bonus – Hide a 2x2 grid from your opponent's view if he gets the Spyglass Bonus.

3. Move Bonus – Move an undamaged minecart (Caution – see tips)

SCORING

And now the part you've been waiting for – how to rack up those points! Here is a list of what gives you points or takes points away from you:

500 points – Destroy an entire minecart (mine train). There are 5 in each game.

0 to 10 points – Hit an individual car in a train. There are 17 cars in each game. The hit bonus is time-dependent. The hit bonus clock is the top line of the score information block, visible at the left, bottom side of your board. You can see the timer counting down. The longer you take to pick a target, the fewer points you get. Don't dawdle here!

100 points – Find the gold ore – there is one per game

50 points – Find the silver ore – there is one per game

25 points – Find the bronze ore – there is one per game

Up to 50 points – Your opponent hits one of your booby traps and has points for you to steal

-50 points – Lose 50 points to your opponent if you hit his booby trap and have points to lose

So what's possible? If you destroy all of your opponent's minecarts, and you also make all of your mine car hits quickly enough to get the max hit points, you will get an almost automatic 2,670 points. This is what you have the most control over. If you also find the three ore piles, you add 175 points, taking you up to 2,845 points. To score higher depends very much on luck. In the best possible case, you don't hit any of your opponent's booby traps, but your opponent hits all of your booby traps AND has accumulated points before hitting your traps. If you get this lucky, you could hit a maximum score of 3,095 points. You should also immediately run over to the Neo lottery and buy a minecart full of tickets!

MAXIMUM SCORE EXAMPLE

2500 (5 x 500) Minecarts

170 (17 x 10) Hits

175 (100 + 50 + 25) Ore Piles

250 (5 x 50) - Opponent hits all of your Booby Traps (you hit none of his)

______________________________________

3095 Maximum Score Possible

TIPS

One of the few ways you can control your points is by clicking your chosen spot quickly in order to maximize your hit bonus. Your game board stays in position for a few seconds after your turn. Pick your spot then, and keep your cursor in place. When your opponent's board comes up, you can double-check that you are lined up in the center of the square you intend to click. Click as soon as your board moves up and the white question mark appears. Be careful not to click early, as the timer may click down from 10 to 9 before your second click is recognized.

It can be hard to see the board on the other side of a fully loaded 5-car train once it's been revealed, and harder still to accurately pick a spot to click. You can often line up your cursor on an obscured square very easily by using your opponent's game board when it is the prominent board.

You do not lose points when your cars are destroyed or when you drop dynamite on a blank square. Just be certain to find all of your opponent's cars before he finds all of yours; otherwise it's game over.

You only get Hit Bonus points when you hit one of the mine cars, and there is no penalty for a miss. If the timer clicks down while you're deciding or you have a delay or interruption, click a spot that is unlikely to have a mine car in it.

When you select the "Free turn" power-up, the hit timer continues to click down. Since you will not be able to maximize your hit bonus, consider hitting spots that you need to check, but not spots that you are certain have mine cars hidden in them.

Take a moment to assess your situation before you hit your opponent's last car. Does he still have several turns before destroying all of your minecarts? Are there still booby traps out there that he hasn't hit? Are there still any ore piles you haven't found? If the answer to these questions is "yes", consider stalling. This is a particularly good tactic if you have already hit all of his booby traps, since then you have nothing to lose! Keep tossing that dynamite, but keep a careful eye on your cars. Don't let your opponent destroy all of your cars before you destroy his last minecart.

In my experience, there is no difference in scoring between Easy, Medium and Hard. There does seem to be a difference in how well the computer plays. The computer seems to be more likely to make silly moves on Easy. Since the computer tends to waste more moves in Easy Mode, it is a good choice if you plan to draw out the game, attempting to find all the bonus ore piles.

Booby traps – It is your choice as to whether you and your opponent have booby traps. Booby traps may be an annoyance if you're just playing for fun and NP, but you should choose booby traps if you're going for a trophy. You need to get lucky, but the only way to get a trophy is to use booby traps, and to hit fewer booby traps than your opponent does.

Move power-up – a special mention. The blue power-up that allows you to move your undamaged cars has a glitch for many, but not all, players. Clicking it can freeze your game, forcing you to restart. This problem may very likely be fixed by the time you read this, but if you are pretty far into a great game, I'd advise that you not risk your game by clicking the Move Bonus unless you have previously used it successfully while running under the same browser that you're currently using.

So now you know why you've been hearing all those explosions coming from Neovia. I hope you are well supplied with your own dynamite stash as I think I hear your mine train approaching. Good luck finding that coal ... and getting the gold!