We are having a blast with Qvadriga here at the office and we want to share some of the fun with you. I have taken some screenshots of my last game so I can provide you with a short AAR.
In this race I will be riding for the military faction, this is one of the six factions that are represented in the game. Riding for the military gives me access to good quality aurigas (drivers) and durable horses. I use the extra skill points to invest further into my driver, but by doing so, I neglect investing points into attributes which would increase my overall speed.
After I have done this we are ready to start. Unfortunately I start in the outermost lane (the red guy at the bottom), giving me a major disadvantage. It is of course possible to move to different lanes, but at the start of the race, the track is so crowded that this could end very badly. At the start I decide to advance without whipping the horses. Whipping can be used to let your horses accelerate to great speeds, but whipping them too much might get them killed or disabled, so I think I am better of saving them for now.
And we’re off! As you can see the purple guy already getting a lead. While it is annoying that he is so much faster than me, it could create space for me to shift to his lane. The blue guy behind him however, is also coming in pretty fast, so moving to their lane is not an option at the moment. I do decide that if the blue guy tries to pass me, I will make sure I give him a good couple of hits with my whip! And you thought the whip was just for the horses...
Hitting the guy appears to be fairly effective and I can actually see him bleed a couple of times. Thus I decide to continue the whipping treatment.
Ha, I killed the auriga trying to pass me! With pride I look at his empty qvadriga (and dare I say it, the patch of blood on the ground). Defeating a rival always feels good, but look! Because I was too busy showing my awesome whipping skills, I was not able to accelerate to a decent speed.
At least there now is some space to shift to the desired lane. And in doing so I cut off the guy to my left, hurting his horses in the process. Now all I need to do is get some speed to catch up with the main group.
Coming out of the corner I finally get some decent acceleration and I lose the guy I just cut off. But the three aurigas in front of me still have good lead.
The guy behind me also wanted to catch up and went to fast in the corner. The result was that his qvadriga broke down, but, as you can see here, he is still holding on bravely! I am also in a bad spot however, I did not pay attention to the road and got stuck behind an empty qvadriga. I try and go around it, but at the loss of a great deal of speed and time.
Now it becomes painfully clear to me that I will not be able to compete for a real position anymore and I just finish the race to the best of my abilities. In the end I was the fourth and last guy (The other guys just did not make it) to cross the finish line.
This was not a good race for me. I messed up on a couple of occasions and my start was weak altogether. But then again, being number for out of eight is also not the worst result ever. Don't be fooled, Qvadriga is a very deep strategy game and there is a lot more to it than could be shown in this short AAR, but more importabtly, it is great fun! Even though I did not win I had a good time making this AAR and the race itself was still very close as shown in the following screenshot.
Here you can see the guys in front of me the moment before they cross the finish line. Note the red auriga without a qvadriga! His ride just broke down and he decided to hang in there just long enough to win the race. Absolutely spectacular!
At the moment Qvadriga is in beta and we aim for a release in March.
being at top positions is the most important thing.