Gameplay

Interface

The Main Screen

As you connect to Ballerium you will see the main screen, which is made of a number of sub-windows, or views:

Main View

This view takes up most of the screen. Here you can see the terrain, buildings and units visible to you, and which you choose to focus upon. You click on the main view in order to: select a unit (single leftclick on the unit); choose a target for an action (leftclick on the target element or position); perform the default action for a chosen target (right-click on a target element or position); view the name, owning player and life/sunpower values for units (leaving the cursor over them for over a second); scroll in all directions (dragging the mouse to the edge of the screen or use the arrow-keys); change the camera zoom level (mouse-wheel); change the camera angle (page-up and page-down keys).

Now, notice how some areas on the main view appear “darkened”? This is the “Fog of War” effect, which is a direct result of your units' line of sight - the bright areas are areas you can “see,” while the shaded areas are areas obscured from your view (inside the “Fog of War” area).

Mini-Map

This is a bird's eye view of the area around the area displayed in the main-view. A white polygon designates the part of the mini-map which is shown in the main view.

Note that there are five buttons to the left of the mini-map: The magnifying glass buttons are used to change the zoom-level of the mini-map (there are three zoom levels); the other buttons are used for signaling (explained later). When you click on a point on the mini-map, both the mini-map and the main-view immediately center themselves around that new point. Note that some areas are lighted and others shaded on the mini-map, to account for fog-of-war--just like on the main view.

Element (Unit Or Building) View

Whenever you select a unit or a building, the element view window will open on the right of the screen. The information displayed in the element view depends upon the type and affiliation of the element – thus, a city’s town hall and one of your units will display different types of information. There are, however, a number of details that will always be displayed – the element’s name and its icon. Namely.

Most elements will also display a Life Bar, representing the general health or condition of a unit or building (elements which do not display such a bar are considered indestructible, and therefore their current Life level is irrelevant). Elements which can fight will also display their fighting attributes – defense, attack, range, damage etc. Units that can use skills will display another bar underneath the Life bar – this is the Sunpower bar(for explanation concerning other types of information, see the “In Depth” sections later on).

Command Buttons

When selecting a unit under your control, the commands view will appear to the left of the element view. This view includes four command buttons which you can use to issue commands to the selected units In addition, each of these commands has a keyboard shortcut – pressing the shortcut key is the same as pressing the command button. Following is a description of available commands:

(M)ove: Tells a unit to go somewhere (left-click on the destination). Right-clicking on this button will toggle auto-flee on/off.

(A)ttack: Tells a unit to attack another unit or building (left-click on the target).

(G)uard: Tells a unit to stay near and guard a specific place (left-click on the destination).

(S)top: Tells a unit to stop whatever it is doing, and stay put.

(T)rade: this option is only available to Trader Units (left click on the target to make a trade proposal). Right-clicking on this button will toggle auto-pick on/off.

Skill Buttons

Right beneath the command buttons are the skills buttons. Skills are powers and abilities that units can use by spending Sunpower. Each skill a unit has appears as a unique icon on one of these buttons (there is a maximum of four). If a button is disabled, it means the unit cannot perform that specific skill at the time (sometimes all skills are disabled) – either because it does not have enough Sunpower, or because it is still in “Skill Cooldown” time (the minimum time between activation of skills). Otherwise, Skill buttons are used just as command buttons – left-click on a skill button to activate it, then left-click on a target if one is needed. In addition, right-clicking on a skill button toggles auto-skill on/off. The numbers appearing on each icon represent the unit's level of mastery of the given skill – for followers this number is static, but for heroes it may change as the hero spends more Glory Points on the skill, or improves the attribute on which the skill depends (the skill relevant to the skill's discipline, or philosophy).

Inventory

For units, right beneath the element info view is the Inventory view. The inventory can include either items (for followers and heroes), or resources (or traders). You can drop items from the inventory by left-clicking on them, or transfer them to another unit by dragging and dropping their icon.

Chat View

This is where you can send and receive messages to/from other players in the game.

The chat interface allows you to speak with 8 different players in “discrete” mode, or to chat with all players in your vicinity, to chat with your allies, or to send messages to the system administrator. In order to chat with a specific player, you need to first add that player to the list of active chat partners – you do that by double clicking on the player's name in the list of contacts to the left – this will automatically add that player in the first available free “chat slot.” If you wish to swap out a specific chat partner, choose that partner first, and then double-click on the new partner's name. If all slots are full and you add a new partner, the last one will be automatically swapped out. When you have a partner selected, you are in fact sharing a private channel with that partner – you messages will reach that partner only, and vice versa. If you wish to chat with a number of players simultaneously, you have two options:

Chat will all players in your area,

Chat with all of your allies.

Finally, you can choose to send messages to a system administrator or a developer (note, however, that you will not receive an immediate response – these messages are logged, and developers/administrators review them occasionally).

The chat-view can be expanded or collapsed by using the up and down arrows appearing on the right. The bottom line is always used to type-in new messages, with the Enter key used to send them. Related to the chat view are the map signaling options. With the buttons located to the left of the mini-map, you can: Send a chat signal (to the currently selected chat partner), lock chat signals (signals sent to you by others will not disappear even as time passes, as is the default), and send signal to self (you can use this feature to mark places on the map).

Army View

Here you see all of your units, and the hierarchy in which they are organized:

Units are identified by their race (designated by the portrait) and the icon standing for their class (unit type). The small icons stand for units under a commander – these units are identified by their race (designated by their background color) and class (the icon). When you press the “+” button on a commander's icon, you expand that commander's group, and their icons are enlarged to regular size. You can change your army's hierarchy by dragging and dropping units in the army view - if you drop a unit's icon over another unit, it is placed beneath that unit. Note that units need to be within a reasonable distance of each other in order for this to work. Dropping a unit's icon on the main view releases it from its current commander. The buttons to the left serve two purposes: the bottom three allow you to select how you want to sort your view (from top to bottom by life, rank and race); the top one allows you to toggle formation control on/off. This is what the army view looks like with formation mode switched on:

The icon appearing on each unit's portrait marks that unit's place in the formation. For the commander it marks the formation in which that commander's units will move. You can Click on this icon several times to cycle through all the options available (a number of formations for the commander; front, rear, center and flank for subordinates).

Contacts View

This view presents you with a list of all your player contacts. These include cities in your vicinity and human players you have met.

To the left of each name are two icons: the eye on the left is the “ignore” flag - you can switch “ignore player” on/off by clicking it; the second icon is either a “lock” icon (you can select a number of contacts which can be “locked” so that they will never be removed from your list even after a long time) - you switch lock on/off by clicking on this icon; or, it can be a “city” icon (meaning that this contact is in fact a city, and so you cannot choose to lock/unlock it).

To the right of the name is the diplomacy icon, showing the diplomatic state between you and the other player (you can click on this icon to open-up the diplomacy screen).

On top of the list are the filter buttons – you can select which contacts you wish to see in the list (useful when the list becomes too long) – click on an icon to switch on/off a filter (the filters are, from left to right: cities, clan members – for future use, players you are at peace with, your enemies, your allies).

The contacts list also serves to select the target for chat messages and map signals (when you are using the “send to selected player” chat option).

Avatar View

The bar at the top of the screen includes information about your avatar and the world, as well as a number of game options (described here from left to right):

The Game Options screen includes music volume and muting options, as well as a Frame Rate and Shadow level selectors (set these to lower values if you are experiencing performance problems). It also includes a “Quit Game” button.

The sun-view shows the current color of the Ballerian sun, as well as the current time (the approximate number of hours and minutes which have passed since the server was started). The next section includes your avatar's name, as well as the number of units you already control, out of the maximum number allowed to you. Next come three numbers: your avatar's MFU (or money); your avatar's Flux, used for activating avatar powers (both the current value and the maximum amount you can regenerate to are shown); Your Avatar's Karma.

Next are your avatar power buttons – you can click on these to activate Avatar powers. The last button, at the top-right corner of the screen, is used to switch between group and single command mode – group mode means that commands given to commanders are also given to their subordinates, while single mode means that each unit is commanded individually.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Ballerium allows the player many ways to command their followers with efficiency and effectiveness. When in battle, an Avatar needs to be able to target enemy units with multiple squads and skills. Followers will need to be healed and squads retreated to safety. These keyboard shortcuts will enable a skilled Avatar to overcome their adversaries and win a decisive victory.

     General Shortcuts

   * Ctrl + Q - Quits Ballerium
   * Esc - Cancel action
   * Alt + Tab - Minimizes the game
   * Tab - Toggles the user interface
   * Print Scrn - Save a screenshot to the clipboard. Paste into any
     graphics editing program
   * Enter - Send chat message to selected chat channel

     Main Game Window

   * Page Up - Zoom in
   * Page Down - Zoom out
   * Mouse Scrollwheel - Zoom
   * Insert or Delete - Rotates the view a few degrees. Returns to
     default when key is released
   * Arrow Keys - Scroll main view in direction of arrow
   * Home - Jump to the coordinates 0,0

     Skill and Unit Commands

   * F1 thru F4 - Activates corresponding skill of selected unit for use, click on
     desired target to cast skill
   * Shift + F1 thru Shift + F4 - Toggles auto-cast mode of skill
   * A - Attack
   * G - Guard
   * H - Hold Position (Stop)
   * M - Move
   * T - Trade
   * + - Select next unit in lower army view
   * - - Select previous unit in lower army view

     Squads

   * Ctrl + left-click - Add unit to current selection
   * Shift + left-click - Add range of units to current selection
     (maximum 12 units)
   * Shift + Plus key(+) - Add next unit in lower army view to
     current selection
   * Shift + Minus Key(-) - Add previous unit in lower army view to
     current selection
   * Ctrl + 1 thru Ctrl + 0 - Set current selection to corresponding hotkey
     (maximum 10 squads)
   * 1, 2, 3 thru 0 - Select preset squad
   * L and then Left-Click - Add clicked on unit to currently selected leader.
     The unit and leader must be near each other in order to form a squad