Recently, while looking for an interesting Vampire game to try, I ran across one that exists on the blockchain – Vampire Wars. Although it is not on the Hive blockchain, it is fairly easy to get up and running on the MultiversX blockchain and its wallet. I am using a browser based wallet at the moment, for ease of connecting to the game. MultiversX.com has details on how to get a wallet set up. It is a reasonably free to play game at this stage, and new players begin with an initial vampire and 200 in-game currency called DARX, and, yes, 200 DARX is definitely enough to get you rolling.
First things first, this post is about game-play, NOT financial information or financial advice. That being said, let’s have a look at Vampire Wars.
The game is currently in Beta, and has several hundred active players and a fair number of clans, as well as a leader board (and, no, I am not very high on the leader board at this point). The development team is actively adding new features, and have plans for further expansions, and a larger in-game economy. One of the interesting aspects of the game is using a scale map of the Earth where players can claim territory for their expanding army of vampires to live and hunt, using a tool from MapBox. It’s a neat feature, and really stands out in the crowd of games on the various blockchains.
screenshot from the game Vampire Wars - part of the world map
Once you are logged into the game, you need to set up a few territories for your initial vampire to live, and it is best to have them close together so that you can rotate which territory you are hunting in. Check the population for where you are claiming, it should have a fairly large population, otherwise you will receive very little Blood from your hunts. You may want to look for a good place in your own time zone as a starting point, as vampires hunt only after night as arrived at their location.
The reason for this is once a hunt is completed, that area where the hunt took place is marked as a Panic Zone for 48 hours, and will drop significantly fewer rewards (Blood). It is also important to set your territories up in areas with a decent (meaning – large) population, and hopefully enough space around for expanding your holdings. Territories have a max size of 4 kilometers, and the standard shape is a hexagon, however you can pull the edges around into different shapes. Initially I experimented with doing so to follow some terrain features, however, it may be better to just use the standard hexagon shape to build and expand your territories.
With 200 DARX, you can build a decent number of territories, and you should make them 4 KM in size if you can. Also, there is a crypt size setting, and that determines how many vampires can reside inside a given territory, which increases the cost of minting the territory a bit. It may well be worth it to set that to max. Currently I am keeping a reserve of about 100 DARX for future expansion.
screenshot from the game Vampire Wars
Once you have your territories set up, and your vampire assigned to a crypt, send your vampire out on a hunt. Pretty easy to set up. There are a few settings you can set on a vampire related to combat, in case they run into an enemy vampire while on the hunt. This could happen, especially in areas with a high player density (look at the map for Madrid, Spain, or Shanghai, PRC). If you do trigger a combat, and you lose, all of the hunt rewards you gained on that hunt will be lost. Otherwise, you will reap some nice benefits – blood and possibly, but not necessarily, an additional vampire. Additional vampires strengthen your overall ability to advance in the game. As I haven’t triggered combat as yet, I am not covering combat.
screenshot from the game Vampire Wars
When your vampire returns from a hunt, he should bring back some amount of blood. Blood is exchanged for DARX once per day at a rate of 5 blood for 1 DARX. At least, so far, that has been my observation. More vampires hunting means more blood. More blood allows you to accumulate more territories. More territories increases the amount of Xynth and Dust you can accumulate every day, allowing you to assign vampires to crypts. Xynth and Dust is also used to power certain spells, so it is a critical resource, and not all territories will have these resources available.
screenshot from the game Vampire Wars
Once you get rolling, you should look for a clan to join. To do this, join the Discord server for Vampire Wars and head over to the clan section and post that you are looking for a clan, or look for clans that are recruiting. Clans will be playing an important part of combat between vampires, so keep that in mind when looking for a clan. Oh, and the clan I have joined is The 13. Lucky number.
So far I am enjoying the game, been in it for about a week; the game play is good for casual players as you don't have to log in very often, just to collect rewards from hunts and territories, and sending your vampires out on hunts.
Thanks for reading.
If this article has sparked your interest enough to check out the game, please consider using my referral link to access the game:
https://beta.vampirewars.io/login?ref=MyNfmOp9Ae
referral code - MyNfmOp9Ae
All images are screenshots of my game play.
*THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE. Please do your own research before making an informed decision. This is sharing my game play experience only.