Absolutely not! When the game asks you for a login ID and password, fill in anything you want for either. Then you're ready to play! Just click Connect to Internet, there's no delay whatsoever, it's as simple as that.

No! Come give it a try!

Make sure you've gone through the 5-step tutorial at least once. Takes about 5 minutes, no big deal. Read the "Playing The Game" part of the home page or in the online help. You'll see, among other things, that the game is turn-based, with turns ranging from minutes to hours.

There are also hints that pop up in the game telling you what actions should be taken in various situations. Read these carefully. After only a few tries, you'll discover the game is not very complicated after all. :)

Here are some hints to speed things up:

• Create "Quick8" games with a small battlefield and a maximum of 2 to 4 players. Name your game: "For Expert players only" or "To play 3 times a day please".
• Join games with players that you know play often... I often see 2 players creating games just to play the 2 together, you may finish a 30 turn game in just a few hours this way. Got no problem with that, go ahead!
• You can meet other MK addicts in the #MetalKnights undernet channel or via ICQ. Chances are you'll meet other players willing to play that fast there.

The KnightSpy and KnightSpyDirect small applications can take care of that! They stay active as a tray icon onto your task bar, telling you what's going on behind your back without you having to bother logging in. As soon as a game becomes available to play, a sound is played and it's MK logo icon indicates the number of games available.

You should use KnightSpy.exe except if you have a direct connection to the internet and you don't have to dial out to connect. Otherwise use KnightSpyDirect.

Well... Actually, we're taking care of your health! The game *IS* addicting. ;) Once you know the game, you'll know that 8 games is more than enough. That represent several hours of play per day once the games are some days old. It also helps keeping a kind of stability in the Hall of Fame... You don't want to get tired to death the first week, do you?

We found that 8 games was more than enough for most players.

Primitive units like Soldiers are very slow, it's a fact. But be careful on what ground you travel! Try to travel on a road, it's 2 and 3 times as fast as traveling on grass, forest, snow, or desert... You should also try to "walk" on cities and resource squares when possible, they're just as quick as roads! And those slow moving units? Move them with a Transport unit, it's very effective. But still, you should build a "Ground" University in a city. The next turn, you'll be able to buy Panther units from the city! They're like Soldiers and AlphaWarriors but much faster. Buy some Transport units to move your units faster right from the start. After a while, you end up with aircraft... speed and ground types are no longer a problem by then... :)

The main goal is to expand your empire, taking as many cities as you can, until you run into another player. Then, usually, the player with the more population (therefore, the more money!) will crush the rival empire... You then capture the opponent's medal and get some points (and probably bonus points too) in the Hall of Fame. It's not set in stone, however, a good player with a smaller empire usually beats a rookie player at the head of a much larger empire, no problem. When you've conquered all the rival empires, you win! You then get more points in the Hall of Fame and may get promoted to a higher rank. See the On-line Help for more details on this (Press F1 while at the HOF screen)

Of course, this can do for a while. But sooner or later, you'll see on the field that it can be a lot more sophisticated than that. You'll need to use advanced strategies to overcome other very good players roaming through Metal Knights lands...

No, you don't need to be registered. Advanced technologies are discovered with the universities you build in your cities. Each university discovers one advance. For unregistered players, you can discover advanced technologies like cargo planes, submarines, scuds, etc. by buying many universities on the same turn, by stealing tecnologies and when finding hidden blueprints. For more information and more tricks, please see the On-line Help! (Press F1 on the Logon Screen where it says you're unregistered...)

In order to discover advanced Air Force units, you need the Patriot Ground unit first. Unregistered players can do it in multiple turn. First they need to discover the Patriot. Then, having at least one Patriot (or higher) unit on the field, they can research advanced Air Force units.

Well... you need to configure your proxy server. Ask your local network adminstrator about it. The trick is to map a port, usually 22220, to link to NetMetal at metalknights.com:22220.

Okay, once done, everything sended to the proxy on port 22220 will be forwarded to NetMetal. Now you need to configure Metal Knights to use the proxy. Go to the Internet, then Settings menu. Change the NetMetal server from metalknights.com:22220 to gateway:22220 where gateway is the name of the proxy server.

AOL Internet kits used to be 16-bit software. Metal Knights is a 32-bit application and needs a 32-bit winsock to work properly. The latest versions of AOL kits are 32-bit, just upgrade your Internet software and you should be able to connect to NetMetal.

By Skyven