With the SMITE World Championship just weeks away, many players will be eager to learn Conquest – SMITE’s competitive mode. Conquest follows the classic MOBA rules – three lanes, a jungle, and the ultimate goal: defeating the enemy Titan.

For starters, this first article in a series of guides will be an introduction to the Map, what to expect, and what you will find. Further guides will come, with more in-depth looks. If you have any questions in a particular area of Conquest, feel free to put them in the comments below and I'll be sure to answer them in a future guide for you.

Now, where better to start than the Battleground of the Gods itself. Having a strong grasp on the map is essential to understanding Conquest - knowing where everyone goes, why, and routes around the map will better aid your understanding of neutral monster priority, and ultimately winning the game itself.

The Map

We will be approaching this guide as if you were starting on the order side, or as we see it here, the blue side.

The left side of the map is best known as the ‘Long Lane’ or ‘Duo Lane’, containing a Hunter (may be referred to as ADC) and a Support or ‘Guardian’.

The middle lane, strangely enough, is called the ‘Middle Lane’. Nine times out of ten this will be made up of a singular Mage. You can occasionally see a non-mage in Mid, but at a basic level it is not something you will need to worry about.

On the right side of the map is ‘Solo Lane’, which depending on meta, can contain a variety of Gods. However, pretty much all metas will allow for Warriors in solo lane, so we will go ahead assuming as such.

Now, that leaves one last spot, but no lanes left. That goes to the jungler, which is frequently an assassin. The jungler roams in between the lanes, killing the various buffs, and ‘ganking’ lanes.

The Jungle

The map is largely identical from both sides in terms of geography – don’t be thrown by being on one side or the other, it’s identical. You will also note there are a number of coloured dots on the map, and you will be familiar with these if you’ve played a lot of Arena. But, it is important to know what these camps do, and who needs them.

 : Harpies

• There are two sets of harpies on each side of the map, made up of two small harpies and one big harpy. These are on a very short cooldown of 80 seconds, and will be a safe form of farm - for your jungler in particular.
• There are two more sets of harpies in the neutral, central part of the map. These are referred to as ‘Mid Harpies’ and are an important point of contestation. As these are in the neutral zone of the map, no team has any set claim to them, and you will often have to fight for them.

 : Attack Speed Buff

• For your hunter player. Provides a 15% Attack Speed increase.
• Essential for clearing waves of minions early, as well as boxing the enemy hunter.

 : Damage Buff

• For your mid laner. Increases damage by 20%, as well as providing 10 magical power.
• Helps early lane clear, increases poke damage, increases mid harpy fight damage.

 : Speed Buff

• For the jungler. Provides a 20% movement speed increase.
• Increases jungle rotation speed, increases chase potential and retreat potential.

 : Mana Buff

• For the solo laner. Provides 5 mana per second (or 25 MP5) and 10% cooldown reduction.
• Helps for sustain in lane, allows for more free ability usage.

Neutral Monsters

 : Gold Fury

• The Gold Fury is a singular jungle camp, situated next to the long lane. This supplies your team with a healthy dose of gold (as the name might suggest) and experience.
• Teams will be looking to kill Gold from fairly early on in the game in competitive play, normally starting at around the 10 minute mark. At low level play, Gold Fury is largely ignored and this can be something you can exploit. If you are in the Hunter role, you can be looking to tank Gold without too much trouble after you have completed your chosen item after boots and lifesteal.

 : Fire Giant

• This is the big boy objective, and is essential to winning a game of Conquest – particularly in close games when you need that little boost to put your team at an advantage. Fire Giant provides gold and experience, but most notably grants your entire team the Fire Giant buff. The Fire Giant buff provides you more power, health and mana regeneration, and also provides you more damage to towers and phoenixes.
• The earliest teams will start to contest Fire will be around the 20 minute mark, but normally the first Fire Giant of the game falls at roughly 25 minutes. High burst damage team compositions can do it earlier, but for the most part, 20 minutes will be when you can take Fire into mind. Soloing Fire is going to be a definite rarity, and if you’re new to Conquest getting the whole team to do it together is smart.

Structures: Towers and Phoenixes

Towers are each team's first line of defense when it comes to defending their base. Each team has two in each lane, granting Gold and Experience to each player when one falls. Phoenixes are the very last line of defence before the Titan is exposed. Towers and Phoenixes will target minions when they walk into its radius. However, if you enter the radius of the tower without minions, you will gain Tower 'aggro', and the Tower will attack you. You also get aggro from attacking enemy Gods underneath the tower - so fighting under an enemy tower is usually a very bad idea.

The first tower in each lane is referred to as the tier 1 tower, and provides each player on your team 100 Experience and 200 Gold. Towers are enormously dangerous early in the game and getting aggro will cause you to take serious damage - the tier 1 hitting for 170 damage on the first hit. This may not sound like too much, but the damage increases 20% for each shot - so again, do not get hit by a tower early on.

Tier 2 towers are, naturally, the set of towers behind the tier 1. These towers are invulnerable to damage until the tier 1 in the same lane is already down. The damage from these is also higher than a tier 1, but the Gold and Experience reward is higher - providing each player with 200 Experience and 300 Gold.

Phoenixes are the most important structures to defeat, as killing them bring Fire Minions into the lane where the phoenix has fallen. Fire minions are stronger versions of the normal minions that run down the lane, aiding your team in trying to break the base of your opponent. If these fire waves are not kept away from the Titan sufficiently, they can do large chunks of damage to the Titan.

Losing a phoenix is not quite a death sentence however, as they respawn after four minutes with reduced health.

Killing the Titan

The more structures defeated on the enemy team, the more weakened the Titan will be. The Titan is immune to damage until a phoenix falls, regardless of how many other structures remain. As long as there is an open lane into the base, it is there to be got at.

It is not as simple as just running up one lane to try and end the game, though. Titans with multiple structures remaining are stronger, so killing as many towers and phoenixes as possible is absolutely necessary before trying to end the game. Grouping up as a team to take these structures down is a crucial aspect of the game, and is much easier with Fire Giant buffs, and multiple Gold Furies under your team's belt.

This was just a short intro into the layout of the Conquest map, and next time you will be introduced to early jungle clear and laning. Again, if you have any questions about Conquest, feel free to ask in the comment section here, on the Reddit post or directly at my Twitter @isthatcharlie and I will make sure they are answered in another guide.

With Season 2 of SMITE coming to a close, and SWC just around the corner, now is a great time to start learning. Get to grips with a bit of Conquest Practice, play with friends against bots - but importantly don't fret, it's all good fun, really.