Forge Of Empires

Game overview

Forge of Empires is a free browser-based game by a German developer InnoGames, the author of the very well-received “Tribal Wars” and “Grepolis” series. Released in 2012, the game is still up there among the most popular games of the kind, keeping the loyal players in, as well as constantly winning newcomers.

Forge of Empires is a city building turn-stage strategy game, that allows players to create their unique city and develop it from the Stone Age and onward throughout the centuries.

Grow and lead an immense empire by exploring new skills and technologies, conquering the rivals, gaining valuable resources, and trading with the neighbours. Manage your city, produce resources, and build an army to conquer surrounding provinces.

Fight exciting battles, use a variety of units and a strategy in order to win!

Look back and rewrite the human history by creating and ruling a prosperous indestructible empire. With a strategic planning, diplomacy, and military force, lead it from the early human civilization to the future, from the humble beginnings to the greatness!

Main features:

• Free: playing Forge of Empires does not require credit card info submission, but players can visit a cash shop to buy advantageous game options (speed boosts, resources).
• Custom City-Building Gameplay: players can fully control their building placements to layout their empire the way they want. Unlike most similar games, there are no automatically preset places, you can organize and reorganize you city as you like and as frequent as you like.
• Loads of Content through the eras: players start in the Stone Age and can advance all the way up to the contemporary time and further into the future.
• In-Depth Single-Player Campaign Mode + Global PVP: Face other players in legendary PVP-tower battles to prove your might and gain respect for your Guild.
• Cross Platform (Browser, Facebook, iOS, Android): Build and grow your empire any time any place: Forge of Empires brings the award-winning strategy game to your smartphone or tablet.

Deepdive

The initial goal of the game is to create an empire and develop it, watching your empire progress through the eras. Explore new technologies and building techniques to continue developing your settlement. And it all starts from a small Stone Age settlement: as a standard in the games of this kind, Forge of Empires offers  a new player a piece of land to domesticate.

An automatic tutorial is very friendly, clear and actually helpful. It will walk you through the main options, features and settings and show you around your new world — the meaning and functions of the in-game menu as well as how to use the “research tree”.
The first job you have is set the ground and start building up your village. Players have a bunch of building structures to choose from, each of them have their own benefits and meaning, each serves for a different purpose.

• Residential buildings, like Huts and Stilt Houses to begin with, produce human resources and earn money for your city-state.
• Cultural and Decoration structures cheer up the residents, raising their “Happiness” level and increasing their productivity.
• Production and Goods buildings allow you to produce valuable resources which could be used internally or traded with the neighbours.
• Military buildings are the way for you to recruit, train and arm your city guards and warriors. Army units are used to loot resources from other cities and conquer new lands.
  

To grow and develop your skills and town you will use “Research Trees”, the Research is where you unlock more advanced technologies. For example, by learning the wood processing technique, you can move from primitive Huts to building wooden houses; by exploring fire you can start producing tools and so on and so forth. However, the research, just  like anything else in the game, comes with it cost. And apart from the coins, you need to have some other valuable resource for that, which is called “Forge Points”.

Forge Points are the only resource type that is automatically collected with the time and progress so you can not worry about it. The cost of each research depends on the technology being learned, but is usually about 3-5 forge points in the beginning, and more and more topics to research are unlocked as a player strides through the different eras and ages. The more advanced the technology being researched is, the more Forge Points are needed and the longer it takes to finish. Unless you don’t like waiting and would prefer to progress faster. In this case, DIAMONDS ARE YOUR BEST FRIENDS!

In order to really succeed in Forge of Empires, you need to aim to constantly expand your city-state. Despite the expansions growing the building area of a city, they enable players to collect the hidden parts and complete the so-called “Great Buildings”, which are unique to every age and bring a huge bonus value.

Apart from the gradual expansions coming with the research progress, you can buy fast expansions with Diamonds or Medals. As explained before, Diamonds, are mostly available in return for real-world money while Medals can be acquired on battlefields by conquering other cities and winning matches against other players.

The PVP Tournaments is not a mode you can access from the menu — they are only available through “PvP towers” and unlocked once you’ve successfully conquered the province they’re located in.

Forge of Empires is a classic example of a turn-based combat system, which means you need to think-through your attack and defence strategy and choose the right units combination, in order to teach enemies a lesson! However, for those who value time the most, there’s always an option to trust the system and choose an “Autobattle”. Players can also plunder each others cities to gain loot and resources. Meet the challenges of the single-player campaigns until you rule an entire continent, or fight other players in the PVP mode!

Standout features

• Intuitive tutorial: “Play along” tutorial which demonstrates the most important features of the game. It is user-friendly and can be accomplished very fast.
• Single player campaign mode: The Single player campaign is a nice touch and a distinctive feature making Forge Of Empires different from most other browser-based strategy games.
• Custom city-building: Unlike most other strategy games, players have control over building placement in their cities and can arrange and rearrange city planning however they want. This is a nice little touch that gives players a greater sense of control.
  

Overall Rating – Great

All in all Forge of Empires is a very addictive and enjoyable game. With its unique features differentiating it from most competitor browser-based strategy games, such as control over building placement and a single-player campaign — it gives even the much fresher games a good run for their money. There is a place to put serious thinking and strategy to use, as well as just have fun, and spend a lot of joyful and exciting hours, trying to fill the Ultimate Ruler’s shoes. Multi Platform support just adds up to the success, letting the players switch between a desktop browser and a mobile app back and forth, which means you never really have to stop playing!