RATINGS:

Graphics: 6
Gameplay: 7.5
Sound: 6

Overall: 7

Pros: Actual tactical combat will add a real strategic element to the game.

Cons: Vraphics a bit dated and could do with an upgrade.

                                                                                                                   

We recently sat down for a while to try out the city management and battle strategy game Forge of Empires. Set in a medieval world, the MMO tasks players with developing their personal settlement under the lead of their tribal chief. Starting out with clay huts, players are responsible for upgrading their village and getting access to new building types by doing research and completing quests to be able to enlarge, enhance and fortify their settlement. Forge of Empires is playable via browsers and registration only requires several clicks to immediately start playing.

When entering the game, our first glance was caught by the visuals and the scenery, which all in all didn’t give a shabby impression; the interface also looked quite nice and was pretty easy to navigate. The instantaneous tutorial guided our first steps and a tribal leader gradually introduced us to the game’s various systems and feature, recommending which buildings to construct, where to place them and also explaining their benefits.

Early on, we were taught the usage of the research tree; you will earn Forge points throughout the game that can be invested in the comprehensive library where a long tree enables players to learn new technologies which will gibe access to new building options and features. During our first research, we were advised to study the technology of “stilt houses” that allows to erect enhanced residences required to enlarge the population and obtain an income. Doing so additionally advanced us into the Bronze Age – different skill tiers are grouped together to ages that take players to more advanced technology which unlocks new buildings, units, etc.

We were tasked to set up a hunter’s camp to provide food for our population, which was absolutely necessary to prevent them from dying and advance our growing settlement. At that time, we were regrettably unconscious of the fact that the camp should be connected to a road. When construction was finished, a broken icon indicated the missing connection to the road network and as we are a little wicked, we decided to let our people starve.

We then also needed to place some decorations to keep the population happy and were especially guided to erect a specific pillar that consumed all our diamonds, the premium currency, instead of gold, the regular in-game currency we’ve used so far. This way, we learnt that there were items that are only available with diamonds.

As soon as we had recruited and trained two spear fighters, we felt ready to set off to venture into the province to seek out the nearby dangers. We were able to scout the next province to get to know what awaited; as this didn’t require any skill points, we presume that scouting other provinces may actually do so. Our scouts returned with the news that the scouted area was made up of a variety of sectors that would grant new resources and benefits in case we were able to get them under our control. A dialogue window popped up, giving the option to "attack" for free, to "infiltrate" for a gold fee or to "demand for negotiation", which was only available when paying diamonds.

When deciding for an attack, you are shown the defending troops once the province is scouted and you are able to organise your offensive and defensive troops through the army management interface by selecting currently unassigned units and dragging them to your selected army. As there isn’t any indicator for your performance in battle or how likely victory or defeat would be, it’s pretty essential to know well your units with all their strength and weaknesses. For we were still guided by our tribal leader, we supposed he gave the best advice and wouldn’t betray us.

Combat is turn-based and takes place on a strategic hex-based map that allows for individual movement of your units while the terrain may grant advantages such as a superior position for defence or the opportunity to lure opposing troops into an ambush. With only two units involved on either side, the battle was over in a jiffy as we easily crushed the enemy, this way conquering the sector. However, there were still two others that needed to be taken down before claiming the entire province our own.

Our overall impression of the game was that it had indeed the potential to be pretty fun, in particular when we realised the opportunity to participate in guild vs. guild battles as this might result in an increased strategy element when guilds forge alliances and fight against a common enemy. Regarding the visuals, they feel perhaps not quite up to date; especially the wooded terrain throughout the city map appears as single trees spilled around merely to pack the room, which didn’t went that well with the flat grassland. Although quite fundamental, combat visuals fulfil their purpose.

All in all, if you like this sort of MMO, it’s worth giving it a shot as we didn’t realise anything principally repulsive. In addition, it seems as if you would be able to play without having to invest any real-world money (as far as we went at least).

This entry was posted on Friday, March 21st, 2014 at 3:25 pm and is filed under MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Puedes dejar una respuesta, o un trackback desde tu sitio web.