Help and info
Guide
All info about the game can be obtained from the links.
Has anyone else played this? I searched but found there wasn't really a thread on it. Generally you only need about 20-25 minutes once a day to play decently. All income and production occurs in 60 minute intervals. Player interaction occurs instantaneously (you attack, you'll attack and get the results immediately ).
The goal is to gain a lot of land (or have a lot of units). Technically the "winner" of the Round is the one with the most "land" (everything else is ignored). Generally speaking it's not a bad idea to have a large army either but the winner is the one with the most "land".
But there are a lot of "Top 100"s, like for most food stolen, most lightning damage, etc so there are other things to aim for too.
To obtain "land", you can gain them from attacking and/or exploring. The "regular" method would be to explore some (early game, see Guide for more info) then attack later on.
Though a player can play by simply exploring (not attacking at all, just building defenses and exploring) to gain land. IMO, just do whatever to have fun in the game (with GM towards others please >.>).
It's a really interesting and fun game. Unfortunately the player base has slowly been decreasing throughout the years.
Some important points though (which can be found in the link but I'll point out since they're important):
1. On every page, there should be a link to "Scribes" or so which will display help info relating to the page. Very useful.
2. For attacking and defending (one of the main method of interaction between other players), it works based on a "point" based system with no randomness in win/lose ( casualties and special abilities are random though).
Before attacking, take into account race defense bonuses (which are listed in the links), any spells, all structures, and all units (and if they have any special traits). If your attacking forces total attack exceeds the defending forces defense, you'll always win the battle.
You want to use Windows Calculator (or the equivalent for your OS) a lot for this game unless you're an explorer.
Also a general rule is to only attack players who have their forces away from home. (You can check it by using one of the Espionage commands, see the scribes for more help info). This will save you from having to send too many units to attack (which will protect you from getting attacked yourself) and may allow you to attack multiple times (though keep enough units for defense).
3. For those who have never played, you may be caught off guard by the fact that you do not gain that much "Platinum" from building "Alchemies" (well at least I was caught off guard). If you read what structures produces what, you'll see that only "Alchemy" produces platinum.
However take note platinum (a large amount) is made through jobs. Each House provides 30 homes(accounting +% bonuses) for peasants. Barracks provide 36 "homes" for military (not accounting +% bonuses except certain "Wonders").
Each other structure(not homes or barracks) provides 20 jobs for those peasants. Each job produces platinum. See here for the exact values (it depends on race).
Generally, it's a lot more efficient to gain platinum through jobs rather than "Alchemies". So do not build them unless your race gains bonuses from platinum (or your realm has a "Wonder" that gains bonuses for platinum). So try to gain platinum from solely jobs (homes and/or barracks), it's a safe way to play.
Platinum is used for nearly everything in the game, so it's always good to have lots. For more info, check out the scribes and guide linked above.
4. Espionage is one of the main methods of gathering info. Take note accuracy (unless special abilities are taken into account) is either 15% up or down of the true value.
Say you spy once and see the person has 100 SCVs (which have 1 attack and defense each).That means the highest value is it's either 115 SCVs or 85 SCVs. If you spy again, you'll get different values. If you spy and see that there are only 90 SCVs, the highest amount possible is then "103.5" while the lowest possible is "76.5".
So that means when you send an attacking force, you'll want to send at least the current amount in defense (100 in this case) + 15% (115) to be sure.
Click for more info.
5. Remember to regularly read your "Realm"'s discussions on the Realm page.
Also one thing is, you'll probably want to play a bit "defensively" to progress if you're new.
Basically only attack if you can keep a "large" amount of defense at home. Focus on some guard towers and build a lot of defense (units with defense).
You'll probably have to check different players but generally speaking, you should be able to find a target to attack even if you play defensively.
What you should do is check other player's armies with similar land to yours, and make sure you have enough defense to hold off an attack (your defense exceeds their offense) "even" after you send an attacking army somewhere else.
Usually that's a safe way to play and progress. This isn't a "winning" build but it is a safe one and a good one for new players. Also it may be really off putting when you get attacked and lose land, so playing defensively is a good way to play for new players IMO.
I suggest this because I've been in a few realms with players who attacked then had few defenses left, they'd get attacked and lose a lot of land. Sometimes they wouldn't even progress (land and army wise). So it's better to progress slowly than to lose progress or not progress at all.
That's why I suggest just playing defensively (focus on defense and guard towers) for new players, it's a decent build.
Another alternative is to play "Explorer" (just to check out the mechanics of the game). Just build only defense and use your resources to explore land.
Explorer do gain a lot of land but it's nearly impossible to "win" a game by going 100% explorer (but it's still fun sometimes to see how far you can get). (Winning a game refers to having the most land [out of all the players] by the end of a round. Though even just aiming for the top 100 isn't a bad idea.)