War of Empires

War of Empires ("WoE") is a free multiplayer internet turn-based game, containing six separate races, each of which has different skills and advantages.

General
War of Empires is a forms-based Web strategy game which can be played using any modern web browser that supports JavaScript and cookies. Since WoE is browser based and has low graphics requirements, it can be played on just about any computer with a connection to the Internet. It is even possible to play WoE on some web-enabled cellular telephones.

The game is similar to Civilization or Age of Empires in that players start as feudal chieftains with a small village and gradually improve their lot by raiding other players and building improvements. However, there is no graphical depiction of the world, or of player settlements and units. The WoE interface is essentially text-based with some graphical dressing. Nonetheless, the game provides similar challenges in resource management and player versus player combat.

The game clock runs twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The primary time unit in the game is the day, which lasts exactly twenty four hours of real time. At the beginning of each day, each player is presented with new "recruits" whose number is based on the player's support infrastructure (food and housing), amenities (upgrades to production facilities) and safety (status of settlement defences and the ratio of troops to workers). Recruits can be trained as workers (increasing production rates) warriors (increasing settlement defence and strengthening the player's ability to make war) and specialists (alchemists for researching technology improvements, siege engineers for implementing offensive and defensive siege technologies, spies for conducting sabotage, scouts for reconnaissance of enemy settlements, and merchants to facilitate the sale of surplus production).

Each day is broken into 144 ten minute turns, which are primarily for regulating the production cycle of resources: food, wood, stone, ore and gold which are the commodities used in the game. Quantities of these commodities are required in all repairs, upgrades, and improvements and may traded by players on the game's one market. Players also accumulate attack turns for each turn that passes.

Players may improve any number of buildings or conduct any number of attacks within a turn, limited only by their available resources, both resource commodities and accumulated "attack turns". Typically, players will log in several times throughout the day. They might send their troops out to raid other players to steal their gold and resources or retaliate for an attack agaist themselves or their clan. A player might spend the commodities (resources and gold) that the peasants and slaves under their rule have been producing for them on building or troop improvements.

War of Empires is played in rounds, called 'ages' which last two to three months on the average. (Ages also generally correspond to an upgrade of the game server software so the age 10 was played on version 10 of the software.) The age lasts until the victory condition is fulfilled. From Ages 1-11, the game was played until one player reached 'GO' or Grand Overlord. The criteria for this title have varied considerably since the game's founding, but the one thing that has remained constant is that the candidate for Grand Overlord must achieve that level and hold it for a set period of time -- 72 hours in V11. Age 12 saw the introduction of a team victory condition -- the winning team had to construct a wonder similar to the space race winning condition in Civilization. The Age following is always named for the winner of the previous age.

War of Empires is essentially a team game. Players form 'clans' so that they can provide mutual support for each other and cooperate to win the age by either backing a member they believe will be a plausible candidate for Grand Overlord, or by building the clan's wonder.

Game forum

War of Empires is heavily player-driven. It supports a (relatively) small but vocal community of loyal players who make their views about the current rules known to the game's designer and to each other in an active user forum. New players are welcomed and encouraged to post on the forum and ask questions. There is almost always a veteran player willing to provide good advice. The forums also provide an outlet for players to air grievances, post challenges to other clans and players or make change requests.

How to play
One begins with 10 peasants, 20000 gold, and 2000 of every other resource (commodity). If a player wishes to place well in the game, one needs to upgrade to control greater resources. In order to do so, he/she needs to build resource buildings, defensive buildings, peasant housing buildings, and have troops trained. A peasant can be trained into any one of ten categories: Warriors, Scouts , Alchemists, Spies, Engineers, Merchants, Wood workers, Farmers, Stone Workers, or Ore Miners. For every worker a person has, he/she gets 250 gold per turn. A worker is any peasant that has been trained to be a wood worker, farmer, stone worker, or miner.

Interface views
The WoE interface is divided into separate views, each of which allows control of a separate aspect of the game.

*Command View - Here you can get advice on military, defences, economy, and population. You can also see cumulative data on your progress in the game.
*Training - This is where you train peasants. Peasants who are trained as workers produce resources and gold each turn. You can also train alchemists, spies, scouts, merchants and siege engineers once you have created the requisite buildings.
*Troops - You train, heal and disband your troops here. This view also features a breakdown of your force by troop type, distinguishing between regulars and mercenaries.
*Banking - You can bank resources to keep other players from stealing them.
*Buildings - Settlements are improved by constructing and upgrading buildings. There are several types of buildings:
**Defences - Each Player has a some kind of defensive structure (often referred to in game text as a wall or walls) which absorbs some of the damage taken when you are attacked. Upgrading your defences increases their strength, and therefore protects your troops better. It is necessary to repair your defences after being attacked for them to function fully.
**Military - This is where soldier training facilities are created and upgraded. Each player begins the game with the ability to produce a single type (foot, cavalry, archers, siege units) of light troop (the type is dependent on the player's chosen race). Creating additional military buildings allows the production of other types of troops; upgrading the buildings allows the training of heavier troops.
**Housing - You can buy more peasant huts or barracks to house more workers and soldiers, or you can buy slave pens to hold slave workers that your troops capture in battle.
**Production - Here you can upgrade your four resource production buildings (one each for food, wood, stone and ore) to improve the production rate. Each upgrade improves the production rate for one resource by 25%.
**Storage - Here you can increase the amount of resource storage, allowing you to "bank" available resources to protect them from thefts and raids.
**Specialty Buildings - This is where you can purchase and upgrade buildings that will allow you to train your peasants as units other than workers or soldiers.
*Siege Weapons - You can buy siege weapons for your engineers here. The greater the level of your siege building, the more powerful the weapons you can buy.
*Research - This is where you can research abilities to improve your empire. The more total research you have done, the more research you have to do for the next discovery. There are several levels for each discovery. The discoveries are divided into military, economy, and spying. The greater the level of your University, the greater amount of alchemists you have and they do more research.
*Empire View - This is where you can join a clan or create your own. Clans have wars, allies, and truces with other clans. There is a clan chat as well. You can upgrade buildings for the clan to increase maximum member size, transfer taxes, warning times for war, or clan banks.
*Resource Transfer - This is where you can transfer resources to members of your clan. There is a tax that depends on the status of your clan's current marketplace.
*Messages - Send and receive messages to and from other players of the game.
*Market - This is where you can sell your resources at any price between 2 and 19. You can also buy resources for those prices here. You can also buy and sell slaves.
*Black Market - Buy resources at 20 each or sell them for 1 each. You can also buy mercenaries of any troop type you can currently produce, up to 20% of your total force.
*Forage for Food - Gather food for your army, supplementing farmer production.
*Attack - Steal resources from other members or avenge attacks made against you. You can castle assault with siege weapons to get gold, raid to get resources, or slave raid settlements with population greater than 40 to enslave their peasants.
*Spy - Send your spies to destroy other players' resources and buildings or steal their resources and gold.
*Scout - Gather general information about other users, other than what you can find out by looking at their profile.
*Player Ranks - Find out your rank and see other player's ranks.
*Empire Ranks - View a list of clans and see the clan ranks.
*Empire News - If you are in a clan you will see updates about your clan here.
*Greatest Battles - See the biggest battles and players/clans with leading stats here, e.g. highest slaves taken.
*Attack Log - See any attacks against you or attacks on others.
*Spy Log - See logs of your spying actions and spying actions against you.
*Market Log - See your market sales and purchases.
*Notes - Keep notes for yourself.
*Profile Options - Change details for your profile. You may also change the day end time once here.
*Incentives - Click the links here get extra attack and spy turns.
*Work Mode - Makes the page look like a spreadsheet for users who are at work.
*Logout - Logout of the game.

Time in War of Empires
Though time is divided into days, governing the accrual of new recruits, and time is also divided into turns of ten minutes, governing the accrual of gold and resources and attack turns, the player is free to initiate any action at any time, or not, asynchronously to the actions of other players. In that sense there is no 'taking turns' or 'waiting for your turn' so the game is not exactly turn-based. The article on Strategy Games, mentions that online, browser-based games often mix real-time and turn-based elements together in a way referred to as tick-based games. War of Empires meets this definition of a tick-based game. Therefore, a player is free to execute a dozen actions in a few seconds, or carefully plan their actions over hours or days. Also, there are a number of actions particularly within the economy of the game that are not limited by the passage of ticks, or turns, only by the player's current resources, resourcefulness and creativity.

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See Also

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