Evony (http://www.evony.com/)

Intro:

This is a game that I have currently been playing with several friends. My user is Lord Sreaberac and am currently part of the JLA server 31. It’s fairly addictive and unlike other games it does give you the ability to play on par with people who pay for the game. There is a graphic web/java interface, avoiding the common text based games. To best describe the game I’d categorize it as a mix of civilization and sim city.

Strat:

The concept of the game is build a city. There are three levels to the city. Within the walls you can build buildings.

Interior:

Barracks: Where you can build military units. (You should have a majority of these)

Cottages: For food (You only need 4 or 5 as population never really is a concern) Population is a resource needed to maintain production, and a requirement for building military. They regenerate, to the maximum population * loyalty of the city.

Warehouse: Reduces pillaging (Useless since defending is so much easier)

Embassy: Important for allies to help you out in defending and joining alliances. The higher the level the more waves of allies can send you.

Town Hall: Determines the amount of valleys you can control and rates. (You start with this building) You also have special abilities here to raise loyalty, population, and production. The level also determines the amount of production buildings you can have in the exterior section.

Forge/Stables/Workshop: Prerequisites for buildings and technology. Once you’ve upgraded all your other buildings you can pretty much demolish these. You will need them to research some techs, however that doesn’t mean you need them in every city.

Rally Spot: Level determines amount of men and parallel marches you can make. Once you go military strategy you will find you will need a level 9 or 10 in every city.

Relief station: Shuttling units between cities speed boost. (Allies as well) This takes a long time to build. Level 4 or 5 will be enough unless your cities are far away. At higher levels it takes quite a while to upgrade.

Academy: Where you upgrade technology. You can only research one tech at a time per city. But if you have multiple cities you can run parallel research. I find you only need one level 10 academy and just high enough for the other cities to always be researching something.

Inn: Where you choose your heroes. The key here is that higher level does not mean higher base stats. So a level 1 hero can have better stats than a level 10. Except a level 1 is easier to upgrade and cheaper. Hence, never settle anything less than level 1 or 2. Anything higher than 65 in any cat is a steal. You can specialize. I would never upgrade pass level 3 as the higher the level the harder it is to get lvl 1 or 2 hero selections.

Politics: +1% production if mayor, faster construction if mayor
Attack: Faster military unit build if mayor. Attack boost if leading attack.
Intel: Reduces research time, and boosts scouting.

Feasting Hall: Where you can appoint a mayor and where and how many heroes you can hold. You will end up needing a level 9. This really helps when you are medal farming later on. Ie. Attacking multiple valleys in one go to find medals.

Exterior:

This is where you build your production buildings. The level and number of each type contributes to the production of each type of resource in real time.

Wood. This is the most used resource.
Food. You need this to build units, also military require food maintenance while stationed in your city or defending a valley.
Iron. Produces Iron, this is needed in everything as well but to a lesser extent of wood.
Stone. This is needed to build buildings. A lot of this is required to build walls.

This is my advice. Since controlling valleys increases the bonus to only one type of resource type. It makes sense to control all valleys giving bonus to one resource type and building that one resource type field in the city. Then you can ship the resources between cities. However it’s difficult to create more cities unless you medal farm. If your active it could take weeks to get 2 cities, months to get 3 cities let alone 4 cities. However in your first city you should have a good proportion of each since. However you should really go a 20% food, 50% wood, 15% stone and 15% iron to start. Specialize in your expansion cities.

World:

In the world section you can see all the other cities and enemies out there. There are a mix of valleys which you can conquer with military to get resource bonuses. There are also NPC which are computer cities you can attack to gain resources. And there are other live player cities just like you. The level of valley determines how strong the enemy there is for you to take control of it. The higher the valley level the greater the bonus as well. I just suggest you take the levels you can and upgrade them later. But you should concentrate on one valley type to pile on the bonuses to the resource you produce the most.

I’ll let you know now, that if your active enough. You’ll make a lot more resources stealing from other players than you would ever by producing on your own. So military is always better. At the end of the day it’s best to be surrounded by a large number of 1-4 level NPCs. As you can farm them with long range weapons to steal vast resources without any losses later on.

Other notes:

Things that make this game fun are your allies. If you get into a good alliance that actively works together to defend each other from oncoming attacks it is 10 times more fun. The only reason I keep playing is to support my allies and avenge them from people pillaging them. Just remember everything is in real time so it takes time for men to travel. So it’s exciting when someone realizes a large army is heading towards them and all the alliance members are scrambling to send reinforcements to help someone defend. I will conclude this review for now and add some even more advance info later. I’m located in server 31 if anyone is interested in joining JLA.

Roulette: You can claim a daily gift. This is a amulet that allows you to get a random gift. It's done through a random roulette. Such gifts include, bonus items, heroes, military units, resources etc.

Quests: For beginners, everytime you hit a milestone for the first time you get resources or prestige or items. Helps you know what order of things to build. ie. First time building a barrack. etc.