I can reasonably say that this is my first introduction to intricate, online, city-building, strategy-fighting games. I had smaller city building games or low-level strategy/conquering games on my phone a few years ago, but these were very cartoon-like. I saw advertisements for more complex games like “Forge of Empires” on these smaller cartoon games, but they always seemed incredibly complicated.

Setting up the game was relatively easy; the homepage asks you for a username and a password right off the bat, so that was pretty straightforward. My username is simply “emanroe”; I did not realize that this would be my in-game username as well, I thought it was just my sign-in credentials. This turned out to work well, though: this will make it easier to remember and for friends to eventually find me.

The game then leads you into a series of introductory prompts and directions. It is a lot to take in at first, especially being a brand-new user to these kinds of games. I tried to understand what the dialogue boxes were presenting, but I really wanted to skip through them to get to the actual tutorial.

Thankfully the tutorial is guided by a little helper in the bottom-right corner, as well as a blue arrow that shows you exactly where to go. I was already getting a bit lost at this point since I still was not quite sure what all of the options were going to be. The original story boxes had presented this idea of “becoming a fighter or a trader”, so I thought I was going to declare one of those, but that option was no where in sight. Later, I would figure out that this has to do with the conquesting section of the game, and you can do one or the other depending on the situation.

After I built a house for my villagers, the gray-haired guide directed me to the “research” option, which really confused me. One second, I was building in the (literal) Stone Age, but the next second, I was choosing an option that had round bottom and Erlenmeyer flasks. As it turns out, “researching” something means using “Forge points” (similar to XP or experience points, these accumulate over time or through other accomplishments. They can also be purchased for coins) to unlock whatever it is you are researching. Different researched items then unlock more researching capabilities, which eventually let you level up through time.

Enter a new guide, who I will call Mr. Trojan. He starts the tutorial of questing and conquering, which is a blog post in and of itself. Look out for that one next. Instead, I am going to wrap up with the last portions of gray-haired guide’s tutorial. Back in my town, which is currently called “emanroe’s City” because I have not come up with something more creative, he directed me to what looks like an objectives or tasks panel: various characters in the game can prompt me to complete certain tasks for rewards here. I think that this is the game maker’s subtle way to direct the players through the different abilities/options in the game without making the tutorial too heavy or arduous.

I was actually a bit confused as to what “world” my account was in until I had to log out of the game and then later logged back in. As it turns out, my town is in “Noarsil”; I am still completely clueless as to what that means. Gathering from my ability to start a new game in a different world (see prompts below), I assume that a player could have multiple towns in multiple worlds, but that is complete conjecture. That may be something fun to explore as I get more literate in this game.

Progress Report

At the end of each of my “Forge of Empires” blog posts, I will conclude with what my town currently looks like. I think this will be a great way to track my overall progress in the game. Right now, “emanroe’s City” is tiny and a bit barren. Hopefully that will change soon!