Map of modern times forge of empires. Forge of Empires: a complete guide to guilds. Alternative methods of obtaining goods

World Map (Era Map) Forge of Empires consists of different continents or eras. The game world map has a certain similarity with the world map of our planet, so it is doubly interesting to see how the game developers, inventing new eras, add new continents to the game map: Above you can see the very first map, which was available in the game since 2013, and Below is the most current map of the Forge of Empires world. To get to the general map of the continent, you need to click on the icon at the bottom left (or the M key for quick access) and you can begin your journey as a great commander!

You'll start playing in the Stone Age and work your way through the Bronze Age, Iron Age, various stages of the Middle Ages, the Colonial Age and the Industrial Age. After this, you will be able to visit the later eras of the game: the Progressive era, the Modern era, the Postmodern era and the Modern era. Then, you will plunge into the Future, which will gradually change into something cold and mysterious - the Arctic Future (, and parts of the era), followed by the Oceanic Future era (, and parts of the era) and the Virtual Future era (while , and parts of the era are available ) which will give you access to the second twin card (top left). Already introduced on the general game world map 19 different eras, and also has access to guild map of continents () and exit to your own City:
On the continent map, you can expand your empire, capturing new lands province by province. And it's worth it because it will bring you valuable rewards. The available historical eras in the game are listed below; by clicking on the links of the eras, you can get acquainted with their full description, a full-size map of each continent, what and how many resources can be obtained for capturing each map.

At the beginning of 2019, a new one was released in the game, which slightly changed the game format itself - now you go into space to colonize new planets and stars!
Navigation between standard “earthly” maps, the Virtual Future map and the following maps of other planets (for now only Mars is available) is carried out using tabs where you can easily select that section of the territory or the entire planet that is currently relevant in your game and available for conquest.

Released in April 2012, the multiplayer browser strategy Forge of Empires quickly began to gain popularity. A million participants were beaten instantly, and in just a year the number of registered users exceeded 10 million, who began to unite in guilds. And this was the most exciting part of the development.

The goal of the game is to build a city in a limited area, and build an empire by capturing neighboring territories. Gradually developing, the player moves from one era to another, from the Stone Age to the Arctic future.

Joining and leaving the guild

A guild in the game Forge of Empires is a trading community of players who help each other. You will be able to negotiate a profitable sale or exchange, trade without charging fees and reducing the points required for researching technologies. You can leave a guild and join another at any time.

Since the Iron Age, it has been possible to join a guild by invitation and create your own. For the latter, you will have to spend a fair amount of time inviting companions and maintaining the alliance; newcomers should join the established community without hesitation.

Leaving the guild is simple: go to the menu and remove yourself from the list.

Participants' rights

There are no military alliances in the game; alliances are formed only on the basis of profitable trade relations, therefore the benefits of membership are associated with them:

• Carrying out trading operations without commission;
• Help for beginners with any questions in the chat;
• Visiting allies in order to raise the mood in their buildings (and they will help in return);
• Faster level up with bonuses;
• Participation in expeditions and wars.

Rating

The battle for the top lines of the ranking is the main task of any guild striving to become the most influential in the game. The rating depends on the level and the higher it is, the more pleasant bonuses participants receive. The level consists of the number and type of occupied sectors.

When you capture a new sector or successfully defend your own, additional points are awarded. They can also be obtained by participating in team battles. Rewards include a kit to speed up unit training, a research bonus to increase strategic points, and a construction bonus to reduce the cost of new buildings.

In addition to personal bonuses, general guild points will become available. The more sectors the player conquers and holds, the more significant the percentage will be.

Expeditions

At the beginning of a guild expedition, the map is closed. As you progress along the “path of discovery,” new locations and tasks will open up. Everyone has access to their own area of ​​the map for research, and accordingly, everyone sees their own area.

Players are united by a common menu of goals and progress of the current expedition. You can see it at the top of the computer screen, or at the bottom of the mobile application.

By passing tests, you make a personal contribution to progress. The arrow shows the obstacle and when crossing, a battle with the guards begins if peaceful overcoming is not available.

The difficulty of passing depends on the level of development. Some obstacles are simple, while others will take some effort to overcome, especially if they are located over a large area with several waves of battles. You can find out about your own contribution by clicking on the progress bar.

Regardless of the result of an individual battle, any player contributes to progress. But with constant defeats, it won’t be big, of course.

The goal is fixed at the start of the expedition and depends on the number of participants and their eras. If a player is excluded or accepted from the union during the week, the task will not change.

Eight attempts are given to pass the obstacle: if all chances have been exhausted, but the task was not completed, you will have to either wait for the attempts to be restored, one per hour, or buy them for or. The more attempts you buy, the more expensive each next chance will cost you. At the end of the expedition, the price is reset, and the starting cost of attempts becomes minimal.

Wars

Guild wars take place on a global map divided into sectors. Each belongs to its own era, and to conquer the region, troops must correspond to the era.

On the map you can see information about all sectors: when you click on it, detailed information about this area opens. Friendly lands are colored green, enemy lands are colored red. Orange areas belong to NPCs and can be captured by either side. It is allowed to wage war over several territories at once, if the army and resources allow.

On the province map, unexplored territories are shaded. Before attempting to capture them, you must first send a reconnaissance detachment, and only then attack. The capture begins after you enter the sector: siege weapons are placed, an army is brought in.

All your actions on the global map are written in the event log: it displays information about any battle, including those during which you were offline and the enemy attacked your territories.

Coffers

The guild treasury is used to store common resources.

Resources will be required to annex new territories. When selecting a sector for potential capture, the resources required to wage war are displayed. If there are not enough of them in the treasury, any participant can add them from their own reserves.

At any time, you can add resources to the common treasury according to your desires and capabilities, increasing your chances of winning and accelerating the pace of development. If you constantly engage in battles, then do not forget to regularly replenish your treasury!

Team play in Forge of Empires significantly speeds up development: the community helps each other with useful tips, makes it easier to obtain resources and bonuses. And having learned all the intricacies, you can found your own alliance, uniting other players under its flag.

The desire to get units from older eras propels me further and further into new lands, going further and further into the depths of the map of continents. After receiving , the quests moved forward... I had to do a quest to spend 80 CO and that was the end of the modern quests. The next quest will get to a new map of the continent, giving some postmodern goods as a reward. So we have set foot on the path of postmodernity, having a town hall of the industrial era... Well, let's see how the map will be traversed, I think that we will be able to pass the first province in battle (using free modern units)
First of all, we were asked to reconnoiter both provinces, which we did with success.

It is very important when transitioning to postmodernity to decide on the opening of a new province. If you are a warrior and immediately plan to beat enemies and earn medals in this matter, then you are in the right direction. If you are a farmer and you need a new resource, then turn left.

The tactics were simple, I took the robbers and one free modern unit (motorized rifle), and drove him into a corner. And the robbers began to attack. The enemy discovered two robbers and began to extinguish the exposed units. But the robbers approached, beat and turned into motorized riflemen.

Usually the computer does not hit robbers, but prefers to kill ordinary units (on the continent map), but this is a different story. The motorized rifleman is out of reach and the artificial intelligence is forced to reveal the robbers)) This trick works not only in this place, but in many places on the Maps of the Continents.

Goods in Forge of Empires are a special resource needed to discover certain technologies and build Great Buildings. In addition, negotiations using goods can make it much easier for you to capture provinces and complete Guild Expeditions, eliminating the need to fight enemy units.

In each era, starting from Bronze, five new goods become available to the player. You should start producing goods only after you have captured a province with the appropriate raw materials on the Map of the continent, which will allow you to produce goods in larger volumes, spending a similar amount of coins, resources (“hammers”) and, most importantly, time.

Instead of building industrial buildings for a product without raw materials, it is much more profitable to produce in excess the product for which you have raw materials, and then exchange it on the market: thereby you will not only save space on the map, but also spend coins with resources much more rationally.

It is impossible to motivate industrial buildings.

How to protect goods from robbery

Robbery is an integral and interesting element of Forge of Empires, so it is not surprising that neighbors often rob each other. Goods are the scarcest resource in the FOE (with proper development of the city, coins and hammers accumulate in abundance), so if they defeat the defending army of the city, they will try to steal them. The easiest way to protect your goods if your city does not yet have enough buildings that increase protection is to play according to a schedule. We set production for 4 hours, noted the time on the computer, and after 240 minutes we went into the game to collect. In this case, the likelihood that your goods will be stolen will be minimized.

Alternative methods of obtaining goods

1. In Forge of Empires, there are three Great Structures (GWs) that produce industrial goods of the current era - the Tower of Babel, the Lighthouse of Alexandria and St. Mark's Cathedral. “Babylon” belongs to the Bronze Age, and Lighthouse to the Iron Age, so you can collect their drawings quite quickly.

The amount of goods produced per day depends on the level of the building. Unlike industrial buildings, aircraft cannot be robbed, so in the initial eras (before Modern) they are quite capable of replacing industrial buildings completely. However, starting with Modern, Great Buildings begin to produce only goods from past eras.

2. The fastest way to get goods in Forge of Empires is to rob your neighbors. In one successful raid you can capture up to 30 goods! Although it is not always possible to successfully guess the moment when the goods are already ready, and the neighbor has not yet had time to collect them.

3. A small amount of goods is also given for completing some quests.

4. When completing the Guild Expedition, you can also receive goods.

5. Some bonus buildings produce goods once a day. They can be robbed, but due to the fact that production is completed only once every 24 hours, timing the robbery will be quite difficult. Exactly what goods will be produced depends on the era of the building.

6. And finally, the necessary goods can be exchanged on the market. More on this below.

Trading on the FOE market

The Forge of Empires economic system includes a number of restrictions that must be taken into account in order to make exchanges as profitable as possible.

1. Only goods are used in trading on the market. You cannot buy/exchange anything for coins or “hammer” resources.
2. Trade is carried out only between friends, guildmates and neighbors. Other players on the server simply do not see your offers. To accept an offer on the market, you must spend one strategic point. Creating your own offers is free.
3. You can limit the players who will see your offer to only your guild members. Accepting offers put on the market by members of your guild does not require spending CO.
4. The ratio between goods offered and goods received should be in the range from 0.5 to 2.

Based on the last point, a nuance emerges that must be taken into account for proper trading in Forge of Empires. The fact is that the cost of producing goods in the game increases with each era. And if in the Bronze Age a unit of goods will cost you 20 coins and 20 resources, then in modern times its cost will already reach 640.

More details in the tables.

Cost of production per unit of goods in the presence of a source of raw materials

Fair exchange rates for goods from different eras

In this regard, it is simply not profitable to exchange goods that differ from each other by more than one era, for example, Porcelain (Colonial Period) for Marble (Bronze Age). Therefore, you should stock up on goods of the current era in advance, as they may be needed for the discovery of certain sciences and the construction of Great Structures.

Other factors also indirectly influence the cost of goods:

• the size of the area occupied by the building,
• the number of coins and resources needed for construction,
• the number of people employed in it, as well as the costs of public buildings and decoration necessary to ensure an appropriate level of happiness,
• the presence of a source of raw materials, which reduces the cost of production of goods by 5 times (usually not taken into account, since most players only keep industrial buildings with the availability of raw materials).

Finally, a few tips.

1. Be sure to keep several positions on the market with a favorable ratio for you. Many players accept exchange offers, even if they lose several units of goods. By doing this you will not only increase the number of your goods, but also save strategic points.
2. If you see a profitable offer on the market, be sure to accept it, even if you don’t need the product offered at the moment. If you don't want to spend CO on barter, trade with members of your guild.
3. When robbing, try to collect resources from industrial buildings. If they are not available, do not immediately rob industrial and residential buildings, but rather visit your neighbor after a while - perhaps by this time the goods will already be ready.
4. Analyze in advance the costs of discovering the sciences of a new era and prepare the required quantity of goods, taking into account its further costs.

Application. Products by era in the game Forge of Empires.

FORGE OF EMPIRES - WINDOW TO THE ONLINE FUTURE
If Peter I cut a window to Europe, then we can say about the developers of the game Forge of Empires that they cut a window to the future of online games. Among online strategies, Forge of Empires occupies a special place, as well as among the past projects of the studio that released it, InnoGames. Let us recall that her creative baggage includes the popular, still new Grepolis, and the older, but well-known and still firmly holding their place on the Internet, “Tribal War” and The West (Wild West).
It would seem that after Grepolis we can expect some similar game, only on a different theme. And suddenly, sweeping away all its old developments, InnoGames goes all in on the bank. E e Forge of Empires, which only in 2013 changed its status from “beta” to working mode, is a completely new type of game.
Although purely in terms of genre it cannot be called new. We could limit ourselves to a simple remark: this is a city-planning simulator with a military element and a change of eras.
But to say that means to say nothing.
The developers broke all the templates familiar in the world of online games, the essence of which is
so that in browser strategies everything is lightweight and everything is to a minimum: graphics, construction, war.
In Forge of Empares it's the other way around, everything is to the maximum.
Let's start with graphics. Let's call Forge of Empires the most beautiful online game of today and we won't be wrong. Although there are taxes - also the newest in this genre, Settlers online, perhaps
Age of Empires online. And yet the creation of InnoGames goes one step forward. She is three-dimensional.
It's animated. She is alive!

This is how we start - with a stone ax and with a fighting friend behind our backs

YOUR CITY IN FORGE OF EMPIRES
Like most strategy games, in Forge of Empires you will have three main activities: construction, science and war. Construction, development and constant redevelopment of the city is the main task of the game.
Science moves almost on its own, and war is a secondary matter. You don't even have to fight at all. Notice that I said it is possible, but not necessary. Because it’s interesting to fight here, and the war itself is beautiful in its own way, like everything in this game. In addition, everything suggests that the developers do not consider their project as something finished, but, on the contrary, something that is far from finished, and no one dares to say what the war will be like in the next versions of Forge of Empires.
However, the game is still more peaceful than military, which determines the participation of a large number of the fair sex among the players.
Our city-planning simulator called Forge of Empires develops not only in space, but also in time.
We are building our first village back in cave times. Then, studying the sciences that open up new buildings, we move on to the Bronze, Iron Age and Antiquity, then several stages of the Middle Ages, then the Colonial and Industrial Periods. And at the time of this review, they added another one - the Age of Progressivism (it would be easier to call it “the age of steam and electricity”) with its tanks, airships, rifled weapons and other products of advanced capitalism.
The main building in your city is the Town Hall. All others, except decorative ones, must be connected to it by roads, as in Settlers.
The population, of course, needs houses. There are two types of them in Forge of Empires. They are distinguished not only by appearance, but also by profitability. After all, houses are not only population, but also taxes.
One type of house allows you to collect taxes every hour (we click on each house manually - that’s the only way), others - once every few hours or even once a day.
What type of houses to build depends on how often you decide to be in the game. If you are constantly “hanging” on the Internet, then it is better to build houses with hourly tax collection. Usually these are different villas, mansions, houses for the rich. If you go to Forge of Empires a couple of times a day, then it is better to build “affordable” houses: slums, high-rise buildings, working-class neighborhoods. They are taxed once a day and bring in less money in total. However, the population is larger thanks to them, which is sometimes important if you want to fight a lot and build more military installations, which are very voracious in relation to human resources.
Let's repeat, houses provide your main basic resource - money. They always occupy 4 cells, regardless of the type, and “mature” themselves at the appointed time.
Another necessary resource is "production", represented by the number of "hammers" produced. There are a great variety of different industries in Forge of Empires. They can occupy quite large areas of precious territory and, unlike buildings, their production can be regulated by setting the period for “collecting” hammers from 5 minutes to 2 days. This was again done on the basis that the players are different, some may visit their city more often, others at best once a day, after work.
And what’s simply amazing is how the developers were able to find and recreate, of course in basic animation elements, buildings of various ancient industries: glass factories, cooperages, breweries, and watchmakers. All this variety makes your city in Forge of Epire look not like a dead map with scattered buildings, but a 3D masterpiece of animated computer graphics. It's a pity, the number of pedestrians on the streets is purely symbolic - but, probably, the browser simply cannot handle a street party.
Both houses and industries can work twice as productive if your neighbor stopped by your city and put a “star” on one of these buildings. According to the rules of the game, this is called “beautifying” the building, but the players themselves call the process “buff” (“buff!”)
With each era, more and more funds are needed to erect a new building, like gold,
and "hammers". Therefore, old buildings have to be demolished and new, more productive ones erected in their place.

When demolishing outdated buildings, the game treats you quite democratically, returning part of the funds, which is actually rare for this kind of game.



First, of course, we build by the sweat of our brow
DEVELOPMENT IN FORGE OF EMPIRES
But that is not all. Industrial buildings, in turn, are divided into 2 types.
The first ones are those that give the already familiar “hammers”. And, by the way, they cannot be exchanged for money and vice versa, which, frankly speaking, would not be bad.
The second production buildings provide goods: marble, resin, iron, glass and all that stuff. In high eras this would already be gunpowder, rubber, and various industrial products.
One such production produces 4 units of goods per day, and if there is a deposit of the corresponding raw materials on your territory (it opens on the strategic map) - 20 units.
The goods are needed mainly for the discovery of the next technology.
Example: to gain access to the technology "Houses with a mansard roof" (Colonial period), in addition to a significant number of hammers and coins, you will also need 100 basalt. For the Artillery Gun technology - 60 units of gunpowder.
The construction of all buildings in Forge of Empires takes a long time: on average 8-10 hours, or even more. Only at an early stage, which can be considered as an exploratory stage, can everything be built quickly and cheaply. But the further you go, the more expensive and longer it will take.
And you will need one more resource to rise from the cave fire to the sparkling heights of civilization. These are glasses. Points are a very special resource.
It cannot be obtained by any buildings. Mostly they run in on their own.
For one hour - one point is given. You can “earn” 24 points per day.
Glasses are used for studying science. In this, Forge of Empires completely copies Civilization, except that its technology tree is much longer, more branched and takes longer to study. And the number of transitional eras is greater; the Middle Ages alone has three periods. At the first stages, sciences such as the wheel, agriculture, woodworking and other primitives are researched very quickly; researching one such knowledge requires 3-5 points. In a couple of hours you leave the cave age, and in a few days you pass through the bronze age.
But then it gets more complicated. More and more science points are needed.
In the colonial era and later, one science will cost 50 - 70, or even 100 points. Each era includes on average 20 technologies. Just imagine that mastering any late era will take from a month to 40 days. Take a calculator and check. It turns out,
that glasses are time. You literally live through your eras, constantly building, rebuilding, expanding your city and slowly but steadily moving from the past to the future.
The only way to speed up the development process (except, of course, by investing donations, which we will discuss separately below) is to buy points. This can be done for regular game gold, obtained from houses (you can also use donations, but that’s a different story). The first point is quite cheap, only 250 coins, but each subsequent point will cost 50 gold more.

Then the count will go into thousands and even ten thousand or more per point.
Hammers + coins - provide raw materials. Raw materials + points - give technology.
To build raw materials factories and manufactories, you must first build
houses (labor and money), as well as industrial buildings that provide hammers. That's all.
Stop. No. Not all. Be patient. There are also Great Buildings (or Wonders of the World).
Each era has its own Great Buildings (hereinafter for brevity - BC): the Tower of Babel, Aachen Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, Castel del Monte - many different ones.
Of our national ones - St. Basil's Cathedral (aka the Kremlin).
Most of these buildings, except for the small Zeus, occupy a fair amount of precious city territory, but provide very strong bonuses: an increase in tax collection, or a sharp increase in the level of contentment - each BC has its own bonus.
You can't build them right away. First you need to collect the drawings. Piece by piece. The process, it should be noted, is quite exciting, as is the game as a whole. Drawings are obtained in two ways: by “buffing” any building corresponding to the era of the selected aircraft (house, production) or by looting this building. To do this, you need to defeat the troops defending the city,
and then the robbery option will become available.
This is how we build our city: we put up houses, production, we advance science.
However, it should be noted that the building area is limited and divided into squares. But these squares also need to be obtained. One by one. In each era there are technologies that allow you to increase several squares for construction.
They still need to be bought - for gold (or donations).
Another way to get a new square is to collect more medals.
Medals, otherwise seemingly useless, are obtained in two ways - by participating in the construction of Great Structures (other people's, not your own) or by winning battles.
And here we come to another important component of Forge of Empires. After all, this is not only a city-planning simulator, but also a strategy, which means you can fight here.

These are the buildings we are building here, and many others.

WAR IN FORGE OF EMPIRES
War in Forge of Empires is the most mysterious part of it. The only way to explain why it is like this and no other is that the game is still in a state of development, so the developers themselves don’t seem to know what it will be like in a couple of years and what kind of war there will be.
At present, the war here is not aimed at seizing the territory of a neighbor (which is a pity!).
There is a strategic map, but there are no player cities on it. The map is intended for quests, it is very large, with many areas, and even continents.
You start in Europe, and with the achievement of the era of colonialism, you can sail to America and fight there, conquering new regions.
Let's look at these cards first. It is inhabited by various hostile barons and kings (AI) and at the beginning of the game they are hidden by the fog of war. By fighting them, you gradually open up parts of the map. For conquering every piece of enemy territory, small rewards await you.
Mostly “hammers” or coins. At high levels you can get some diamonds (donations).
But the main thing is not these trophies. And the deposits that exist in the reclaimed areas.
This is the most important thing in your strategic quest.
To fight, dammit, you need an army. An army needs its own buildings: barracks, shooting ranges, stables, and for heavy equipment - workshops for throwing weapons or foundries for cannons. They are expensive and require a lot of people (houses) to maintain them.
Units change from era to era: primitive spearmen are replaced by legionnaires and archers, and they, in turn, are replaced by knights, crossbowmen, and feudal infantry.
Well, then in ascending order: trebuchets, bombards, the first cannons, musketeers.
With the Progressive Era, the last available at the time of review, comes armored cars and the first tanks, field artillery and rifle-wielding infantrymen. The guns gain the ability to dig in from fire from long distances - also an innovation, which speaks to the yet unrealized potential of the game.
The army is represented by all branches of the military, except for aviation, which may appear in the future. True, it is not clear how it will be implemented.
In the meantime, your army will consist of infantry, cavalry, riflemen and long-range units. Moreover, infantry is in turn divided into two types: light (bonus against cavalry and riflemen), and heavy (bonuses against light infantry and resistance to fire from long-range weapons: ballistas, trebuchets, bombards, etc.).
There is no leveling of units in the game. However, there are buildings, Great Structures, that affect the strength of units in battle. These are, in particular, Zeus, Aachen Cathedral, the Kremlin, Castel del Monte and others. Here they can be upgraded, up to 10 levels. If you manage to raise your military aircraft to level 10, then the attack and defense power of units in battle will double!
The graphics of the units, like everything else in the game, are magnificent, especially when it comes to large units (cavalry, guns, tanks). Infantry and archers are a little worse, since you can’t draw such small things smaller and not very well. But, let us repeat once again that today this is one of the few browser strategies with a living, animated army.
Like everything in the game, “almost without flaws,” the army in Forge of Empires has its cockroaches. Some units seem far-fetched to one or another historical period.
For example, the grenadiers of the colonial period look less like soldiers and more like butlers, plump, and for some reason wearing hats with a feather.
When researching rapid reaction troops, you get dragoons. On the icon they are with a flintlock pistol. And this is logical and historical. And in battle, our dragoon is an ordinary fast unit with melee weapons, hitting with a broadsword.
The trebuchet is simply a miracle of 3D graphics and animation.

But the same cannot be said about guns.
Only weapons from the industrial period (the times of the Blue and Gray War) are flawless. Beauty, and that's all. As for the cannons of earlier eras, the bombard and the field gun, both of them are more cartoonish than “real.” Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the troops here, in their appearance, gravitate towards historically accurate military miniatures. Especially good cavalry from the knightly times, in their shining armor.
At the beginning of the battle, troops are located on opposite edges of the map (automatically). There are always 8 of your units against 8 of the enemy. You can combine the composition of your army before the battle, and directly in battle, each unit is under your control.
An interesting question - who are we fighting with?
There are two types of opponents. The first are the AI ​​barons and kings, against whom we fight in order to capture the strategic map - they were mentioned above. Others are your server neighbors. There are several servers and the composition of neighbors changes periodically; usually strong, advanced players are added to equally strong ones, for balance.
Unfortunately, PVP battles have not yet been introduced.
Your opponent is always AI. To some extent, this can be explained by the fact that PVP requires both players to be online at the same time.
By attacking your neighbor, you must completely destroy his army. The AI ​​does not retreat, but if things go wrong, you can withdraw your troops.
There is an interesting point here - the AI ​​army (yours or your neighbor’s) defending the city, although it dies to the last on the battlefield, is immediately restored in its barracks.
How can I explain this better: only the attacking army suffers real losses.
The defender does not suffer losses - after the death of the defending army in the barracks of the owner of the defending city, not a single unit is lost.
I believe this was done because you can be attacked 20 times a day. And units are expensive. They are built in 2 hours, and in later eras, all 4 hours. In this case, you will be left without an army altogether and will not be able to defend yourself.
But be that as it may, if you win, you will have access to the enemy’s city, where you can rob any of the buildings of your choice, taking gold, “hammers” or resources for yourself.
Sometimes, when robbing a building, you will also be lucky enough to find part of the blueprint for a great structure.
Medals are awarded for victories, which is especially important. Having collected a certain number of medals, you can use them to buy a plot of new territory for your city.
This is what war is like in Forge of Empires.
Let's summarize its goals:
In the summer of 2013, the developers made a strong upgrade - they added an entire era as well as a new strategic map for conquest. But not only. Once in America, you discover that there is a civil war going on in the United States: “blues” against “grays”. Unlike the war in Europe, here you have a choice. You can side with either the Confederacy or the United States, which will determine your progress on the map of the American continent and your opponents.
And the last thing regarding the war. As at the moment when this review is being written, on the site
Forge of Empires has announced that it is planning to introduce a completely new military element - guild warfare. How this will be implemented is not known, and we still have to expand this section of the review.
In the meantime, it's time to explain what guilds are.

GUILDS IN FORGE OF EMPIRES.
WHY DO THEY?
In most online strategies, players unite in alliances, which fight among themselves. A lone player is doomed to defeat - usually the city is taken away from him and thereby knocked out of the game. Not so in Forge of Empires. There are no alliances here. There are Guilds. The very word “guild” suggests that this is a kind of trading partnership. Exactly. Almost all players in Forge of Empires are united in guilds. We say "virtually everyone" because there are enthusiasts who persistently play alone, right up to high times.
Indeed, they won’t be able to take the city away from you, but they’ll rob a couple of buildings.
Why do I need the Guild then? Needed! Advice - if you started playing Forge of Empires, liked the game and decided to stay in it, then first of all look for a guild, albeit a seedy one, with only a few players. Or better yet, a big one.
The advantages of the Guild are primarily in preferential trading on the market. We haven't talked about the market, so let's say a few words. The market is just that: a market. You buy and sell your goods there in order to collect the missing raw materials for researching new technologies and building aircraft. There is no market in this game. You will run there constantly: you need one thing, then another.
In the guild, transactions with fellow guild members (as they are called - fellow guild members, guild partners) transactions are made without spending points. Moreover, more developed players will help you, willingly selling goods from past eras that they practically no longer need. All Guilds also have a rule, a mandatory daily “buff” by guild members of each other.
In Forge of Empires, let us remind you, there is an option - you are given the opportunity to “ennoble” any building in any city of a neighbor or guild member once a day. That is, give it a “star”. Then this structure will work twice as productive. And therefore you will have more of everything - happiness, money, hammers. The exception is production that provides resources: metals, ore, glass, etc. They cannot be "ennobled". However, in this regard, being a member of the Guild is also beneficial - the members of the guild agree on who will produce what goods.
And they build only those production facilities for which there are deposits. And then they exchange these goods. Double benefit. There is no need to stupidly build all the raw materials buildings and space will be freed up, and there will be huge savings in resources.
So it turns out that the Guild is very important. You need to join it the sooner the better.

DONATES TO FORGE OF EMPIRES.
WHAT DO WE PAY FOR OR NOT PAY FOR!?
In online games, the topic of donations is the most important one. Actually, all online games are commercial projects. However, I wrote about this in sufficient detail in my introductory article to this section and I will not repeat the elementary truths.
Let's see how the donation system is implemented in Forge of Empires (here they are called “diamonds”). I’ll say right away - it’s very democratic. Perhaps more democratic than in any online strategy game. Here you can successfully play without investing any cash. As you move into the future
this will have almost no effect, except perhaps on the rating.
The best part is that in Forge of Empires you are not forced to impose any advisors (military, economic, etc.), these constant robbers of your wallet. For example, in Grepolis, which was created by the same studio InnoGames and which also developed Forge of Empires, you simply cannot do without advisers. Without advisors, all your indicators are 20% lower.
What should we pay for then? In principle, for nothing, if we just want to play and not chase the rating. The troops are all the same and are in no way tied to donations, just like the battles themselves. This alone eliminates the need to spend real money to make your units fight better.
Economy...
This is where donations play a role. For money you can buy various special buildings, both industrial and residential. Purchased production buildings (mill, bakery, tailor's workshop and others) bring twice, or even three times more “hammers” than mining buildings of the current era.
Donated residential buildings (and these are just houses) give more gold and population.
Both are important. With them you will develop faster, but not fundamentally.
Because there is still a hindrance - this is the speed of learning technologies, and it is measured according to the principle: 1 point - one hour. Yes, and here you can make a dash for diamonds, explore science “in one click.” Just pay. But the prices are simply crazy. Buying science from a late era, for example, will cost 3,000 - 4,000 diamonds (1,000 or more rubles). And in one era there are at least 20 technologies. Calculate how much you need to pay to make such a scientific leap. No one can afford this, except perhaps the son of some millionaire. But they play other games.
So no one buys science for diamonds, only buildings.
You can ask a simple question: who then spends donations and why? It must be said that Forge of Empires is a very rich game; it even sponsored a television series that was popular in the homeland of the developers.
Will explain. This is probably the only game where real money is paid for... ...beauty! The bonus buildings offered are so beautiful that you will want to see them in your kingdom. Until you build it, you won’t see it; in the menu of available buildings it is represented only by a schematic icon. Well, in the city it appears in all its 3D splendor.
Of course, they pay not only for beauty. There is one point that definitely requires investing money. Often very small. But you don’t have to invest here either, which is discussed below.
So, when you really need to pay and will have to, this is when constructing great buildings. Collecting drawings for them is a long and difficult task and requires a lot of diligence. After all, the blueprints drop out when you rob another player’s building or, conversely, if it’s a friend, you give him a “star” and give him a “buff.” Either part of the roof falls out, then a piece of the foundation, or just an empty “corner” of the drawing where there is nothing - but without it the drawing is not complete.
Very often, no matter how hard the player tries, it is not possible to assemble the entire drawing, even if you crack it. It happens that I have already collected the same pieces two or three times, there are repetitions, but one or two treasured ones are still missing.
And the neighbors, you see, have already erected the Lighthouse of Alexandria, or the Tower of Babel, or another miracle.
Then you spit on everything and buy some diamonds for real rubles and with their miraculous help you buy these very “lost” pieces of the drawing.
One such piece always costs, regardless of the era, 200 diamonds (approximately 100 - 150 rubles).
Further, the great structure itself does not appear immediately. First you need to collect a lot of different resources (the higher the era, the more and more expensive).
The process again requires time and diligence. It won't take a day or two.

But you can... That's right, you guessed it, buy what's missing with magic diamonds - and start building your Miracle. But we argued above that you can do without these investments.
Yes. Right. If at all... don’t build an aircraft. Let's say they give various bonuses, but, firstly, they take up quite a lot of space on the map, and secondly, the same bonuses can be obtained through ordinary non-donated buildings. For example, Notre Dame Cathedral occupies 24 cells (6x4) and gives 1100 happiness. This is, of course, good. However, 2 trading company buildings (colonial period), built with ordinary hammers and coins, occupy 3x4 cells each and in total the same 24 as the Cathedral, and both together give 1800 happiness. If they are also “ennobled” with stars, then these same two buildings will give 3600 happiness.
It turns out that we can do without Notre Dame Cathedral and other suns.
First, if the game captivates you, be prepared that you will still have to pay. Not a lot, but you will. You yourself will want to at some point. But don’t rush to invest real money in the first building you like. There are a lot of them already on the first level.
The temptation, as they say, is great. Already in the Bronze Age, the first stage of your development, the ancient theater in particular is available. It gives a lot of happiness, but quickly becomes outdated, just like the Colosseum, in the Ancient era.
Already during the transition to the Middle Ages, they look rather awkward in relation to other buildings. I want to tear them down. In addition, by that time there will be free analogues that take up less space.
But it's a pity...
So these relics of past centuries will flaunt in your miracle city, constantly looking towards the future. Although sooner or later they will begin to enrage you and you will angrily turn them into dust. Unlike the demolition of ordinary buildings, which, when destroyed, return you a decent part of the resources, up to 1/5, when destroying paid buildings, not a penny is returned to you.
Hence the advice - save your money for higher ages. For example, until the Late Middle Ages and Colonial era. Their buildings in a modern city may well fit into the ensemble as ancient monuments. And their bonus will be quite significant even in modern times. And the passage of the first eras up to the middle of the Middle Ages is quite fast and easy. Take your time with donations at this stage.
Next tip. Do not rush to buy the missing drawings of Great Buildings of early eras. They are built by all and sundry, they all have the same thing: Zeus, the Tower of Babel, the Lighthouse from Antiquity and the Aachen Cathedral from the Early Middle Ages. Moreover, the higher the age, the more often drawings appear for earlier buildings. Being in the High Middle Ages, you will collect drawings for Zeus much faster than being in Antiquity.
The first time I strongly recommend spending 600 diamonds is when you enter the Early Middle Ages. There will be the only technology in the entire game that is available only for donations - “Multi-story building” - (all others are unlocked for regular resources). And, by the way, it is not mandatory. Typically in Forge of Empires, paid buildings are purchased individually, from 300 to 1000 diamonds per unit. "Multi-storey building" is an exception. By paying for this technology for 600 diamonds, you get the opportunity to build medieval multi-story buildings (very beautiful, like everything else in the game), in unlimited quantities. They are erected in one click and are much more profitable than all other residential buildings of this period. And at least two more eras remain profitable.
Of all the donated buildings, it is more profitable to invest not in “houses”, but in buildings that lift the spirits of your residents. But only in large ones, not single-celled (decor).
Such as the Palace, Circus and a number of others. In second place in importance are industrial buildings that provide “hammers”. They retain their value for several eras. It is better to buy houses during the period of Colonialism, they will no longer have to be demolished, and besides, at this stage the role of money will sharply increase compared to “hammers”.
And always carefully complete all game quests - among them there are those that give you diamonds for completing them. There are also lotteries for Christmas, Easter and the Summer event, where diamonds are given as a prize. With this alone, you can collect quite a decent stash - up to 1000 diamonds, without investing real money.
Precisely because the game allows you to play without any damage without investing any money, donations in Forge of Emires are quite expensive, more expensive than in other games.
For complete information on donations and their prices, see the screenshot.

A SPOON OF RASPBERRY IN A BARREL WITH HONEY
The debriefing, that is, of the Forge of Empires game turned out to be quite impressive. At the end of the day, let's give a little criticism. As Comrade Shakespeare used to say - not all is well in the kingdom of Denmark - so there are flaws in Forge of Empires. Or rather, nonsense. Let's take the technology tree and the goods needed to open them. It seems that sometimes they were invented due to a lack of literacy or an excess of beer drunk that day. Here is an example - the mining of emeralds began in Antiquity, and gold in the Middle Ages.
It would seem that what could be more expensive? These days, emeralds and gold are only becoming more expensive. In Forge of Empires, these are the most common goods and, after passing the era where they were mined, they quickly depreciate in value. If in the era of steam gold is still somehow in demand, then no one needs emeralds, except to feed them to the still undeveloped young members of the guild. The value of marble is clear. But why was talc powder suddenly so important in the Late Middle Ages? I was not too lazy to surf the Internet. It turned out that talc is used mainly in two areas - modern baby powders and ceramics. Well, chemists probably know more. No matter how much I scratched my head, I did not remember a single mention of the importance of talc in books on the history of the Middle Ages. Among the goods there are not many whose presence in different eras really mattered: bronze, cast iron, cloth, wool, spices - this series is long and interesting. For example, the set of resources required to open the “Rapid Reaction Troops” technology (the most common dragoons) requires 40 units of coffee and 50 red copper. Well, with copper it’s clear - it can be used for buttons and buckles. But why coffee? So that cavalrymen get adrenaline pumping and ride faster?
While Forge of Empires is clearly positioned as the most beautiful (or one of the most beautiful) online games, it has its ugly ducklings. There are buildings that only irritate the eye and there is a desire to never put them on the map - a “cemetery” terrible in its ugliness (and there are beautiful cemeteries!), a tiny guillotine and a gallows, an old tower that doesn’t fit into anything - and other “horror films” " are available.
The war, as already mentioned, is being finalized. However, the opportunity to attack a neighbor is only
Units of high eras are expensive, the death of 2 or 3 of them does not justify any robbery, how much can you take from one building? And the damage to the enemy is meager.
That is why interest in war is fading; it is more profitable to build peaceful buildings than barracks, stables and artillery workshops.
And yet, no matter how much you nitpick, more than 10,000,000 people already play Forge of Empires.
And this alone suggests that the leap into the future of online games has been a success. Although not without its flaws.

PART II - I AM A ROBOT!
Continuation: about new eras, the guild war system, units and the rest - HERE