Evony is a massively multiplayer online real time strategy game (MMORTS for short). Like many other games of that sort, it allows you to build your own villages and turn them into great castles. By improving your production, researching new technologies and training soldiers and war machines you can become the real lord of your area.
It is without costs to play the game, but it is possible for players to get some advantages by purchasing cents (game credits). This will allow you to purchase items to speed up buildings, increase production and much more. However it is by no means needed to buy cents to do good. I am currently ranked 1180 out of 98310 players on my server and I have only bought 50 game coins - which I actually managed to waste pretty thoroughly, so you can do good without them.
The much discussed ads
The only knowledge of Evony is for many the busty women advertising for the game. This has nothing to do with the game though and to be honest I, as well as many others, find that the ads are misplaced. The game has so many positive features to be highlighted that there shouldn't be any need for that kind of ads. I will not be discussing these ads any more, as it has been done in enough other places.
The game
To give you an introduction to the game I'm going to take you through some of my personal experiences since I started this game just 2 weeks ago. Because I haven't played for a longer time it is obvious that I cannot engulf all the aspects of the game, but with my fast climbing of ranks and increasing experience I will give it my best shot!
The game is played in real time, which means that everything keeps working even when your computer is shut down. It also means that Evony has build and research times that are rather long for the high level buildings to make the game more balanced, since if buildings were very fast to build the players spending the most online time would get too big an edge. As a result you shouldn't play this game if you aren't patient. Some things will take a long time, but there are so many different actions to be done parallel so you won't be wasting much of your online time. And if you find that you have waiting times to fill, the Evony forum has a massive active community. The forum is also the place to look for guides for the game - they will help you a lot.
The Very Beginning
To register at the game you have to visit www.evony.com, although if you want to do me a favor you can also register via my personal link.
When registered you enter a world graphically rather similar to the world of Age of Empires II. The game takes place in medieval times. Starting off, you have a small village with 50 population and no buildings except for a town hall. As a newcomer you are presented with a massive collection of quests that you can easily follow to evolve quickly. Completing each of these quest will not only introduce you to a new part of the game but also yield a reward so they are definitively worth doing.
The quests aren't always enough guidance, so it should be a good idea to look for an alliance rather fast. That way you can share your experience with the game and get advice from more experience players. Being in an alliance also supplies some protection as some players are less likely to attack people in an alliance, especially if your alliance is big and has several strong experienced players you are not very likely to be attacked.
The buildings
The buildings available in this game are pretty much the same as you would encounter in many other games of this type. This includes cottages to boost your population, barracks for building troops and war machines, walls for building fortifications to help against oncoming enemies and an academy needed to research new technologies just to mention some of them. All buildings have a maximum level of 10.
The technologies
Another important part of the game is the various technologies. These vary from improvements to your production over boosting your army's attack value to decreasing construction times on buildings and fortifications. It is important to get your techs up when you're getting your city organized a bit, because they can be the difference between being defeating and standing victorious after a grand battle. Like the buildings all the techs has a maximum level of 10.
Player vs. Player
Basically this is a PvP game. You are competing with the other players to be the best and this is done most effectively by destroying their armies and stealing their resources. As a beginner you are granted 7 days of beginner's protection to give you time to prepare for the battlefields. If you feel strong enough to cope with the other players you can upgrade your town hall to level 5, thus leaving beginner’s protection.
Battle mechanics
The games battle mechanics are extremely complex and ever-changing. It is reserved for the most experienced players to understand more than half of what influences the outcome of a combat, but by reading some guides on the forum and using the rally spot’s exercise option you should get the gist of it.
Even though the game has a lot of PvP options many attacks are done against neutral valleys and NPCs (Non-Player Characters). If you conquer a valley it can boost your production of a certain type of resources. NPCs are mostly attacked to obtain resources to feed the army as it is growing. NPCs hold a lot of food and are able to free your mind from the concern of feeding your army.
Heroes
This game also features the aspect of heroes. A hero in Evony has three base stats: Politics, attack and intelligence. One of these can be appointed mayor in each of your cities. You should choose your mayor depending on what stats it has.
Politics boosts city production and lowers construction time of both buildings and fortifications.
Attack lowers the training time of troops. Furthermore it is also part of the complex battle mechanism when a hero is involved in battles. High attack is a key part of winning big fights.
Intelligence lowers the research time of technologies. This can be very useful as a good intelligence hero as a mayor can be the difference between spending 300 hours researching level 10 archery for instance and a 150 hour research time. It is discussed if intelligence has any effect on the aspect of scouting, I will neither confirm nor deny this.
Building more cities
You start off with only one city but you are of course interested in expanding your kingdom. This is done by being promoted. To be promoted you need to obtain a certain amount of gold, prestige (a way of ranking people, earned with every evolvement made in your cities) and last but not least medals. Medals can be acquired by three different methods: You can buy them with game cents, you can win them off the wheel of fortune with the daily amulet you are awarded or you can obtain them by attacking valleys and NPCs. The medals needed to be promoted to the title of Knight, which is needed for two cities, is awarded in two packages you receive when you register. The quests will guide you on how to open them. Getting past two cities can be a PITA though. Medals are hard to come by, especially on the newer servers, so either you have to be patient or you have to pay to advance to city number three.
Graphics
The graphics in this game is great in my opinion considering it is an online browser game. I have yet to see a game of this type matching these graphics. When logged in your game window is divided into three parts: Town, city and map.
Town provides a view of the center of your village. This is the place to build all the buildings except for the ones providing resource production they’re built in the city-view. The third part is the map, where you can see your neighboring players and examine the valleys close to you to find the one you need.
Here is a few examples of how the game looks from the different tabs:
Pros and cons
Like any other game this both has its pros and cons.
On the positive side the game you are able to do well in the game without paying a single cent. The game is addictive, fun and the social parts of the game are highly valued by all the players, making it a great game on the social side. The game is very complex and players have an opportunity to really engulf themselves in figuring out how everything works. This is a fun and intriguing journey for those who wish to travel down that road. On the other hand the game is also fun and playable if you only want to login a time or two a day – you can still be able to make a difference.
On the negative side it is very similar to many other games and has borrowed many elements from various other games, Age of Empires II for example. Also it has received a lot of negative publicity (if such a thing exist, some might say that there isn’t good and bad PR, there is more or less PR) due to its almost pornographic advertisements. Even though I haven’t experienced it myself I have heard that bug-fixing isn’t all that good and from personal experience I can also add that servers aren’t that stable, you are likely to get kicked off from time to time, but it is a minor problem in my opinion. Last thing I want to add to the cons is that game cents are extreme costly compared to other games. Take Travian for example, here you can buy 600 gold coins for 19.99 €, this should be enough for a month or more for the average player, might even last a couple of months. In Evony spending the equivalent amount of money might help you get the medals for the next town, but it won’t get you much further. So if you feel like paying for the game to get advantages, you’re in for some expensive business. This is a pro for the game too though, since it balances the contest between non-payers and payers.
Everything taken into consideration I would rate the game 8.5/10. It lacks a little bit originality and still needs some fine tuning, but considering the game was only fully launched in May it is doing quite well. Definitively a game worth playing!