Without a good economy, your city will struggle, so you always need to know what are the best moves each time. Your capital city is the most important part of the game though and it will require you to have a real handle on your economy. This will involve working with a companion to complete quests and the like. You will spend the majority of time working on your capital city but there are other things you can do to pass the time too. This, like other types of RTS games, involves constructing buildings, collecting resources, amassing an army, upgrading weapons, taking on quests and taking part in PvP options. You then are literally thrown right in to building up your capital city from scratch. Once you start the game up, the first task for you to do is to choose from one of the two civilizations to represent. Many will disagree with the game drifting away from a detailed look to something a lot more cartoon based, though others may be able to look past it. If you played the off the shelf version of Age of Empires, the first thing that you will notice with the free to play version is the complete change in artistic style. The game puts players in control of ancient empires such as the Greeks and Egyptians and has players competing against each other in a race for resources and supremacy. In addition to the more inviting payment model, Gas Powered Games has released a new team-based multiplayer mode for level 40 players called Alliance Wars.Īs an added bonus, current players have been given 500 Empire Points - the game's currency - as a gift, while new accounts are allotted 100.Įurogamer's Rich Stanton gave Age of Empires Online a 7/10 in his review stating, 'although its new structure spreads it a little thin, there's still a fine strategy game underneath it all.Age of Empires Online is a free to play browser MMORTS that was brought to us by Microsoft Studios, finally bringing the off the shelf brand to the free to play audience. fewer pay walls and more ways for players to experience this legendary franchise,' explained founder and CEO of Gas Powered Games, Chris Taylor. 'With Empire Points and this true free-to-play business model, we are giving players what they have repeatedly asked for.

Now all content is available either through in-game purchases or Steam micro-transactions. 'We probably turned off a lot of players who would've kept playing had they been given the option to earn a Premium Civilization,' explained systems design lead Eric Williamson in an interview with PC Gamer. Previously the game was only 'free to try.' The base game didn't cost anything to sample, but most of the higher tier content couldn't be attained purely through play.

Age of Empires Online is now entirely free-to-play, developer Gas Powered Games has announced.

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