Evony – what a wonderful game
So, I’ve been playing a new game called Evony lately. This game is an excellent, free, online game that’s great for even the most casual player. The only requirement is an internet connection and flash (which 99% of computers already have). The gameplay mechanics are time based, meaning that every action has a set amount of real world time that the action will take. What this means for the casual player is that one can log in, start building something, start some research, send off a few attacks, and know that since it’ll take 45 minutes (for example) to do all those things, they can go about their day knowing that they’re not missing out on something because they aren’t sitting in front of the computer all day long! Casual gamers will find this aspect of Evony very appealing.
What else is great about Evony? Well for one, it’s massively multiplayer. At any given time, there are thousands of players on your server, all attacking eachother’s cities, resource plots, and generally having a great time doing it. Joining an alliance gives players a large group of friends to talk strategy with, get help from (you can reinforce eachother’s cities for instance), and when waiting for more resources to build up, alliance chat makes for some very fun conversation. Due to the generally slow pace of the game, the social aspect becomes much more pronounced, lending the game more of an us-against-them feel than a me-against-the-computer one.
So, now that I’ve talked a little about what Evony is and why it’s so fun, let me give you a rundown of some things I learned early on that should help new players get started right:
- Use your beginner’s protection – When each player starts, they have a 7 day grace period during which they cannot attack or be attacked. You should plan to spend a large amount of time playing for your first few days, as build times will be very low at the beginning and you’ll have the chance to build up resources very quickly. Resource plots are vital to the early game, build sawmills, quarrys, iron mines, and farms up to a pretty good level within the first day.
- Keep your Town Hall below level 5 – During beginner’s protection, if you get your Town Hall above level 4, you will no longer be protected. That protection period is vital!
- Get your friends to play Evony – If you can get your friends to start playing at the same time you do, you’ll all learn more in the process. I know that my friends have been able to answer questions I had sooner than I would have been able to find out on my own. Plus it’s fun to "talk shop" when you’re out and about.
- Join an alliance – Many alliances will not take players until they hit a certain level of prestige, but sometimes just being active daily is enough. Send mail to some of your neighbors and see if they’re looking for people to join with them!
- Buy and sell on the market – When you start getting 250k resources and your build queues are full, you should think about buying and selling on the market. Any time the market has a difference between the highest bid and the lowest offer, there’s room to make some extra gold. If you have patience, you can make a couple million gold a day.
- Capture valleys early – Low level valleys are easy to take with a few hundred archers and will greatly increase your resource production. In the first few days, you should have all 4 valleys available to you taken up. I personally prefer forests because of how much lumber will sell for in the market, but you can always abandon a valley and take another if you need to refocus your resource production.
- Keep your mayor’s politics high – The higher your mayor’s politics, the more bonus to resource production you’ll get and the less time it will take to build structures.
- Use your free speedup – The speedup button doesn’t use any items if the base build time of the structure is less than 5 minutes. On your first day, most structures will take less than 5 minutes to build. Free speedups will greatly increase the rate at which you strengthen your town.
So, now that you have some good tips to start out with, go play evony! You can find me on Server 50, my player name is RedKrieg.
Have fun!
