Castle Age

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Castle Age - Browser Game

Developer(s)	Sascha Wirth
Engine	PHP 5, MySQL 5, JavaScript, PERL
Release date(s)	[September 2005]
Genre(s)	Browser Based, Medieval, Fantasy, Realtime Strategy MMORTS
Mode(s)
Platform(s)	Server: Linux Client: Platform independent
System requirements	Web Browser

1 Introduction
2 The Gameplay
3 Notable Features
4 Current Developments
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Introduction

Castle Age is a browser based MMORTS, which means it is played from within a web browser and thousands of players worldwide play on the same server. It takes place in a medieval fantasy land. Objectives are to construct buildings, produce goods, recruit troops and upgrade them in strength to attack enemies and to plunder their ressources. Players can also group together and form empires and wage wars against other players or empires. The game is currently in open beta. It currently has over 7000 registered users, although many can be presumed to be inactive. At any given time, roughly 100-150 users are online.

[edit] The Gameplay

Players start with a tiny kingdom, protected by a single keep. To become a prospering nation, players have to build up a well balanced economy that consists of sawmills, quarries and mines. Like in reality the resources are not evenly distributed across the land. Therefore, one goal is to place mines and farms strategically. A market place allows players to trade with other kingdoms.

Building a forge allows players to upgrade their troops. Players upgrade their keeps to massive castles and train soldiers to defend their kingdom or to attack their neighbours.

After an initial period of peaceful expansion, players are forced to conquer other players' keeps to further expand their lands. This makes conflict a constant factor in the game.

Established kingdoms often vastly overpower newer players. This has lead to the formation of large empires, partially to protect weaker players but also to larger, assault-oriented empires fighting for dominance. Diplomacy plays a large role in gameplay.

[edit] Notable Features

A graphical map of all kingdoms.
A graphical minimap with kingdom and empire mode and the option to zoom in and out.
Customizable User-rights mangement for empires (clans/guilds).
Forum integration of all players.
Private empire forums.
5 resource types.
10 different buildings.
8 different units. Some unit types have special abilities.
High scores in five different categories.

The game has a very active community.

[edit] Current Developments

The game is currently in an extended BETA phase and already 100% playable.

The game is also on the brink of a complete rewrite to massivly improve the existing features, to make it WEB 2.0 ready and to excell existing browser game standards.

The coming version will include the following features: