March of Empires

March of Empires (also called MoE) is a MMORTS video game developed by the French video game developer and publisher Gameloft released in 2015. It is available as a freemium game in the Windows Store, Play Store and App Store.

Game Setting

The game is grouped in fictional medieaval realms (servers), which present themselves as islands located in a vast sea. Each island or kingdom, is populated by an ever-growing number of players, each represented by a castle. The main goal is to develop your own city by constructing and enhancing buildings, troops, and researching new technologies.

In every kingdom there is a seat for an emperor, that is, a player who was able to acquire that role through conquests and power. Once instated, the one player can emanate laws for the kingdom, which other players will have to follow, the emperor is surrounded by 5 seats, a board formed by other players who have similarily won their role and who can offer advice or oppose the sovereign.

Each players can join alliances and progress the game by carrying out missions, assignments and other processes, such as research and construction. This creates might, a point-index each player has, which indicates their strength.

Assault Modes:

• Attack: 1-VS-1 - sending troops from ones castle to that of the opponent
• Rally: A grouped attack carried out with the help of other alliance members against a specific target. It features a timer which allows others to join. The main goal is the weakening of a stronger enemy.
• Scout: Depending on ones skills and power there are different ways to explore and identify the presence of troops, resources and defenses within the target castle

Factions

At the beginning of the game, the player chooses which faction among 3 he wants to belong to:

• King Faction, Blue Coat of Arms: "mighty knights with iron armor and swordmasters"
• Sultan's faction, yellow coat of arms: "furious warriors with spears, guardians of knowledge of the past"
• Tsar faction, red coat of arms: "heroic knights accustomed to living and dying on their horsemen"

The choice determines the look of of different unit types, troops and buildings. More than just looks one can notice suttle differences in bonuses for troops, resources and city development.

Territories and alliances

Players can gather in alliances, which are larger groups united "under the same flag" with up to 100 members. They may attack other alliances, enemies or neutral entities and extend their power by claiming territory. In the kingdom capitals determine the territory, some will be already in the hands of alliances, others in the hands of single players or the CPU, so considered neutral. An alliance, will be able to conquer capitals at their respective level, then further building up the region to gain bonuses. The following buildings can be developed in claimed territory:

• Crafting guild
• Holy Site
• Macons' guild
• Stables
• Trading Post
• Vault
• Watchtower

Resources and Production

At the beginning, each player has a good amount of resources and production thereof available. Though needs increase as the game progresses. Resources are stored in the warehouse, a part will be protected from attacks by other players, based on the level of the store and additional factors.

• Gold: No real in-game resource and to be spent carefully as it is a rarity. It can only be obtained by completing assignments and missions little at a time or in quantity through payment of real currency.
• Silver: Gained through taxation from homes. It's present in almost all game expenses, though not used for building development. It is used for troop training or research development.
• Food: Used for troop maintenance, construction and research; produced on farms near the castle wall.
• Wood: Used for buildings and troop training; produced by sawmills near the castle walls.
• Stone: Used for buildings and troop training; produced in stone quarries near the castle wall.
• Iron: Used for buildings and troop training; produced in iron mines near the castle wall.

It is possible to gain resources, with the exception of gold, by sending troops to resource tiles on the world map. These are available to all players and when depleted respawn at random locations.

Troops and training

All regular troops are trained in the barracks inside the castle. At higher levels you gain access to special buildings to recruit unique and stronger troops depending on the chosen faction. The following categories are available in the common barracks:

• Swordsmen: skilled against spearmen, but weak against cavalry (mounted units)
• Spearmen: skilled against the cavalry, but weak against the swordsmen
• Mounted units: skilled against swordsmen, but weak against spearmen
• Ranged units: archers and skirmish units, skilled against all troops in ranged attacks, to a lesser extent against knights, but week in melee struggles
• Siege units: strong against castle defenses, but weak against all other unit categories

Each unit category has 5 strength levels or tiers. Each subsequent tier can be reached with a lot of research & development and additional resources. Healing of tier-1 troops is instant where as higher tiers need time.

Buildings and constructions

The game gives the opportunity to enlarge and expand the city. By investing into the castle one gains power and is able to unlock castle areas, which are called districts, they are available in the following order:

• Main District: available from the beginning of the game;
• Academy District: available at castle level 5, unlocks the research ability
• Temple District: available at castle level 7, unlocks the healing ability
• Royal Barracks District: available at castle level 15, unlocks training of stronger faction based troops
• District of Secrets: available at castle level 20, unlocks training spies etc. for secret activities

Special Features and Trivia

March of Empires is a visibly multi-language game. It is translated into 16 different languages to which one can switch to in-game via the settings. The languages are: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Turkish and Arabic. To simplify communication by default all communication / chats (global, alliance, officer's lounge, union) are auto-translated into the chosen language.

One realm has the size of 2^9^2 = 262'144 tiles. Realms are merged to keep the game active and new realms (servers) are setup for fresh players.

Teleportation is possible inside the realm (precise, homeland or random relocation). The player can also switch realms himself, as long as his "castle level" is not beyond 7. This allows the creation of "jumpers" which are a type of rogue class, which are specifically targeted by high "castle level" players.

To lighten the game there are special events with hard to beat opponents, "Realm vs Realm" etc. - Alliance and Solo Events constantly change based on a timer. Solo events are grouped by castle level (difficulty): Ranges 1-10 / 11-20 / 21-30.

A guided mode exists with the quests feature for "City Project" and "Daily Quests". Additionaly there are "Adventures" quests and a (Royal-) Lottery mini-games to gain rare resources.

External links

• Official website