Evony Online Review

Alright I’ll come right out and admit it, the skin in the ads drew me in. It’s hard not to notice them when your cruising the internet. Intensely hot (would they be maidens? or wenches?) beckoning you, calling you “my lord” etc and so forth, it’s like crack-cocaine to the geek in his natural enviroment. Hell they only way they could make it more appealing ad wise is the strategic use of elves to judge by World of Warcraft’s success.

In the end I watched my buddy play a little so I saddled up, (donned my armor? strapped on my sword? swashed my buckle? proper phraseology guide to the editor’s booth please) and taking the plume de nom of Aligheri I entered the online realm of Evony (shout out to server 61) to rule my little nation state of “Paradise” (if you get the joke between the name of my city and the name of my lord you officially get to be awesome) and then I proceeded to wait.

Don’t get me wrong for the first two days this game requires some serious engagement on your part if you want to get off the starting line in a healthy manner. You have 7 days protection where people can’t crush you and it’s in your best interest to get tough and be ready to rock before that 7 day period ends. However there’s a limit to how much you can do, and not because of any level cap or anything crazy like that. There’s literally not enough time once you start getting higher in the tech tree and building levels.

Each tech and building has a preset “build” or “research” time as well as a built in cost of the four basic resources. Food, Lumber, Stone and Iron. Gold is collected from taxation of your citizens and by selling excess resources on the market and is used to pay your Heros and to fund research at the academy. The four primary resources are retrieved by your people at the fields, saw mills, quarrys and mines that you build for them to work at. Keep an eye on your worker needs not out striping your actual population though.

Then comes the fun stuff, combat. Combat’s a fairly simple game based on scouting and attack other players and NPC opponents. Send in some scouts to see what the enemy has defending his fortress and if you think you have the numbers of swordsmen, archers, cavalry and siege weapons to fuck his world all the way up you muster your men, place a hero in command and send them off to do battle. If you win you’ll either plunder resources and gold from your opponent or even take over his city, but if you lose you’ll find yourself open to a retaliatory attack.

On the defense in addition to your troops you have the ability to fortify your walls with archer’s towers, traps, roll logs, and of course defensive artillery in the form of trebuchets (remember the things the guys in Gondor hurled huge rocks at Sauron’s army with from the walls of Gondor in return of the king? yeah those are trebuchets*)

Over all the game is fairly quick to pick up and once your past a certain point is very easy to manage. The strategy is involved but with the waiting required to get things done I’d recommend selecting a good book to read with occasional checks on managing your little empire.

The nice thing about being king is that you have  people to do it for you. Your chosen hero can even act as mayor. So long as nothing new need to be built or researched, no new troops need to be trained, defenses constructed. Your populace is perfectly able to handle the status quo which is great in the event of little things like real life ducking in and messing with your vital internet centered schedule.

Social wise it’s a lot like World of Warcraft though your ability to speak in the general chat is limited by the number of “Speakers” you have, run out of speakers no more talking in general. I find that to be a wonderful way to sort out the retard population. Of course chat in the alliance (i.e. guild) channel is free however, so if you have morons there I’m afraid your stuck with them. In the end the user base is the usual mix of the intelligent, the moronic and those of us   who are sick to death of both ends of the spectrum. I’ve met some awesome friends on Evony as well as some colossal douches. So like all internet social activities take it with a grain of salt.

Bottom line:
4-5 stars. Free doesn’t get any better than this ladies and gentlemen and there’s plenty of games you’d have to pay for that do a whole lot worse than Evony. It’s simple but it’s simplicity is what makes it so much fun. At least give it a shot folks, it’s not like it costs you anything.

Last Word:
men (and similarly interested ladies) beware, those comely vixens in the ads? I still havent seen them in the game, blatant false advertising.

Quote of the Post:
Diplomacy is the art of saying “Nice doggie” until you can find a rock.
Will Rogers