Introduction:
Thousands of games suck up countless hours. Some feel like a waste of time because they feel like they’re going nowhere (i.e. Island Experiment), while others keep things interesting by providing long term and short term challenges. I’ve not played Civilizations, though I’m told it’s similar to Forge of Empires.
Rating: 4.5/5
It’s not perfect. Plundering is the single most annoying aspect of the game. My personal policy is to fight people for the tournament points but not bother plundering. You don’t need the goods if you build a few resource factories. It mostly just ticks your neighbors off.
Taverns:
Cool new edition (within the last year or so) to the game. You get to visit the taverns of your friends. When they visit your tavern, you earn silver. This silver can be spent on bonuses. The single most useful thing you can buy is a 4th round for negotiations. The second most useful item I’ve found is the City Shield. You get new neighbors every two weeks or so, but it’s inevitable that sometimes you’re going to be paired with those super-annoying people who have all day to fight and plunder people.
Neighbors:
The majority of people in the game are there for fun and don’t bother others. Like in real life, exceptions to this exist. Sometimes, it helps if you kindly ask them to stop plundering you. Other times, it makes matters worse because they’re miserable, vindictive human beings. Go with the flow. Use a City Shield as needed but also do things like schedule when you can collect your goods the second they pop up.
Guild Expeditions:
One of the best aspects of the game is the ability to join a guild and participate in Guild Expeditions. Every week, starting on Tuesday at 8:00 AM server time GE starts. I fight my way as far as I can. Typically, that means the middle of the third round. A few months ago, the game designers added a harder 4th level with better rewards. After that, I negotiate.
How to Win at GE Negotiations:
Step 1: Go to your tavern and activate the 15 minute 4th turn. It’s third down on the left in the Resources Boost tab of the Tavern Shop. (You could get 30 minutes, but 15 is typically plenty. Remember, you only get 8 turns unless you win some as prizes.)
Step 2: Use process of elimination. By that, I mean choose everything. If you have 10 things to test, do the top five and the bottom five. Your goal here is to find out what’s NOT a choice. Every wrong guess will be marked with red. Every correct guess will be green, and every correct item in the wrong slot will be yellow. These are what you’re looking for.
Step 3: Once you know what is a part of the negotiation for that round, randomly place the yellow ones in slots that are different from the one they showed up in yellow. Here’s where you want them to turn green.
Step 4: Use process of elimination to continue placing the remaining yellow ones into new slots. If you do this well and get a little lucky, you will be able to guess a few of them then easily place the remaining ones.
Step 5: If you have to, use 10 diamonds to get a 5th round of guesses only if you’re reasonably certain that you can get it in that last round.
Notes about Negotiations:
- If you happen to hit 3 of the green ones in your first random guess, you might want to cut your losses and start over. (It’s really difficult to do process of elimination with only two slots available to test new items.)
- Diamonds initially can cost some real world money, but now with GE, you should be able to win enough at random through the rounds you can fight through to at least get a start. I’ve never gone negative overall because several of the higher rounds offer 50 or 100 diamonds as the prize.
- Wait and start this method when you have 7 or 8 attempts so you can get the farthest. With the limited number of attempts, there’s usually no reason to go for the 30 minutes.
Conclusion:
It’s a game. Have fun. Enjoy yourself. Be nice to people.
Associate links to follow…
Amazon Prime
Free Kindle Reading App
Audible – If you buy some of my audiobooks with your first credits, I’ll pay the first month’s bill (beyond the free ones). (Terms and conditions: must have proof of purchasing my books, like a screenshot. Will also have to have paypal.)