Forge of Empires Pre-Closed Beta Preview

InnoGames is an established publisher when it comes to browser-based strategy games, hosting both Tribal Wars and Grepolis. This year, Innogames is introducing another new strategy game to its line-up: Forge of Empires. MMOHut had the chance to join the Exclusive Preview period of Forge of Empires to get an early look at this new contender.

Not Another Clone

Let’s get something out of the way first: Forge of Empires is not another cookie-cutter MMORTS. Naturally, there are some shared elements with other strategy games, including producing resources, building a city, and sending out armies to infiltrate and plunder. But if you’re worried that it’s going to be another grind where you build and upgrade lumber mills and quarries, mass recruit soldiers to go farm, or sit around staring at a static city map waiting to something to happen, you have reason to relax. In fact, the system for Forge of Empires more strongly mimics Facebook-style strategy games, which require more active participation and less micro-management.

City Building with Ragu

You’ll start out as many strategists do: as the leader of a budding little city in the most primitive state possible. The game offers a solid set of tutorials and tutorial quests with the helper of an NPC named Ragu Silvertongue. For a while, Ragu will be your sole guide; later on, other NPCs will chime in their advice and offer quests to complete in order to take your civilization further.

City building in Forge of Empires is grid-based, but offers a great amount of freedom. You can choose to place buildings and decorations wherever they fit within your city, and even pick up and move these items whenever you need to adjust for efficiency. Many buildings do need to be connected to roads, which are also yours to place as you wish. In fact, as your city grows, you’ll find it necessary to rearrange and rebuild parts of your city to maximize its efficiency.

Buildings come in several types, from houses that offer population and regular money, to goods and services that offer regular production, to happiness-boosting decorations and public services, to military buildings designed to train units from your population. One key importance in managing a city is that all of these features require some level of time-watching to maximize their effectiveness: by collecting your money or supplies when they become available, you let nothing go to waste. There’s almost always something to check in with on Forge of Empires.

Pillage, Plunder, and Negotiate

Forge of Empires also offers a solid single-player campaign, promoted primarily through the quest system. Through this campaign, you can take your army into different provinces, each of which is divided into further sectors. Conquering each of these sectors (through attacking, negotiating, or infiltrating) grants a small reward, while conquering the entire province unlocks a greater reward. However you choose to conquer, gaining more territory offers bonuses to your home city and progresses you further along the storyline. While not developed fully yet, Forge of Empires also offers PvP. Players can easily challenge each other through the game’s menus, and face off in AI-controlled duels. PvP towers also offer weekly tournaments.

On The Battlefield

Battles in Forge of Empires are a nice harken back to classic strategy games. Battles take place on hex-based battlefields, populated with different types of terrain. Terrain offers different bonuses or penalties to defenders and attackers, and so plays a key role in each battle. Each unit (you can only take eight into battle) can be controlled individually through movement and attacks. You can also ask the game to control a unit for a single turn, or to control the entire battle in an auto-battle. Each unit has health that is lost as it battles, and if all its health is lost, the unit is lost as well. Damaged units can return to the city to heal, or be healed with cash currency.

A Promising Start

Forge of Empires’ twists of strategy game systems – from classic to casual – weave together to create something new for strategy fans to enjoy. For an early stage, the game shows a high amount of polish and depth, and it seems that InnoGames is carefully planning each step in the game’s development to ensure that each new feature is implemented positively. If you’ve gotten tired of the common formula for strategy games, keep an eye on Forge of Empires and sign up for beta.