Starting out
We have had an idea kicking around for a while about commencing a series of articles aimed at assisting the newcomer to Age of Empires Online (AoEO): navigating the various maps you will encounter, learning the myriad of points systems, and overall, learning how to get more out of the game.
I'm guessing that as we head down this route, gamers will start to make suggestions about what they want to see, what they are having trouble understanding, and the like, and over time we might build up a volume of useful reference material that will provide a range of assistance to gamers.
Obviously this series of articles is not aimed at the more experienced player, but if any of you have any comments to make (which are publishable) they will be gratefully received.
On the whole, I have come to like the AoEO community, have had a lot of good times co-opping with other players from around the world, and with a bit of practice, all newcomers should be able to get the same enjoyment out of the game in no time at all.
Starting out, this is one of the very first screens you will come to:
Click Open the book below to read the rest of this article.
Here you will be asked to select your civilisation (your civ).
These are the options.
The full civs start from level 1:
• Greek
• Eygptian
• Celtic
The Pro civs start from level 20:
• Persia
• Babylon
• Norse
I prefer not to recommend which civ you should get (I like Greek), but as a general rule, if you are starting out, you are better off starting at level one with one of the top 3 civs, and trying the other civs at a later time. I’ll dedicate future articles to the pros and cons of each civ.
By the way, in case you're wondering why I like Greek, it comes down to having some very nice siege units and top end archers (whose name I can't pronounce) capable of decimating everything else, and let's be honest, decimation is fun. This is primarily why we play AoEO.
With time, as you level one civ up to level 40, you’ll earn sufficient empire points to purchase all the other civs and booster packs for free – so don’t be too worried about which one you pick.
I currently have all the civs and booster packs: Greeks and Egyptians (or Eggies) at level 40, with the others ranging from level 20 to 37. Premium means that they have been paid for. I bought Greek, but I was able get the rest using Empire points earned in-game. More of that later!
Ok, so you've selected your civ and you've given it a name, within a few seconds you will be dumped into your capital city, which will appear a bit barren early on, but as you level up, you will build it up. I'll focus the rest of this article on explaining the Capital City concept, the various buildings you will encounter early on, and other related concepts like the menu and chat box which will help you navigate things early on.
Your capital city, as a Greek civ, will look something like this early on:
The first thing to explain about the capital city is that it's sort of part of the game, and then again, it isn't.
You will not be playing quests which feature your capital city in the map, you will not be defending your capital city, or anything like that, rather, you will be collecting various buildings which over time will give you access to more technology, more materials, more gear, and in this way, you develop your military capability to undertake quests, which get more difficult as you level up.
It is in your capital city that you will come across your first quest givers, who will offer you quests which enable you to win a variety of rewards, all of which will allow you to expand both your capital city and your military capability. This is where it all starts.
Some aspects of your capital city are simply for show, like the dock you can see at the bottom right of the snapshot, although as you level up, a quest giver will appear at your dock.
On the far left, you can just make out the Empire Bazaar, which is where you can buy more AoEO content.
I'll explain other parts of the screen, common to all parts of the game, like the mini-map and ticker box in later articles.
Capital City Buildings
The Palace: This is where your technology tree resides. Each time you level up (from Level 1 to level 40) you earn an extra notch in the technology tree, in other words, something new that you can now do. It might the ability to upgrade your walls or towers, or something similar. Early on, there might be some quests you cannot do until you tick that item in your tech tree. More on levelling up later. Your milestones also appear here, and that will require its own article at another time. Your technology tree will look like this: |
| The tech tree from my Celtic Civ, at level 19, the greyed out bits are items I don't have access to you yet. |
Gear Hall: Each unit and building that you can produce while in a quest is represented in the gear hall, against which are 2, 3 or 4 slots where you can accumulate gear upgrades. For example, work tools that enable your villagers to collect more materials, or weapons which have more damage, etc. Over the course of levelling up, the differences in gear you collect, and their attributes, can be substantial. The items that you slot into your gear hall benefit your units and buildings in all quests that you undertake. The minute you put an item of gear in your gear hall, it is no longer tradeable, but you can sell it within your capital city at a nominal value. It is in collecting gear and materials that you will come across the categories of common, uncommon, rare, epic and legendary, but note, FTP players can only go as high as uncommon. Your gear upgrade slots look something like this:
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| Gear hall from my Greek civ, each slot represents a tech improvement for each unit or building |
Advisor Hall: This will not be immediately available from level one, and it's not available to FTP players at all. As you progress through the levels, completing quests, you will collect these advisor cards which you can slot into your advisor hall against Ages I to IV. You can pick one advisor per age each time you do a quest, and these advisors improve your ability to do specific things, like collect more gold, more wood, allow your cavalry to be quicker, to build certain buildings quicker, etc.
 |
| Advisor Hall opens up to show four slots for each age, you can choose from a variety of options for each slot |
Workshops: At some point you will be able to buy workshops which produce basic materials like wood, grain, copper, etc. As you complete quests, you will get the opportunity to pick up higher level recipes which allow your workshops to produce more valuable commodities (rare and epic). These materials can be sold and/or can be used to craft useful things. Premium players can have up to 10 workshops, but FTP players can have only a maximum of 2.
Crafting Hall: The Crafting Hall in your capital city has a selection of 8 or so crafting schools. You are allowed to choose two of these, build two crafting shools, and these then allow you to use the materials you are collecting from quests or are producing in your workshops to craft new items. For example, if you have an archery school, you will be able to craft bandit archers and various archery upgrades. The former is an example of a consumable, that is, an item you can use in a quest which doesn't have to get built under the normal quest conditions, rather, they appear automatically at no cost to you during the quest. The latter are items which you can add to your gear hall which then improve the attributes of your units during quests.
Embassy: Your embassy building is basically an alternative form of communicating with other players by sending notes, which can include attachments of materials.
Shops: Various shops will be available early on in your capital city while others will be added as you collect blueprints in your questing. These will generally require the use of either coin or empire points, which brings us to the next section.
Coin and points
One confusing aspect about AoEO for newcomers is the different array of money and points you collect to do different things. I describe each type below.
Experience points: These are earned by doing quests. Each and every quest is worth so many experience points and these are earned each time you complete a quest. The experience points are used specifically for going up in the levels. That's their only use. Once you reach level 40, they are no longer accumulated.
Empire points: These are earned a number of ways, but early on in your AoEO career they will be earned predominantly by doing quests, especially one-off quests (as opposed to repeatable quests).
Empire points are a form of in-game currency which can be used for two main purposes:
1. purchasing consumables to use in quests or decorative items that can be used in your capital city; and
2. purchasing new civs or AoEO booster packs.
The pro civs cost 900 empire points while the booster packs cost 450 points. The booster packs include Fertile Crescent, Elite meet at Crete, Skirmish and Northern Hold. You can also purchase things like the empire vault, which allows you to expand your inventory and share items between civs. So it's definitely worthwhile accumulating empire points.
Coin: This is another form of in-game currency which can be used to purchase various items in the shops in your capital city, and in other cities, and even from other players in the trade channel, which I will describe later.
This is what a typical initial quest screen looks like. On the left hand side, you can see the rewards:
12,000 XP (experience points)
70 coin
100x stone blocks
6 empire points
Each quest that you did will commence with a similar screen that provides a description of the quest, the quest's objectives and what you will win if you are successful.
When you complete a quest, click the small map icon at the top right of the screen, and you will see an option to return to the town where the quest was originally given (in the early days, this will usually be your capital city). There will be a question mark floating over the quest giver, go back to him or her, highlight the quest you’ve just finished and click complete – and this is the final step in ensuring you get all rewards from completing the quest: experience points; coin; empire points and other goodies which will appear immediately in your storage.
If you killed any bandits during the quest (they appear as orange question marks on the map), the chests claimed will already be sitting there for you in your storage and it’s simply a matter of right clicking to open them.
Alliance Points: This is what you start earning when you reach level 40 and you are asked to join one of the three alliances. The alliance points translate to Empire points which you will receive on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Each month, you can earn enough alliance points to purchase a new civ for free – and that’s when things start getting serious.
Anyway, that’s enough of a primer for now. In coming weeks, I’ll focus on these different bits and pieces, suggest what is worthwhile, what isn’t, give you pointers on what you should focus on, but above all, I’ll just be encouraging you to explore and enjoy this great game.
Click here for part two of the Starting Out series.
Great post! Very informative.
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