It sucksssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

I played this game for years and made it to the very top of US1. I once ranked 3 in glory and have been ranked as high as 3rd on the server in terms of might points.

This game is mind-crushingly boring, the graphics are miserable, gameplay tedious and account maintenance a necessary time sink. The only part of this game that is compelling is the people - in your alliance you become familiar with and those you attack who send you wonderful crymail, so upset you burned their castles or stole their fake resources. Please note, this isn't a war game. It's a game about griefing others while trying not to be griefed yourself by making strong allies.

Gameplay: you go into an attack screen and choose values to overcome defenses. The defenders have walls, a gate and a moat. They have a variety of defense tools to boost these, the best of course being purchasable through their in-game premium currency that is bought for cash. You, as the attacker, select enough attack tools to overcome their defense, then send and wait for the hit to land. The best attack tools are those you buy with rubies (so, real money).

For pvp, that's at least somewhat interesting as the game involves a rock, paper, scissors approach - defenders have to predict the tools you're using to best beat you, etc.

But for NPCs, it's insanely tedious and repetitive. Events are the only way to grow in power - and finishing top 100 provides the best rewards. To do this, you have to repeat the attack window over and over, at least 300-400 times per event. Combined with the wait times between sending and landing your attacks, which differ between events (some are as few as 4 min, some as many as 30 min) you end up spending entire days on events to do well. Bye-bye life.

Your commanders (the armies you send) and your castellians (the generals who protect your castles) all have equipment to wear. The best EQ is from events or actual pay to win purchasing (you buy the in-game currency, then buy these, it's straight up p2w), but when looting NPCs you get tons of worthless EQ that builds up in your inventory, waiting for you to delete it. And you have to delete it otherwise the EQ you win might not make it into your "full" inventory.

Deleting this worthless EQ takes hours of your time. You have to click 1 piece, sell it, press yes, then do another. Often the game can't keep up with you and it forces you to wait a few seconds between each sale. No joke, to fully empty an inventory in one go can take 30 minutes. So much fun.

Building your castles takes a tremendous amount of time. So you need food, for example, which means building a granary. These go from level 1 to 30, with each level taking more time than the last. They start around 12 hours to complete, but the last 10 take around 24 hours. GGE used to give skips out, but removed these from events so people would be forced to buy them. Given that you need at least 20 granaries per castle, it will take a new player roughly 3 years to get their granaries to level 20 and then another 3 years to get them to 30 (after lvl 20, you can only build them once per week).

So if you're a new player considering starting this game, it will take you 6 years to catch up to someone like me. Meanwhile, you're prey for all the higher level players. They'll farm you and tell you to like it or go play Big Farm.

Next, whatever the game offers for sale as 'gold' and 'rubies' (the premium, money-costing currency), the 2 buttons are side by side. Which means if you make a mistake, you're burning money. And they won't refund this. Admittedly, they made blowing your money slightly more difficult with the use of a delay timer on the rubies once you push the gold, but it still happens.

Also, the company will admit mistake and still charge you. When a new event came out, I bought the event tools with rubies, so real money. But the tools didn't work. They promised a boost to the scoring of the event, but they did nothing. Eventually the company admitted this on their website and said "tough" to people like me who wanted a refund or a replacement for the next event after the bugs were finished - no such luck. "Sorry we bugged those, but hey, you bought them. So no refund."

Last, all events in this game are now pay to win. The company used to rely upon customers buying tools but as the game has become more pve instead of pvp, and they've given out more of the expensive tools, events have become their cash-cow. People very seriously spend $400 or more per event to win the event and get the best stuff. If you don't spend, you can still make top 100 but it will cost you in time. Alliances can only win events if multiple people spend money.

The game is designed to psychologically manipulate you into becoming addicted. It is based on principles designed in psychology to addict animals called operant conditioning. If you have ever taken a psychology course, you will recognize the principles being applied: semi-random nature of points being awarded, competition that requires much time spent on the game and rewards you, then immediately beings a new competition, and power creep to out-date all that you've worked for or bought, so you have to run as fast as you can just to keep up.

Do not play this game. Do not let your friends play this game. If you believe in the devil, the devil created this game. Go play a fun game with good graphics where the devs aren't trying to crush your soul and strip your creativity.

Yes, you desactivated my account

Damn this new forum

Goodgame steals money if you try to buy rubies. And they are dishonest.