Basic outline of Age of Cities!

Key Information

Promotion
  • The standard promotion ratio is 3:1. This means that for every village promoted into a City, two others will be absorbed. Some realms have a 2:1 ratio instead. This is clearly noted in the emails we send about the Age of Cities.
  • When promoting a village, the closest non-promoted villages will be marked for absorption.
  • Exception: Bonus villages are skipped until they are the only available absorptions.
  • If a player does not promote their own villages, the correct number will be randomly selected for them.
Consolidation
  • Cities will be pulled inwards towards the center of the map, in order to fill the empty spaces left by absorbed villages.
  • Realm density and village spacing will be about the same as before consolidation.
  • Rebels will be consolidated into Cities as well, with random distribution.
  • The overall geography of your empire will change. This is because realm terrain is fixed, and Cities will have to move around terrain features during consolidation.
Cities
  • If a Bonus village is promoted into a City, that bonus will be preserved. Multiple bonus villages will not stack, however.
  • City points will be multiplied by the absorption ratio, so that overall point totals will remain the same.
  • Governor costs are reduced in accordance with your smaller number of settlements.
Armies
  • After consolidation, promoted villages will become cities and the realm will be changed forever. Troops from absorbed villages will be converted into "Rewards" that you can access from the Rewards icon: You will not be able to exceed farm limitations with these Rewards, but can otherwise use them (or hold onto them) as you wish. Arm yourself and prepare for the great new age!

FAQ 

What is an attack freeze ?

An attack freeze is a lot like sleep mode, only stronger. While sleep mode only prevents attacks from being launched during sleep mode, an attack freeze also prevents attacks that would land while it is in effect.

Note that the freeze only effects player controlled villages. If there are rebels or abandoned villages you can still go after them, and if someone else takes your target first there will still be a crossfire as those attacks were already in motion against a (at the time of launch) legal target.

How to Promote villages ?

If you are on the new UI please see Visual Guide To Mobile Promotions. If you are using the old UI, there will be a link in the information area to the right of the village overview, near the chat.

If the cost of Governors will be reduced do we get to keep the chests in our collection?

Yes

 

What will happen to supporting troops? Will they walk home upon absorption? or Will they all be consolidated into the city into one big stack?
 
Before villages are absorbed, troops out supporting others will be automatically sent home. So you do not need to worry about losing troops in promoted Cities because they were off defending a village marked for absorption.

Troops from villages marked for absorption will also be sent home. All troops in transit will return to their villages.



What happens to fractions? If I have 67 villages, how many Cities do I end up with?

Fractions are rounded up. So if the ratio was 3:1, you would end up with 23 Cities.


Can we choose which villages gets marked for absorption? In areas where there are four or five villages, I would like to choose which get absorbed.

Not directly. You only choose which village will be promoted into a City. Because the closest non-bonus villages are taken, you can usually pick things out fairly precisely, though. One reason you cannot select the villages for absorption directly is that would allow players to abandon entire clusters, and concentrate all of their remaining Cities in one place. 


Are city Bonuses stacked ?
 
The City bonuses apply to the base value of a village, and stack with research and Bonus-Village traits.

Cities are not nearly as large as three combined villages; internal testing verified that such large numbers changed significant portions of game play, attack strategies, etc... They still pack quite a punch, though. 

 

Promoting Villages - Brief Guide

Visual Guide To Mobile Promotions

1. Tap Village, Tap Promote Icon



2. Tap Promote Confirmation



Visual Guide To UN-Promoting Villages

1. Tap Village, Tap UN-promote Icon


2. Tap UN-promote Confirmation

  


Alpha release of Target System

Hello Realm of Empires fans!

We are releasing a very early, developer preview / alpha release version of a new Target System that we are working on.

It is very rough and ugly, but we are releasing it so early in our effort to solicit more feedback from you. We want to hear your comments and suggestions so that we know where to put our efforts next.

This is a short HOW TO use this system.

SUPPORT CALLING

When you want to ask your clan mates for support, click the new icon on village HUD, then click Ask For Support:


Enter what ever details you want - we recommend you keep this short and include the date and time you need the support by



When created, you and all your clan mates will see this icon on the map notifying them that someone is asking for support :

Your clan members can click your village, enter the target system and read your message and also comment on it. Every clan member is allowed one response in form of a question, comment, or log of support sent

Indicators on the map tell you how many questions, comments or logs of support sent are made

When calling for support to multiple villages...

... a handy feature is the ability to paste ALL of your calls-for-support, to chat, with just one-click:


CALL FOR ATTACK

In a very similar way, you can mark villages on the map as targets for attack


Assigned To / Act By time / Map HUD display

Significant changes were introduced in version 4.0, please see here for details

QUESTIONS? 

Please ask in comments section of this blog post. 

KNOWN ISSUES

none

FAQ

I don't like the icons on my map, can I turn them off? Yes, here:

Why is this a bit rough looking?
It is a developer preview / alpha release meant to start a conversation between us so that we can complete it in a way that works for you. Tell us what you want us to do here.

Can I share this with allies? 
Not in this release. If you want such functionality, please vote this suggestion up

Release History

Version 0.1 - initial release
Version 0.2 - Dec 9 2016
- FIXED : Pasting a long list of support or attack calls cuts off the list and does not post it fully
- FIXED: new buttons in chat blocking
Version 0.3 - Feb 2 2017.
- Sharing with allies
- auto creation of calls for support from incoming summary popup
- auto populate landing time of first incoming when creating call for support
- see all targets popup
Version 0.4 - March 2 2017
- significant set of changes, please see here for details