How to Play

Gameplay

The gameplay of Evony.

Evony is set in a persistent world–when a player logs out, the game continues.A new player is given "beginner's protection" which prevents other players from attacking their cities for a total of 7 days or until a player upgrades the Town Hall, the centre of a city to level 5 or higher. This gives new players the opportunity to accumulate a few resources and troops and get accustomed to the game before the challenges begin to surface.

A player begins by acting as lord or lady of one city. The player gives instructions on production and construction with the initial resources. The resources in the game are Gold, Food, Lumber, Stone, and Iron, and the city's population. As with many real-time strategy games, one first has to increase the city's population and hourly resource-collection rates through the construction of certain buildings in the city, and then start developing other aspects of their city and building an army.

Evony offers many items, purchased with cents (Evony money) which can be bought with real money, through its Item Shop or won at the reel or in battle, most of them in some way accelerating the player's progression through the game.

The construction of buildings, researching of technologies, and training of units consume time and resources and have various prerequisites.

• Buildings: The city always holds 34 positions for buildings In-town, where one is permanently occupied by the Town Hall, and up to 40 positions outside the walls (depending on the level of the Town Hall. The latter are resource fields. Each building can be independently upgraded from level 1 (initial construction) to level 10. Level 10 require a special item - a Michelangelo Script. Initial construction may take from under a minute to several days, during which the player must find other aspects of the city or army to manage. Until the introduction of Bernini's Hammer in Age II, there were not any queue options for buildings. Only one building may be queued. Each upgrade requires double the cost of the previous level in every resource and doubles the time required. Building time may be reduced by researching the Construction technology, and by assigning a Hero with a high Politic attribute as Mayor. There is a Speed up button, that will instantly finish buildings, with the initial building time (w/o technologies or Heroes) being less than 5 minutes. There are also several items that can shorten bulding time or instantly finish a building.

• Technologies: The 20 Technologies however, start with level 0 and can be researched using an academy. Prerequisites may include specific levels of other Technologies and Buildings. Research time is influenced by the Intel attribute of the Hero assigned as Mayor. Research time may also be shortened by using Items.

• Troops: More advanced army units becomes available as buildings and technologies are upgraded. Army units are built in the Barracks and can be queued. The level of the Barrack determine how many slots that can be used for training. Two factors influence how many units you can ask Evony to train: The number of people in your town not involved in resource gathering and your resource situation. One slot allows for one unit type. Training time is determined by the attack value of the assigned Hero, and on certain technologies. There are also Items that can shorten training time.

• Fortification Units: This also applies to the fortification units that assist in your city defense. They are built in the Wall, where wall level determine queue slots. There are a certain maximum of slots that can be occupied by fortification units in the wall. The value increase with rising Wall level. Training time is determined by the Politic value of the hero assigned as Mayor, and by certain technologies.

Evony features player versus player (PvP) gameplay, making it possible to attack another player's cities. The level of the building called Rally point in the attacking city determine how many parties and how many troops in each party that can be sent in one attack. Unlike Age of empire, buildings cannot be destroyed, but a city can be lost - even if you are off-line. However, your last city cannot be captured. When member of an alliance, your friends can reinforce your city. (Requires an Embassy). Various army units are available, and all battles are based on a player attacking another players city, a Non-Player City (NPC) or Valleys/Flats. NPCs arise when a city is abandoned. This happens if a player (which has not paid real money) doesn't play for a period of time, but more commonly when a player, after building a new city on a level 5 or 10 flat, and then abandoning it. It is necessary to attack these level 5 or level 10 NPCs for resources (called farming). Therefore there are a lot of level 5 NPCs around mid-level players, and level 10 NPCs around the better players. There are certain troop setups to attack these NPCs favorably, but on some servers the outcome of farming a NPC10 (resources plundered minus cost of troops lost) is negative. Even if not profitable, attacking NPC10s are used for leveling up the Heroes (called training). An NPC can be taken over, and if it's a level 10, all buildings will be at level 10, saving huge amounts of resources and time. However, certain reconfigurations must be undertaken, like dismounting a lot of cottages in favors of Barracks, and - on older servers - dismounting farms in favor of Iron Mills. Taking a NPC level 10 close to an opponent is a well known strategy for staging attacks.

One important aspect of the game is the concept of Heroes.

• A Hero can be assigned as Mayor. (Optional, but important)
• A Hero must lead attacks on other players cities, valleys and barbarian cities (NPCs).
• A Hero may be assigned to lead Scouting missions. (Optional, but useful)
• A Hero may be assigned to lead Reinforcement missions. (Optional, but useful)
• If your city is attacked, the Hero with the highest Attack attribute will defend your city.

The Hero earns Experience points (XP) from these tasks, which increase his level, and provide one attribute point to the Hero, which you place in either Politic, Attack or Intelligence. You can easily waste DAYS of research/build and training time if you do this wrong. The Heroes have certain attributes, which are crucial for succeeding in the game: Politics, Attack and Intelligence.

• A high Politics attribute of the Mayor will shorten the time for building buildings, walls and wall defence.
• A high Intelligence attribute of the Mayor will shorten technology research time.
• A high Attack attribute of the Mayor will shorten troop training time.
• A high Attack attribute of a Hero defending, leading an attack, reinforcement or scout mission, will increase the fighting abilities of your troops.

The game allows the player to control up to ten cities through gain of titles, To gain a title, certain rank is necessary. Both Title and Rank require Medals gained by buying in-game coins or by attacking valleys.
Evony has two different monetary systems. The in-game monetary system revolves around gold. Gold can be obtained by completing quests and by taxing the player's population. It is also possible to sell resources for gold on the marketplace to other players, or gain gold by raiding non-player cities. In lieu of this, a player can use real money to buy game cents with which to purchase items and resources from the in-game shop.
Prestige is a measure of a player's rank in the game. Players gain prestige by following quests, building and upgrading structures, training armies and successfully attacking valleys and cities often during the game. Honor is also a ranking system; however, it only changes with a successful or unsuccessful attack of or defense against another player. These are two of the main ways in which player rankings are visible. The overall ranking system that is displayed in the players window is based solely on their prestige compared to the remaining server population.