Zynga's Empires & Allies: It's Risk meets CityVille -- and it works

When we first about Empire & Allies, Zynga's newest Facebook game since CityVille, we were admittedly expecting a "hardcore" strategy Facebook game knock-off. (Come on, the company's track record doesn't fail our expectations.) So, consider us pleasantly surprised by what the company intends with Empires & Allies, slated for a June 1 release in 12 languages, a first for any social game. Thanks to a demo event with executive producer Amer Ajami, the new game looks "hardcore," it may even feel as such. But Zynga has cleverly made it so anyone--even your mother--should be able to jump in and start blowing up their (friends and) enemies.


Empires and Allies Land Battle
Farming, property management, even deeper character development--it's all there. But what makes Empires & Allies work so well is, surprisingly, asynchronous gameplay. It may not be where the technology is at now, but the people still expect this type of experience from a social game, and Zynga not only knows that, but has hopefully succeeded in making that interesting. As you build a combination of resource-gathering (players can trade rare resources like metal ores as well), industrial and military buildings in your island city--it must be balanced between industry and military for defensive purposes--you will also create military units of three classes: Air, Navy and Infantry.

Admittedly, all three classes do the same thing. However, each unit within each class is more effective at defeating another specific unit. For instance, at least one Infantry unit will be able to take out Bi-planes while those same Bi-planes from the Air class are deadly to at least one Infantry unit. This system creates a deep level of Rock, Paper, Scissors that fans of the StarCraft or Risk games might be familiar with. However, when you're attacking a friend or foe's base, the type of units that they will retaliate with (controlled by AI, of course) depend on the exact area of the opponent's map you attacked, so prepare your units wisely before going into battle.

Gallery: Empires and Allies for Facebook


Once in combat, blows are exchanged in a turn-based fashion, allowing the attacker and defender each their chance to turn the tides of battle. All of this seemingly fun, strategic combat takes place in either a sprawling, story-driven single player campaign or online with your Facebook friends. However, attacking your friends will raise your Infamy level, represented by a black heart. Though, you can help friends a la' CityVille to increase your Honor, represented by the familiar red heart. Reaching certain milestones in Honor or Infamy will unlock combat skills--Infamy leads to offensive skills while Honor leads to defensive skills.

All in all, the game is downright charming. The struggle between the Dark Alliance and the Allies has been laid out in such a way that it looks like the story will provide a major hook. Not to mention the cutesy military leaders look like something out of 1940s-era propaganda materials. Say what you will about Zynga in the innovation department, but the company knows how to make recognizable characters on par with the Peggle Masters in PopCap's Peggle.

Empires and Allies Air Battle
Empires & Allies is clearly an attempt to combat the growing "hardcore" strategy games market on Facebook, namely the upcoming Civilization for Facebook, but the game does so in such a way that's genuine and will hopefully prove appealing to a much larger audience. Regardless, our productivity is going down the tubes come June 1--at least for, what, a few days?

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Check out the rest of our Empires & Allies Cheats & Tips right here.

Got any tips on how to get ahead in Empires & Allies? Or, just looking for friends to play the game with?

Empires & Allies Navy Research Labs: Upgrade your dominance on the high seas

Back at the end of June, Zynga released the Research Lab feature in Empires & Allies. These Research Labs allow you to upgrade existing land units to have better accuracy, deal more damage, and all sorts of other helpful boosts, but in upgrading these units your military might have become a bit one-sided. Helping to balance this out is the introduction of the Navy Research Lab, which (as the name suggests) allows you to enter into the same unit upgrading process with all of your battleships, gunboats and carriers.

Luckily, you'll be given your first Navy Research Lab for free. From there, the system should seem fairly familiar. Just choose the type of unit that you'd like to upgrade, and then ask your friends to send you the items necessary to complete the process. Let's say, for example, you wanted to upgrade your Vintage Carriers. First, you'd select it from the starting menu inside the Navy Research Lab, and would then need to collect six items to finish the upgrade research: two each of Upgrade Blueprints, Mission Maps and Blast Shields, as seen below. Each unit type requires different items to be collected, with the Upgrade Blueprints being constant.

From there, you'll unlock the expected upgrade tree that will show you the costs, in resources and time, of actually applying each upgrade (increased damage, reduction to build duration or cost, etc.) to that particular unit. These upgrades will affect each unit you already own, along with all that you build in the future. That being the case, this is one of those features that most players should at least casually pursue, as upgrades mean a better chance of victory not only over the game's AI story characters, but also your friends.

Check out the rest of our Empires & Allies Cheats and Tips right here.

Have you already researched many of the land unit upgrades in your Empires & Allies game? Will you do the same in these new Navy Research Labs? Which units will you work on upgrading first?

Empires & Allies Prism Power Packs: Everything you need to know

Have you ever wished you could have rainbow-colored units in Empires & Allies to better reflect your personality? Wouldn't you just love to see a line of purple tanks smashing your enemies into a haze? Ok, maybe that's just me, but you now all have the option to do so anyway, as Zynga has launched two new sets of items into the store under the heading of Prism Power Packs. To be especially clear, these multi-colored units are entirely new items that you'll need to purchase in the store, but you do have the option for a permanent unlock as well, allowing to build more in the future, long after they've expired from the store.

To be specific, you can now purchase one of six colored Sherman Tanks or six Mustang air units. For most of the Tanks, they go for a price of 9 Empire Points for a single unit, and come with a strength of 180 points. The Red Tank, however, is the odd (strong) man out, as it comes with 250 points of strength. For a permanent unlock, these Tanks go for 54 Empire Points, which sees you rewarded with a free unit as well.

Meanwhile, the Mustangs go for around 5-15 Empire Points each, which their strength sitting around the 150 point mark, depending on the color you choose. Again, the Red Mustang is overpowered, having 275 points instead. If you want to unlock the ability to build a specific color of these Mustangs in your Hangers, you can do so for Empire Points as well, with the Green Mustang costing 30 Empire Points and the Orange Mustang costing 90 Empire Points, as examples of the range.

These "Prism Power Packs" will only be available for a limited time of a little more than 10 days, as of this writing. There's no telling if or when these colored units will fly or drive their way back into the store, so make sure to think long and hard about purchasing them before they expire.

Will you purchase any of these colorful Tanks or Mustangs? Which color(s) will you choose, and of which item?