Here's a short synopsis of Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species, in case you don't have six dollars for the Cliff's Notes: Adapt or die. Now, that's all well and good for Dodo Birds and Humpback Whales, you might say, but what does that have to do with me? In Louissi and Mapoga's polished strategy game, Army of Ages, you begin as a lowly stone age clan when advanced alien insectoids invade your world. You'll have to evolve through five ages before you finally have the strength to take down the hive.
Each stage in your evolution will offer you first and second tier
build paths. To make money for units, upgrades, and turrets, you'll need to kill aliens and collect water. To collect water you need to build gatherers. There are only three wells you can gather from and the farther the well from your base, the more money you get for the water. But, if you can't push the alien horde far enough from the water source, your gatherers will be slaughtered. Each time you kill an alien invader you gain experience points. Build up enough XP and you can call on special magic attacks, and, most importantly, evolve to the next stage, which will open up stronger units and turrets to bring victory.
Army of Ages is built upon a great story and features a surprising amount of unit variety (Dragons!) and well balanced upgrade costs for a 30 minute flash game, but the game does have one annoying feature which can make the game seem impossible on harder settings: when you evolve, all your units and turrets disappear, but the aliens who were just attacking you don't, and you will have to quickly rebuild your army before they reach your base. Tip: right before you evolve is a great time to cash in on your magic attacks to clear the map and give yourself some breathing room to rebuild.
That being said, Army of Ages is one of those games that you almost feel guilty playing for free, since it's so well done. But there is always a flip side to a good game: it has to end sometime, and 30 minutes isn't enough time to do this idea justice.
Walkthrough Guide
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Army of Ages strategy guide
When you start the game, and every time you evolve, build a water carrier base right away. Water carriers generate you money if they can make it to the well and back.
There are three wells your water carriers can be sent to, but you never need risk moving them past the first one. If you have the enemy pinned back, you may be able to grab some extra money from the second well, but remember: if the carriers don't make it back to base, you don't get the money from them.
Upgrade your water carriers' spawn time first, followed by movement speed. You need them collecting the water as fast as possible.
After setting up your water carriers, you'll need an army. Build as many Tier 2 units as you can, especially those with both air and ground attacks. Do not buy anything that only has air attacks.
Fill out your other building slots with T1 units. In total you should end up with two of three units that can attack both ground and air, your water carriers, and everything else as ground attack units.
Each new evolution, you'll be able to initially place more T2 buildings than before, as your finds increase. During earlier parts of the campaign, remember that you can sell buildings if you want to replace them with more powerful units.
If you're quick on the first stage, you can build dragons immediately after water carriers. You'll need a T1 ground unit to delay the alien troops, but this tactic will give you an early advantage as the aliens don't immediately launch flying units.
For all units, spawn timers should be the first thing you max out. Since there's a unit cap, it's important to be able to get troops back on the field if they're destroyed, to avoid leaving a gap in your defense.
After spawn timers are maxed out, damage is next most important, followed by health if you have spare funds. Apart from water carriers, none of your units need movement speed upgrades unless you're fully evolved and have the money free.
When you evolve, all your units and buildings disappear. Do not click the evolve button if the enemy is in your third of the field, because your base will be overrun. Focus on pushing the enemy back first.
After evolving, there's a delay while your new buildings spawn troops. Use 'Rain of Arrows' or 'Rolling Gear' to keep the enemy away until you have units on the field. those magics continue to be useful for the duration of the game, and are better value than the more powerful ones.
You shouldn't ever need to use turrets, but if you have money spare, they can only help.
As you approach the alien base, use "Rain of Arrows" repeatedly to keep enemy spawns to a minimum. This means your troops can focus of dealing damage to the building, which is essential for victory.
Posted by: Ben
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April 25, 2012 2:06 PM