Ikariam is a browser-based strategy game played online, in real time, that offers you the chance to turn a small village into a thriving empire! Beginning with a small plot of land, in Ikariam you’ll gather resources, construct buildings, and help steer your farm to a city, your city to an empire, and your empire to a nation. There are hundreds of islands scattered across the world. Each island has two collective resource spots, one that produces wood and the other that produces one of the other four resources. This means all islands lack at least three resources that players need to expand, forcing players to either trade, raid, or colonize other territories across the seas.
Gameplay:
In Ikariam you start with a town on a randomly chosen small island. Every island has building materials and one of four possible other resources: marble, wine, crystal, and sulfur. Marble is needed for most buildings beyond the basic levels. Wine is needed to keep your population happy. Crystal is used for research and to improve your units. And sulfur is needed to build most units. To get more islands, you’ll need to build an Academy. Then you need to put some of your population into the Academy to research. There are four areas you can research: Seafaring, Economy, Science, and Warfare. There are no computer enemies in Ikariam, but there are plenty of other humans that could be either friend or foe. Luckily, there are quite a few things you can do for protection. There’s a town wall you can build and upgrade that helps protect the town. There is a very large number of alliances you can join. People in your alliance can help you with warfare. There are even spies available that you can train to investigate other cities. Also, the game relies on a variety of processes such as the ones just mentioned, expanding and constructing buildings, gathering the material on your island, and much more. All this takes time. As you get to higher levels, it takes even more time, sometimes days to get things done if you do not have enough supplies for other upgrades. That is why this is not a game you can sit down and play for hours. You’ll end up just waiting for something to happen, and it will take a while.
This is amazing game, because it is a great way to keep occupied during breaks at work without getting so addicted that you lose days of your life! This game was made to be played for a small amount of time each day. Enjoy!