I don’t think there is ever a perfect game. We all have different wants and needs. When I started this game, years ago I hated it. Literally I would grit my teeth in frustration, it was sooooo slow! Slow as in game strategy. But...and here’s the kicker, once you realise that this is a game for strategy it all becomes clear. You get pulled in. Should I put this building here, or there? Do I need more culture? Where can I find population? I need another land expansion, but have no coins, diamonds or space. Now years later, I have added another city, I’m trying everything that it did wrong in my first city. Is it working? Watch this space. This game just keep growing. I don’t know yet. Worst case scenario, I’ll start another one. I just need a few more hours in the day.My hubby got so angry at how long I spend on this game, that I ended up hiding in the toilet to play the tournaments. He now thinks I have bladder problems. I don’t. It’s the game! I love it!

This game has so much potential and is really well made. However, it is just a bit too grindy and it takes the fun out if it. You get to a point where you’re pretty invested in the game and then everything just halts because getting any further along takes weeks and WEEKS. Your armies take a very long time to train and disappear when battling too quickly because their opponents are massively over powered. So then you have to solve encounters by bargaining with resources, which, you guessed it.. take ages to make and disappear too quickly. In order to progress you either have to buy crystals which are very expensive or collect and restart production multiple times a day, because the more you do it the more you produce. It’s maddening. You pretty much have to work out this very complex game yourself, there is help on the web but it’s not always easy to understand and I have to be honest a lot of the time I have no idea, despite being at Town Hall level 11 (which translates to about 4 months work, playing daily. I have made no purchases though) On the positive side, the mechanics of the game are engaging and clever, the complexities make it interesting and a lot of thought has been put into it. You can play the game without making purchases, which is always a good thing.

Love this game for so many reasons. It is so much more than your average ‘build an empire’ type game. The level of thought and planning that has been put into its design continues to surprise me. You cannot simply race ahead as there are balancing mechanisms built in so that you need a certain number of people to have a workshop or upgrade it, you therefore need to keep increasing the population via residences. You cannot have more than a certain amount of currency dependent on the size of your main hall which is regulated by ‘research’. The most frustrating but I guess realistic regulation is on expansion of the size of your settlement. In addition you have to maintain a certain level of culture before you can develop further and so on. Support is excellent and timely when requested and I only needed it because I hadn’t set up a password when I first started. Addictive, strategic and fun!

Same as the title, game is a slow grind and some graphics are good however events are based on results % and impossible to receive anything above base rewards without spending about 50 quid which will get you a couple steps and couple instants you likely won’t care about. Save your money and buy a game on steam and keep this as what it is, a background building simulator with long timers and most buildings needing upgrades from different rank research trees so buildings rarely match. Building design: 4/10 (some are hideous and are blatantly scraping the barrel and some event artwork belongs on free 90’s browser games) Events: 1/10 Excitement: 3/10 (it’s a waiting game, like painting or watching a kettle boil) Customer Service: 1/10 (Regular experience errors where if you do buy currency you may not receive it (about 1 third of the time in my experience) and then you have the message and wait for support who won’t do or check anything until you receive a receipt a day or two later which can mean the event or reason you were buying the currency is now void, you won’t be compensated for this or apologised to, actually it’s rare they will respond and will likely just give you what you paid for a few days later and close your support ticket without a sorry or kiss my a***. You may get a message if leaving a review but they have yet to grasp “sorry you feel this way” is not an apology and is insulting but with the current standards not surprising.In regards to being pay to win, £100 may get you 4 expansions so 20x20 mini squares or a couple event items, alternatively you can burn it, it’s a greedy game that unless you put a large sum continuously into the game you won’t see any measurable improvement.Save your money, play it for free if you have the patience and if now go buy a pic and some steam games, it’s cheaper.