We recently took some time out to try the new mediaeval strategy city/Empire building browser MMO from InnoGames Tribal Wars 2, the sequel from the very popular original Tribal Wars now with new features, improved interface and updated graphics. The game itself is in many ways be inspired due to the community of the original game, crying out for an updated version of the MMO they love and so the developers responded to that by making Tribal Wars 2. For our closed beta first look we spent around 25 minutes play to the tutorial and early stages of gameplay to get an idea of what the game was all about.
After a quick registration we were in the game, faced with a screen asking those which direction we wish to build our city, with a random dice roll it chose for us and soon enough we were faced with our city screen, albeit it was more of a village/town. The tutorial walks you through the basics of building and resource production, essentially constructing various resource production buildings to gather wood, clay and iron, though the length of time that it takes to accumulate resources in this way is in the fastest of processes.
As an alternate method we were shown how to build up a barracks and create some Spearman, the first makings of our military force, and directed to the region map to then to attack a barbarian encampment/village. With our attack successful or units returned with handful of resources and we were able to continue building up our town. Every building costs a different amount and variety of resources to construct, as well as taking an amount of time, anything from minutes to hours depending on the level of the building. You are able to rush production to instantly complete build by spending the premium Crowns currency, which we’ve been given a healthy dose of to get us going.
At this stage the tutorial was over, however players are still offered a level of guidance with the Quests that they complete, tasks to perform certain actions such as constructing or upgrading a building, training units and using them to attack Barbarians, which gives a gentle hand holding for new players that aren’t sure what to do next.
The big problem was that after completing a few quests and getting about 20 minutes into the game we hit a rather large progression block where we couldn’t build anything as we didn’t have any resources left, intending to send out some units to raid some barbarian villages and acquire resources (which was also a quest we had) we gave the marching order and then noticed that this attack, unlike the tutorial, was going to take 37 real-world minutes… not really an option for the video. Looking around it wasn’t apparent what we were supposed to/could do next, which is probably the biggest flaw we encountered, forcing players to either leave the game and come back later, which is understandable at later levels up so early into the game it was quite surprising.
Taking some time to look around the rest of the features we saw that there were a number of Achievements available for players to earn, everything from combat achievements, building achievements and generally exploring and taking advantage of the other features as much as possible and being rewarded for it. Players are also able to create their own Tribes, essentially Guilds, which will put them in a position to compete against other Tribes for position on the leaderboard. Players are able to PVP with each other, attacking each other’s villages/towns/cities though at this stage we presume they cannot take over a players starting city, but as it is possible to own more than one village we presume they are able to take control of those later acquired villages (no doubt from the initial barbarian villages). Players as usual are offered this some defence where they are unable to be attacked by other players, lest they decide to attack someone else first, in this case players are given five days immunity before they are thrown to the wolves.
Watch now our first look gameplay commentary video. And click on the "Info" button below if you want to know more about this title.
I would not recommend this game to anybody. I have dipped in to quite a few MMORTS games, and this is by far the biggest pay 2 win game on the net. You can buy everything in game. You can not compete with anybody that is spending money. (And if you end up trying to play. You will soon find out there are several people willing to spend as much as it takes to win. If you look at the cost of items and watch some peoples progression you will soon find you they are spending HUNDREDS of dollars on the game) Also, if you are not able to catch a world right when it starts and get in do not even bother. Everybody else in the game will be so far ahead the only chance you will ever have of catching up is if you got a really big bank account. The game also employs moderators that play the game who obviously are not paid. I have come to find out they are all very petty and childish. They are the same in each world. If you manage to get anywhere in the game or have spent alot of money on it. You will attract their attention. They will then try to get you to join their side. If you do not or oppose them in any way they will have you banned. I watched this happen several times throughout both Tribal Wars and Tribal Wars 2. In short all InnoGames are developed not around good game play, but around the sole idea of “How can we make a game that will suck as much money out of people as possible?” There are plenty of better games to invest your time in, don’t waste it here or on InnoGames.
This game is extremely unstable.
I was a huge fan of TW1 but the pay aspect has completely ruined the competitiveness of it. Sad too since it has so much potential but yet lacks many small features that would bring it to the next level. Did I mention it’s ruined by being able to pay for everything?
FIX the glitches, perhaps adopt a premium aspect like in 1 and for gods sake make it more stable!!!
you start with nothing in the middle of people who are so far ahead that you cannot get anywhere near what they have all they do is wait for your 5 days of immunity to run out then attack which means they take all you have whether you paid for it or not, You have to start the game all over from scratch
I can see how the above people can see the game. Being able to pay to fast track some things helps but is definitely not necessary nor the only way to win. I grew to 100 villages in TW1, world 23 without paying anything. But then had to pay I think $3 a month to get premium to be able to manage so many villages. Paying money didn’t help me grow or win, it saved me time in micro managing my villages. I then grew to over 1,300 villages but at that point premium ($3 a month) was absolutely necessary to control my empire.
Activity is the key to succeeding at TW not money. You cant expect to win by playing an hour or two each evening. You do have to play, send attacks, build monitor for incoming attacks and react several times every day. Or else you will be caught off guard, get attacked and cleared of troops and have your villages taken off you.
And the other aspect to survival is joining the stronger tribes around you or being more trouble than it is worth for them to destroy you. So you get invited rather than attacked. Or you hold out the attacks long enough, earn their respect then join.
Anyway, much more complex than the simplistic explanations above in my opinion, from someone who has competed in end game and been in a winning tribe.
I love this game, and I’ve played a lot of games that are pay to play.
Recently dropped over $1,200 In Game Of War.
This game is one of the most expensive games I’ve played ever.
LOTR MMO was okay but join a big guild you get free items.
So far this game is not p2p. Amazing PvP and reminds me of Evony online. My first MMO RtS
TW2 is about team work and being active.
Not about credit card warriors.
I rate this 8.5/10
For people complaining about pay to win system, TW 1 has worlds where you cannot spend your premium for anything more then premium accounts/looter assistant.
As TW2 i managed to get very far without spending single $ on it.
My biggest complain is very slow worlds speed that made me bored after some time.
I was #1 in this easy rts game, it just became too time consuming…it is easy to beat people who pay by use of diplomacy. Anyways Don’t play this game, it is a waste of time. Plus the player base is very rude and childish.
I have a Mac and get a lot of spinning balls so I have to Force Quit and reload. Very slow progress also makes for a very slow game. Still learning the game as it is not all that intuitive. Graphics are different and much better than TW1
3 years have gone since this games release. During this time, the game have more or less been utterly destroyed by Innogames. The devs refuse any type of contact with its players. Suggestions, ideas or cristics is not listened to. Devs never release any form of strategy or toughts about this game. Players have been posting suggestions and ideas on its forums for 3 years, but yet the devs makes updates that is the complete opposite of players request. Best players strategy after last update is now to trade villages within its tribe and avoid making enemies. It can hardly be called a war game any more. After several unlogical updates, Tribal Wars have now lost from 90-95% of its playerbase. Its a dying game and a prime example of how badly a game can be dealt with by its devs.
tribal wars 2
This game is extremely unstable. with a server connection that repeatedly throws up an error message on screen every 30 to 45 seconds about when you start playing or have refreshed game and expect to have this “connection problem blah blah blah … reconnecting” popping up on screen for a while i have had it pop up non stop for over an hour
server population compared to other similar games … low. it may be f2p but it is positively pay to win game so dont expect to win or advance in game if you dont spend $$$$ money to buy your way along.
innogames ingame support poor at best they dont answer tickets in clear cut solution to problem of ticket and more often then not support amount to nothing more then cut and paste a cookie cutter reply off on some other tangent problem not even related to ticket.
support to get an item restored non exsistent that was lost resulting from poor server and error screen popping up while viewing item in inventory.
in an overall nut shell dont waste any money in game and if you play just use as a fill in for down time when nothing else going on or extremely bored