Immortal Cities: Nile Online
_Nile Online_ is a browser based city and empire building MMO set in ancient
Egypt. The player’s city is viewed from an isometric perspective and to build
something the player just clicks on one of the empty plots. The game is
designed to be played at a casual pace, minutes per play session. When
starting up the game, the player has control of just a small encampment with a
small palace and a marketplace. The player also has access to a small group of
labourers and some goods (bricks and bread) to get started with.
Each encampment has its own luxury item. These could be a tannery, a bronze
mine, a cedar farm, a henna farm, a kohl deposit, an oil farm, a gold mine or
an emerald mine. To advance in the game, the player will however need more
than one luxury item and this is where the trading aspect of the game comes
in.
Players need bricks to create new buildings and bread to feed the labourers.
For this the player has to create a bakery and a brickworks. The goods that
are created requires the gathering of resources, the most common being clay,
wheat and reeds. After a building has been constructed the player assigns
labourers to it and the production begins. Next step is for the player to
build a pottery shop and a basket shop.
After a while, the player will have enough bricks, baskets and pottery to
upgrade his palace to higher level. By doing this the player will be able to
hire more labourers which in turn leads to a higher work capacity and a faster
growing city.
Since it’s not possible to produce all goods and resources at one place, the
player will need to trade with other players. This can be done in three ways;
through the market, on the trade wall or by privately arranging trades with
nearby players. The market and the goods available there are available for all
players. Trading on the market is quick but expensive since it uses bread as
currency. The trade wall is more cost-effective since players can trade any
two goods against each other. To access the trade wall the player first has to
build an exchange as well as ships.
The player can choose to build a military, but this is optional since the
cities can’t be attacked. Military can be used for fighting bandits as well as
attacking and defending monuments. By getting access to a monument site the
player can gather limestone which is used for building monuments such as a
pyramid or a sphinx. Once built the monument will give all the player’s cities
a production bonus. Limestone is also needed for some palace upgrades and can
be traded like any other resource.
The player can also choose to donate luxury goods in return for a reward.
Donations can be given to Nubian traders in return for a wheat production
bonus and to the temple in return for a blessing that increases the production
of all cities in the region. Donations are cooperative and all players of a
region can choose to donate.
Immortal Cities: Nile Online