Business & politics
Remanum is basically business online strategy game where we are focused only on industry, without any military use; it’s all about politics and business. On the beginning of the game we are choosing a game world and city (Roman, Celtic, Oriental and Carthaginian), pick up avatar picture and we are ready to play. Like other free online strategy games, Remanum has tutorial which teaches the basics about the game; how to earn a reputation; how to trade with other players; about politics & influencing the in-game world and about commodity chains. When players have enough money, they end up spending huge quantities to gain political influence. They can organize magnificent feasts on their estates, donate to the city treasury, or work together with other players to develop trading houses and temples. Important part of the gameplay is related to all kind of players’ interactions. We can work together to make city much stronger and more influential. In general we have to convince enough of other players to vote for you into office; we can then determine the fate of our city – until the next vote.

Reputation is the key…
Reputation is the key element of the game and to win reputation, players have 3 the most important methods; go into politics, donate toward city buildings and hold feast in residence. Politics is nothing more but voting; to donate – exchange various goods or denarii for reputation and to hold feast, player need to buy sophisticated and expensive food. During the game we must gain around 1600 reputation and donating around 300 coins gives us around 10 reputation, so [...]]]> Remanum is a latest free online strategy game created by Travian games, set in ancient world, where we are ruling our kingdom; we must conquer it through wise diplomacy and trade. Basically players take on the role of merchant whose family name has fallen into disrepute; now we need to rebuild the reputation of our family, while gaining prestige and money.

Business & politics
Remanum is basically business online strategy game where we are focused only on industry, without any military use; it’s all about politics and business. On the beginning of the game we are choosing a game world and city (Roman, Celtic, Oriental and Carthaginian), pick up avatar picture and we are ready to play. Like other free online strategy games, Remanum has tutorial which teaches the basics about the game; how to earn a reputation; how to trade with other players; about politics & influencing the in-game world and about commodity chains. When players have enough money, they end up spending huge quantities to gain political influence. They can organize magnificent feasts on their estates, donate to the city treasury, or work together with other players to develop trading houses and temples. Important part of the gameplay is related to all kind of players’ interactions. We can work together to make city much stronger and more influential. In general we have to convince enough of other players to vote for you into office; we can then determine the fate of our city – until the next vote.

Reputation is the key…
Reputation is the key element of the game and to win reputation, players have 3 the most important methods; go into politics, donate toward city buildings and hold feast in residence. Politics is nothing more but voting; to donate – exchange various goods or denarii for reputation and to hold feast, player need to buy sophisticated and expensive food. During the game we must gain around 1600 reputation and donating around 300 coins gives us around 10 reputation, so it may cost a lot.

What about progression in this strategy game? Is slow and all in-game activities need some time; production, merchant tasks (buying, bidding, sale) and shipping which can be immediately finished by using gold, special premium currency available for real cash. Game is looking really good; it’s maybe 2D game, but all in-game cartoon images are high quality. Remanum has some premium options, mostly related to improved statistics and speeding things up – game is very slow.

(Remanum – trailer)

Pros:
+ Quality graphics
+ Fun to play

Cons:
- Slow
- Mostly economics

Summary
Remanum is simple free online strategy game focused on trading and production; it’s the key elements of gameplay. Game has simple, but quality graphics, game interface is very simple to use, so during the game should not have any problems finding what we are looking for. Remanum is for those who like slow pace, economic games and whoever has patience, loves economy may have a try. Looking for free online strategy games with a lot of economy and trading? Remanum is simply for you.

Hyborian adventures
We are entering Hyboria, as a slave who has survived after the ship sank; without equipment, without money, only with little bit of hope to survive another hour. Age of Conan is based off the novels of Robert E. Howard, and is a game with a lush storyline and amazing character diversity. It takes place in the ancient Hyborian landscape, and lets us choose from 12 different playable classes. Each character can be personalized to an amazing way, making your character unique. With the choice of three different players can make their character as unique as they feel necessary. One of the most important features is character customization, which is enormous; races, tattoos, body features, and many more appearance altering options. Player can change almost every appearance detail and this way, create unique avatar. Game is offering virtual adventures without payment, so we can play, right after completing installation and subscription (obviously we must autoupdate the game and we are ready). On the other hand, game has some limitations if we are playing for free; with basic account we can play as Demonologist, Barbarian, Guardian and Priest of Mitra, but after buying premium account, we can play one from 12 total classes. A character’s choice of class determines the types of weapons and armor that character can use, as well as what abilities, skills, spells and feats the character will gain throughout his or her adventures.

All available classes:
Priest => Priest of Mitra – Tempest of Set – Bear Shaman
Soldier => Conqueror – Dark Templar – Guardian
Rogue => Barbarian – Ranger – Assassin
Mage => Herald of Xotli – Demonologist – Necromancer

The 12 classes in [...]]]> Need a break from free online strategy games? We would like to introduce Age of Conan: Unchained, unique MMORPG, based on the novels written by acclaimed author Robert E. Howard. In Age of Conan: Unchained, players immerse themselves into world of Hyboria to explore dark and brutal fantasy world.

Hyborian adventures
We are entering Hyboria, as a slave who has survived after the ship sank; without equipment, without money, only with little bit of hope to survive another hour. Age of Conan is based off the novels of Robert E. Howard, and is a game with a lush storyline and amazing character diversity. It takes place in the ancient Hyborian landscape, and lets us choose from 12 different playable classes. Each character can be personalized to an amazing way, making your character unique. With the choice of three different players can make their character as unique as they feel necessary. One of the most important features is character customization, which is enormous; races, tattoos, body features, and many more appearance altering options. Player can change almost every appearance detail and this way, create unique avatar. Game is offering virtual adventures without payment, so we can play, right after completing installation and subscription (obviously we must autoupdate the game and we are ready). On the other hand, game has some limitations if we are playing for free; with basic account we can play as Demonologist, Barbarian, Guardian and Priest of Mitra, but after buying premium account, we can play one from 12 total classes. A character’s choice of class determines the types of weapons and armor that character can use, as well as what abilities, skills, spells and feats the character will gain throughout his or her adventures.

All available classes:
Priest => Priest of Mitra – Tempest of Set – Bear Shaman
Soldier => Conqueror – Dark Templar – Guardian
Rogue => Barbarian – Ranger – Assassin
Mage => Herald of Xotli – Demonologist – Necromancer

The 12 classes in Age of Conan are divided up into 4 archetypes: Soldiers, Priests, Rogues, and Mages. Each archetype has 3 subclasses that inherit all of the archetypes’ features but become more efficient in certain areas. The soldier (tank) archetype breaks down into Dark Templar, Conqueror, and Guardian. All of them excel in other fields, Conquerors are very offensive warriors wielding heavy weapons and heavy armor, Dark Templars can use unholy spells during the combat, and Guardians are the most heavily armored from all available classes.

Revolutionary combat
What makes Age of Conan: Unchained revolutionary is the fighting system; featuring combos and variety of attacks is making the combat something much more than just simple clicking. Enemies are blocking your attacks? Try attack from the side or rear by moving your character dynamically; enemy is attacking you with powerful swing attack – dodge it, using your reflex and controls!

Combat system making the game very innovative, exciting and challenging; even veteran players will discover themselves getting killed pretty often. The game features some of the most impressive visuals of all available free MMORPG, and will put even the most advanced gaming computers to the test. Age of Conan game community is large and active so it’s not hard to enter a group of players to complete quests together. It’s not a bad idea to become part of a guild; there are pretty enjoyable tasks only available for guilds. Of course if you like play solo and online games are sometimes too crowded for you, there is a nicely created storyline too. Casuals and hardcore players can find a lot of activities to enjoy. Funcom is investing a lot of money to make Age of Conan: Unchained even better; with new player’s game is becoming larger with regular updates, more content, quests and dungeons to discover. Currently there are plenty of exciting instances, where you in order to go you need a good part because, you won’t be able to survive, fighting with horde of enemies, even you are very skilled.

(Age of Conan: Unchained – trailer)

Pros:
+ Amazing quality
+ One of the best MMORPG over created
+ Combo system
+ Character customization

Cons:
- Gigantic client

Summary
After becoming free to play Age of Conan is one of the best games on the market; with quality sound and visuals, exceptional combo system, advanced character customization options and large in-game community. There are also a lot of quests, raids and other interesting in-game activities to get busy; In Age of Conan, there are many lands to discover without paying for subscription. Of course like in other free MMORPGs, paying players are receiving large benefits, but even so Age of Conan is game you should check out.

After turning into free to play, game is one of the best games on F2P market.

Other information

Minimum Requirements
OS – Windows XP/Vista
Graphics Card – 128 MB DirectX 9.0c
CPU – Pentium 4/AMD Athlon 3200 +
RAM – 1024 MB
HDD – 26 GB free

Recommended Requirements
OS – Windows XP/Vista
Graphics Card – Any 256 MB DirectX 9.0c
CPU – Pentium 4/AMD Athlon x2 4800+
RAM – 2048 MB or more
HDD – 26 GB free

Heroes of the Might and Magic via browser
At the beginning of the game we need to choose of 4 available game factions, each is unique, with variety of units, heroes, castles and buildings. More specifically, we can play Necropolis, Haven, Academy and Inferno. If someone remembers Heroes of the Might and Magic V, he will be probably familiar with all available units; each of them has been taken from this part of the series. For the example, if you choose Inferno faction, you’ll be able to recruit Imps, Horded Daemons, Succubus, Nightmares, Pit Fiends and Devils; developing all buildings to hire them is slow process, during which we need a lot of resources and gold. There are common resources, ore and wood and minerals, which are used to build more advanced structures including buildings that allow us to recruit less and more powerful units.

During the game is important to finish all in-game missions, as they guide us through the various stages of the game, we are getting a lot of gold and resources. Like in other free online strategy games, at the beginning of the game, we are receiving 15 days newbie protection. Newbie Protection is designed to allow players the opportunity to grow without being destroyed by much stronger players. It also stops new players from attacking much stronger players who would destroy them in the ensuing melee. During 15 days we must develop whole economy, recruit troops and prepare for Player vs. Player features; remember to create or join an alliance which is very important during the game – player is much safer after joining one. Kingdoms has a pleasant way of making [...]]]> Heroes of the Might and Magic Kingdoms is a browser strategy game, created by Ubisoft, based on Heroes of Might and Magic games, (especially Heroes V). With 4 unique factions, attractive visuals, complex hero system and overall quality, it’s one of the best free online strategy games though it’s not for players who love fast paced games.

Heroes of the Might and Magic via browser
At the beginning of the game we need to choose of 4 available game factions, each is unique, with variety of units, heroes, castles and buildings. More specifically, we can play Necropolis, Haven, Academy and Inferno. If someone remembers Heroes of the Might and Magic V, he will be probably familiar with all available units; each of them has been taken from this part of the series. For the example, if you choose Inferno faction, you’ll be able to recruit Imps, Horded Daemons, Succubus, Nightmares, Pit Fiends and Devils; developing all buildings to hire them is slow process, during which we need a lot of resources and gold. There are common resources, ore and wood and minerals, which are used to build more advanced structures including buildings that allow us to recruit less and more powerful units.

During the game is important to finish all in-game missions, as they guide us through the various stages of the game, we are getting a lot of gold and resources. Like in other free online strategy games, at the beginning of the game, we are receiving 15 days newbie protection. Newbie Protection is designed to allow players the opportunity to grow without being destroyed by much stronger players. It also stops new players from attacking much stronger players who would destroy them in the ensuing melee. During 15 days we must develop whole economy, recruit troops and prepare for Player vs. Player features; remember to create or join an alliance which is very important during the game – player is much safer after joining one. Kingdoms has a pleasant way of making sure that nobody comes invading our town while we are offline in the shape of a night-time mode, which is part of online strategy games. During this period, no one can attack you, which is good for casual players; waking up in the middle of the night and playing the game is not a normal thing.

Combat and running your kingdom
Fighting mechanics is pretty easy when you look at it (although it took me some time before finding out how everything works). Combat is basically “rock – paper – scissors” system: we have 3 types of units – ranged, melee, and mounted. Mounted have 50% bonus versus ranged but weak against melee ones, melee ones have 50% against mounted and so on. Having a balanced army is the essence of this strategy, and army is the key to successes; of course to maintain and develop, powerful army, we need build effective economy. As you may probably imagine, as you are going further and further away from your castle you will encounter more difficult garrison, but on the other hand – more experience, goods and artifacts. After you start with finishing basic parts of the game, it is time to train some soldiers in your barracks, sharp blades in the storage depot, and gather more supplies into the warehouse.

Kingdoms divide the timeline into season, which is currently a 6-month period; season timeline is used in some online strategy games. Servers are capped at max number of 3000 users, and all players are blocked from getting into the server month after the season has started for real. The reason is one and it’s not hard to guess: it prevents newbies or small-scale castle from being eaten alive by the more powerful alliances and their territories. During single season’s, the main objective of players is to obtain artifacts randomly scattered throughout the whole land of one server and make use of it.

During the game, each action taken has a certain time which will take to finish, whether it’s a new building, training a hero, or traveling to the battle. This is typical of some free online strategy games, except that in this case, actions take hours to complete even when we are adjacent to the castle a hero is in. The developers created this strategy game to be played for a few minutes at a time, a few times a day; this solution has positive and negative sides. It leads to a very slow paced game, resulting in tiny social interaction between people other than messages for joining alliances, and other diplomatic mail. Visuals are ok, although the game has no sound.

(Heroes of the Might and Magic Kingdoms – trailer)

Pros:
+ 4 unique factions
+ Attractive visuals
+ Class/hero system

Cons:
- Very, very slow
- Paying players have large benefits

Summary
Might and Magic Heroes Kingdoms should satisfy all strategy lovers, who are searching for free strategy game; however some feature/mechanics can be little bit controversial for some players – slow paced gameplay, balance issues. Player base is large, so there is no problem to find other players and create an alliance or invade & pillage. Overall Might and Magic Heroes Kingdoms, with attractive visuals, in depth hero system and unique faction, is a game that can attract and keep us for long hours, even is slow and premium account is giving too many benefits to paying players.

Zookeeping business
First of all it’s not one of the typical free online strategy games; idea of the game is simple, we must to generate income while we are feeding, cleaning and taking care of our pets. At the beginning of the game, we’ve got nothing. We need to build everything from scratch, including exercise area where our animals will live. At ZooMumba animals are purchased using PetPennies, the currency we receive each time somebody pays our zoo a visit. With each new visit, comes the chance to purchase more and more animals; after some time, we will receive access to more exotic animals and a whole lot of items that will help us decorate our zoo; our zoo must be unique, pretty and clean! Our pets must be happy all the time, which is associated with our income. Like in other popular online strategy games, we can unlock new features – animals, items and other stuff – when our experience level is rising. To make it happen, we must keep our zoo and animals clean, healthy and feed them. During the game, the care and feeding of the zoo animals needs to happen frequently. It’s the key to our financial success.

Zoomumba gives us a bunch of simple and fast goals that change every couple of hours. Goals are available almost all the time, pretty straight forward, such as feeding a certain pet an X number of times or raising an X number of animal cubs. Completing these goals earns the player consumable rewards, like pills that are used to treat sick animals; well like I said its hard to compare ZooMumba to any other free online strategy games. Is [...]]]> ZooMumba is an original social strategy game directly to our browser, offering to enter into the zookeeping business. We are developing and controlling zoo, while we are taking care of our cute animals. The most notable thing about ZooMumba is that it enhances the animal care genre instead of offering something meaningly unique.

Zookeeping business
First of all it’s not one of the typical free online strategy games; idea of the game is simple, we must to generate income while we are feeding, cleaning and taking care of our pets. At the beginning of the game, we’ve got nothing. We need to build everything from scratch, including exercise area where our animals will live. At ZooMumba animals are purchased using PetPennies, the currency we receive each time somebody pays our zoo a visit. With each new visit, comes the chance to purchase more and more animals; after some time, we will receive access to more exotic animals and a whole lot of items that will help us decorate our zoo; our zoo must be unique, pretty and clean! Our pets must be happy all the time, which is associated with our income. Like in other popular online strategy games, we can unlock new features – animals, items and other stuff – when our experience level is rising. To make it happen, we must keep our zoo and animals clean, healthy and feed them. During the game, the care and feeding of the zoo animals needs to happen frequently. It’s the key to our financial success.

Zoomumba gives us a bunch of simple and fast goals that change every couple of hours. Goals are available almost all the time, pretty straight forward, such as feeding a certain pet an X number of times or raising an X number of animal cubs. Completing these goals earns the player consumable rewards, like pills that are used to treat sick animals; well like I said its hard to compare ZooMumba to any other free online strategy games. Is it really strategy game? Well yes, but simple one.

Animals, graphics and simplicity
We don’t play Zoomumba alone, in-game community is pretty large and thanks to functions such as “FacebookConnect” and “Post-to-Wall“, we can send small gifts and e-cards to friends. Social features make the game more interesting; vote for the prettiest zoo also encourages a strong sense of community. Zoomumba is pretty well polished so the virtual zoo is relatively rewarding to build; it also helps that most of the animals are interesting to look at, thanks to their random animations. Zoomumba offers a friendly community and intuitive gameplay, making it a pleasure to play for experienced or inexperienced players alike. Controls, tasks and everything during the game are so simple and intuitive that everyone is able to deal with them.

The game looks pretty solid and cartoonish, which will satisfy especially younger players. Pets look very nice, like taken from kid’s cartoons, but it does not mean that Zoomumba is only children; Game can get involved and offers a pleasant, relaxing entertainment, especially after playing too much shooting or MMORPGs. Like in other free online strategy games, there is premium shop with adtitional items available for our pets; there is no point to tell you what to do, so you should make your own decision about that.

(ZooMumba – trailer)

Pros:
+ Pleasant, cartoon graphics
+ Friendly community
+ Easy to master
+ Perfect for causals

Cons:
- Repetitive
- Too easy?

Summary
ZooMumba certainly is interesting to play, offers the management of a small zoo, while involving us in the care of our pets. It’s not about making money – ZooMumba is about taking care of the animals; it’s the most important part of the game. Players can also customize and expand their zoos by adding special pet habitats, including trees, concession stands, fountains, decorations, and statues. With pleasant graphics and very comfortable, intuitive interface, game is very easy to master; any action in the game. Sometimes maybe is too simple and repetitive, especially for hardcore gamers, while casuals probably will find ZooMumba attractive and very enjoyable.

My liege
In Lord of Ultima we are becoming city sovereign and absolute ruler; similarly like in other free online strategy games available. Character creation limits to selection of name and one of twelve portraits, so it’s pretty basic. After that we have to complete a chain of quests; it introduces basic mechanics and Lord of Ultima storyline. First we have to build a woodcutter’s hut near a forest, then a cottage and so on; while we are learning more about the game, we are also building our kingdom. Unlike in most browser online strategy games, we have to watch where we are placing our buildings. For example, placing a cottage near lumberjack’s hut grants us with boost to wood harvesting. There are various buildings available; every of them have its own purpose and has different effect on other structures. As we progress with city development, we gain access to more and more structures, to 34 in total. Additionally, cities with access to river or sea are able to build a harbor. Building ideal city is more building according to in-game guide, than personal taste. In order to maximize efficiency of our town production, we have to be perfectly acknowledged with its content, just like in other strategy games for free.

Game interface is very intuitive and easy to manage. We can see four main resources, gained through gathering: lumber, stone, iron, food and gold, taken from peasants thanks to existence of taxes. We have access to various menu options such as Social, Quests, Alliance. Through menu we can switch two map views – local and region. On region we see other player’s cities, [...]]]> Searching for online strategy games for free? Lord of Ultima is one of the most popular browser based online strategy games, made by Phenomic Studio, which belongs to Electronic Arts. It offers great, complex gameplay, high-level economic management and easy to grasp mechanics. In fantasy universe, players are developing their cities and fight for power through economy & army domination.

My liege
In Lord of Ultima we are becoming city sovereign and absolute ruler; similarly like in other free online strategy games available. Character creation limits to selection of name and one of twelve portraits, so it’s pretty basic. After that we have to complete a chain of quests; it introduces basic mechanics and Lord of Ultima storyline. First we have to build a woodcutter’s hut near a forest, then a cottage and so on; while we are learning more about the game, we are also building our kingdom. Unlike in most browser online strategy games, we have to watch where we are placing our buildings. For example, placing a cottage near lumberjack’s hut grants us with boost to wood harvesting. There are various buildings available; every of them have its own purpose and has different effect on other structures. As we progress with city development, we gain access to more and more structures, to 34 in total. Additionally, cities with access to river or sea are able to build a harbor. Building ideal city is more building according to in-game guide, than personal taste. In order to maximize efficiency of our town production, we have to be perfectly acknowledged with its content, just like in other strategy games for free.

Game interface is very intuitive and easy to manage. We can see four main resources, gained through gathering: lumber, stone, iron, food and gold, taken from peasants thanks to existence of taxes. We have access to various menu options such as Social, Quests, Alliance. Through menu we can switch two map views – local and region. On region we see other player’s cities, places where we can settle and dungeons. They are mainly made for those, who need extra resources but want to avoid pillaging other players. Dungeon level vary from 1-10 and amount of gained resources is connected to its advancement level. They are inhabited by various monsters like orcs, minotaurs, skeletons and other evil creatures. At the early stages it doesn’t give a lot resources and it serves more like a time-killer, but it becomes more useful later, during the game.

Total control
Additional PvE feature are bosses. They are powerful, huge monsters, which after defeat drops several items and boosts player’s treasure. Amount depends on its level, which similar to dungeons, vary from 1 to 10. Like in other browser strategy games, Lord of Ultima has end-game goal, which fulfilled, restarts server and everything starts from the beginning. After four months of existence of server, Temples appear on the map. They look like Stonehenge, so they cannot be mistaken with other visible objects. Player’s objective is to build city on one of the temples and develop it to level 80. First player who reach this goal wins, and his alliance becomes victory alliance.

Lord of Ultima puts great emphasize on social gaming. Without friends we are very easy targets and it’s even harder to have a control over twenty cities in total. After becoming a member of alliance, it grants us with additional points. But even without this feature, joining alliance during newbie protection (first seven days) is essential. Aggressive players are always hunting those unaware of danger.

(Lord of Ultima – gameplay)

Pros:
+ Complex and easy to grasp mechanics
+ Good tutorial
+ PvE and PvP content

Cons:
- Slow paced gameplay

Summary
Lord of Ultima is a complex, available for free strategy game. It has been created in full 2D environment with text and image style, similar to popular Travian. Technically it doesn’t require from user anything, besides updated Java and internet browser. Lord of Ultima unique and addictive mechanics will please most players and thanks to short in-game seasons, those who won’t be so lucky are able to try.