Age of Seventh Dragon

Age of Seventh Dragon is a web-based strategy game. You're probably familiar with these style of games. They're completely browser based. There are plenty of these out there and while you could just as easily play one in English, this one has a couple of interesting features and of course its in Korean which always gives us an opportunity to pick up some vocabulary. The first thing that works to our benefit is that since these are browser based you can copy and paste just about everything and run it through google. Google doesn't do a bad job translating most of it. It is all fairly easy to understand. The game is run through a small portal called "Webgamech". I haven't tried the other 2 games yet but they may be web-based as well. This also means you can play them easily at work if you want. There isn't anything to install, but you'll need an account. This one doesn't let you use your ARC, so time to order pizza again and call your friend. I'll wait....okay I assume you've got an account now.

Head over to the website and click the big game start button and the first thing that will happen is you'll be asked to log in again. Once you've typed your password again, you will be asked to choose a server. There are currently 5 servers. Number 5 is the newest and currently has a little "new" icon beside it. You can have a game on all servers, so don't worry about making a permanent choice. The other servers are just more established which makes it more difficult to get started. Even the new server is a little crowded already. After you pick a server, if it is your first time, you'll be presented with the game set-up screen. This screen will let you type your Lord's name, pick your race, starting region, and if you have a coupon enter it. I have no idea what the coupons are. Now that you've set all that, click on the button at the bottom and your game will start. You'll be presented with an option for a tutorial. It is all reading and in Korean. Some pictures, but I didn't see anything overly helpful there. You're better off clicking around until you get the hang of where everything is. First thing we'll see is the main game screen. This is the screen you'll do most stuff from. You can click the empty green squares to build something or existing buildings to upgrade them. Every building has tons of levels. The first thing you need to do is upgrade your farm in the lower left. You can't do anything until you do that first. To do that you can just click it and then you'll see a link in there for upgrading/building. As I mentioned earlier any time you want to translate something you can copy it and throw it in google, its fairly good at giving back something readable on these descriptions. Across the top of the screen you have choices for "City", "Hero", "Map", "Guild", "Market", "Ranking". The hero screen lets you put equipment on your heroes and see their stats. The map screen lets you view the world around you and interact with it. The other ones are fairly self-explanatory.

As with most games the point here is to build yourself up and take over the world. So far I've managed to put together a few buildings, a couple soldiers and attack some trees. I also took over a distant crystal mine. you can use the resources you have (upgrading them for big bonuses) and if you find resources on the map, take those. Every game I've been in all the resources are already claimed, but I did find 1 free crystal mine and took that. Non-resource squares let you send armies in to fight enemies of some sort and hunt for random elemental crystals. No idea what those do yet.

I've only scratched the surface of this game, but its completely playable without any Korean skill. All the actions are time based, not turn point based. So you don't have X actions per day. You can come back in a few hours after you've made some resources and do more stuff. Build buildings, attack squares, etc You'll see a countdown on the right of the main city screen about your actions. If you need gold, you can click the town hall and there is a link to gather 200 GP in taxes. When you make heroes and armies those will get listed on the main screen as well. The time required for attacks is based on how far away the square is. First you'll have to walk there, then your guys will attack, then they will walk back. You will get a message with a battle report (mostly readable). As I figure out more things about this game I'll post updates.