Watching those drones soar over the Middle East these days will tell you one thing: an army is nothing without technology. We're going to guess that is why Zynga has introduced the Research Labs to Empires & Allies. (Or it just thought a new feature would be cool and interesting--take your pick.)

This brand new feature allows players to upgrade their existing units into forces to be reckoned with. You can probably already image that this will especially come in handy when dealing with low-level units like the Cadet Soldiers.

Research Lab Requirements:

•400 Population
•5,000 Coins
•500 Wood
•25 Iron




The Research Lab is introduced with a Goal that's relatively simple to follow, so we won't bore you with the details. And if your Empire doesn't produce Iron, you'll have to seek out a friend whose Empire does, and pay up. Once built, click on the Research Lab to open a menu that displays every unit you've unlocked. Each unit has to be upgraded separately, and the materials required to access those upgrade are only found through friends, so prepare to bug your buddies ... a lot.

While it does call for plenty of requests (perhaps too many), these upgrades will affect every unit in that class that you own and every unit of that class you build from then on. After acquiring the materials, the available upgrades are presented in a progression tree. You will have two choices to start, but to unlock the strongest upgrades you must pursue every path.



Each upgrade costs a bit of resources like Coins, Oil and, perhaps later on, Wood and Ore as well. These upgrades take time, too, as if you were harvesting a resource or creating a new unit. There are five upgrades in all for each unit, and they only affect units that are idle (and then on) when completed. With upgrades, it'll be even more of a challenge to keep up with the competition, so get to that research on the double.



Tending to crops in FarmVille or building your own real estate empire in Millionaire City sure is relaxing, but sometimes hardcore and casual gamers alike just want to see something blow up. (What can I say? This is America.) In response to growing list of hardcore-skewed military strategy games like Kabam's Kingdoms of Camelot and Backyard Monsters by Kixeye, Zynga and Digital Chocolate have released Empires & Allies and Army Attack, respectively. Both games are shooting (get it?) for the hearts of the same crowd: the casual Facebook gamers. Welcome to the first ever Games.com Facebook Game Face-off, where we pit two contending Facebook games against one another for you to decide which reigns victorious once and for all.

Let's break this contest down into the three elements that gamers generally tend to look for in their strategy combat Facebook games. First, of course, is the combat (or blowin' stuff up as we elegantly put it). Next is the city building and resource management. And third is essentially why this genre of games has become so popular: player vs player combat. Ready .... Fight!

As soon as Zynga's newest game Empires & Allies launched on Facebook at the beginning of this month, the developer had already released a set of RewardVille items to back it up. At the time, Empires & Allies had only one free item in the rewards program - the Small Modern House - which added 80 citizens to your town.


Now, though, a second item has been given the giveaway treatment, with this second prize being the Park Fountain. While Empires & Allies already seems to have an issue with space (or the lack thereof), if you'd like to fill your city with a bit more in terms of decorative touches, make sure to claim your free Park Fountain while you can.

To claim it, simply head over to RewardVille, login with your Facebook account (if it hasn't been done for you already) and then click on the "Get It" button underneath the item. From there, the Park Fountain will automatically be added to your in-game inventory, allowing you to place it as any other item the next time you load the game. How convenient!

Getting the Ore you need in Empires & Allies, the next big Facebook game from Zynga, is nothing short of a bother. Thanks to Facegamer, we can alleviate that problem for you--at least a little bit. To find all five Ores, and request them from your friends, even more easily, we've included links for all five metals behind the break. However, you must be at least Level 14 in the game for these links to work. According to Facegamer, these links can be used at least every six hours, so just click on the Ore you need and see it the metals roll in.Click the pictures it immediately...

Some puns are simply irresistible. Wood is required for several buildings in Empires & Allies, and important ones at that. Not only is Wood needed to create Houses, but you'll need the tree to create Military and Government Buildings, too. Now you can see why this resource is vital. While clearing Trees and Bushes from your island Empire provides tiny amounts of Wood in exchange for Energy, building Lumber Mills is the way to go. In exchange for Coins, these buildings can produce much bigger amounts of Wood that are always guaranteed.


Atten-TION privates! Zynga's Empires & Allies is now live on Facebook, and there's a war to be won! We've gone right to work in the social giant's newest title to bring you a complete guide to how to get started completing missions in this Risk-inspired battle for the ages! While there are plenty of activities for you to take part in throughout the game - producing wood and oil to create homes and military units, battling in full-screen combat against cleverly named villains, and bringing your destroyed island nation back to life (just to name a few) - one of the biggest time-sinks in the game will be the completing of missions.

Want to see what to expect from the game's first ten missions? Meet us behind the break to start on your road to domination!

To be clear, this guide starts after you've completed the basic tutorial (which sees Zynga guiding you step-by-step with no room for error). At this point, you'll already have a Barracks on your land, and will have trained some Cadet Soldiers. You will have also engaged in your first battle, learning the basics of combat (which can be found repeated at the bottom of this post). At the end of the tutorial, you start Episode 2: Rallying the Empire. You're on your own cadet - it's time to make a name for yourself.

Switch to Full Screen Mode Zoom Out to see your outer islands Zoom in to Default View



This mission is an incredibly simple one, lasting just seconds. You'll be introduced to some neat aspects of the game's presentation and user interface, and will be able to activate full screen mode, or zoom your view in and out by clicking on the appropriate buttons in the orange vertical menu that runs along the right side of the screen. Acclimate yourself with these three buttons, and you'll receive 150 coins and 50 Wood.

Build two additional Farms Harvest 2 Watermelons



War is tough, and it makes the strongest of men pretty hungry. To boost your soldiers' spirits, you'll need to build two Farms in addition to the one you built earlier, and you'll need to grow Watermelons in these new farms. Each patch of Watermelons costs 240 coins and takes four hours to grow.

For finishing this mission, you'll receive 200 coins.

As you make it to level 10 and beyond in Empires & Allies, you might be left with quests that asks you to purchase certain materials from your friends' markets (buildings you can use to sell excess Metals, Oil and so on), or you may simply want to purchase some extra Oil to always have a full supply (as one example). But, do you really want to visit each and every one of your friends to see what they're selling?



Sure, the game loads fairly quickly, but what if you have already accumulated dozens of neighbors? Visiting each one would definitely be a time consuming process, but luckily there's a streamlined way to see who is selling what, and when. All you'll need to do is click on the "My Neighbors" tab above the Empires & Allies gameplay area. From there, you'll see a list of all of your current neighbors in the game, along with a section that shows you visually what each friend has for sale.

As you can see above, I currently have the option of buying Oil or Gold from two friends. I would then simply look at which friend is selling the Oil or Gold and then manually visit them back in the game. Sure, it would be great if Zynga released an overall marketplace, like the Bushels marketplace in FarmVille, that lets you shop from all friends at once, but for now, keep this tip in mind to save yourself time when looking for extra materials.

As soon as Zynga's newest game Empires & Allies launched on Facebook at the beginning of this month, the developer had already released a set of RewardVille items to back it up. At the time, Empires & Allies had only one free item in the rewards program - the Small Modern House - which added 80 citizens to your town.



Now, though, a second item has been given the giveaway treatment, with this second prize being the Park Fountain. While Empires & Allies already seems to have an issue with space (or the lack thereof), if you'd like to fill your city with a bit more in terms of decorative touches, make sure to claim your free Park Fountain while you can.

To claim it, simply head over to RewardVille, login with your Facebook account (if it hasn't been done for you already) and then click on the "Get It" button underneath the item. From there, the Park Fountain will automatically be added to your in-game inventory, allowing you to place it as any other item the next time you load the game. How convenient!

AluminumCopperGoldIronUranium
Getting the Ore you need in Empires & Allies, the next big Facebook game from Zynga, is nothing short of a bother. Thanks to Facegamer, we can alleviate that problem for you--at least a little bit. To find all five Ores, and request them from your friends, even more easily, we've included links for all five metals behind the break. However, you must be at least Level 14 in the game for these links to work. According to Facegamer, these links can be used at least every six hours, so just click on the Ore you need and see it the metals roll in.Click the pictures it immediately...

Guess what? Just like in Zynga's CityVille, where you can open businesses without technically attaching them to Roads, you can do the same thing in Empires & Allies. Here, though, you don't even need sidewalks! You've already seen just how many buildings you'll need to construct on your tiny island parcel from our look at just the first 10 missions in the game, and it only gets worse from there.

The fact of the matter is - Roads are big, and they take up space you may not be willing to spare. The good thing is, you can delete them entirely (if you so choose) to earn back that much-needed space for additional Barracks, Lumber Mills and so on. While this is a bit of a double-sided scenario, as those Roads also give you free space on which you can place units to protect your buildings, you can achieve the same outcome by simply placing Troops at the corners of your buildings, deleting Roads that connect buildings as they simply aren't necessary. You can see my own island at the top of this post - I've surrounded by Lumber Mills with tons of troops, and don't have a single piece of Road clogging up the space.

Since you don't have citizens wandering your streets like in CityVille, why not entertain the thought of deleting Roads altogether, and then save your coins that you would have spent on expanding to pay for better units?

In Empires & Allies you need to build your Empires by Coins, Wood (Lumber), Energy and Empire Point, and some need hiring your friends. Example if you want to build small Island Hut you need only 10 woods and 3 energy but if you want to build a Small Cottage you need 600 Coins and 60 Woods and 3 energy.



But if you play Empires & Allies you will always get Coin and EXP, and you can create Wood (Lumber) with Lumber Mill (200 Coins). The only resource you will need too much is Energy because we use energy in every action, Create Building, Harvest, Cut a tree or Fight. Maybe an Island hut will need more energy for every harvest (3 mins) that’s a reason to destroyed it and build the bigger one.

The Empire will restore your 1 energy every 5 minutes but you can go to your friend Empires and help them harvest or cut a tree, you’ll get back an energy or buy it from market with Empire Point (it’s like Farm Cash in FarmVille)


Build an Additional Barracks
Construct 2 Cannon Artillery

For this mission, you'll be introduced to the creation of new military units. You'll need to buy a new Barracks from the store for 200 coins and 20 Wood (Barracks are found under the Military tab). As you might have expected, this building too requires three whacks to construct. Once it's done, you'll be able to click on the Barracks to see a menu like the one below, where you can choose which type of military unit you'd like to create.



For the purposes of our mission, choose the Cannon Artillery in the top right corner. This unit costs 200 coins to create, and it will take five minutes to complete. For finishing this mission (even if you don't actually wait the five minutes for them to be created), you'll receive 200 coins.



Construct a new Parliament Building

This particular mission introduces you to the concept of population growth and "government buildings," as seen in CityVille. As we said before, each home you add to your town adds a specific number of citizens to your overall population. These government (community) buildings act as a way to increase your total possible population.

The Parliament building in particular is available from the Government section of the store for 1,000 coins and 100 Wood. If you've been following our guide, you'll have over 5,800 coins and 250 Wood to spare, so you really won't feel the pinch on the wallet with this one (thank goodness). The base of the Parliament is the largest one you will have come across yet, but still only takes three whacks to complete. From there, things become very reminiscent to CityVille, as you'll need to hire three staff members to work in your Parliament before construction is actually complete.

Just click on the "Hire Friends" button to send out individual requests to those friends that have also joined in Zynga's newest game so that you can finish sooner, rather than later. Once completed, your island's maximum population will increase by 100. Your reward is 2,000 coins.



Harvest Corn

As you'd expect, this mission simply asks you to harvest the Corn that you just planted. Just wait for the Corn to visibly change to full grown in the Farm (and for the Money Bag to start floating above the Farm) before you attempt to harvest the crop. If you click on the Farm before this point, you'll be shown a new menu, that will let you delete the current growing crop or ask your friends for help in speeding up its growth. You can also use Empire Points to instantly grow whatever crop you're growing, but for this first mission, just letting things run their natural course is the best plan.

Finishing this mission will give you 75 coins and one experience point for actually harvesting the Corn, along with 50 Wood as a bonus.

Build a Farm, Plant Corn




Farms work as you'd expect in Empires & Allies - as a way to earn additional coins. There's no Food meter in the game, but you'll need the profits from these crops to buy additional military units, purchase new homes for your citizens and so on. However, instead of simply plowing land, Farms are an actual building type, found under the "Industry" tab of the game's store.

Each Farm costs 10 Wood to build. By this point, you will have a Wood meter on your screen, so you'll be able to easily tell if you have the Wood on hand. If you're following these goals linearly, you'll have at least 210 Wood on hand, so start building that Farm! Farms also take three whacks to construct, and once that's done, you can start growing Corn, which costs just 25 coins to plant and is ready in five minutes. For simply planting Corn in a single Farm, you'll finish this mission and will earn 150 coins.

Build two additional Small Island Huts



Your island starts with two Small Island Huts (a type of home, similar to those in CityVille), but you'll need to raise the population even further by adding two more. Each Hut can be purchased from the game's store (the Hard Hat icon in the lower right of the screen) for 10 Wood each. Don't worry about not having a Wood meter at the top of your screen just yet - it will be activated very shortly. For now, just know that you do have the 20 Wood necessary, and build away!

Each Small Island Hut must be constructed by whacking the frame three times. Each whack costs one energy point, as you'd expect from other Zynga games. Once you have built both Huts, your population will increase to 40/100, and you'll receive 200 coins for finishing this mission.



Place the Empire Flag from your Inventory

This mission is just as easy as the first, and it introduces you to your in-game inventory. The inventory is represented by the three crates in the bottom right menu of the game screen. Currently, since you're just starting the game, the only decoration in your inventory will be this Flagpole, so you can simply click on the "Select" button and then place the flag anywhere you'd like in your town. You'll receive a one experience point bonus for placing the flag, which will also allow you to name your new Empire. You have 23 characters to work with for a full name, so be creative!


Deploy Cadet Soldiers on the Island

If you've been going through the game in a linear fashion, you will have just completed the tutorial, and will likely need to wait a matter of 3-4 minutes for your first Barracks to finish training your Cadet Soldiers. Once that's done, simply click on your Barracks when the symbol of the Cadet is floating above it to pull the soldiers from the Barracks. You can then place them anywhere on your map to finish this quest, being rewarded with 50 Wood in the process.

Empires & Allies Friend Battles
FarmVille, FrontierVille and CityVille are all about red hearts, sunshine and friendship. But Empires & Allies asks, "What about beating friends to a bloody pulp?" Finally, instead of helping our friends we can hurt them just as easily. Welcome to Neighbor Invasions. This is your chance to finally be the bad guy for once, and we have a full guide on how to be the biggest, baddest Neighbor around.

Invasion Bound
Before we get into mechanics, just make sure you're at least Level 6 before trying this out. When you reach Level 6 (and if you've followed all the Goals until this point), you will be tasked with a Goal titled "Invasion Bound." This is where the good stuff, the meat and potatoes if you will, of Empires & Allies lies.
Choosing a location
Laying the Beat Down (Attacking):

To invade one of your friends Empires, just click on their name in your Neighbor Bar, click "Invade," and once you arrive at their Empire, choose a location to attack. The location of attack is important for two reasons: 1. the structures you attack directly effect your rewards like resources and coins--choose depending on your needs, and 2. some areas on your friend's map might be better-defended than others, so take advantage of that.
Victorious Invasion
Then, like normal combat, you must choose your method of attack from Air, Naval or Infantry options and then specific units to combat your enemy's. Pro Tip: Try zooming in on your Neighbor's map before choosing an attack location. This way, you can see which units they have defending which structures, and better prepare an attack based on your own arsenal. But back to the combat screen. Once you've (hopefully) defeated your opponent by choosing appropriate units and making smart attack choices, you will be declared the winner.
Bask in Victory
Now, you have the option to both post the news to Facebook and send a 100-character taunt to your battered buddy. After you reap the rewards from your friend's Empire, which again depend on where exactly you invaded, your time in your friend's Empire is through. Well, at least for a day. You should also keep in mind that either helping or hurting a friend rewards you with Honor or Infamy, respectively, but also you cannot do both to a single friend in one day.
Defending your Empire
Putting up the Gloves (Defending):

Don't worry, you do have the option to fight back when invaded. The process for defending your Empire is nearly identical, but the rewards are far more lucrative for a successful defense. Though, you won't exactly be prepared for what troops they've chosen, so it's best to create a large, varied force of units to defend yourself with. If you fail to defend yourself from an invasion, that player will be able to collect rewards from that invaded location every few hours until you do, so bite them back.
Reap the Rewards


Gettin' to the Good Stuff (Losses and Rewards):

While you will receive bonuses for successfully attacking a friend, you will not lose anything for being invaded by a friend from the locations they attack. In other words, those rewards aren't stolen, but created out of thin air. (Ah, technology.) The same goes for rewards collected by invaded, undefended Empires. However, there is one thing to lose while in combat: units. Losing a Tank or a squad of Infantry in battle means that you will not be able to bring them onto the battlefield again. Therefore, it's a good idea to keep building units and maintain a nice balance of Air, Naval and Infantry units.

If you want protection from invasion while you, say, sleep or go for a good old vacay, you can opt to go neutral for a minimum of 18 hours, which will prevent players from invading your Empire. However, going neutral will erase your current occupations and you'll have to start all over. But hey, there's no need to be a wuss--this is Empires & Allies, and staking your claim is half the battle.