Review: Castle Age on Facebook

Doing quests is the main component to gaining levels in Castle Age. When players begin questing they must travel though the Land of Fire and complete five primary quests. Each quest must be done multiple times and each has a progress bar that must be filled. Doing so will open up sub-quests, which also have progress bars. Once the sub-quest progress bars are filled, the main quest will graduate to the next level and the progress bar for the main quest will be empty again. Quest will be complete once the main quest reaches level four and the quest bars for the main and sub-quests are all full. To complete many of the quests, players must have specific soldiers in their army. The prerequisites apply only to the main quests. To hire soldiers, go to the Town link. Here you can buy soldiers, weapons, armour and lands.

To make questing even more complex, and to give more incentive for players to battle, there is another type of quest called a demi-quest. When players battle each other or participate in boss battles, team battles or world battles, they may receive one of five demi points. The more demi points a player has the more demi quests are opened up. There are different quests for each type of demi point. Players can also gain one hundred extra demi points and a bonus every twenty-four hours by clicking on the “Gain Blessing” button just above the demi quests.

There are two different types of lands in Castle Age, the kind which can be bought and the kind which are conquered through questing. Purchased lands bring in income every hour. Buying up lands early is a good idea because players will need a lot of money to purchase the required soldiers for the quests in the Land of Earth, the game's second quest territory.

Besides needing soldiers to do quests, you will usually also need specific generals. To hire generals, go to the Heroes link in the navigation bar. To assign a general to help a player quest, simply go to the Heroes link and then choose the Generals tab. Each general a player has will gain experience when they are selected, and they will level accordingly. When a general levels they will gain either attack, or defence points, or both. Generals each have a special bonus that assists players, Strider for example will, when equipped, help players gain more money from quests and battles.

When battling other players in Castle Age there are two different options. Players choose to either Invade or Duel. Invade will have a

player's entire army attack an opponent whereas duelling is a one-on-one battle between each army's most powerful general. Like questing, players will gain experience and levels for both invading and duelling.

Monster battles are not at all the same as battling other players. There are three types of monster battles. The first, and least complex, are boss battles. When you have completed all the quests in a land for the first time, you may then challenge the land's boss, starting with the Orc King in the Land of Fire. These are normally fairly small battles as only people in your army can help you. The same is true for team battles, but players with very few friends playing Castle Age may find the team battles more difficult. The player who initiates the battle is only given a specific time frame to kill the monster, similar to monster quests in Warlords. If the beast lives beyond the allotted time the mission is a failure.

The most epic of all the monster battles occur when players summon world monsters like the Hydra. There may be up to one hundred players of all levels involved in a battle to slay these most gruesome of monsters. Some epic monsters have special powers, like a magical shield, that make them that much more powerful. To help defeat world monsters, players can ask friends to help by joining the battle or by answering the “Call to Arms”, which brings in special assaults on the monster. The more people who answer the call, the more powerful the special assault weapon becomes. The monster battles also provide some of the best loot in the game.

All-in-all, with interesting creatures, and complex questing and battle systems, Castle Age is a great Facebook quest game that will delight any fantasy fan.