Lord of Ultima
Encyclopedia
Lord of Ultima is a free-to-play
, browser-based
, massively multiplayer
real-time strategy
(MMORTS) video game by Electronic Arts
. The game started a beta test on April 20, 2010 http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/20/ea-launches-free-to-play-lord-of-ultima-browser-based-game/http://www.massively.com/2010/04/20/ea-launches-lord-of-ultima-browser-game/ and was developed by EA Phenomic
.
The game is a 2D
strategy game similar to Evony
. Though the game is nominally free, players may purchase "diamonds" for real-world money, providing the game with its revenue stream
. The diamonds may be used for three types of enhancements: improved user-interface features through the purchase of "ministers" which reduce micro-management of resources; "artifacts" which provide increased resources and can speed completion of commands; and protection from player attacks.
The game uses pure Javascript
Web technology, and is not based on Adobe Flash
, unlike many other browser-based games.
Players start off with a single city, which is protected from attack for seven days. A player can choose to settle inactive cities or create new cites after the required pre-prerequisites have been met. A player can also build a castle enabling them to conquer other cities with castles, vice versa. It is a common mistake for new players to "castle their first city", resulting in their elimination. Players without castles can raid dungeons (PvE battles) but cannot plunder other players' cities. Joining an alliance is crucial in this game for both protection and economic support.
The objective of the game is to attain the title "Lord of Ultima", which can only be done with the support of an alliance.
Several third party tools are commonly used to support the player. City planning tools help to design a city layout by displaying the potential resource gain per hour. City design is crucial for the player to rank highly on the in-game leaderboards.
According to GameRankings, PC Gamer magazine in the UK gave it a score of 75%, and Game Vortex awarded it 82%.
MMOHut cited the game's positive points as an “original strategy script”, and the fact that “city layouts take thought.” It criticised Lord of Ultima's “slow paced gameplay” and “very weak connection with the Ultima franchise.”
IT Reviews concluded: “Ultimately... this browser-based strategy affair proved rather too slow paced for our liking.” However, the reviewer noted that: “If you're the sort of player who can happily dip in and out of a game very casually, it's worth checking out. There's considerable depth in the town planning, a decent guild system, and after all, it's free to play.”
There are five resources used to build structures and units: Wood, Stone, Iron, Food and Gold. Buildings only use Wood and Stone, Units can use Wood, Stone, Iron and Gold to build and must have food to be kept in the city. Each city has a limited amount of storage for Wood, Stone, Iron and Food, the amount of gold you have is unlimited and is shared among all the players cities.
To Recruit units a city must have either a City Guard House or a Barracks and another military structure. A City Guard House allows the player to recruit City Guards. A Barracks will give space to recruit other units. Training Grounds will let you recruit Berserkers, Rangers and Guardians. Stables let you recruit Scouts, Crossbowmen and Knights. Moonglow Towers let you recruit Mages and Warlocks. Trinsic Temples let you recruit Templars, Paladins and Barons. Shipyards let you recruit Sloops, Frigates and War Galleons. Workshops let you recruit Ballistas, Rams and Catapults. Each unit has different strengths, weaknesses and abilities. Barons will allow a player to create a new city or conquer an existing castled city. Scouts can show what units and structures are in a city or castle. War Galleons, Rams and Catapults can destroy structures in a city.
A Level 10 Moonglow tower also gives the player the ability to "purify" resources. Wood turns into Darkwood, Stone into Runestone, Iron into Veritium and Food into Trueseed. These purified resources can be used to research improvements to units, structures and the player's Title. A Players title dictates how many cities they can control, the maximum amount is currently 1,000 cities.
Cities are arranged on continents in the game, arranged in a grid-layout.
To become Lord of Ultima and win the game a player must belong to an alliance that controls Level 10 Palaces in all Eight Virtues simultaneously: Compassion, Honesty, Honor, Humility, Justice, Sacrifice, Spirituality and Valor. Palaces can be destroyed by other players. Each virtue provides a bonus to every player in the alliance for a specific thing (Compassion increases Construction speed in all cities, and the travel speed of infantry and cavalry units).
There is a comprehensive wiki detailing Gameplay Mechanics, Combats, Creatures, Units, Building, and the Community .
Free-to-play
Free-to-play refers to any video game that has the option of allowing its players to play without paying. The model was first popularly used in early massively multiplayer online games targeted towards casual gamers, before finding wider adoption among games released by major video game...
, browser-based
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
, massively multiplayer
Massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and usually feature at least one persistent world. They are, however, not necessarily games played on...
real-time strategy
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
(MMORTS) video game by Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
. The game started a beta test on April 20, 2010 http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/20/ea-launches-free-to-play-lord-of-ultima-browser-based-game/http://www.massively.com/2010/04/20/ea-launches-lord-of-ultima-browser-game/ and was developed by EA Phenomic
EA Phenomic
EA Phenomic is a real-time strategy video game developer, headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, and founded as Phenomic Game Development in 1997...
.
The game is a 2D
2D computer graphics
2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models and by techniques specific to them...
strategy game similar to Evony
Evony
Evony is a browser-based multiplayer online game with graphic elements reminiscent of Civilization. The game is set in medieval times where a player is to establish a city, begin developing various technologies, and build supporting structures to generate armies and resources for the purpose of...
. Though the game is nominally free, players may purchase "diamonds" for real-world money, providing the game with its revenue stream
Revenue stream
A revenue stream is a form of revenue. Revenue streams refer specifically to the individual methods by which money comes into a company. Revenue streams may be characterized...
. The diamonds may be used for three types of enhancements: improved user-interface features through the purchase of "ministers" which reduce micro-management of resources; "artifacts" which provide increased resources and can speed completion of commands; and protection from player attacks.
The game uses pure Javascript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
Web technology, and is not based on Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
, unlike many other browser-based games.
Gameplay
In Lord of Ultima, game-play primarily revolves around collecting resources to develop cities and armies and then battle against each other for power and prestige.Players start off with a single city, which is protected from attack for seven days. A player can choose to settle inactive cities or create new cites after the required pre-prerequisites have been met. A player can also build a castle enabling them to conquer other cities with castles, vice versa. It is a common mistake for new players to "castle their first city", resulting in their elimination. Players without castles can raid dungeons (PvE battles) but cannot plunder other players' cities. Joining an alliance is crucial in this game for both protection and economic support.
The objective of the game is to attain the title "Lord of Ultima", which can only be done with the support of an alliance.
Several third party tools are commonly used to support the player. City planning tools help to design a city layout by displaying the potential resource gain per hour. City design is crucial for the player to rank highly on the in-game leaderboards.
Reception
Lord of Ultima wasn't widely reviewed, but where it was covered, the game fared reasonably well.According to GameRankings, PC Gamer magazine in the UK gave it a score of 75%, and Game Vortex awarded it 82%.
MMOHut cited the game's positive points as an “original strategy script”, and the fact that “city layouts take thought.” It criticised Lord of Ultima's “slow paced gameplay” and “very weak connection with the Ultima franchise.”
IT Reviews concluded: “Ultimately... this browser-based strategy affair proved rather too slow paced for our liking.” However, the reviewer noted that: “If you're the sort of player who can happily dip in and out of a game very casually, it's worth checking out. There's considerable depth in the town planning, a decent guild system, and after all, it's free to play.”
In Game
The game is based on building cities as said above, this includes constructing buildings, creating military units, and conquering other territories. There are over 30 different structures that can be built, resource generators (Iron Mine, Stone Quarry, Woodcutters Hut, Farm, Townhouse), support structures (Sawmill, Stonemason, Mill, Foundry), Warehouses, trade structures (Marketplace and Harbor), military structures (City Guard House, Barracks, Training Ground, Stable, Moonglow Tower, Trinsic Temple, Workshop, Shipyard, Castle), City Walls, defensive towers (Lookout, Ranger, Pitfall Trap, Guardian, Barricade, Templar, Ballista and Camouflage Trap) and Palaces. Defensive towers can only be built on City Walls. The Harbor and Shipyard can only be built on Water. A city can only have one castle, and once built, a castle can not be destroyed or removed. A castle allows one to attack other cities and conquer other castled cities, but in turn opens up your city to be conquered. A player can not be completely defeated as long as they have one uncastled city. A player must belong to an alliance and have a castle in their city in order to build a palace. Each structure starts at level 1 and can be upgraded to level 10 using resources.There are five resources used to build structures and units: Wood, Stone, Iron, Food and Gold. Buildings only use Wood and Stone, Units can use Wood, Stone, Iron and Gold to build and must have food to be kept in the city. Each city has a limited amount of storage for Wood, Stone, Iron and Food, the amount of gold you have is unlimited and is shared among all the players cities.
To Recruit units a city must have either a City Guard House or a Barracks and another military structure. A City Guard House allows the player to recruit City Guards. A Barracks will give space to recruit other units. Training Grounds will let you recruit Berserkers, Rangers and Guardians. Stables let you recruit Scouts, Crossbowmen and Knights. Moonglow Towers let you recruit Mages and Warlocks. Trinsic Temples let you recruit Templars, Paladins and Barons. Shipyards let you recruit Sloops, Frigates and War Galleons. Workshops let you recruit Ballistas, Rams and Catapults. Each unit has different strengths, weaknesses and abilities. Barons will allow a player to create a new city or conquer an existing castled city. Scouts can show what units and structures are in a city or castle. War Galleons, Rams and Catapults can destroy structures in a city.
A Level 10 Moonglow tower also gives the player the ability to "purify" resources. Wood turns into Darkwood, Stone into Runestone, Iron into Veritium and Food into Trueseed. These purified resources can be used to research improvements to units, structures and the player's Title. A Players title dictates how many cities they can control, the maximum amount is currently 1,000 cities.
Cities are arranged on continents in the game, arranged in a grid-layout.
To become Lord of Ultima and win the game a player must belong to an alliance that controls Level 10 Palaces in all Eight Virtues simultaneously: Compassion, Honesty, Honor, Humility, Justice, Sacrifice, Spirituality and Valor. Palaces can be destroyed by other players. Each virtue provides a bonus to every player in the alliance for a specific thing (Compassion increases Construction speed in all cities, and the travel speed of infantry and cavalry units).
There is a comprehensive wiki detailing Gameplay Mechanics, Combats, Creatures, Units, Building, and the Community .