Castle Age Game Guide

Your stat bars are Energy, Health, and Stamina. Energy is used to quest, while Stamina is used to attack in monster battles and to PVP. If your health drops below 10 you cannot attack another player. All three refill slowly over time, and can have their maximum level raised if you assign the points earned in leveling to that purpose (you'll find that under your Keep tab).

Other things you'll find under your Keep tab are your bank, items, units (soldiers), lands under your command, and how much your lands bring in vs. how much your units cost to maintain.

Under the Quests tabs are a series of quests you can do, which will take certain units of soldiers and certain generals to complete. You can acquire units of soldiers under the Town tab, and generals as heroes under the Heroes tab. Heroes become Generals when you assign one to be your primary under the General subtab in the Heroes area. Alternately, you can click the portrait of the required general on the quest to equip them if you have them or be given the chance to hire them if you don't. Each general levels up as you battle with them, becoming stronger and offering increased bonuses.

As you progress through the quest chains you will be given the chance to acquire summoning orbs for boss battles. Once summoned, you can find those bosses under the Monsters tab. Each has a (long) timer to kill it, and you can invite your friends to help by publishing the call to arms on your facebook wall (large buttons for this, can't miss them). Once killed, everyone can collect their rewards. Then, if you like, after the timer runs down you can redo the quest and summon it again. Good for leveling and getting any good loot you may not have had drop the first time through.

Which general is best to equip at any given time is going to vary. Not only do they offer different bonuses that will be more desirable in certain circumstances, like Garlan's decrease to soldier cost, or Zaverok's monster attack bonus, but as you progress you will have access to stronger generals, and as they level these bonuses are increasing. It's ever-changing.

When you complete a quest chain associated with a land, the quests re-open with a subset of quests, and that subset has no required General. You can use these to level your strongest generals. Also, once the influence-earning potential of a quest is finished, other generals can still complete those quests for experience.

What are favor points? How can I get more?
Favor points are used at the Oracle for her "special services", units, or items. The special services include stat refills and gold (generally not worth it, and not needed if you're a patient gamer).

There are several ways to gain favor points:
* Cash purchase.
* The completion of affiliate offers like you can find all over the internet, including email address collection gimmicks and the occasional scam, so be careful if you choose this route.
* Regular gameplay - Some Achievements and Monster Battles offer favor points as reward. They're also awarded as demi rewards. See this Demi Reward chart to see which powers award them when.

What's the deal with Demi-powers?
The demi-powers assist you by offering such things as permanent bonuses to your stats, bonus quests, and powerful items in return for your gaining levels in their favor. You can see the points you have with each by going to the demi power tab under Oracle. To see the rewards they offer, click "view rewards" under their individual tabs. You can get a free blessing each day from one demi power of your choice, excepting Azerion who has a 48 hour timer. Their blessing includes points in their favor and a stat bonus. The stat bonuses offered by each are:

Ambrosia - +1 Energy
Malekus - +1 Attack
Corvintheus - +1 Defense
Aurora - +1 Health
Azeron - +1 Stamina

What do Energy Potions do?
Energy potions refill 10 points of energy. They do not, unfortunately, boost your permanent max energy.

How do I get someone to stop attacking me?
Bank your gold. If you're not dropping gold, you're less attractive as an opponent. If they're persistent, you could try friending them, logging out of the game (If you close Facebook when your health is below 10, you will fall off the list of potential targets), or try one of the other tactics listed below.

* The simplest trick to keeping from being bled dry of your gold is to stash it in the bank, found under your Keep tab. It costs a percentage fee but it is worth it.

* Set Celesta or one of the other defense-boosting heroes as your general. At level 1 Celesta gives a +3 defense bonus when you're attacked. Dante is another choice, offering +4 defense at level 1. Lacking those, use your strongest hero with the best defense.

* Increase your army size and invest points in raising your personal defense. Your army is made up of facebook friends who play castle age. There is a thread on the official forums to add castle age players to your facebook friends list if you wish. The maximum army size is 501. So far I haven't bothered with this, choosing the next step instead:

* After protecting yourself and your gold as best you can, enjoy the aspects of the game you like, ignoring the pvp. It's just an aspect of the game, and one that rarely affects any other aspect.

Or you can go to the battle tab, and under "training grounds," train with Celesta. Complete her training and you'll earn a few extra points for your stats, and who knows, you may even get to like battling and take your revenge. Dueling can be great fun even for those who want to stay with a small army.

Quest rewards - As you progress, questing gets more and more lucrative.

PvP - specifically, abusing starry-eyed newbies who haven't learned to put their gold in their bank yet. Harsh, but true. As a horrified and unsuspecting Acolyte I found myself dropping $100,000 a duel. Nothing beats that level of income in the early levels of the game.

Land - Land offers hourly income, and can be obtained as boss drops or by purchase in Town. Note that the prices of all types of land go up the more you have, so the common recommendation is to buy in stacks of 5 and 10 as soon as you can. (All land in the stack having the same price, saving gold over buying them piece by piece.)

Use whatever methods above you like or are able, and BANK your gold, and you'll have a nice, steadily growing bankroll.

There are several ways to obtain generals. One is by purchase under the Heroes tab. These slowly unlock as you work your way through the quest chains, and only cost in-game gold. Some are summoned through alchemy. Other heroes are available as quest rewards (like Celesta) or achievement rewards (Darius, for instance, is a reward when one of your apprentices reaches level 50).

More desirable and unusual heroes are offered in return for spending favor points. Some are only available by random chance in the various chests you can buy, but others can be purchased from the Oracle. We're only shown one Oracle hero at a time for sale, but all Oracle-sold heroes are available if you have their link: Buy Links for all Oracle Heroes at the official Castle Age forums.

Wikia article showing all heroes and how to get them.
Wikidot heroes list with comparative stats.

Generals gain experience from questing and battling as your primary general, and can achieve four levels, increasing their powers with each.

Some notable General powers, not to miss:
Aeris decreases, and ultimately eliminates, banking fees.
Celesta offers defense boosts.
Garlan decreases soldier costs.
Vanquish has a vicious attack.
Zarevok offers bonus damage against monsters.
All of these are obtainable using in-game gold or from quests.

Wikia Castle Age Wiki

Castle Age Wiki at Wikidot

Official Forums