Guide
1.0 Getting Started
1.1 User Interface
1.2 Alliances
2.0 City Building
2.1 Building and Conquering Cities
2.2 City Resource Management
2.3 Training Armies and Building Fleets
2.4 Buildings Tech Tree
3.0 Combat
3.1 Formations
3.2 Combat Mechanics
3.3 City Battle
3.4 Units Resource Management
3.5 Hostiles
3.6 Ground Units List
3.7 Naval Units List
1.1 User Interface
1.2 Alliances
2.0 City Building
2.1 Building and Conquering Cities
2.2 City Resource Management
2.3 Training Armies and Building Fleets
2.4 Buildings Tech Tree
3.0 Combat
3.1 Formations
3.2 Combat Mechanics
3.3 City Battle
3.4 Units Resource Management
3.5 Hostiles
3.6 Ground Units List
3.7 Naval Units List
1.0 Getting Started
Sign Up
Getting to know your first city
Keep expanding your influence!
This is a quick tutorial that will guide you on your first journey in the world of Arcadia.
Sign Up
Follow this steps to sign up and play Arcadia Online:
1. Go to the main page, select a realm that is not full of players and click on Play (on the top left of the webpage).
2. Since you dont have an account yet go to the bottom link "Sign Up Now!" You'll be asked for your e-mail adress, write it in the input box and click Submit.
3. Go to your e-mail adress where you'll receive a link to activate your account (to receive the e-mail can take up to a few minutes depending on how much the server is busy, but usually it goes instantly). If you dont receive soon the e-mail adress be sure to check your e-mail spam folder in case it's there. Once you've received the e-mail click on the activation link.
4. The activation link will lead you to the Sign Up form that will ask you for a name (the name will be used to identify you in game as your realm name) and a password. You also have to agree to the EULA and to not use multiple accounts on the same realm.
5. Congratulations you are ready to play Arcadia Online, go to the login page of your realm and input your name and password to play!
Choosing the realm color and city location
Once you've logged in you'll be asked to choose the flag color for your realm, choose the color by alternating the red-green-blue levels to get the desired color or simply let the system pick a random color for you.
Next you'll be asked to choose a city location, this is a very important decision that will impact how you start your game since different terrains that surround your city give you different bonuses. Try to choose a place that is far from more advanced players to not be an easy target at the start. You choose a place by clicking on a red circle. If there are no places left try to navigate the map and find a place you like. You can also navigate to other quadrants by clicking on the globe in the main interface.
Start location red circles
Getting to know your first city
Start by clicking on your city and you'll be presented with the main city tab that gives you all the important informations about your city. Next you can start exploring the other tabs (City, Castle, Garrison, Market, Shipyard, Port), Shipyard and Port tabs will be available only if the city is near a water tile.
The City tab gives you access to all the buildings you can build in your city while the Castle tab shows you the ground units you can build to defend your city. The garrison tab shows you the ground units currently in the reserves or in control of one or more commanders.
Upgraded walls provide better protection
What to build at the start ?
It depends on your city attributes and your strategy, however the most important buildings for starters are:
Resource gathering buildings: Those are the buildings that should be a priority at the start in order to maximize the gathering of various resources to develop your city. Especially important are Farming and Hunting/Fishing Guild since they give food for your city and prevent starving.
Walls: To increase the defences of your city you need better walls that gives you a crucial advantage during city sieges.
City Hall and Urban development: Once your city population starts to grow it's a good idea to increase the city size to accomodate even more people.
Castle and other defence buildings: The only way to survive in a hostile world like Arcadia is to build a strong army to defend your cities and even wage war against other realms.
What about combat ?
You start with a small army in your garrison (go to the garrison tab to see it). You can try to engage some hostiles outside your city if they are weak enough or wait and build a stronger army. It's a good thing to start by defeating hostiles early on since they bring good loot that can help you in the development of your realm.
In order to leave your city with the army click on the commander and then click on the tile you want to move it. Be careful to provide enough Food and Gold to the commander and its army to sustain it during its voyage.
Once you are outside the city you can automate the moving of your army. Click on the "Plan army movement" link and select a path you want your army to take then click confirm route.
An army about to engage the Rebels
Keep expanding your influence!
Once you've developed your city start expanding, construct new cities to keep your realm growing (learn more about building a city). Once you've trained an army big enough you can try conquering a city. If you aspire to greater goals join (or create) an alliance. Arcadia Online is full of possibilities waiting for you to take advantage of them!