What Should I Do in My First Minute of Ageforge? Opening Gold, Units and the Shrine

This is a plain opening for your first few matches. It is not the only way to play, but it avoids the mistakes that lose most early games. If you haven't played yet, read how to play first, or just press Play free and come back.

What you start with

• 200 gold. Both players start with the same amount.
• 6 gold per second. Passive income in the Stone Age. It's low on purpose; most of your gold comes from kills.
• 3 units to choose from. Clubman (Frontline, 100 gold), Slinger (Ranged, 120 gold), Wolf Rider (Fast, 60 gold).
• One unit at a time. Your keep trains a single unit at once, so a long queue of purchases is slow. Buy what you need next, not everything you can afford.

Step 1: put a frontline unit down first

Train a Clubman (100 gold). It is a Frontline unit with 210 HP, the toughest unit in the Stone Age, so it soaks damage while the rest of your army catches up. Opening with a fragile unit just gives your opponent a cheap kill: every kill pays them 75% of the dead unit's cost.

Step 2: add damage behind it

With the rest of your starting gold, add the Slinger (Ranged, 120 gold) or the Wolf Rider (Fast, 60 gold). The counter loop is Frontline beats Ranged, Ranged beats Fast, Fast beats Frontline, so the right choice depends on what your opponent trains first. See counters explained.

Step 3: send units as a group, not one by one

A lone unit walking into a group dies without trading. Let two or three units gather, with the frontline unit in front, then send them. Keep buying as income and kill rewards arrive, so there is always something heading out.

Step 4: take the shrine

A stone shrine sits at the exact middle of the lane. A unit standing on it with no enemy unit on it captures it in 1 second. Hold it and it pays you 9 XP per second in the Stone Age. Holding it long enough pays for the second age on its own (about 50 seconds of income in the Stone Age). You keep the shrine after your units walk on, until the enemy captures it back. More in the shrine and idle keep.

Step 5: advance as soon as you can

Advancing an age costs XP, not gold, and unlocks stronger units. Do it as soon as you have the XP, unless an enemy push is about to hit your keep. In that case spend gold on units first. See ages and XP.

Keep something on the lane

If you have no unit on the lane for 20 seconds, your keep starts to crumble. Units still training don't count. If your army dies, train the cheapest unit, the Wolf Rider at 60 gold, to stop it.