How to Play Ageforge: A Beginner's Guide

What kind of game is Ageforge?

Ageforge is a lane battler: two keeps face each other across a single lane, and each player trains units that march toward the enemy and fight automatically. It plays in any modern browser with no download and no account, and a match takes a few minutes: overtime ends every one by about eight. There are 15 units spread across 4 ages, from the Stone Age to the Future Age.

The whole match runs on the server 30 times a second. Your browser only shows what happened, so both players always see the same fight.

The goal

Destroy the other player's keep. Each keep starts with 1,200 HP, and keeps never heal. Units that reach the enemy keep attack it; if both keeps somehow fall on the same tick, the player who dealt more total damage wins.

Waiting at your keep doesn't win. If you have no unit on the lane for 20 seconds, your own keep starts to lose HP until you deploy one. Read more in the shrine and the idle keep.

Your three decisions

Units walk and fight on their own. Every decision you make is one of these three:

1. Train units. Spend gold to queue a unit. Your keep trains one unit at a time, then it walks out toward the middle of the lane and fights.
2. Advance an age. Spend XP to move to the next age. Your shop switches to that age's units, your income goes up and your keep's tower upgrades itself. The tower shoots the closest enemy in range and can't be damaged.
3. Fire your ultimate. Every age has one free, lane-wide special on a cooldown. It hits many enemy units at once.

The shrine

A stone shrine stands at the exact middle of the lane. Have a unit on it with no enemy unit on it for 1 second and it's yours until the enemy captures it back. While you hold it, you earn 9 XP per second in the Stone Age, up to 26 in the Gunpowder Age, and 13 gold per second in the Future Age, where XP has nothing left to buy. Holding the middle is the fastest way to the next age.

Gold and XP

You earn gold every second (6 per second in the Stone Age, rising to 25 in the Future Age) and from every kill. A kill pays 75% of the dead unit's cost as gold and the same number as XP. You also earn XP every second you hold the shrine (gold instead in the Future Age). XP is only spent on advancing an age, never on units.

Read more in Gold economy: income, kill rewards and spending well.

Your first two minutes

1. Open with a frontline unit right away. The Clubman soaks damage so whatever you train next can shoot from behind it, and the first unit across the middle claims the shrine.
2. Add a ranged unit such as the Slinger once the frontline is out.
3. Watch what your opponent sends and answer it. The Wolf Rider costs only 60 gold and is a quick answer to a slow, heavy push.
4. Save your ultimate for a big enemy wave rather than using it on the first unit you see.
5. Advance as soon as you have the XP, unless an enemy push is about to reach your keep and you need that gold for units first.
6. Never leave the lane empty. After 20 seconds with no unit out, your keep starts to crumble.

Counters in one line

Frontline beats Ranged, Ranged beats Fast, and Fast beats Frontline. Splash units sit outside the triangle and punish armies that bunch up. The full breakdown is in Ageforge counters explained.

How to start a match

Press Play free on the home page to go straight into a quick match: you are paired with another player, usually within seconds. To play a friend instead, press Play with a friend (on the home page or in the lobby) and send them the link. That match starts when both players are ready.