Golden Age

Golden Age is a strategy game about defending a holy city from the Dark Legion and launching attacks against its forces. You can assault the Legion’s 12 lairs, recover holy relics and use them to strengthen the city’s defenses or gain the ability to build wonders such as the pyramids. Every attack prompts a large-scale counterattack.

Plan your defense

Before attacking, the Dark Legion gathers its forces at a fixed location. You can use this time to prepare defenses, strike before its assembly is complete, or wait for its army and face it in a direct battle. The gathering period shapes the pace of the game and allows for different approaches.

The map has many portals, which let you deploy your army and move quickly into the Dark Legion’s hinterland.

Gather resources

You collect five resources, each with a specific source and use:

• Wood: gathered from forests; used to build fences and upgrade building materials.
• Stone: gathered from quarries; used to build stone walls and upgrade building materials.
• Iron: mined from iron ore; needed to produce advanced troops.
• Gold: gathered from gold mines; needed to construct buildings that produce troops.
• Holy water: obtained from the Holy of Holies; needed to call the Holy Spirit.

Buildings and troops

Pilgrims leave money beneath the Minaret, which generates gold automatically for hiring humans. Humans build defensive towers, while the Seminary in the Holy City trains anthropologists and warlocks who can communicate with the Holy Spirit. You can assemble troops in barracks and release them when the time is right.

Enemies and defenses

The Dark Legion’s forces include several kinds of monsters. The Flame Lord splits into fire monsters every 120 seconds, then reforms after another 120 seconds. Each time the Ice Giant is broken, it splits into smaller ice giants; Mountain Giants can shed rocks when attacked, turning them into rock monsters. The Lord of Thunder strikes enemies with lightning that kills and paralyzes, while the Skeleton King takes no damage when undead are nearby. The Death Knight grows stronger with every death. Other enemies include the Two-Headed Dragon, a powerful land creature; bloodthirsty werewolves that recover some health with each attack; the Shepherd, which summons wolves to fight; and the Red Dragon, whose fire destroys what it burns.

Defensive towers include the Dragon Statue, a magical stone figure made from dragon bones, dragon blood and magma with black magic; Thor’s Eye, an orc shaman’s totem that rumbles as it kills enemies; and the Speargun, Crossbow Gun, Rocket, Sand of Time and City Defense Gun. The Speargun has a weak trigger, while the Crossbow Gun has a light build, fast rate of fire and low cost. The Rocket began as a children’s toy, and the Sand of Time is an hourglass whose legendary sand comes from the Ganges River. The City Defense Gun has great power and very long range.

Choose defenses by enemy

Undead have weak attacks, low health, large numbers and slow movement. They do not attack stone walls or fences, so fences are a cheap way to hold them back. Orcs have medium attack power, high health, small numbers and fast movement; they attack fences but not stone walls, so stone walls are useful against them. Barbarians have strong attacks, medium health, numbers and movement speed, and attack both fences and stone walls, so strengthening defensive tower attacks is a way to counter them.