How to play Empires & Allies: account, tutorial, controls and first battles

How do you create your Empires & Allies account?

Open the game's front page and click “Create my island”. The form asks for a commander name (3 to 20 characters, using letters, numbers or an underscore), an email address, a password of at least 8 characters typed twice, and an optional island name of up to 24 characters. If you leave the island name empty, the game gives you a default one based on your commander name.

Then click “Create account and play”. You land directly on your island, with no email to confirm. Later you can sign in with either your commander name or your email. Pick a password you will remember, because there is no password reset by email.

What does the tutorial teach you, step by step?

The tutorial has 100 steps defined, and the server checks them in order, so you cannot skip ahead. It opens with Scarlett presenting your island in ruins. Then you open the hammer button, “Build”, at the bottom right, buy a Barracks and place its foundation on the ground. Click it three times to finish the construction.

Next you train Cadet Soldiers, which take about 3 minutes, and launch your first invasion: hover over the enemy portrait, choose “Attack”, pick a unit and press “Fight”. After the battle you place your flag. The steps that follow cover a house, a farm, zooming, a second invasion, a visit to Sergeant Steele, a fight against Captain Krunsch, choosing allies and using power-ups.

A warning: the tutorial is still incomplete in this beta. In our own click-through tests the dependable stretch ran from the first victory through placing the flag and buying a house. Beyond that point, expect rough edges and report them with a ticket.

Which controls and buttons do you need?

With the mouse, a click selects, builds and collects. Hold the button down and drag to move the island around. The wheel zooms in and out, and the Zoom In, Zoom Out and Reset Zoom buttons do the same job.

The official buttons on the island screen are Build, Inventory, Battle Map, Return Home, Move, Sell and “Collect from multiple buildings”, which saves you from clicking each one. Music, sound effects, settings, graphics and full screen are toggles. We have not documented keyboard shortcuts, so plan on playing with the mouse.

How does the early economy work?

Construction and many other actions cost energy. You start with 25 points, the cap rises with your level (25 at level 1, 46 at level 66) and the energy refills by itself over time. Spend it on building first; do not leave it sitting at the cap.

Buildings produce with time and you collect by clicking them. The Lumber Mill gives wood, the Oil Well oil and the Ore Mine metals. A Farm is paid for with wood, and each farm you already own makes the next one about 5% more expensive. Homes give population and coins: the Small Island Hut, for example, produces 10 population and 10 coins every 3 minutes.

The game data defines 19 different crops, among them corn, watermelon, pineapple, tomato, wheat, pumpkin, sunflower and mushrooms. Always read the cost in the build menu rather than trusting a number from a guide, because prices are calculated by the server.

How do your first battles work?

Combat is turn-based. Before a fight you choose up to 5 units and up to 3 allies, press “Fight”, and then use your powers. Units come from three buildings: Barracks for land, Shipyard for sea and Hangar for air.

Unit classes have strengths against each other. Artillery beats tanks, battleships and bombers. Tanks beat soldiers, gunboats and fighters. Soldiers beat artillery, aircraft carriers and helicopters. The tutorial tells you to pick artillery against a Vintage Tank, which is the same rule in action.

Your first units unlock quickly: Cadet Soldiers at level 1, the Vintage Tank at level 4, the Ironclad Gunboat at level 5, the Vintage Fighter at level 8 and the Vintage Bomber at level 10. Training times grow too, from about 3 minutes for the cadets to 30 minutes for the fighter.

What unlocks as you level up?

The game has 85 levels. Level 10 asks for 427 experience points and level 85 for 234,419. The Barracks, Shipyard and Hangar each have four versions, I to IV, and version IV asks for level 65, 67 and 69 respectively.

Civic buildings, limited to one per island, arrive by level: Parliament at 2, Executive Mansion at 5, Treasury at 10, Maritime Academy at 15, Federal Prison at 25, Opera House at 35, Mint at 45 and Space Exploration Center at 50. The Power-Up Factory comes at level 7, the Black Market at 9, the Titan Research Center at 21 and storage depots at 23.

Late units include the Patton Tank at level 50, the Talon Tank at 62, the Advanced Battleship at 63 and the Hypersonic Bomber at 64. At level 6, fighting with friends opens up: you can visit another player's island in attack mode and occupy it, though occupying or raiding moves no resources. Survival mode, with 60 waves, starts at level 15.

What do you do when the game freezes or misbehaves?

Your game is stored on the server, so reloading is safe. If the game hangs on loading or stops responding, press “Reload the game” in the bar under the game. If it still fails, press “Clear cache and reload”, which clears the site's cache and storage and reloads without touching your account.

If the game feels heavy, try “Smooth mode”. If an “Update” prompt appears after an action was rejected, just reload: it means your screen drifted out of sync with the server. When none of that helps, open a ticket from the in-game Support button with a screenshot.

What should you do after the tutorial?

Keep the task list on the left open and follow it, since it points you to the next building or battle. Then add real allies with the Allies button, and say hello in the chat, which has global, Spanish and English channels.

If something is wrong or missing, the Support button opens a ticket without leaving the game. For a broader view of the game, read our guide on what Empires & Allies is and where it comes from.