I Played It Free in My Browser | Free Download

Most “free” strategy games show their hand within ten minutes. You get a burst of rewards, then a wall, then a pop-up with a price tag. I went into Forge of Empires expecting the same, partly because it has been around since its open beta in April 2012, and games that old usually lean hard on the shop.

It turned out to be more patient than that. InnoGames still runs it on browsers, Android and iOS, it won Best Browser Game at the 2013 German Computer Game Awards, and by 2023 it had passed 130 million registered players. Numbers aside, I wanted to know what a new player sees today. So I made a fresh account, played through the opening in Chrome and took screenshots along the way. Everything below comes from that session unless I say it comes from official documentation.

If you’re after something quicker to pick up, our list of 30 free browser games you can play in Chrome without downloading covers lighter options too.

Forge of Empires at a Glance

How to Start Playing Forge of Empires in Your Browser

Getting in takes about a minute. Head to the official Forge of Empires website and you land on a sign-up panel with two tabs, Register and Login.

1. Pick a username and password, or skip that and sign up with a Facebook, Google or Apple account.
2. Accept the terms by pressing the big Play Now button. A cookie consent bar sits underneath. You can turn down personalised ads there and the game still loads normally.
3. Let it drop you into a world. My account was placed on world en19, which you can see in the browser’s address bar once the game starts.

There’s no launcher and no plug-in. It ran smoothly in a regular Chrome tab on my Windows 11 PC. If you’d rather play on your phone, the same game is on Google Play and the App Store.

The New Ice Age Opening: My First Session

Long-time players will remember new cities starting on a plain green field. New accounts now open in a snowstorm. A thermometer sits at the top of the screen reading -29°C, a shivering villager begs for help, and your first job is to light a fire.

It’s a clever way to teach the basics. Every structure you place warms the camp and fills in a star on that thermometer. Placing the campfire lifted it to -24°C and turned a patch of snow into grass. The villager’s next request was a Hut, and once that went down the reading climbed to -14°C with three stars lit and 14 people living in my little camp.

Building works the way you’d expect from a city-builder. A Building Menu slides out on the left, you click an item, then drop it onto the grid. The roads leading out of the central fire matter later, because most buildings need a road connection to work.

A few steps later a “Settlement Established” banner appeared and paid out 70 coins and 150 supplies. Coins and supplies are the two everyday resources. Houses make coins, workshops make supplies, and nearly everything you build or research needs some of each.

Production Timers: Why Short Runs Pay More

The Hunter’s Cabin was my first supply building, and its menu shows how the whole game handles time. You pick a job, wait for the timer, then come back and collect. Only the 30-second job was open at the start. The rest were locked until later.

*Calculated rates, not what you’ll actually earn. The 960 figure assumes you finish and restart the 30-second job 120 times an hour without a break. The other rates also assume you collect and restart the moment each timer ends.

I worked out the last column myself from the numbers on screen, and it tells you a lot. The longer jobs pay far less per hour, but they’re there so the cabin keeps working while you sleep or go to work. If you can check in often, short runs build you up faster. If you can’t, set the 8-hour or 1-day job before you log off.

One more reason to collect on time: once PvP opens up, a neighbour who beats you in battle gets one chance to plunder. According to the game’s community wiki, they take the finished production from a single residential, production or goods building, never the building itself. Only buildings with production waiting and no motivation from another player are eligible. So collecting soon after a timer ends, or having a friend or guildmate motivate the building, leaves nothing to take. Great Buildings, cultural buildings and decorations can’t be plundered at all.

Research, Forge Points and Reaching the Bronze Age

The research tree is where you spend most of your planning time. Each technology needs a set number of Forge Points, and finishing one opens new buildings, units or areas of the map.

Forge Points come in slowly by design. You get one per hour, and the hourly refill stops once you’re holding ten, so leaving the game for two days doesn’t bank 48 points. Quests and some buildings hand out extras. Points aren’t only for research either. You’ll also use them to build and level Great Buildings later on, both your own and other players’.

After clearing the Stone Age’s only technology, Tribal Community, I got a “Reached New Age” screen for the Bronze Age. It paid out 120 coins, 120 supplies, 2 Forge Points and 5 medals.

The Bronze Age branch opens with three cheap technologies, Stilt Houses, Spears and Pottery, at 3 Forge Points each. Behind them sit The Wheel (4), Slingshots and Chalets (5 each), Cultivation (6) and Tools (3). Spears, for example, unlocks a military building plus a campaign map feature. You can also finish it instantly for 150 Diamonds, which is your first taste of what the premium currency is for.

Battles, Provinces and the Questbook

Combat takes place on a hex grid, separate from your city. You move units in turns, much like a lighter take on classic tactics games. My first fight was a small one, with two of my soldiers against two enemy units, and it ended in a win plus a reminder that taking every sector of a province earns a bigger province reward.

Damaged units heal over time. You can also pay Diamonds to heal them on the spot, which was 8 per soldier on my result screen. I let mine heal for free.

To keep you pointed in the right direction, a Questbook in the top-left corner always has a current goal and a reward. It’s handy early on because it stops the “what do I do now?” moment that sinks a lot of city-builders. The guidance gets lighter once the tutorial ends, though.

Beyond the solo campaign, the official game page lists multiplayer modes, and the game has guilds, trading with other players and neighbourhood PvP. I didn’t play long enough to test guild content, so I’m not going to judge it here.

Is Forge of Empires Free to Play? What Diamonds Cost

Yes. You can sign up and play without paying, and InnoGames’ own page describes it as free with optional purchases. Diamonds are the real-money currency, and from what I saw they mostly buy time: instant research, instant healing and similar shortcuts.

These were the bundles shown on my account. Prices appeared in euros, so they may differ in your region and will change during sales.

To be fair about it: spending clearly makes you faster, and in a game with rankings and PvP, faster matters. The game’s USK 16 rating also lists “increased purchase incentives” and “pressure to play” as content warnings. Free players can keep progressing, but more slowly. If you have kids playing, it’s worth setting a purchase limit on the device or account.

My Honest Take After the Early Game

The new frozen opening is the best first impression this game has had. The thermometer gives you a clear, visible reason for every early build. The art is detailed, the menus are clear, and nothing felt sluggish in a normal browser tab.

The pacing is the part to think about. Once the tutorial’s free rewards run out, your progress depends on timers and that slow trickle of Forge Points. Some people love that. It suits a coffee-break routine, like tending a garden. Others will feel the brakes after day one. I’d also say it leans a bit too hard on Diamond prompts for a brand-new player, since instant-finish buttons sit right next to the free option.

If you like history-themed strategy and want something closer to the deeper end, Techno360 has covered Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition going free to play and the free Sid Meier’s Civilization 6 giveaway. Both are full PC games with a very different time commitment. You’ll find more in our gaming section.

Forge of Empires Pros and Cons

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources checked: InnoGames official Forge of Empires page (platforms, pricing model, age rating), Wikipedia (release dates, awards, player count), and the Forge of Empires community wiki on Forge Points and plundering. Everything else is from my own gameplay screenshots.