FarmVille creator brings 'Empires & Allies' to Facebook

by Steven Mostyn - Jun 1 2011, 12:15

Pushing against the preconceived notion that Zynga only creates games based around smiley activities such as cultivating crops and raising farm animals, the Facebook-friendly software company has this week unveiled its first “strategy combat gone social” experience.

Arriving as the debut offering from Zynga’s Los Angeles studio, new real-time strategy (RTS) platform ‘Empires & Allies’ has been developed as something of a “CityVille meets Risk” videogame mash-up, according to the official press release. 

The studio’s well-established success rate notwithstanding (i.e., FarmVille and FrontierVille), Empires & Allies is likely to impress considering that its core production team consists of developers who’ve amassed mainstream RTS experience through series such as Command & Conquer and The Lord of the Rings.

In terms of content, the game’s central campaign is simple yet addictive insofar as it tasks players with evolving their little island nation into a mighty global empire by managing resources to create troop units and a variety of war machines before then flexing their military muscle.

Or, if they prefer, players intent on pursuing pacifism can take the more challenging (read: boring) route of trying to settle in-game squabbles with other nations through political and diplomatic channels. Yawn.

Empire & Allies is being prepared in 12 different languages and will begin sucking away vital hours via Facebook from June 1 (yikes, that’s today).

Oh, I suddenly feel a bit ill… best take the rest of the day/week/month off.

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