Ambar - War of the Elementals, is a text-based and free Massively Multiplayer Online Strategy Game that has been around for many years. Ambar World of Warcraft, a very well known MMORPG A Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG or MMO) is a computer game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously, and is played on the Internet. ...

The administrators try to keep the game family friendly, but since it is open for everyone to join they can only react to reports, and not completely prevent inappropriate conduct. The forums are friendly and the game is still improving. There you can voice your opinion and make new suggestions to improve the game. Ambar Public Forum

Getting started

The object of the game is to help your empire be the largest, strongest, and/or most notorious in that round. Building constructions, training, attack return, and spells are all based on time.

First, you have to create your mother account (only allowed to have 1 MA). There are several different worlds in which you can play. A few common ones:

• Classic Ambar: You are allowed to create multiple realms in this world, but not in the same empire. Your realms may not interact with each other.
• Tournament Ambar: This is the primary Ambar world. The results from each round will be placed in a Hall of Fame, and there is a prize for the best empire. You can only create one realm in this world. (World variables often subject to Ambar auction winner's preference)
• Random Ambar: Only random join is allowed. Excellent way to meet new people.
• Multi Ambar: In this world interaction is allowed, along with having multiple realms from one account in an empire.
• Training Grounds: Here skilled players help new players learn the game. These players willingly offer their time to teach new players how to play, realm and empire strategies, and cooperation inside an empire. Only new accounts and trainers have access to this world. Your time here is limited though, make good use of it. Only random join is allowed.
• Blitz: World similar to Random Ambar, except where 1 tick/turn normally lasts one hour real time, it will now only last 20 or 30 minutes. This world usually becomes available after the end of the round in the other worlds.

You create a realm in an empire, in one of those worlds. There are 3 joining methods available unless specified otherwise in the world description:

1. Random join: Your realm will be created in a random empire which is not password-protected.
2. Join established empire: You decide in which empire you create your realm. You need the empire coordinates and, if it is password-protected, the password.
3. Create new empire: You create a new empire of which your realm will be the first.

Build your land in order to get a better income and thus being able to create a larger army. You have 48 ticks (48 hours real time under normal conditions) of protection time in which to do this.

The five races

Empires can be made up of many races and teamwork is very important to make the most of what you have. Story Of Ambar Intro

• Cordelons: Being the largest in stature of the races they have a population penalty. Strongest troop type in the game in the form of Berserkers. Cordelon History

Bonuses:

Increased cleric production

No formation advantage/disadvantage

+1 PR when attacking

Penalties:

-10% population limit

No formation advantage/disadvantage

Machines = +90% strength per (when used by any troop type) instead of +100%

• Phlanixians: Most humanlike race. Their strongest troop type are Pikemen and their war machines are slightly stronger than most of the other races, even their regular peons will add to the defense of their land a bit. Phlanixian History

Bonuses:

-25% building costs

-30% training costs

Peon defense

Conscription spell

+30% increased formation bonus

Penalties:

+25% attacktime

• Mersans: Magic oriented, their best troop type is the Battle Mage (Battle Mages can not cast spells as the game uses them, but just fight using magic without gems). They return from battle quicker than the other races (if all conditions are the same). They have two unique race spells. Mersan History

Bonuses:

-40% attacktime

Increased wizard production

+40% gem production

Inspiration spell

Moving Shadows spell

Penalties:

None

• Slythes: Serpentine race that loses less troops in battle. Their best troops are Cimexian Raiders. Slythe History

Bonuses:

-35% military losses

Increased thief production

Healing Hands spell

Penalties:

None

• Ashwins: Mysterious high population race that has no strong troop type but does make the strongest war machines in the game. They have a higher casualty ratio for both the attacker and defender in battle. Ashwin History

Bonuses:

+30% population limit

Machine strength per = +160% (when used by any troop type)

Ashwins kill +10% more troops in battle.

Golden Touch spell

Penalties:

None

Land and buildings

There are 5 land types (Plains, Hills, Mountains, Forests, Coastals), buildings that can only be built on a specific land type, and if you have over half of your realm's acres in one and the same landtype (at least (total acres/2)+1) you get that land bonus (land speciality).

All landtypes can be built as homes (Homes give NO income but provide more room) and farms (Produces 130 food each).

• Plains: Speciality bonus = Shortened returned time for your troops.
  • Markets: +1% income earned per hour for every 1% of land built as markets.
  • Roads: 1.5% offensive bonus for every 1% of land built as roads (30% max bonus).

• Hills: Speciality bonus = Increases your income by 20%.
  • Walls: 1.5% defensive bonus for every 1% of land built as city walls (30% max bonus).
  • Mines: Produces 13 gems each.

• Mountains: Speciality bonus = +25% defense
  • Mage Towers: Each Tower has a 3% chance of producing a mage each tick until full, 10 mages per tower max. Enabling you to cast spells and produce wizards. Self spell success depends on the percentage of towers you have. Offensive spells take into account your total amount of wizards and WPA (Wizards Per Acre) versus the target realm's total wizards and WPA.
  • Blacksmiths: Decreases military costs (to a 50% max) by 2% for every 1% of land built as forges.

• Forests: Speciality bonus = Population does not need farms for food since the forest provides it.
  • Wood Mills: Decreases the building costs by 2% (to a 50% max cost reduction) for every 1% of land built as woodmills
  • Thief Guilds: Each Guild has a 3% chance of producing a thief per tick until full, 10 thieves per guild max. Enabling you to perform thieving operations. Thieving sucess is based on your TPA (Thieves Per Acre)) versus the target realm's TPA.

• Coastals: Speciality bonus = Someone attacking this island needs enough boats for his entire attack force.
  • Cleric Temples: Each temple has a 5% chance of a cleric being produced per tick until full, 20 clerics per temple. Clerics are sent along in battle to tend to fallen comrades enabling you to recover them.
  • Shipyards: Shipyards have a 3% chance of producing a ship each tick until full, and 5 ships per shipyard max. 20 troops per boat (machines count as troops too). Enable you to attack coastal and flooded realms.

Magic

Common spells

These spells are available to everyone.

• Divine Sight: Allows you to see the main realm page of your target and the total number of troops target has training at the time.
• Empire DS: Casts Divine Sight on all the realms in target empire.
• Echoes of the Past: Allows you to view the target empire's news, revealing recent portal news as well as attacks to and from the target's empire.
• Open Portal: Opens a portal to another empire, if possible, through which you can interact with that empire. Such as attacking, thieving, etc.
• Close Portal: Closes the chosen portal if the portal can be closed at that time.
• Dispel Magic: Ends all spells affecting your realm excluding empire spells.
• Magic Shield: Helps strengthen your realm's resistance to offensive spells for 12-24 ticks. (Self spell)
• City Of Lights: Helps strengthen your realm's resistance to thieving for 12-24 ticks. (Self spell)
• Enlightenment: Disbands 2-3% of the thieves in the target realm.

Realm elemental spells

These spells are available to the corresponding elemental you choose when you create your realm. Some elementals are more suitable for specific roles.

• Air elemental
  • Tornadoes: Destroys 3-5% of target's homes.
  • Storms: Enemy armies take an additional 50% time to return home from attacking your realm for 12-24 ticks. (Self spell)

• Earth elemental
  • Horn Of Plenty: Increase food production by 100% for 12-24 ticks for your realm. (Self spell)
  • Tremors: Destroys 1-2% of target's homes, with peasants leaving for 12-24 hours at 3% per tick.

• Water elemental
  • Water Stones: Allows you to attack a coastal realm without the use of boats for 12-24 ticks. (Self spell)
  • Tsunami: 5% of target's peasants get washed out to sea.

• Fire elemental
  • Unrelenting Heat: Destroys 1-2% farms and lowers food production by 50% for 12-24 ticks.
  • Elemental Fires: +15% attack strength for 12-24 ticks. Gets dispelled after you perform a successful attack. (Self spell)

• Spirit elemental
  • Raise Spirits: Increases max space by 15% for 12-24 ticks in your realm. (Self spell)
  • Demoralize: Target has -10% defense strength for 12-24 ticks. Gets dispelled after anyone succesfully attacks the target.

Empire elemental spells

All empire spells have a duration of a random number of ticks between 12 and 24 and affect all realms in the empire.

• Air elemental: Polarized Air - Allows you to close an opened portal after only half the time as usual. (ie. after 3 ticks rather than 6)
• Earth elemental: Golden Mines - Each Gem Mine in the empire produces 100 karats extra per tick.
• Water elemental: Flood - Enemies have to use boats for 10% of their attack force to attack realms in your empire.
• Fire elemental: Scorched Earth - Enemy armies' return time is slowed down by 2 ticks if they attack any realm in your empire.
• Spirit elemental: Spirits Of The Damned - Any attacking enemy armies suffers 40% more casualties.

Race spells

These spells are only available to the corresponding races.

• Cordelons
  • None
• Phlanixians
  • Conscription: Troops take half of the normal time to train during 12-24 ticks. (Self spell)
• Mersans
  • Inspiration: Alchemy bonuses are increased by 50% for your realm for the next 12-24 ticks. (Self spell)
  • Moving Shadows: Target realm is 25% less likely to catch thieves for the next 12-24 ticks.
• Slythes
  • Healing Hands: Regenerates all troops on the battlefield so quickly that they suffer no losses for 12-24 ticks. Gets dispelled after you perform a successful attack or when someone performs a successful attack on you. (Self spell)
• Ashwins
  • Golden Touch: Each acre in your realm produces 10 karats per tick for 12-24 ticks. (Self spells)

Thieving

Each realm has a maximum of 10 thieving ops (operations). Ops get replenished by 1 each tick.

• Steal Karats: Attempts to steal some karats from target realm.
• Steal Food: Attempts to steal some food from target realm.
• Steal Gems: Attempts to steal some gems from target realm.
• Bribe Peons: Attempts to take some citizens from a target realm.
• Spy: Attempts to get information on target realm's building status.
• Demoralize: Attempts to trick away between 1% and 4% (in all worlds but multi), between 0.25% and 1% (in multi) of target troops for 2 ticks, but after the realm is attacked successfully the troops will return to their posts immediatly.
• Murder Wizards: Attempts to kill some wizards in a target realm.
• Sabotage Machines: Attempts to damage some of the target's machine forces.
• Infiltrate Military: Attempts to gather military status, such as troops out in battle and troops in training, of target realm.
• Sink Boats: Attempts to destroy some of target's ships.

Military

In Ambar, there exist three classes of military units. Each type has its own Power Rating, which is its value for both offense and defense. Each race has different strengths and weaknesses for their respective units. For example, Cordelons have more powerful melee units, while their ranged units do not perform as strongly. The opposite is true of the Mersans, who have weak melee, but a powerful long-range attack. Also, different military units have advantages and disadvantages when going into battle in various attack and defensive formations. These formations give bonuses to certain types of units depending on what formation is being used. Luck has nothing to do with it once the fight is on. It is attacking power versus total defending power then. Roads vs walls, formation vs. formation, and most important, troops vs. troops.

Unit types

In Ambar there are three different unit types, these are the Me (Melee), Rg (Ranged) and Mt (Mounted) troops. Each unit type corresponds to how it is used in battle and with which battle formation it is best used (and what bonuses are given, more on that later). Also there are Ma (Machines) which are weapons to be used by these unit types.

Training

Training takes 12 game days (ticks). But you have the option to spend double the training cost so that your troops are ready in only half the time. Phlanixians also have Conscription spell to cut training time.

Formations

War units use formations to attack and defend with. These formations give bonuses to certain types of units because they emphasize that type of fighting. These formations are assault, siege and mounted. Consider the formations like a game of rock, paper, scissors. Assault formation is rock, Mounted formation is paper, Siege formation is scissors. Also, when you use a formation of a certain type every unit in the corresponding category gets a 10% power bonus. The unit to type of formation are as follows:

• Siege beats Mounted: All Ranged troops get a 20% power bonus.
• Mounted beats Assault: All Mounted troops get a 20% power bonus.
• Assault beats Siege: All Melee troops get a 20% power bonus.

Alchemy

Investing in alchemy gives everyone in the empire certain benefits. The more you invest the greater the benefit, but there are limits as to how much you can invest before it becomes pointless. The more acres your empire gets, the more you will need to invest to keep the same level of effect.

• Youth Elixir: Youth elixirs are created by alchemists to keep your population young and strong. It allows you to have a maximum of 20% extra population since the old live to be much more productive.
• Cartography: Cartography increases the skills of map making for your explorers which means you need to send fewer people out and pay less funding. It will save you a maximum of 30% off your exploration costs.
• Magical Defense: Chemical formulas created by the alchemists can protect your people from evil spells. This will increase your defence against magical attacks up to 40%.
• Building Fabrication: Building Fabrication will allow you to quickly construct the most towering buildings. Using complex alchemy to form bricks and morter the buildings are created up to 50% faster then if they were done with traditional means.

Portals

Portals are one of the most important parts of Ambar. Without them, attacking another realm is impossible in any and every form. What you will find on the other side of the portal can vary, whenever a portal opens, you don't know what the result will be. One other fact about portals is that they drain the very existence of an empire's magic. For this reason, only 5 portals (under normal world conditions) can exist in an empire at any 1 time. For another portal to be opened, one of those 5 portals must be closed first. Portals are unstable and because the require vast amounts of magic they typically close after many Ambar days on their own. The time it takes for a portal to expire ranges from 24 to 72 ticks.

Portals are your bridge to your targets and are random, but there is a portal range limiting your risk. It does not, however, remove the risk. Portal ranges are based on your empire's statistics.

Portal ranges:

• 50%-200% of total empire size
• 60%-140% of strongest realm NW

Politics

Each realm in an empire has a vote, with it you can elect an emperor. The emperor can set matters like the empire banner/name/proclamation/password. His duties also entail keeping the empire forum clean and organized. Most empires do not elect an emperor, for this makes it easier for everyone to share these duties by voting for themselves whenever they need to, and unvoting themselves afterwards so his empire mates can do the same.

Aid

Aid in Ambar is very important to the success of an empire. It enables you to send resources to other realms in your empire. This is especially useful if your empire plans on having specialist realms. Since you can not send acres to someone who is 10% larger than you, you will have to exchange acres for those kind of acres you wish to specialize in. Also, when a realm in your empire falls behind you can send him resources to get it back on its feet. When sending karats to someone with a more powerful army than yours, it will be taxed (unless world variables display otherwise) dependant on how much you send and how much the difference between your military power and his is.

Related terms and abbreviations

Terms

• (Baby)sitter/Steward: Someone that takes over (babysits) your realm while your account is in vacation mode.
• Tick: The amount of time it takes for 1 turn in Ambar to complete. Usually it's equal to 1 hour real time.
• Karats: Ambar currency.
• Emperor's Proclamation: A single line of information which is displayed on the realm page of every realm in the empire.

Abbreviations

Spells

• DS: Devine Sight
• EoP: Echoes of the Past
• MS: Either Magic Shield or Moving Shadows, depending on context.
• CoL: City of Lights
• HoP: Horn of Plenty
• UH: Unrelenting Heat
• EF: Elemental Fires
• RS: Raise Spirits
• Demo: Demoralize, can be either the spell or thief op.
• GM: Golden Mines
• HH: Healing Hands
• GT: Golden Touch

Races

• Cord: Cordelon
• Phlanx: Phlanixian
• Mers: Mersan
• Slyth: Slythe
• Ash: Ashwin

Alchemy

• YE: Youth Elixir
• MD: Magical Defense
• BF: Building Fabrication
• Carto: Cartography

Other

• Infil: Infiltrate Military
• BS: Blacksmith
• OOP: Out Of Protection
• DDF: Dumbos Do Format
• ToA: Towers of Ambar
• NW: Networth
• DPA: Defense Per Acre
• TPA: Thieves Per Acre
• WPA: Wizards Per Acre
• PR: Power Rating
• MA: Mother Account
• Spec: Specialist Realm
• Pop: Population
• Strat: Strategy
• Proc: (Emperor's) Proclamation

External links

• Ambar: [1]
• Ambar Public Forum: [2]
• Ambar Fan Site: Towers of Ambar