War of Nations

I am always returning to this game. I play one age, stay 2 or 3 out, then I return. Some ages are incredible, if you are at the right team. Yes: there is a world with six nations, each one fighting each other. The one that conquers more marketplaces or scrolls wins. You recruit an army in your provinces and upgrade them to get more gold. Simple? Yes, and simple games like this one can be very exciting, due to team cooperation.




It appears it works better in old computers, I played one day with the newest version of firefox and I found the map too different. The map was clearly done for IE 6.0, but the difference isn't big.

• Site address: http://www.warofnations.com/

• Free? Yes, and if there is one ad somewhere, I have never saw it. It is a totally free and clean site.

• Time spent playing: 10 Minutes each 6 hours will make you the best player, if nobody stronger crosses you :) It is still playable with 2 log-ins per day.

Happy Holidays!

All the best for everybody! I wish for you a great Christmas and an wonderful New Year! (full of victories not only in the games we play, but in our lives too :D)

Solve chess problems on-line

Who never tried to solve some chess problems in the newspaper? Have you ever thought of solving another few, maybe more difficult? And for free? So, this site is for you. It currently has more than 23.000 problems and nearly 28.000 users. It is clean, it has no ads, it is free and you play as much as you like. Isn't this wonderful? Welcome to internet!

For each problem you have 6 seconds for initial time, to familiarize yourself with the board composition. After that, is your move, and you have a few seconds to solve. If you pass the time, you may lose rating. So, be quick ;) It is an incredible tool to train for blitz.

• Site address: chess.emrald.net

• Free: Sure! :D

Correspondence-Chess in your Brownser

Another great way to pass your time. As Tarrasch once said: "Chess, like love, like music, has the power of making man happy." And this is exactly the meaning of our life in earth to seek happiness. Yes, chess is a must.

And there is some wonderful sites out there to play chess. One of the best totally free correspondence chess sites is the "lss" (Lechenicher SchachServer). It dedicates itself to browser-based correspondence chess. Each player has some days to each move. The intention is to give you enough time to think, try all moves possibles, consult some books, sites, etc.. Only computer programs is prohibited in this modality, although some people insist in doing that. As I have a low rating, I don't think I find one of this guys any day :)

There is a limit of games that each one can play, as a free and clean (no ads) site. You can play 5 at the begginning, as you complete some games it increases to 30-50 simultaneous games.

• Site address: lss.chess-server.net or lls.game-host.com

• Free: Sure! :D

• Time spent playing: It depends where the game is. But with a plenty number of days available, you can choose the best time of the day to open your chessboard and your books in front of the computer and then mate your adversary ;)

Macromanage a country in WW1

After a long time out, due to my studies at university, I return. And with a new game to relax :)




Supremacy1914 is the game that tries to reproduce the Europe scenario in the first world war. You have to administrate a country, recruiting armies, building fortresses, railways, and factories for artillery. It is possible to use ships too. Diplomacy is essential, as you can guess, since it is not possible to win a war alone. Have you ever thought that you could do better at WW1 than the Kaisers, Czares, Kings and Presidents of that time? Is your chance.





The game appeared to me to be highly based in Europa Universalis - a game produced by Paradox Entertainment. The game is great: imagine a "risk" game. Now imagine that you can build some things in your provinces that can help you in war, that diplomacy matters more, etc.. This is Europa Universalis.The difference between the site and this game is that Europa Universalis (now in his third version) passes in medieval europe, has some more options and it isn't online.




I loved the idea of its German creators. I hope the find a way of keeping it free after the beta test passes.




One last thing: it is slow in old computers. The administrators advice 1 Ghz or higher, plus 128 ram. If your computer is old, it may be slow. My one has half of this, and I have to wait some time to load (10 minutes LOL), but it works perfectly after that.

• Site address: www.supremacy1914.com
  
  
• Time spent on-line: In peaceful times, 10 minutes per day work. But it is first world war, and peace is difficult ;) Prepare yourself to 3-4 different log-ins around the day, with at least 25 minutes each. Yes, it needs a lot of time.
  
• Free? Totally free, and you can play as many games as you want. But it is still on Beta, and I don't know how it will be when officially released.

The Quest for a new free game

Yes, and there we go another time.

The new interface of erepublik is bugged and very slow in my computer. I tried to play avalon, but then I discovered it is pay to play. And there is some other games that I am thinking to stop playing, I only continue with them because I didn't find others, new games.

Keep your eye open for new tips soon :)

Renaissance Kingdoms new interface

I hated it. Not only because it incredible slow with IE 6.0, it is is full of bugs. Just like their new forum. If you are thinking to play this game I advice you to wait a couple of weeks, until things settle, because the coders are having a situation currently.

Battlemaster: live in a new world

I discovered this game in the old forums of Renaissance Kingdoms. There were some guys saying: "this game is great", "this April it will make 5 years that I play this game", "I play it since 2004, and you?". Wow! Four, five years playing a game! It must be good. And then I registered.


Now I know why they play it since this long time. Yes, the game is wonderful! It is great! It has everything: diplomacy, wars, strategy in the battles, religion, priests strugling to conquer more faithfuls, spies burning the harvest from your County, etc. You can have 3 characters in 5/6 different worlds, each one with a different life. No ads and totally free.

• Site adress: http://www.battlemaster.org/
  
  
• Time spent playing: two log-ins of 10 minutes each, unless you choose to play in the colonies, wich has only one turn per day. Beware though: this is the type of game that I enter to spend 10 minutes and I end spending 40, that I think "today I am going to make only one log-in in battlemaster" and at the end of the day I made 5. Very addicting.
  



• Free? Yes, and no ads. Clean, beautiful and free. The donators receive the right of creating a 4th character in one of the worlds the game has - only that. Incredibly fair
  

Batracer: be the F1 champion and more!

A text-based race game? Can it be good? Yes, it is excellent. In batracer you will need to setup your car for the races, to cooperate with your team to be the better and to take care with the weather. Not only this: the races are based in real life events: if you choose to race in the Formula One 2008 game, your car will be submitted to the events that Mclaren drivers faced in real life. Another games are open too: F1 1986, F1 2002, F1 2007, V8 Supercars 2006, Le Mans Endurance Series, MR2 and BTTC games... you choose.

What are you waiting for? Prove yourself that you are better than that driver from your country ;)

• Site address: http://batracer.com/-1FrontPage.htm?9iU
  




• Time spent playing: One log-in per day required.
  




• Free? Yes, but you will need to copy and paste all the information of your car to share it with your team, what will take around 4-5 minutes - and it is very boring. Do not sharing isn't something to be considered, your partners will hate you, and even exclude you from the championship.. Buyers of their "premium package", called "Kool Tools", will have the task done automatically.

Pelantas: a fighting league game

Have you ever thought about coordinating a group of heroes in fighting leagues and championships? Pelantas is your chance. This free game allows you to gather the best Dwarves, Elfs, Orcs and - of course - humans in the fighting against other groups. Train them, choose the 5 best and order an incredible strategy to defeat your enemies. Hunt amazing monters and complete the weekly quests. Try your lucky in special events. Become famous and the most glorious team in Pelantas.

I love this game, it is yet in open beta, and it is totally free. I hope the game creators find some way of managing the game without giving advantages in the fights to paying players, at the same way Hattricks and others do. Hopefully, it appears they are walking at the path of allowing graphics and another suplements to paying players.

• Site adress: http://www.pelantas.com/
  
  


• Totally free.
  
  


• Time spent playing: two log ins per week of 20-30 minutes each are enough for me. Beware, IE 6.0 lags too much with this site, but you can still have a lot of fun.

Syrnia: a game to play while working

Yes, exactly. In this incredible game, you create a character and try to develop his skills (in woodcutting, farming, robbing, magic, etc) extracting goods from the different cities and selling them in the market. To extract one good, however, you will need to spend a lot of time (60-100 seconds) waiting, and to develop a skill it is needed to spend hours extracting goods. That is why this game is to play while working or reading that book for school/university: it has the great virtue of making things less boring.

A lot of people log-in in this game in their free time though. Why? Because this game has an incredible chat. And once you have joined a good clan, you will make great friends there.

• Site address: http://www.syrnia.com/
  
  
• Totally free indeed.
  
  
• Time spent playing: As much as you like. Your character don’t die if you don’t log in, and you can stay out up to six months.

Visual-Utopia: a different war game

Five different races, a city where you can construct buildings to gather resources, an alliance to fight against others, conquer them ... What makes Visual-utopia different from a lot of similar games? Its map. Yes, you can move your troops freely there – no coordinates – create cities in bridges and in another strategical alleys to make your defense easier, etc. Strategy is everything in this game, and the trio “science investment, troop composition and troop location” may make a difference here.

With three main resources – wood, stone and food – plus gold, and a real time-market, the game is based in turns: each turn you receive gold and nother resources based on your city composition. Totally free (yes!), you can RP the life of your character through the innumerables eras this game has already had.

• Site address: http://www.visual-utopia.com/
  
  


• Style: War game .
  
  


• Totally free indeed.

• Time spent playing: To be successful, multiple logins during the day are needed. Prepare yourself to spend at least one hour distributed along the day in this game if you want to survive ;)

Live in Middle Ages: Renaissance Kingdoms

This text-based RPG try to simulate the life in the Medieval Age (1450s). Choose one country to live in Europe (England, Portugal, Byzantium, Aragón, etc.) and give life to your character in the forums. Atheist or baptized? A soldier or a criminal? Politician or a Priest? You choose. Your character can vote, can be elected, can rob, can defend the city, can trade, can pray... the options are incredible.

I am playing this game since 2006. It is incredible how it is addictive, take care with that. It is totally free (I have never spent money with it) but you can buy a package that makes your character an “In-game noble” (one can be a “forum noble” too, due to the services done to your country, but without the benefits). Buying that package may make a difference when you reach level 3 – after 1-2 years of gameplay - and become a student in the University: “In-game nobles” learn 2x quicker. It is possible to have a lot of fun without it though, since the best part of this game is in the histories role-played in the forums, where your imagination is the limit of your character life.

• Site address: http://www.renaissancekingdoms.com/
  
  


• Free, but there is a premium package gives some advantages to payers - what doesn’t make the game unfair, since there isn’t competition in this game.
  


• Time spent playing: 10 minutes each day. Daily log in required, or your character may die of famine. Take care with the forums though: one can spend 5 hours per day there if he wants.

Footbal team management: Hattrick.

The biggest browser based in the web, among the most accessed sites in the World: Hattrick. Hattrick is a game where you are the manager of a football team, hiring players, selling them, setting up friendly matches, competing in the league of your country and in your state’s league. And more: try to have the best team in the world, competing in the Hattrick Masters Championship!

You haven’t heard all: Hattrick is totally free. One can play it for free as much as he can. True, there is one statistic and graphic package being sold, to make your experience more enjoyable, but there is no need of it to play. Players that acquired the package don’t have any advantage upon others that don’t.

Do you still have doubts about the quality of this game? I started playing it nearly 2 years ago, and I still enjoy it. There is a big number of players with 4 or 5 years of experience, and the oldest player there has an 8 year old team. Be sure of it: if you start playing hattrick, it will be part of your life for a long time. And if you stop playing, I guess you will restart it someday ;)

• Site address: http://www.hattrick.org/;
  
  



• Style: Football team management game;
  
  



• Time spent in playing: with 2 log ins/week of half an hour each you do everything you need, but prepare yourself to spend much more ;)
  



• Free and fair? Yes, and you can buy an optional graphic/statistic package if you want.
  



• Others: Translated to a huge number of languages.
  
  

Mmorpg capital open :D

I intend to publish, at least once a week, reviews of free browser-based mmorpgs I have played or that I play currently. I always felt the need of a site/blog that did it and I hope this site can make your life merrier.

Notice that the browser-based games to be treated here don’t have the great graphics, most of them are text-based: the ones you can play in your mobile, in your work, and in your old computer. They are here, in the web, to save your life in one boring day at work, in your grandma’s house, and in case you don’t have money to buy a new computer and play the expensive games being sold at the shop. And believe me, the games I am going to review here are great :D

Be welcome!

Paulo Ladeira