"The West (free online game)" Topic

Anyone else playing this?

the-west.net

I've just started on world 9

Want to tell us something about it?

Never heard of it. I'd also like info. The website seems sparse on info.

Is this an empire builder, CRPG, RTS, or something else?

Yup, group of us on world 9.

Although, we're all from Frothers – just giving you fair warning. :-)

Basically you form a group with other players and build a town. You have to defend the town from other towns or form alliances with them. They are supposed to be adding forts soon which I think will add more of a wargame feel to it.
It's not real time so you can stack turns and get away with just visiting the site once or twice a day.

So a cooperative Empire Builder, then. Sounds amusing.

You can duel other players (and take money if you win) – but if you are not affiliated with a town, you cannot be duelled. However, things cost more in towns at the gunsmiths,general store,tailors and hotel than the town you are affiliated with. If you are getting duelled a lot, it's worth leaving the town for a short while to build up cash. You do jobs to gain money and XP, but have limited energy – which jobs use. You gain some energy back per hour, but gain more for sleeping in a hotel (and hit points) – this costs unless it's the town you have joined. Depending on the hotel level you get more HP and energy back for the 8 hrs sleep. Gaining XP levels you and you can upgrade your four stats and also additional skills – 5 per attribute. The level of these, plus any bonuses for items you are wearing, limit the type of jobs you can do. Some jobs are better for XP, some for cash. Each job also has a luck chance of finding an item – sometimes needed for quests, sometimes just to sell etc. The higher your level,the better the jobs and so on. At level ten you can choose one of four careers – which give you various bonuses. Pretty good fun, check in perhaps twice a day. You can roughly do about 8hrs work before needing to rest 8hrs (give or take). Towns need money and work to build them up, each building gives benefits – hotel to rest,bank to store money or put into town kitty (each 30 mins of town construction costs money),higher level shops offer better gear etc. Need an morticians to be able to duel. Think that covers the gist of it. :-)