Zynga's Empires & Allies: Complete Guide to the first 10 Missions

Atten-TION privates! Zynga's Empires & Allies is now live on Facebook, and there's a war to be won! We've gone right to work in the social giant's newest title to bring you a complete guide to how to get started completing missions in this Risk-inspired battle for the ages! While there are plenty of activities for you to take part in throughout the game - producing wood and oil to create homes and military units, battling in full-screen combat against cleverly named villains, and bringing your destroyed island nation back to life (just to name a few) - one of the biggest time-sinks in the game will be the completing of missions.

Want to see what to expect from the game's first ten missions? Meet us behind the break to start on your road to domination!

To be clear, this guide starts after you've completed the basic tutorial (which sees Zynga guiding you step-by-step with no room for error). At this point, you'll already have a Barracks on your land, and will have trained some Cadet Soldiers. You will have also engaged in your first battle, learning the basics of combat (which can be found repeated at the bottom of this post). At the end of the tutorial, you start Episode 2: Rallying the Empire. You're on your own cadet - it's time to make a name for yourself.

Mission 1: At the Ready! 

Deploy Cadet Soldiers on the Island

If you've been going through the game in a linear fashion, you will have just completed the tutorial, and will likely need to wait a matter of 3-4 minutes for your first Barracks to finish training your Cadet Soldiers. Once that's done, simply click on your Barracks when the symbol of the Cadet is floating above it to pull the soldiers from the Barracks. You can then place them anywhere on your map to finish this quest, being rewarded with 50 Wood in the process.

Mission 2: Empire Spirit

Place the Empire Flag from your Inventory

This mission is just as easy as the first, and it introduces you to your in-game inventory. The inventory is represented by the three crates in the bottom right menu of the game screen. Currently, since you're just starting the game, the only decoration in your inventory will be this Flagpole, so you can simply click on the "Select" button and then place the flag anywhere you'd like in your town. You'll receive a one experience point bonus for placing the flag, which will also allow you to name your new Empire. You have 23 characters to work with for a full name, so be creative! 

Mission 3: Rebuilding Hope

Build two additional Small Island Huts

Your island starts with two Small Island Huts (a type of home, similar to those in CityVille), but you'll need to raise the population even further by adding two more. Each Hut can be purchased from the game's store (the Hard Hat icon in the lower right of the screen) for 10 Wood each. Don't worry about not having a Wood meter at the top of your screen just yet - it will be activated very shortly. For now, just know that you do have the 20 Wood necessary, and build away! 

Each Small Island Hut must be constructed by whacking the frame three times. Each whack costs one energy point, as you'd expect from other Zynga games. Once you have built both Huts, your population will increase to 40/100, and you'll receive 200 coins for finishing this mission.

Mission 4: Feed the Troops!

Build a Farm
Plant Corn

Farms work as you'd expect in Empires & Allies - as a way to earn additional coins. There's no Food meter in the game, but you'll need the profits from these crops to buy additional military units, purchase new homes for your citizens and so on. However, instead of simply plowing land, Farms are an actual building type, found under the "Industry" tab of the game's store. 

Each Farm costs 10 Wood to build. By this point, you will have a Wood meter on your screen, so you'll be able to easily tell if you have the Wood on hand. If you're following these goals linearly, you'll have at least 210 Wood on hand, so start building that Farm! Farms also take three whacks to construct, and once that's done, you can start growing Corn, which costs just 25 coins to plant and is ready in five minutes. For simply planting Corn in a single Farm, you'll finish this mission and will earn 150 coins.

Mission 5: Harvest Time

Harvest Corn

As you'd expect, this mission simply asks you to harvest the Corn that you just planted. Just wait for the Corn to visibly change to full grown in the Farm (and for the Money Bag to start floating above the Farm) before you attempt to harvest the crop. If you click on the Farm before this point, you'll be shown a new menu, that will let you delete the current growing crop or ask your friends for help in speeding up its growth. You can also use Empire Points to instantly grow whatever crop you're growing, but for this first mission, just letting things run their natural course is the best plan.

Finishing this mission will give you 75 coins and one experience point for actually harvesting the Corn, along with 50 Wood as a bonus.

Mission 6: The Voice of the People

Construct a new Parliament Building

This particular mission introduces you to the concept of population growth and "government buildings," as seen in CityVille. As we said before, each home you add to your town adds a specific number of citizens to your overall population. These government (community) buildings act as a way to increase your total possible population.

The Parliament building in particular is available from the Government section of the store for 1,000 coins and 100 Wood. If you've been following our guide, you'll have over 5,800 coins and 250 Wood to spare, so you really won't feel the pinch on the wallet with this one (thank goodness). The base of the Parliament is the largest one you will have come across yet, but still only takes three whacks to complete. From there, things become very reminiscent to CityVille, as you'll need to hire three staff members to work in your Parliament before construction is actually complete.

Just click on the "Hire Friends" button to send out individual requests to those friends that have also joined in Zynga's newest game so that you can finish sooner, rather than later. Once completed, your island's maximum population will increase by 100. Your reward is 2,000 coins.

Mission 7: Cannon Building

Build an Additional Barracks
Construct 2 Cannon Artillery

For this mission, you'll be introduced to the creation of new military units. You'll need to buy a new Barracks from the store for 200 coins and 20 Wood (Barracks are found under the Military tab). As you might have expected, this building too requires three whacks to construct. Once it's done, you'll be able to click on the Barracks to see a menu like the one below, where you can choose which type of military unit you'd like to create.

For the purposes of our mission, choose the Cannon Artillery in the top right corner. This unit costs 200 coins to create, and it will take five minutes to complete. For finishing this mission (even if you don't actually wait the five minutes for them to be created), you'll receive 200 coins.

Mission 8: Morale Boost!

Build two additional Farms
Harvest 2 Watermelons

War is tough, and it makes the strongest of men pretty hungry. To boost your soldiers' spirits, you'll need to build two Farms in addition to the one you built earlier, and you'll need to grow Watermelons in these new farms. Each patch of Watermelons costs 240 coins and takes four hours to grow. 

For finishing this mission, you'll receive 200 coins.

Mission 9: Recon Mission

Switch to Full Screen Mode
Zoom Out to see your outer islands
Zoom in to Default View
This mission is an incredibly simple one, lasting just seconds. You'll be introduced to some neat aspects of the game's presentation and user interface, and will be able to activate full screen mode, or zoom your view in and out by clicking on the appropriate buttons in the orange vertical menu that runs along the right side of the screen. Acclimate yourself with these three buttons, and you'll receive 150 coins and 50 Wood.

Mission 10: Tank in the Woods

Repel the Attacking Tank

Here we go soldiers - our first battle since the tutorial battle at the beginning of the game. This time, you'll learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of your combat types by running head-first into a battle with a Tank!

Battle opportunities like this one will appear as red-shaded regions on your land. Click on the enemy skull picture and then click on "Attack" to engage the enemy. This particular battle sees you going up against a single Tank with 50 hit points. Each single type of military unit in the game has pros and cons; that is, units they would be stronger or weaker against. For the Tank, your Cannon Artillery are given the combat boost, so you'd want to click on the Cannon Artillery as seen below to activate it as your current active solider.

From there, just click on the Tank to attack it. You'll need to click repeatedly, each time your cursor turns into a red cross-hair, until the Tank's hit points have been depleted and you've won the battle. Remember to pick up the bonus items that appear as you attack, which will go to fill the bonus bar at the top of the screen, giving you extra coins a la CityVille or FrontierVille. 

Combat may seem hectic or confusing at first, but the main thing to keep in mind is that matching the symbols found next to your enemies' health bars to the symbols under "Great Against" for your own troops ensures the most damage possible per attack (increasing your chance of winning each battle significantly). Defeating this Tank gives you 50 Wood. 

At this point, you'll also receive your first piece of intelligence about the Dark Alliance army - a man called "The Raven" has recruited the most vile warlords form the whole world to attack your small island. There's no explanation as to what you did to make him so mad, but you know that you must rebuild and prepare before he can strike again!

And there you have it - a complete look at the first ten missions of Zynga's Empires & Allies on Facebook, a game that isn't just for social or casual players, but can truly cross the line to the hardcore (give the game a few minutes of your time and you'll see what we mean). There's plenty more where that came from, so won't you join us in waging this war against the Dark Alliance? We can use all of the allies we can get!

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