Basic outline of Age of Cities!

Key Information

Promotion

• The standard promotion ratio is 3:1. This means that for every village promoted into a City, two others will be absorbed. Some realms have a 2:1 ratio instead. This is clearly noted in the emails we send about the Age of Cities.
• When promoting a village, the closest non-promoted villages will be marked for absorption.
• Exception: Bonus villages are skipped until they are the only available absorptions.
• If a player does not promote their own villages, the correct number will be randomly selected for them.

Consolidation

• Cities will be pulled inwards towards the center of the map, in order to fill the empty spaces left by absorbed villages.
• Realm density and village spacing will be about the same as before consolidation.
• Rebels will be consolidated into Cities as well, with random distribution.
• The overall geography of your empire will change. This is because realm terrain is fixed, and Cities will have to move around terrain features during consolidation.

Cities

• If a Bonus village is promoted into a City, that bonus will be preserved. Multiple bonus villages will not stack, however.
• City points will be multiplied by the absorption ratio, so that overall point totals will remain the same.
• Governor costs are reduced in accordance with your smaller number of settlements.

Armies

• After consolidation, promoted villages will become cities and the realm will be changed forever. Troops from absorbed villages will be converted into "Rewards" that you can access from the Rewards icon: You will not be able to exceed farm limitations with these Rewards, but can otherwise use them (or hold onto them) as you wish. Arm yourself and prepare for the great new age!

FAQ 

What is an attack freeze ?

An attack freeze is a lot like sleep mode, only stronger. While sleep mode only prevents attacks from being launched during sleep mode, an attack freeze also prevents attacks that would land while it is in effect.

Note that the freeze only effects player controlled villages. If there are rebels or abandoned villages you can still go after them, and if someone else takes your target first there will still be a crossfire as those attacks were already in motion against a (at the time of launch) legal target.

How to Promote villages ?

If you are on the new UI please see Visual Guide To Mobile Promotions. If you are using the old UI, there will be a link in the information area to the right of the village overview, near the chat.

If the cost of Governors will be reduced do we get to keep the chests in our collection?

Yes

 

What will happen to supporting troops? Will they walk home upon absorption? or Will they all be consolidated into the city into one big stack?

 

Before villages are absorbed, troops out supporting others will be automatically sent home. So you do not need to worry about losing troops in promoted Cities because they were off defending a village marked for absorption.

Troops from villages marked for absorption will also be sent home. All troops in transit will return to their villages.

What happens to fractions? If I have 67 villages, how many Cities do I end up with?

Fractions are rounded up. So if the ratio was 3:1, you would end up with 23 Cities.

Can we choose which villages gets marked for absorption? In areas where there are four or five villages, I would like to choose which get absorbed.

Not directly. You only choose which village will be promoted into a City. Because the closest non-bonus villages are taken, you can usually pick things out fairly precisely, though. One reason you cannot select the villages for absorption directly is that would allow players to abandon entire clusters, and concentrate all of their remaining Cities in one place. 

Are city Bonuses stacked ?

 

The City bonuses apply to the base value of a village, and stack with research and Bonus-Village traits.

Cities are not nearly as large as three combined villages; internal testing verified that such large numbers changed significant portions of game play, attack strategies, etc... They still pack quite a punch, though.