Evony

Evony (formerly known as Civony) is a multiplayer online game by American developer Evony LLC, set in the European medieval time period. Two browser-based versions (Age 1 and Age 2) and a mobile version (The King's Return) exist. The game became notorious for its original ad campaign, which featured scantily clad women (including models from pornographic film covers) that had nothing to do with the game itself.

Gameplay
Evony is set in a persistent world during the medieval time period in which the player assumes the role of a lord or lady of a city or alliance. New players are granted "beginner's protection," which prevents other players from attacking their cities for a total of seven days or until they upgrade the town hall to level five or higher. This gives new players the opportunity to accumulate a few resources and troops and accustom themselves to the game before other players can attack them.

The player sets tax rate, production, and construction. Resources in the game include gold, food, lumber, stone, iron, and the city's idle population. As with similar games, the player first has to increase the city's population and hourly resource production rates as well as construction of certain buildings in the city, and then start building resource fields of their city and building an army. An army can include siege machines, such as ballistas, catapults, and battering rams, and foot troops, such as archers, warriors and swordsmen.

All items must be acquired using gems, which can be purchased with real money, through its item shop in game or won at the wheel. Some items accelerate the player's progression through the game. Winning items in battle is the primary way to acquire resources and cities.

Interaction
The game features player-versus-player game play, rendering it almost impossible for players who have not formed or joined alliances to survive.

The game allows the player to control up to ten cities through gain of titles. To gain a title, a certain rank is necessary. Both Title and Rank require Medals gained by use of in-game coins to purchase medal boxes, by attacking valleys or winning medal boxes from spinning the wheel.

The game has two different monetary systems. The in-game monetary system revolves around gold. Gold can be obtained by completing quests, by taxing the city's population as well as attacking NPCs. It is possible to sell resources for gold on the marketplace or to trade resources with other players within a player's alliance for gold. A player can also use real money to buy game cents with which to purchase items and resources from the in-game shop.

Reception
In a three-star review for Stuff, Joel Lauterbach wrote: "Evony has done an amazing job at making the game look and feel appealing to all gamers, however once a player scratches the surface and sees the investment-heavy time-killing game mechanics, many are likely to be put off."

Controversy
The Guardian noted that Evony 2009 ad campaign featured women, increasingly unclothed, which had no connection to the game. In 2009, Gavin Mannion commented that Evony "latest ad is seriously pushing boundaries of what is acceptable to publish on Google". Other ads used stock photographs from pornographic DVD covers and promoted the game via "millions of spam comments," though the company denied responsibility. That same year, Evony lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to blogger Bruce Everiss after he alleged deceptive marketing, though they withdrew their claims two days into the case.