Cultural Settlements

Cultural Settlements enable the player to explore new cultures of humanity’s past during the different ages of Forge of Empires. As the main game has already moved beyond those times, Cultural Settlements are introduced as a new way to explore and experience those rich cultures of our history.

These settlements are separate from the player's main city, themed according to the culture the player has chosen. Only one Cultural settlement can be active at the same time. Each Cultural settlement can be replayed multiple times, offering different rewards for each finished settlement. Finish a settlement within a certain time frame to gain additional rewards!

This page offers general information about Cultural Settlements, more detailed information can be found on the settlement pages.

Start

Cultural Settlements are unlocked with the Iron Age technology Plowing. After unlocking it, the player will find a boat near their city that will bring them to their new settlement.

Currently only one settlement can be chosen - the Vikings. With more settlements to come later, the player will also be able to select other Cultural Settlements on the screen.

Start the settlement and set sail to a completely new map to build up a settlement as the new Thane!

Building the settlement

When the player enters a new settlement, they will be guided through building up the settlement and gaining the trust of the people in the form of 20 quests. The player will need to gather new resources and will have new resources available that are only functional within the settlement. After collecting enough resources, the player will be able to unlock new buildings or expansions for the Cultural settlement. Once the quest line of a settlement is completed, the people will completely trust the player as their Thane and the settlement is finished.

Each settlement can be abandoned at any point. Abandoning a settlement will not change the existing Impediments nor will it change the prices in certain goods for the Embassy advancements.

If you abandon the settlement without completing any quests there will be no waiting time to start the next one. If you have completed at least one quest the waiting time will be 24H.

Be careful though, whenever a settlement is completed or abandoned, all resources, advancements, buildings and expansions (including the premium ones), are reset again!

Impediments

Building up a settlement is not as easy as one may think, as impediments, unmovable rocks in the settlement, block part of the city grid, making it harder to arrange buildings, since buildings need to be placed around the impediments. Also, to gather resources, large amounts of cultural coins are needed, making it even more important to use the given space as efficient as possible.

With each start of a new Cultural settlement, the impediments will be arranged differently in the city. Abandoning a settlement will not rearrange the impediments.

Embassy

The embassy gives access to the embassy advancements and shows the player's stock of cultural goods. The embassy can be moved to another location on the city grid, but cannot be sold. Click on the embassy (or the 'Develop' button) to open the 'Embassy Advancements' window.

Embassy Advancements

Cultural Goods and Diplomacy

Embassy Advancements have to be unlocked in order to build new settlement buildings and to be able to unlock the next advancement. Embassy Advancements can be unlocked by paying a certain amount of cultural goods, while having the requested amount of diplomacy.
Although the total amount of cultural goods and the type of goods is the same for every player, the amount of each good can be different.

Using Diamonds

When lacking cultural goods or diplomacy to unlock an advancement, the player can use diamonds. The amount of diamonds needed depends on the amount of cultural goods and diplomacy still needed to unlock the next advancement. Each 1 diplomacy costs 1 diamond, each 1 cultural good costs 5 diamonds.

Example: the first Viking advancement costs 10 axes and requires 55 diplomacy, the total diamond cost will be 10*5 + 55 = 105 diamonds. A player has 7 axes in stock and 50 diplomacy in their city, missing 3 axes and 5 diplomacy. This will cost 3*5 + 5 = 20 diamonds to unlock the advancement, plus the 7 axes in stock.

Warning: before using diamonds, be aware that when finishing a settlement (or abandoning one), the settlement will be reset and all buildings, goods in stock, advancements and expansions will be lost, including those unlocked with diamonds.

Building Menu

The building menu consists of four types of buildings and an expansions window:

Residential buildings
Cultural Goods buildings
Diplomacy buildings
Roads
Expansions

At the start of the settlement, the player will have one of each type of building available in the building menu. All other buildings become available by unlocking embassy advancements.

The building cost of each settlement building depends on the player's era and consists of resources from the main city: coins and supplies.

All resources gained from the settlement, stay in the settlement. Players cannot trade cultural goods with other players.

Residential Buildings

Residential buildings provide settlement population and cultural coins. Population is needed to build cultural goods buildings and some of the diplomacy buildings. Cultural coins are needed to pay for the cultural goods productions.

Cultural Goods Buildings

Cultural goods buildings provide cultural goods. These are needed to unlock embassy advancements and expansions.

Cultural goods buildings provide an amount of cultural goods, from 5 to 20, depending on the chosen production time. The production is similar to goods production in the main city, but requires a resource that the player gathers in the settlement: cultural coins.

Unlike main city goods, the player cannot trade cultural goods with other players.

Production Bonus

Cultural goods buildings provide a production bonus: with each production the player has a chance of 3% to get 4x the amount of goods produced. With each finished settlement this percentage will increase with 1.5%, until 15 settlements are finished, after which it stays at 25%.

Settlement	Bonus	Settlement	Bonus
1	3%	9	15%
2	4.5%	10	16.5%
3	6%	11	18%
4	7.5%	12	19.5%
5	9%	13	21%
6	10.5%	14	22.5%
7	12%	15	24%
8	13.5%		25%

Diplomacy Buildings

Diplomacy buildings provide diplomacy and some of them also produce cultural coins. Diplomacy is needed to gain the trust of the settlement and unlock embassy advancements. Although diplomacy seems similar to happiness, it has no effect on the settlement population or on settlement productions.

Roads

All settlement buildings except some diplomacy buildings require a road connection to the embassy.

Expansions

To expand the settlement, the player can buy 16 expansions with cultural goods. The cost of an expansion is one of the four options shown below. Example: to place the 6th expansion the player can choose between paying 41 of Good Nr. 1, or 21 of Good Nr. 2, or 5 of Good Nr. 3, or 1 of Good Nr. 4

There are also 4 expansions that can be unlocked with diamonds. These cost 500 each.