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 the harbor ruin to the north of the city changed to an intact harbor and a boat will appear in that harbor. The boat and the harbor will bring the player to their new settlement. The boat displayed after the settlement was started will be different for each culture.

Currently four settlements can be chosen - the Vikings, the Feudal Japanese, the Ancient Egyptian and the Aztecs. The player can select other Cultural Settlements on the screen. Only the Aztecs unlocks later than the first three settlements with the Colonial Age technology Colonies.

Choose a settlement from the selection screen

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

Settlements

Culture	Settlement Rewards	Time Reward
Vikings	Yggdrasil Lvl. 1 Yggdrasil Upgrades 6 Emissaries 3 Emissary Slots	Fragments of Greater Runestone
Feudal Japan	Shinto Temple Lvl. 1 Shinto Temple Upgrades 4 Emissaries 2 Emissary Slots	Fragments of Timeless Dojo
Ancient Egypt	Royal Bathhouse Lvl. 1 Royal Bathhouse Upgrades 4 Emissaries 2 Emissary Slots	Fragments of Ancient Obelisk
Aztecs	Sun Temple Lvl. 1 Sun Temple Upgrades 4 Emissaries 2 Emissary Slots	Fragments of Jade Statue

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 a quest line. 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 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.

Some of the settlements, like Ancient Egypt or the Aztecs, include the option to remove impediment. Impediment removal tools may be given as quest rewards or bought for diamonds.

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.

Ancient Egypt also have Military buildings in the building menu with three buildings available from the start.

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 currency. Population is needed to build cultural goods buildings and some of the diplomacy buildings. Cultural currency are needed to pay for the cultural goods productions in Viking Settlement, Feudal Japan Settlement and Aztec Settlement. In the Aztec Settlement cultural currency are also used for road costs. In Ancient Egypt cultural currency are used for the training of Egyptian military units and road costs.

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: viking copper coins, japanese koban coins, egyptian loot or aztecs cocoa. Except for Ancient Egypt where Loot is won in Egyptian battles, the others are produced in residential buildings and certain diplomacy buildings of the respective settlement.

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

Every settlement has a certain chance for goods productions to quadrupel (x4). This chance starts low and increases with every run of the settlement until it stays constant. This bonus chance also applies to the goods won in the japanese negotiation game or the loot won in egypts battles.

Diplomacy Buildings

Diplomacy buildings provide diplomacy and some of them also produce cultural currency. 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 a number of expansions with cultural goods. The cost of the expansion depends on the number of expansions already bought and the culture you are playing.

There is also a number of expansions that can be unlocked with diamonds. These cost 500 each.

The number of expansions that can be bought with cultural goods or diamonds may vary between the cultures.

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.

New Buildings

Vikings

Building	Size	Function	Upgrade
Greater Runestone	2x2	Special residential building Provides coins and up to +2% attack boost. Provides double coins and additional medals, 1 good and up to 2 Forge Points when motivated and can be plundered. Can only be obtained by collecting fragments of the Greater Runestone Selection Kit. Requires completing a Viking settlement within a given time frame.	Yes
Yggdrasil	3x3	Special residential building Provides coins and up to +30% attack boost. Provides double coins and supplies and additional up to 8 Forge Points and up to 20 goods when motivated and can be plundered. Requires completing a Viking settlement.	Yes

Feudal Japan

Building	Size	Function	Upgrade
Timeless Dojo	3x3	Special residential building Provides coins. Provides double coins and additional medals, up to 5 good, up to 4 Forge Points and up to 1 random Military Unit of your age when motivated and can be plundered. Can only be obtained by collecting fragments of the Timeless Dojo Selection Kit. Requires completing a Feudal Japan Settlement within a given time frame.	Yes
Shinto Temple	3x4	Special residential building Provides coins, supplies and up to +25% supply boost. Provides double coins and supplies and additional up to 12 Forge Points and up to 50 goods when motivated and can be plundered. Requires completing a Japanese settlement.	Yes

Ancient Egypt

Building	Size	Function	Upgrade
Ancient Obelisk	2x2	Special residential building Provides Coins and up to +6% Defense Boost. Provides double coins and additional up to 4 Goods and up to 2 Forge Points when motivated and can be plundered. Can only be obtained by collecting fragments of the Ancient Obelisk Selection Kit. Requires completing an Ancient Egypt Settlement within a given time frame.	Yes
Royal Bathhouse	3x4	Special residential building Provides Coins and up to 12 Forge Points and up to 30 Guild Goods. Provides double coins and additional up to 10 random Military Units of your age when motivated and can be plundered. Requires completing an Ancient Egypt Settlement.	Yes

Aztecs

Building	Size	Function	Upgrade
Jade Statue	2x2	Special residential building Provides Coins. Provides double coins and additional up to 5 Goods, up to 3 Forge Points and up tp 10 Guild Goods when motivated and can be plundered. Can only be obtained by collecting fragments of the Jade Statue Selection Kit. Requires completing an Aztec Settlement within a given time frame.	Yes
Sun Temple	3x4	Special residential building Provides Coins and up to 30% defense boost for the attacking army. Provides double coins and additionally supplies, up to 10 forge points and up to 40 goods when motivated and can be plundered. Requires completing the Aztec Settlements.	Yes

Emissaries

Open your cities Town Hall to enter the emissaries window. Here you can add and change emissaries to gain their boosts and unlock additional emissary slots, using 800 diamonds per slot. Earn your first emissary and your first free emissary slot by completing any of the settlements two times. There are currently 12 emissary slots that can be unlocked. 9 of these can be unlocked by completing the settlements - additional slots can be unlocked using diamonds.

Viking Emissaries

There are 6 Emissaries in total available in the Vikings Cultural Settlement.

Emissary	Bonus
Harald Hardrada	1 Forge Point
Erik the Red	Medals
Leif Erikson	Supplies
Freydís Eiríksdóttir	Coins
Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir	1 Military Unit of your age
Aud the Deep-Minded	2 Goods of your age

Japanese Emissaries

There are 4 Emissaries in total available in the Feudal Japan Cultural Settlement.

Emissary	Bonus
Oda Nobunaga	1 Forge Point
Takeda Shingen	2 Goods of your age
Tomoe Gozen	1 Military Unit of your age
Oda Oichi	1 Forge Point

Egyptian Emissaries

There are 4 Emissaries in total available in the Ancient Egypt Cultural Settlement.

Emissary	Bonus
Euclid of Alexandria	1 Forge Point
Mentuhotep	Supplies
Hemetre	3 Goods of your age
Maatkare Mutemhat	2 Military Units of your age

Aztecian Emissaries

There are 4 Emissaries in total available in the Aztecs Cultural Settlement.

Emissary	Bonus
Chimalli	1 Forge Point
Ichtaca	supplies
Amoxtli	1 Military Unit of your age
Acamapichtli	2 Goods of your age

Gallery

The Harbor to access the settlements changes it's appearance through the ages:

Harbor ruin before unlocking the cultural settlements
Harbor in the Iron Age
Harbor from the Early Middle Ages till Colonial Age
Harbor from the Industrial Age onwards

Universe
Buildings	Great Buildings Special Buildings Residential Buildings Production Buildings Goods Buildings Military Buildings Cultural Buildings Decorations Building Modes Reconstruction Mode
Resources	Coins Supplies Medals Goods Happiness Diamonds Blueprints Tavern Silver Expansions Incidents
Research	Ages Technologies Forge Points
Quests	Story Quests Side Quests Bonus Quests Recurring Quests Quest Givers Daily Challenges Random Rewards Events
Military	Military Units PVP Tournaments Attack Boost Defense Boost Continent Maps Provinces Province Owners Hit Points Special Skills
Guilds	Guild Expeditions Guild vs Guild Guild Support Pool Guild Battlegrounds
Player	Trading Friends / Visitation Actions Portraits Ranking Achievements Cultural Settlements Friends Tavern Antiques Dealer Message Center