Letter to FOE:
A Veteran Player’s Message About the Direction of Forge of Empires
To the Forge of Empires team,
I’m writing this as someone who has played online strategy and city building games for many years —
long enough to see what keeps a game alive, and what quietly destroys it.
I’ve watched entire worlds rise and fall. I’ve seen communities thrive,
and I’ve seen them collapse. And I’m seeing Forge of Empires heading down a
path that many games before it have taken, with the same predictable outcome.
This isn’t anger.
This isn’t a rant.
This is a warning from someone who has lived through this cycle before.
1. PvP was the turning point — and not in a good way
PvP may increase short term engagement and revenue, but it always comes at the cost of long
term community health. It shifts the culture of the game from cooperation to dominance,
from creativity to aggression, from community to conflict.
City builders thrive on collaboration, diplomacy, and shared progress.
PvP replaces that with hostility, toxicity, and pressure.
Once that shift happens, the tone of the entire game changes — and not for the better.
2. The community is becoming more hostile
In the early days, players were helpful, friendly, and respectful.
Now, harassment, insults, and toxic behavior are becoming more common.
Sniping Great Buildings is one thing; personal attacks and abusive language are another.
When players feel unsafe or unwelcome, they leave.
When enough of them leave, the game declines.
This isn’t hypothetical. I’ve seen it happen before.
3. Guilds used to be communities — now they’re pressure cookers
Guilds once felt like families. Leaders worked together. Diplomacy mattered.
There were standards of behavior, and players held each other accountable.
Now, guilds are forced into constant competition:
GBG pressure
resource drain
time demands
burnout
This doesn’t build loyalty. It burns it out.
4. Monetization is overtaking enjoyment
Every new feature seems designed to drain resources faster:
more troops lost
more goods consumed
more boosts required
more diamonds needed
Players can feel when a game stops respecting their time and starts squeezing their wallets.
When that happens, they don’t spend more — they leave.
5. I’ve seen this before — and I know where it leads
I played Dragons of Atlantis through its rise and its fall.
The pattern was identical:
PvP introduced
community fractured
toxicity increased
monetization ramped up
players burned out
alliances collapsed
the game slowly died
Forge of Empires is now following the same trajectory.
I don’t want to see that happen.
Many of us don’t.
But it will happen if the current direction continues.
6. This game still has something worth saving
FoE has:
a beautiful design
a unique city building system
a loyal veteran playerbase
years of history
a world people care about
But those strengths won’t survive if the community continues to erode and the game
becomes more stressful than enjoyable.
7. Please listen to the players who have been here the longest
We’re not asking for the game to be easier.
We’re asking for it to be healthier.
We want:
less pressure
less toxicity
more cooperation
more community
more respect for players’ time
systems that reward creativity, not aggression
Forge of Empires doesn’t need to become another PvP‑driven, burnout inducing, monetization
heavy game. It can still be the city builder
so many of us fell in love with.
But only if the direction changes.
Respectfully,
A long time player who wants to see this game live, not die.
FORGE ON I hope.
also if it isnt to much:
I also want to add something that I think many long‑time players will understand: the rise of sniping hasn’t just changed gameplay — it has changed the tone of the community.
Recently, a sniper who took a spot on one of my Great Buildings followed it up with personal insults about my mother and sister. That kind of behavior never used to exist in this game. It’s not “competition.” It’s not “strategy.” It’s the result of systems that reward opportunism over cooperation, and hostility over community.
I’m not asking for the game to be easier. I’m asking for tools that protect the cooperative side of FoE — the side that built this game’s community in the first place. Even something as simple as a permission toggle (“Allow this player to donate to my GBs”) would eliminate sniping without harming guild teamwork.
FoE used to attract builders, planners, diplomats, and long‑term thinkers. Now it’s attracting the worst kind of players — the ones who thrive on harassment, not strategy.
That’s not the direction this game was built on, and I hope it’s not the direction it continues to go.
