Forge Of Empires Alcatraz - The Great Building Guide (2024)

Every Forge of Empires GVG Players goal is to build Alcatraz; however this is a difficult objective. Even if you have collected all the required Blueprints, it can still take a long amount of time until you have produced all the required goods. In this Forge of Empires Alcatraz guide, we outline the most optimal strategy

If you see players in the Middle Ages with the Alcatraz special building, then they have most likely used Diamonds (We have a separate FREE Diamonds Strategy if you did want to go down this route) or their Guild have helped them with obtaining the goods. This would not have been fair trade, because the number of required goods is not achievable for players in the Early Ages.

This is how the normal path of progression for a player looks:

• Build a Statue of Zeus.
• Build a Cathedral of Aachen
• Build a Castel Del Monte

For each, they need to be developed up to level 10.

Pushing these Special Buildings via mutual supporting chains of your Guild ensures that you will not hurry through the ages. Such development breaks make gameplay much more comfortable. Suddenly you always have enough coins or supplies.

The longest development break that you should take is when you reach the Progressive Era. By advancing to that era, your Special Buildings will produce the goods required.

Also you can trade Industrial Trade goods 2:1. In most cases, this works very well. As soon as you have the required goods, your existing Special Buildings with fighting bonus have level 9 or above.

Once you reach this stage, you will be well equipped for GvG.

Special Buildings with fighting bonus should only be advanced to level 10. However with Alcatraz, this is when the true benefits begin. With each additional level you get 1 more unit every day.

Alcatraz produces those units you can produce in your city through Military Buildings.

During peaceful phases, it can be a good strategy to remove all Military Buildings and leave Rogue Hideouts only. In this case Alcatraz produces Rogues only. Already on level 1, these are 120 Rogues per month. A Player with that Army is powerful in all eras needing his support. (More to follow in the section below).

Without doubt the Agent is the most powerful unit in GvG. To use these Agents, simply build two Military Buildings for Heavy Units and Artillery each in the required age and your guild has great support in that Era.

In the ages after Progressive Era, you will have to regularly pause your development as the required goods are missing. This is the moment to level your Alcatraz!

How to Make the Most of Your Alcatraz

The next part in our Forge of Empires Alcatraz article, we turn to getting the most out of this Great Building from both an Attacking and Defending perspective.

For Attacking-Style Alcatraz Players

We can break the attacking potential of Alcatraz down into three phases:

1) The Initial Build:

First we recommended that you destroy and sell all of your military buildings in your city setup. One of the buildings you may want to retain is any Rogue Hideouts that you already have.

We don’t suggest that you get rid of your event buildings, but you want to ensure that your ratio of Rogue Hideouts to other event military buildings is higher in the initial build phase. This will ensure that you have more rogues than any other units.

How long you spend building is down to your Alcatraz level and/if your unit reserves have been reduced. We like to keep at least 1,000 Rogues at all times.

At the time that you feel that your Rogue counts is sufficient, we advise around the 1,000 mark, you can move onto the next step:

2) Increase Your Specialized Units:

The first step is to identify an age that you want to begin battle. From here, you will need to build a sufficient level of military buildings (for that age).

We advise that you have around 100 of two or three units from that age, and you will also gather some reogues each and every day during this process. This will be a good amount of units to fight and you can move onto the next step.

(Please note: it is not necessary to build more than two or three units in each or any age)

3) Lets Battle:

After following the above tips, you will be primed to enter battle.

After a few days or weeks of fighting, you will be in a position to analyse your troop count. From here, you can see whether you need to produce more Rogues, or any other unit(s). If your reserves are low, simply return to step one outlined above and repeat. Pretty simple.

If you are in the positive position whereby you still have plenty of Rogues at hand, then we advise that you destroy your military buildings from the age of battle, and begin preparing for future ages by building units from other ages.

(We recommend that you retain some unattached units so you are able to overcome any sieges that arise.)

For Defending Style Alcatraz Players:

As opposed to the Attacking recommendations above, for defensive players, there is little need to own Rogue Hideouts. They will only be required if you enjoy playing in Guild vs Guild, or Player vs Player fighting. If this is not the case, we recommend that you save space in your city and choose not to build them.

Instead this is our suggested approach:

1) Communicate First

Communicate with your GvG leaders and discover the ages that they require support. From here, discover the kind of armies that they desire to have stationed for defense in your sectors.

Remember, certain armies are stronger in defense then others.

So a quick example: In the Contemporary Era seven Assault Tanks and 1 CE Champion is much stronger and better for defense than 8 Anti-Air Vehicles or 8 Strike Teams.

2) Stay on Top

Build the required barracks, and ensure you complete daily maintenance .Be sure to routinely check your map.

Once your Alcatraz levels up, your city expands and you make progress in that GvG age, you will be able to cover more than just this map.

Normally, the best defensive units in an age are equally good as part of an offensive army. Despite not having Rogues as per our advice, you will have enough to battle in sieges following our model for several weeks.

At the minimum, by routinely referring to your maps, you can send an alert to your guild. At this point, they will take over and fight off any sieges that arise.

Thats it for our Forge of Empires Alcatraz guide – if you like this, be sure to sign up and be notified of when we release new articles just like this!

You can watch the full video to this below or on YouTube