This Empire and Allies Guide basically deals with the basics of the game, which means all the things that you need to know in order to play and enjoy the game to its fullest. This game is a combat-strategy game so it basically is different from the usual games like Farmville or Cityville. However, this does not mean that its totally different. There are several aspects that are widely used in almost all casual games in facebook and they are:

1. Energy-  This is basically one of the most important resources in this game. All that you do, from building to moving units expend energy. Energy management goes a long way in terms of progressing in the game quickly. Energy recharges slowly over time as well as fully replenishes every time you level up. There are also energy giving items which can be bought using facebook cash. 
2. Experience – This is earned by accomplishing goals and doing certain actions. There is an experience bar which shows you how close you are to increasing your level. The higher your level the more challenging things become. There are also experience stars which increases your total experience.                                                                                                                                                                                     
3. Coins- This is your primary currency in the game. You earn coins from completing missions as well as doing tasks. There are also daily bonuses that increase your treasury. You use coins to buy stuff from the item shop.                                                                       
4. Empire Points – This is another in-game currency but this is something that you should use wisely. Empire points are used to purchase energy, rare items and other things that you can’t normally buy using coins. There are certain tasks that give you empire points but you can get more of these by buying them (use real world cash). Empire points can be used to complete tasks instantly and the like. 

That basically covers the important aspects that you need to consider in this game. Three of them are resources so its important that you manage them well. We will talk about resource management in another post. For now we will continue with the basics.
The game throws you instantly into a map where there are several smoking structures which we can safely assume have been attacked by some bad guy and its our task to make him pay (whew). You need not worry because our lovely eyepatched General Scarlett will walk get you started. She will give you a guided demonstration which will give you the feel and mechanics of the game. So sit back and just follow what she says.

Just below the game map is another dashboard which contains several important stuff. Majority of the dashboard shows you your friends list. This is a social game so its a certainly a must that you increase your number of friends. Believe me, the higher your level becomes, the harder the missions and quests get. Your neighbors will play a big role in helping you complete these quests since most of the time they require items that can only be given to you by your friends.
Beside the list of friends is the menus for your Inventory, Item shop as well as system options. There’s actually nothing new to what Empire and Allies has in this aspect. The inventory holds all your items, while the item shop is where you buy things. The system options allows you to tweak sound, scroll speed etc.
This is a browser based game and most if not all things are controlled by the mouse. You move things by pointing and clicking on the gameboard.  You can also drag and rotate structures by simple mouse motions. The scroll bars act as the zoom control, we believe that this game is big so it helps to zoom in and out in the later parts.
Empire and Allies is based on strategy and resource management, so it is important to be cunning especially when spending on things. There are different ways to be efficient early in the game. We will talk about efficiency in another post so wait for it.