None of these are ours. They are four free-to-play browser games made by other studios, picked because each one asks for a different sort of attention: a city raised slowly, an island fought over, a base nobody is going to leave alone.
All four open in the browser you are reading this in. No installer, no launcher, nothing to keep patched. Each entry says what the game is, how long a normal sitting lasts and what it actually costs.
Most lists of browser games run to fifty entries and leave you no wiser. Four is enough to choose from and few enough that someone opened each one. The bar was:
A modern base to dig in and a map full of people planning to take it. Short turns, constant pressure, and an alliance that notices whether you showed up this week.
A Greek island, a handful of villages and the slow business of turning them into a power. Mythic units sit on top of an otherwise sober city-builder, which is what keeps it interesting past week two.
Ancient Egypt raised a brick at a time: quarries, grain, priests and a skyline that creeps upward while you are not looking. The gentlest thing on this page.
Walls, rams and the arithmetic of breaking one before the other side breaks yours. Built around sieges rather than skirmishes, so an attack is planned in advance and not clicked into.
The third column is the one to read first. These differ far more in how often they want you back than in what they are about.
| Game | Genre | A typical sitting | Device |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Attack Force | Modern Warfare | 10 to 20 minutes | Desktop and laptop. |
| Grepolis | Ancient Greece Strategy | 15 to 25 minutes | Desktop, laptop and tablet. |
| Anocris | Ancient Strategy | 10 to 20 minutes | Desktop and laptop. |
| Combat Siege | Siege Strategy | 10 to 20 minutes | Desktop and laptop. |
All four are free to open and free to carry on with. All four also sell something: a premium account, a faster timer, a currency. That is how they are funded, and stopping at the word "free" would leave out the part you need.
What we checked is whether the game survives if you never spend. In all four it does; what money buys is mostly waiting time back. If you do spend, settle the amount before you open the shop.
A browser game is the only kind you can start on one machine at lunch and carry on at home without moving a file. The convenience has a price:
Anocris. It is the gentlest of the four, it tells you what to do next without nagging, and an hour in you have a city worth looking at. If you would rather have a result tonight, Base Attack Force puts you in a fight in minutes.
No. All four open in a browser tab. One or two offer an optional desktop client; none of them requires one.
They will open, but most are built around a mouse and a decent-sized screen. A tablet copes with a quick visit; a laptop is better for a real session.
For most, yes, because the game has to store your world somewhere. It is a free account on their own site and has nothing to do with any account here.
Free to start and free to keep playing. Each sells optional extras, which is how it pays for itself. None of them locks the interesting part behind a purchase.
None beyond the people who wrote it. These four belong to other studios and are listed because they are worth an evening.
A short list of free-to-play browser games kept by the people who run this site. None of these games are ours.