Age of Dino (also known as Clash of Dino) is a dinosaur-themed base-building and resource management game within the Xterio game ecosystem. Currently, it is publicly available for everyone to try and is accessible through Android and iOS devices. Players can earn "DIO" points, which may soon be convertible or redeemable for $XTER, Xterio's native token. This guide will cover the basics of Age of Dino, as well as tips and tricks to boost your game progress. 

The Base Builder Basics

The gameplay of Age of Dino revolves around continuously upgrading your base, including various resource and combat buildings. A player's growth is reflected through their battle (combat) power and economic power.

Headquarters: This is the core building of your base. Similar to other base-building games, upgrading the headquarters unlocks additional buildings, troop capacities, and other base benefits such as shields and combat/resource buffs.

Economy and Resource Management

In Age of Dino, there are four common resources: Biogas, Food, Energy, and Materials. Each resource is essential for various in-game activities such as building upgrades and troop training. These resources are produced by their respective buildings: the Shelter for Biogas, the Food Factory for Food, the Energy Generator for Energy, and the Material Workshop for Materials. Upgrading these resource buildings will increase their production speed. Additionally, your Commander’s overall "economic power" is primarily determined by the levels of your resource buildings, economy research, and commander talents.

Another method to obtain resources is through "gathering," a process where troops are sent on a quest to collect resources in the wild. The time it takes to complete this process and for your troops to return depends on the distance of the resource gathering site from your base.

Additional ways to gather resources include attacking other commanders and claiming spoils from victories, or participating in various in-game and alliance events. Moreover, if you are an NFT holder, you gain increased access to premium game currencies, described below:

Diamonds: similar to classic web2 premium currencies, diamonds can be utilized to purchase premium game items and to accelerate tasks such as constructions, research, and troop training.

TC ($DAM): Currently in its playtest phase and referred to as "TC" (test coin), the DAM token will serve as the core on-chain currency of the game. It is used to buy DAM-exclusive premium bundles that typically include valuable resources to enhance your commander's battle and economic power.

Earning TC is considerably more accessible if you are an Age of Dino Dinosty NFT holder. In the game, the Dinosaur Mine Site building allows holders to deposit their NFTs, enabling their dinosaurs to "mine" TC based on the quantity and rarity of the NFTs deposited. Non-holders, on the other hand, can engage in the Dinobrawl mini-game or trade their X-crates on the market to earn TC.

Combat and Military Buildings

In Age of Dino, military buildings are crucial for training different types of troops. There are three general types of troops you can train: Riders, Ranged, and Infantry. Each type has its own designated barracks for training. The interaction among these troop types follows a rock-paper-scissors mechanism, where each type counters another in combat.

Unlike in the popular base builder games like Clash of Clans, where troops are deployed in real-time against an enemy's base, combat in Age of Dino is more straightforward. It features simulated battles that calculate the power and various stats of your dinosaurs and troops, and then compare them to the enemy’s defenses.

Once your troops are trained, you can deploy them for various tasks such as intel missions, resource gathering, and attacking other commanders' bases for loot. As your army grows from thousands to hundreds of thousands of soldiers, you will need to open up "march slots." These allow you to segment your total troops into groups and send them on separate missions. Important stats related to this include "march capacity," which increases the number of troops per march slot, and "march speed," which reduces the time it takes to march to and from a task's location.

Another critical combat building is the Hospital, where you can heal troops wounded in battle. Healing troops takes time, and if your hospital is full and you receive new wounded troops, those troops will be lost permanently.

Dinosaurs

Being a dinosaur-themed game, Age of Dino allows you to battle alongside fearsome dinosaurs. The central mechanic involves the Dinosaur Compound building, where you use "crystals" to charge and hatch dinosaur eggs. The rarity of the dinosaur that hatches varies depending on your energy system's level. These dinosaurs come with various stats and combat boosts that aid you in battle.

Heroes

Heroes play a crucial role in enhancing your overall battle power, providing key combat stats to your base. Heroes, who lead the troops on missions, are categorized into three types: Riders, Infantry, and Ranged, mirroring the classifications of the troops. 

Heroes are acquired through a recruitment system similar to those of gacha games, requiring an item called a Recruitment Voucher to draw Heroes and their duplicates. Acquiring multiple copies of heroes is beneficial as it allows you to "Star Up" and eventually "Awaken" them, significantly improving their stats. Heroes also possess various skills that can be continuously upgraded.

Commander

The Commander is another core element of the game. Players are represented by their respective Commanders in-game, and their progress is linked with several stats such as Dinosaur, Troop, Building, Tech, Hero Battle, Badge, and Gear Power. 

The Commander has its own leveling system, separate from the base's level. Leveling up your Commander through items that provide Commander XP will unlock points to level up Commander "Talents." These talents are generally divided into two categories: combat and economy. Combat talents boost your troops' stats, ideal for strategies focused on attacking other commanders' bases. On the other hand, economy talents significantly enhance your resource production, construction speed, and gathering speed, making them suitable for a more pacifist, resource-focused strategy.

Commander Gear and Badges

Commander gear is essential for boosting your overall battle power. Specific gear materials are needed to craft and continuously upgrade gear to higher rarities.

Commander badges function similarly but offer more variability; you can attempt to reforge or fuse multiple badges to achieve a superior one. However, be aware that this process can also completely destroy the original badges used.

Utility Buildings

Now that we've covered all the combat and economy-related buildings, let's discuss some buildings that provide utilities:

Research Lab: This building allows you to select from several research tasks, which are categorized into Development (e.g., construction speed, research speed, march slots), Battle (e.g., troop combat stats), or Economy (e.g., resource production boost).

Trading Hub: This facility acts as a marketplace where players can trade their $TC for X Crates or high-level commander badges. X Crates are special in-game items that can be consumed to earn DIO points, which will be covered in more detail in our next guide.

Market: The market is a place to trade your in-game resources or diamonds for other resources or useful items, such as general speed-up items.  

Embassy: Tied to the alliance portion of the game, this building enables you to help speed up your alliance members' tasks and send reinforcements when they need it.

Attacking and Defending

Now that you have a basic understanding of the Age of Dino game, let's explore how attacking and defending works:

Attacking: To initiate an attack, you must first navigate to the world map and locate other bases to target. You can manually scout the map or use the "map" function to find alliances, as their bases are typically clustered together, making it easier to find suitable targets—often those with a lower base level than yours. Before deciding to attack, you can employ the "recon" mechanic, where you send a recon troop to scout the enemy base. They will return with a report detailing the base's power and available loot, aiding your decision on whether to proceed with the attack.

Note that similar to other base builder games, Age of Dino features an energy shield that players can deploy to protect their bases from being reconnoitered or attacked for the duration of the shield. If you recon an enemy base, they will be alerted and might deploy an energy shield in time to thwart your attack. Once you decide to attack, you can designate the troops and specific heroes you wish to deploy, viewing their projected combat power. Whether you win or lose, you will receive a combat report detailing the outcome, loot gained, and troops injured or killed. You can attack a base multiple times until their walls break, forcing them to relocate.

Defending: Defending your base is relatively straightforward and revolves around your troops' power and your base's "walls." In these walls, you can deploy heroes and a dinosaur to defend against incoming intruders. It's crucial to place your best heroes and dinosaurs for defense. As mentioned earlier, you can also purchase energy shields to completely avoid recons and attacks for the duration of the shield.

Tips and Tricks

In your backpack, you will often find resources in their condensed form, meaning you need to deploy them manually to access the resources. This mechanic is especially useful when you're trying to avoid an attack and don't want to spend diamonds on shields. The general strategy is to continuously upgrade your base and not leave much room for extra resources that are already deployed; instead, deploy them manually when needed. This prevents significant resource losses even if your base defense fails.

Join a Competitive Alliance: Joining an alliance is crucial in your Age of Dino progress. Alliances provide several stat boosts, access to the alliance store, alliance speed-ups, and importantly, alliance events, which can sometimes reward items such as X crates. Some alliances also require you to donate resources for alliance tech upgrades, which boost stats for all members.

Finish Your Daily Missions: Don't forget to clear your daily missions! these missions often reward with useful in-game items and X-Crates. Try to aim for a full clear since the last reward box gives better loot

Choose Your Path, Combat or Economy: A great tip for new players is to identify their preferred play style. A combat-heavy player focuses on acquiring resources by attacking and looting other bases, requiring more active playtime for scouting. On the other h and, an economy-oriented player focuses on upgrading resource production speeds and building developments, often needing diamonds to purchase energy shields to protect their bases, as they may lack the power to defend effectively. As you progress into the game you will find out that a balacne of both it a great way to rank in the leaderboards. 

And that concludes the basic game guide for Age of Dino! We hope this guide has helped you on your commander's journey. Stay tuned for our next guide in the Age of Dino game guide series, where we will cover more on how to earn DIO points. Make sure to check out the game guide section on our Age of Dino game page for more updates!