http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEyHsd9UyUY

FYI

looks interesting, but still no 3v3 4v4, which is a major point for me^^

"and other valuable items."

This made me laugh.

I must say, even though I dont play AoEO, it seems like GPG is doing a very good job on it!

Each new video makes me more tempted to start playing.

I'll be honest, it's fun.

Alliance Wars should bump up the fun factor even more.

This would make me want to play Aoeo if:
#1: Playing it were fun
#2: You didn't have to be level 40 to play alliance wars.

lvl 40 should be reached quite fast.

Specifically how many hours do you estimate it takes to reach 40?

Grinding is something I have a bit of a dislike for, though there's naturally many who do enjoy it.

I play mostly on weekends, and perhaps an occasional weekday or two.

It took me about 2 months to level up my Celts to 40.

I do not grind.

Might give that a miss then.

FWIW, the quest line for the Celts is very fun and unique. This is the first civilization solely designed by GPG.

Alliance Wars seem pretty cool so far, too.

you dont have to grind anything at all.
You simply play the "campaign" (which is merely a chain of more or less related quests). By finishing those singleplayer campaings you will go to 40 quite fast.

Other way is to play skirmish or defense of crete (both booster packs). This will level you quite fast too.

Even Pvp will level you fast, now even faster, as you also gain xp for losing a game.

I didnt play much and am now lvl 33. I probably could make it in 10 hours of playing to 40, if I would insist.

Just an fyi, Kryo: in AoEO, I refer to the campaign itself as the grind - When I played it, the missions were all more or less the same, the only difference being how much stuff the opponent spawned with. I suspect that mission design and AI have improved since then though.

The quest AI got massively buffed in the summer update, so much so that many players are saying that quests are too hard. AoEO just got an update today to make the AI less powerful.

The only thing, so far, that was made less powerful were the AI ELITE units. Their damage multiplier was reduced to 2.2 from 3.

true but its still nothing compared to an MMORPG Grind its much more interesting than killing 10000 Wolves or Dragoneyed Snakeboars.