Which Nation to Join in Age of Origins (and How to Reroll Before It's Too Late)

Part of the Beginner's series:

• Beginner's Guide Hub: The full new-commander picture (Start Here).
• First Week Roadmap: What to do once you have settled somewhere.
• Migration & Teleports: The mechanics of moving later, and what it costs.

Quick Answer

• The game assigns your nation. What you control is whether you stay — and that window is short.
• The free exit stays open only while all three are true: city below level 8, under 48 hours old, under 2 million resources.
• Miss any one of them and moving costs an Elite Teleport, around 2,000 gold in the shop.
• If your city is young, rerolling beats paying. A day of progress is cheaper than 2,000 gold.
• Your alliance matters more than your nation. A good alliance in a mediocre nation beats the reverse every time.

The Decision You Do Not Know You Are Making

Age of Origins does not present nation choice as a choice. You install, you get dropped somewhere, and you start clearing rubble. Nothing tells you that the most consequential decision of your first week is quietly running on a 48-hour timer.

Here is what is actually happening. Nations are the game's servers, and they age. A nation opened last month is full of players at your level, with alliances still forming and leadership still up for grabs. A nation two years old has a settled hierarchy, entrenched top alliances, and accounts whose research trees alone would take you a year to match. You can succeed in either — but only one of them will let you be relevant this year.

And the exit closes fast.

The Three Limits That Close the Free Exit

Free relocation requires all three conditions to still be true:

Limit	Threshold
City level	Below 8
Account age	Under 48 hours
Resources held	Under 2 million

Break any one and the free option is gone. That third condition catches people who do not see it coming — a new player following the quest chain efficiently can be sitting on 2 million resources well before the 48 hours are up, and the door closes without any announcement.

The practical implication is uncomfortable but simple: decide where you want to be before you optimise anything. If you have friends already playing, or you have looked at your nation and do not like what you see, move first and build second. A city that is 20 hours old and slightly behind is a far better position than a city that is 60 hours old and permanently stuck.

After the Window: Pay or Restart

Once the free exit closes, moving nations requires an Elite Teleport — around 2,000 gold in the shop, and reportedly cheaper through Black Market trade. It is consumed on use, and there is no lifetime limit on how many you can use, so relocating repeatedly across a long career is perfectly normal.

But 2,000 gold is a serious sum for a new account. As the gold priority guide argues, gold is the scarcest currency a free player handles, and spending months of it on a relocation you could have avoided is a painful way to learn the rules.

So the honest advice for a young city: restart. If you are three days in, in the wrong nation, and holding no meaningful progress, a fresh account costs you a weekend and keeps your gold. Veterans do this without embarrassment. The full mechanics of moving later — including the two Territory Teleports you receive across your entire account lifetime — are in the migration guide.

How to Judge a Nation

If you do get to choose, or you are deciding whether to stay, these are the things that actually matter:

Signal	What good looks like
Nation age	Newer is friendlier for a new player. An older nation has a hierarchy that formed without you
Alliance activity	Are alliances recruiting in chat? Are help requests being filled? Dead chat is the warning sign
Your neighbours	Cities around you at wildly higher levels means you are farm material during kill events
Where your friends are	This outweighs everything else. Coordinated play is the game
Language and time zone	An alliance that is asleep when you play cannot reinforce you, rally with you, or fill your help requests

That last row is underrated. The alliance guide makes the case that activity beats ranking, and time-zone coverage is most of what activity means in practice. An alliance whose R4s are awake when you are is worth more than a stronger one that is offline every time you log in.

Nations Are Not Forever

One reassurance, because new players tend to treat this decision as permanent and it is not. Nations merge. Camel combines 2–3 of them once a nation is a bit over a year old, chosen on age, activity, event results, and spending balance — the full process is in the server merger guide.

That means a quiet nation does not stay quiet forever, and a nation you dislike may not exist in its current form in eighteen months. It also means the hierarchy you are looking at today is temporary, which is a genuinely encouraging thought when you are staring at a leaderboard full of accounts a year ahead of you.

What To Do Right Now

If you are reading this inside your first 48 hours:

1. Check your city level, account age, and resource total. If all three are still under the limits, your free move is available.
2. Look at your nation's chat for ten minutes. Recruiting messages and filled help requests mean a living nation.
3. Ask where your friends play, if you have any. Then go there, immediately, before optimising anything.
4. If nothing about your nation appeals and you are past the window, restart rather than paying 2,000 gold.

And then stop thinking about it. Once you have landed somewhere with an active alliance, the first week roadmap matters far more than which nation number is on your profile. The single biggest predictor of how much you enjoy this game is not your server — it is whether the people in your alliance log in.