Hey guys,

I'm new to the site so I have no clue where to post questions...

Let me start off by saying, I'M NOT PLANNING TO DO THIS ANY TIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE. Just would like to know so I can write down ideas to toy with.

I'd like to build an online game eventually, multiplayer and strategy. I'm talking a game like Evony, Tribal Wars, Stormfall, etc. Just a game where you build cities, join alliances, build armies, and crush your foes. I love those games, I love programming, why not put 'em together? But I'm not sure the best (or easiest for myself) approach to take towards building this.

Yes, I'm experienced. My language fluency/credentials reside in Ruby + SQL's (for back-end) and HTML/CSS/JavaScript (for front-end). I'm a full stack junior web developer, and I toy around with ideas in my free time, but I'm scared to even tackle this without outside thoughts. I have minimal experience in video game programming.

Thank you for your support,

- Higgins

I'm new to the site so I have no clue where to post questions...

You could try looking at the forum names. Anyway, I assume you're asking about programming languages,
not spoken languages. So I'm moving this to what might be an appropriate forum.

I should've included; my real question is, will HTML/CSS/JavaScript + Game Designer assistance for artwork be enough for the UI/Plug in for the game? And can Ruby on Rails + SQL systems be enough for the back-end?

I'm new to the site so I have no clue where to post questions...

You could try looking at the forum names. Anyway, I assume you're asking about programming languages,
not spoken languages. So I'm moving this to what might be an appropriate forum.

Thank you, I apologize. I looked at some forums but couldn't find any related to questions.

For a browser game you don't have many options besides HTML/CSS/Javascript for the front-end. Your options are basically Javascript or a bunch of fancy languages that compile to Javascript anyway (I'm blatantly ignoring Flash).

For the back-end, there are quite more options. If you plan to do the game for learning and play it with a bunch of friends, anything will do the job. If we are speaking about thousands of concurrent users, Ruby might not be the best choice. Thousands of concurrent users seems a bit far away to worry about now, though. I would recommend to start prototyping your game with whatever language you are comfortable, if that's Ruby on Rails and SQL, go for it.

My strong recommendation is a JavaScript stack for both backend (NodeJS) and frontend. It's a stack that scales both in performance and productivity and it has a thriving community.

On top of using modern ES6, there are a ton of available frameworks to help you, my personal favorite being React.

Stick to what you know. If you are used to building web apps with a RoR / Javascript stack.

Node.js is good in two situations.
a) You already have experience with the Node.js stack so why not use it
b) You have no experience with any webstack so why not choose Node.js for the reasons that AlanSmithee mentions plus you only need a single language.

If I was to do this myself I'd either choose Scala or Swift and Vapor because thats what I have been using a lot lately.

What I'm trying to say don't try and learn some new tools to do the same thing that your current toolset will already allow.