New player tips

Hello gang. I’m making this post to offer tips for new players and what to focus on when playing Rise of Kingdoms on a new character.

Stage 1 – Get to City Hall level 16

TOP PRIORITY OBJECTIVES

  • City Hall 16
    Focusing on upgrading your city hall to level 16 is the top priority. Always do the upgrades needed for your city hall. In addition, get all of these buildings to level 16: Wall, 1 Hospital, 1 Farm/1 Wood/1 Stone/1 Gold, Barracks/Archery/Stable/Siege, Tavern, Storehouse, Academy,
  • Put commanders in your garrison
    Put your best 2 commanders in your wall as your garrison. This will help you when you get attacked by other players. Since many of them are also new, they may not understand a big rule of the game: defending will deal deaths – as in, they lose troops forever. So having a good garrison is important. I like to use a commander with the Garrison skill tree for this – Pericles, Sun Tzu, Hermann, or Charles Martel.
  • Scout for free technology upgrades
    Use your scouts to explore the areas and then open all Tribal villages. Early in the game, you will get a lot of technology upgrades for free! Also, map out all your surrounding areas so you can see the buildup of other players and anticipate problems.
  • Get a commander to level 30
    Get one commander to level 30. Having one good commander is way better than 10 low level commanders. Who to pick? If you spend money in the game, Minamoto for VIP purchases is the best. If not Mina, then perhaps your civilization’s starting commander. I do like a garrison commander (Pericles, Sun Tzu, Hermann, or if you get lucky Charles Martel) for early game, as other players are likely to attack your city and I enjoy seeing them get a lot of dead troops.
  • Get a Peacekeeper commander
    For your 1st or 2nd commander, go with a peacekeeper such as Minamoto, Boudica, Belisarius, (if you get lucky) Cao Cao, or (in a pinch) Markswoman. Fill out the peacekeeper technology tree and this commander will help with barbarian killing and barbarian forts. I will make a post with the best Peacekeeper skill tree. Note that your first peacekeeper is useful until you have Aethelflaed, then you will switch to her.

GENERAL STRATEGIES

  • Get into an Alliance
    This is a team game, no doubt. Being in an alliance is critical. Get into one and participate in their activities. You get passive rewards for this that will greatly help you build up.
  • Do Expedition
    Do the expedition campaigns as far as you can. You gain daily free stuff from doing this, get it cooking! When you use the store there, ONLY buy sculptures for Aethelflaed (don’t spend on ANYTHING else!). She is incredible, always work on her and she should become your primary Peacekeeper.
  • Make yourself unattractive to attack
    Keep your resources (rss) below your storehouse’s ability to protect. That way, if you do get attacked, your opponents don’t steal your rss. This also means you should keep upgrading your storehouse.
  • Keep resource tokens
    When you gather tokens that, if you open, give you rss, hold them until you absolutely need them. rss in tokens cannot be stolen, so always keep them unopened. Use them only if you are about to spend on something – say a big upgrade – so that the rss you open get used immediately.
  • Focus on military technology
    Technology is huge – it makes every troop you have better. Maxing this is important. See below for the target you want to be at before you upgrade to City Hall 17.
  • Keep up on your main quests
    They help you keep doing Expedition as well, so good to keep them up to as far as you can go.

DAILY TASKS

  • Do the “Daily Objectives”
    Always finish the daily objectives since you get gems and other goodies. The tasks easiest to do are:
    • Do Sunset Canyon (1 per day)
      Yes, your power stinks. But so do a lot of others, and you get credit for a game even you lose, no risk.
    • Collect the 4 different resources at least once per day
    • Open only 5 of your resource tokens
    • Use these boosts: Gathering, Food, Wood, Stone, Gold
    • Reload your blacksmith
    • Use 5 XP books on a commander
  • Make Tier 3 (T3) troops, always
    Always be making troops! Never let your buildings be idle. I like to get all my troops to T3 (so upgrade T1 and T2) in this phase so I have a solid T3 army. If you are speed building, I’d get to T3 level as fast as possible using your Research, then stock up on troops. If you had to build as you go, I’d upgrade T1/T2.
  • Other obvious stuff:
    • Collect your Expedition passive rewards
    • Open all your chests at the Tavern
    • Collect all your resources from your Farm/Mill/Quarry/Goldmine

PHASE 1 – TARGETS

Military Technology

Troops