I’m sure many of you have already noticed the importance of having a high marching speed in Rise of Castles: Ice and Fire. Waiting 6 minutes for your troops to travel to a certain location on the map can be frustrating, especially when you’re in a hurry.
While other things like damage and resource production are important too, marching speed can be the key to your success in many situations. In this guide, I’ll explain why marching speed is important and how you can improve it.
1. Pick the fastest units
The first thing you should do if you want to improve your march speed is to pick the fastest unit. At the moment, the Rise of Castles Raider class has 3 types of units: Cavalry, Archers, and Footmen. Cavalry dominates the march speed category, being almost 3 times faster than Archers and Footmen, without taking into consideration other march speed bonuses.
But this does not mean that Cavalry is the best unit to use all the time. There are many other factors that you should consider when choosing your units, and march speed is only one of them.
However, for general use like moving your troops from one point to another, gathering, sieging multiple enemy castles in the shortest amount of time possible, or killing Marauders located far from your city, Cavalry is definitely the way to go.
Not only they are the fastest units, but they also have the largest resource-carrying capacity, which makes a huge difference when sending troops to gather resources. This is one of the best tips for RoC I can give you.
Units marching speed comparison
As you can see in these 3 screenshots, the march speed of the Cavalry units is way higher than Archers and Footmen. Both Archers and Footmen have equal marching speeds (11), while the Cavalry has a base march speed of 28.
However, Archers have the highest Attack, while Footmen have the highest Defense. This makes them great for other purposes such as having a strong defense against other players’ attacks or taking high-level tiles in one hit during the Reign of Chaos event.
Fastest Cavalry Tier
The fastest Cavalry tier is the Paladin (tier 9). However, this extra marching speed comes with a cost. Compared to Imperial Knight (tier 10) and Apocalypse Herald (tier S – the highest tier so far), the Paladin Cavalry units have significantly fewer Health, Attack, Defense, and Combat Power points.
2. Research the Alloy Horseshoe tech (basic)
The Alloy Horseshoe is situated in the Class Legion Research or any of the other 3 legion tech trees. Upgraded to its maximum level (level 5), it will offer you a generous +25% Marching Speed bonus for your legion.
Class Legion Tech is also one of the first technologies you should research in Rise of Castles because it will give you many other significant boosts for your legions such as increased gathering speed, additional Heroes spots on your legions, and damage improvements.
3. Research the Fast Cleaning tech (basic)
Your legion’s marching speed can also be increased during specific events. For example, you can research Fast Cleaning tech (15 levels) under the Zone Commemoration branch, which will increase your Marauder Attack Marching Speed during the Clash of Province event.
4. Research the Purebred Steeds tech (basic)
The Purebred Steeds technology is situated under the Cavalry Training tech tree in the Institute building. Upgraded to its maximum level (level 15), this will cast an impressive and permanent 100% march speed bonus for your Cavalry units. It’s the highest march speed bonus you can get in the game from tech research, making it a must-have if you want to use Cavalry as your main fighting force.
5. Promote the low-tier units
Most of us focus on training new troops regularly, but we often forget about promoting the ones we already have.
Promoting your low-tier (or low-level) units to the highest tier that you have unlocked, is a great way to get some extra troops for your legions. Not only that, but it will also significantly improve their stats.
But, to be able to promote units, you need to have some units-specific techs researched in the Institute building. These techs can be found under Footmen Training, Archer Training, and Cavalry Training.
The more you upgrade each of these techs, the higher the tier of units you will be able to promote. For instance, if you want to be able to promote your existing lower-level units to Paladin (Tier 9 Cavalry), you must research Cavalry Promotion 3, and Empire Defender, which is the last tech in the line.
6. Train higher-tier troops
Similar to promoting or enhancing your troops, you should constantly aim to train the highest-tier units that you can.
This involves upgrading your Stable (for Cavalry), Barracks (for Footmen), or the Archery Range building (for Archers). The higher you upgrade these buildings, the higher-tier units you will be able to train, therefore better stats for your army, giving you an edge over your opponents.
7. Research the Raider Legion tech (advanced)
Raider Legion is an advanced tech tree. In this tech, Footmen and Archer units finally get their own marching speed tech to be increased. The ones you need to look for are Raid by Footmen, and Raid by Archer, each having 10 levels to be upgraded.
Upgraded to their maximum level, these techs will offer a 100% marching speed bonus for Footmen and Archers. To upgrade these techs, besides the required amount of resources, you’ll also need Courage Medals and War Badges.
Let’s say you have 5,000 Horsemen (Tier 1 Cavalry) and another 18,000 Heavy Bow Riders (Tier 6 Cavalry), but the highest Cavalry tier that you can train is Crusader (Tier 8 Cavalry) at the moment.
You could directly promote your Horsemen and Heavy Bow Riders to Crusaders, which will end up with an extra 23,000 Tier 8 Cavalry in your army, with better marching speed, attack, health, and all the other stats.
8. Upgrade the Supply Station building
The Supply Station can increase the marching speed when sieging. The good thing is that this bonus is activated on your legions, no matter what units you have in your formation. The bad thing though, is that you need to first upgrade the Footmen War Room building to level 23 to be able to build the Supply Station.
The further you upgrade this building, the higher the Siege Marching Speed bonus will be (50% at level 25 and 55% at level 30). To push the Supply Station to at least level 25 you will need a lot of Crystals, Marble, and Gold, so make sure you save up as much as you can.
9. Use March Acceleration Speed-ups
The March acceleration speed-ups are different than other regular time-based buffs. They are applied only to each march that you start with any of your legions.
For example, let’s say you have a rally or a certain location on the map that requires your troops to travel for 6 minutes. If you use a -50% March Acceleration Speed-up, the total travel time for your troops will be only 3 minutes. Therefore, the item is consumed instantly.
The March Acceleration Speed-ups can be purchased from the Virtue Shop in the Military Intel building. They are available in 3 different types and durations:
- Blue colored: -25% March Speed and it costs 15,000 Virtue points
- Orange colored: -50% March Speed and it costs 20,000 Virtue points
- Yellow colored: -75% March Speed and it costs 35,000 Virtue points
How to use a March Acceleration Speed-up
While your chosen legion is on its way to the target location, you will notice a green button on the top-left side of your screen, near your legion march details, named “Speed Ups”. Tap this button, and if you have a March Acceleration item, it will appear in the list. Simply tap on it, and it will decrease your march time.
Why marching speed is important in Rise of Castles?
Marching speed is one of the most important things you should focus on in Rise of Castles. A high marching speed will allow you to travel great distances in a shorter amount of time, which is extremely important, especially when you want to catch your enemies by surprise.
You can be on time for rallies
It will make a huge difference, especially when trying to join a Savage Giant rally created by one of your Alliance members, and the distance between you and the rally is quite long.
Hit and run
Another great advantage of having a high marching speed is that you can easily escape from enemy players who are trying to attack you. For instance, during the Clash of Province, the Killing Event (or KE) that happens during weekends, having a high march speed will be the key to your success.
While teleported in the enemy state, you could attack and plunder multiple targets at the same time, quicker, and escape before other players share your location in the chat and come to defend their fellow players.
Send or return your troops from gathering faster
Moreover, a high march speed allows you to go or return faster from gathering resources, which is also vital if the only high-level resource tiles are too far from your Castle.
Bottom Line
Marching speed is important in Rise of Castles: Ice and Fire because it allows you to travel great distances in a shorter amount of time, escape from enemy players, and return faster from gathering resources. But this is not the only thing you should focus on.
You should first focus on upgrading the most important buildings, increasing your troops’ damage, and constantly researching techs that benefit your legions and your resource production. I hope you found this guide helpful, and if you did, please share it with your fellow rulers. Enjoy the game!
