Winning battles is one of the main goals in any Rise of Castles game, but it isn’t the only thing you need to do to secure your position and maintain control over your kingdom. If you want to keep your castle safe from enemy attackers, or at least make it more difficult for them to successfully raid your resources, there are a few things you can do to increase its defense. Keep reading to learn how to protect your castle in Rise of Castles.
1. Join a strong Alliance
When you join an alliance, you not only have more friends to help you fight back against enemy attacks, but you also get the added benefit of increased protection.
When an alliance member is attacked, the entire alliance can choose to reinforce your castle even if you are not online or to band together and fight back. This not only helps to protect your own castle but also allows you to earn some extra resources and XP by helping to defend your allies.
2. Level up the main defense buildings
The are 3 buildings that are key to the defense of your castle: the Fortress, the Sentry Tower, and the Watch Tower. Here’s a quick rundown of what each one does:
The Fortress
The Fortress building plays a crucial role in the defense of your castle. It is responsible for repairing any damage that is done to your castle during an attack. By upgrading the Fortress, you will not only increase its Fortification, but also the Siege Defense Resistance and Siege Defense Might.
If you are confident that your troops are strong enough to defend your castle against enemy attacks, you can also choose to garrison them inside the Fortress building.
However, this will also result in more units lost if your castle is successfully besieged by more powerful players, and we all know how expensive can be to heal or train new troops!
To garrison your legions, tap the Fortress building, and next, tap the “Garrison” button. On this page, you will see a small checkbox for each of your 4 legions that says “Did not attend the city defense”. Simply tap this checkbox and once it becomes green, your legion will be assigned to defend your Castle.
The Sentry Tower
The Sentry Tower can be used to scout other players’ castles and gives you a good idea of what kind of defenses they have in place and the number of resources.
It can also be used as a form of defense itself since it will automatically detect enemy players approaching your city and warn you in advance, giving you time to prepare your defenses.
Both of these features are pretty limited on the lower-level versions of the Sentry Tower, but they do become more useful as you upgrade it, increasing the range that the enemies can be detected, more details about their troops, as well as more details about the scouted castles.
The Watch Tower
The Watch Tower is the only building in your castle that can directly attack the invading enemy troops. An interesting fact about Watch Tower is that it cannot be attacked by enemy troops. The more you upgrade your Watch Tower, the more damage it will deal to invading enemies.
3. Upgrade Strategy Buildings
Strategy buildings play a fascinating role in your city and some of them can be used to your advantage while protecting your castle. Here are some of the things that you can do with them:
Garrison Hall building
The Garrison Hall increases the Tactical Resistance for all units and decreases the Tactical damage they take during combat. Starting from level 26 there are also 2 additional bonuses provided, Tactical Might and a second Tactical Resistance and they can be increased up to +5% if the Garrison Hall building is upgraded to level 30.
Footmen, Archer, and/or Cavalry War Room buildings
All these 3 buildings provide an impressive 30% Might and Resistance for your units if upgraded to level 25. You can also push them up to level 30 and get an additional 4%, but honestly, the difference is not that big to justify the extra cost of resources, especially in this Castle Era expansion when is so hard to farm Orichalcum.
Spy Agency building
The Spy Agency building can affect your incoming enemy’s routing and decrease its marching speed, a quite handy thing as it will offer you more time to prepare in advance or quickly flee the scene. However, to build this structure, you first need to upgrade the Supply Station building to level 25.
4. Research Master City Defense
This tech will increase your Castle protection considerably, making it much harder for enemies to successfully raid your resources. The Wall Fortification tech, for example, increases your Fortress Durability by up to 250 if researched to level 20.
Some techs in the tree can increase your Watch Tower’s energy recovery such as the Tower Expansion and Tower Reinforcement and the damage caused by its arrows (Strengthened Tower), so make sure to research them as well if you want to further boost your castle defense.
5. Increase your troops’ Resistance and HP
By upgrading and researching Resistance and HP-related techs for your troops regularly, you will not only make them more effective in battle but also increase their resistance to damage and therefore your castle’s overall defense. Here are some techs you should consider researching:
Legion Research: All 4 Legion tech trees should be maxed out, but if you just want to focus on Resistance first, all 3 techs from the 4th row, Footmen, Archer, and Cavalry Loyalty, when maxed out at level 10, increase the Resistance by 35%.
Cavalry Training: In Cavalry Training we have Enhanced Barding 1 and at level 5 levels the Resistance is increased by 10%. The Enhanced Barding 2, after researching level 15, the Resistance is increased by 20%. The third one is Ebony Barding which increases Cavalry Health by 30% once level 20 of this tech is researched.
Archer Training: In this tech tree we have Enhanced Arm Guard 1 where at level 5 levels the Resistance is increased by 10%. Next, we have Dragon-Hide Armor and at level 15 the Archer Siege Resistance is increased by 30%. Also, the Ebony Arm Guard increases the Archer Resistance by 20% after reaching level 15.
Footmen Training: Here we have the first Mastercraft Armor which increases the Footmen Resistance by 10% after researching the 5th level. Then we have the second Mastercraft Armor and at level 15 the Footmen Resistance is increased by 20%. Lastly, we have Chain Armor, and at level 20, increases the Footmen Defense by 30%.
Master Warfare: The first Resistance techs in this tree we have Heavy Rider for Cavalry, Iron Armor for Archers, and Heavy Shield for Footmen. All 3 will increase the Siege Resistance by 20% once level 20 of any of these techs is researched.
Next, we have Armor Piece with 10 levels which increases the Resistance Debuff after Destruction. After this, we have Footmen Resistance, Archer Resistance, and Cavalry Resistance, all 3 increasing the Resistance for each unit by 20%, once level 20 of any of these techs is researched.
Also in the Master Warfare tech tree, we have 6 more techs that can increase the Siege Resistance and the HP of each type of unit. The first 3 are the same ones I mentioned in the first place, Heavy Rider for Cavalry, Iron Armor for Archers, and Heavy Shield for Footmen, and with the same stats.
Lastly, we have the Siege Shield for Footmen, Siege Armor for Archers, and Siege Cavalry for Cavalry units. Each of these 3 techs can increase their HP by 20% if level 20 is researched.
Advanced Soldier Training: This tech tree is mostly about increasing your regular and enhanced units’ Resistance, Healing Speed, and HP, so it’s worth researching if you want to make your troops more durable in battle.
One thing to bear in mind is that the “strengthened” units referred to in this tech tree are actually your enhanced units, so make sure to enhance some troops first if you want to see the full benefits of this tech tree.
Lofty Warrior: Similar to Advanced Soldier Training, this tech tree is focused on making your troops more resistant to damage with increased Resistance, Armor, and HP, so it’s worth researching if you’re looking to make your troops more durable.
Raider Legion, Lofty Legion, Melee Legion – Defense: All these latest 3 tech techs have plenty of great stuff to offer including increased Resistance, Armor, Healing Speed, Siege Defense, and HP for your troops, so they’re worth researching if you want to make your troops more resistant to damage.
6. Level up your Medical Tents
Medical Tents do not play a direct role in defense, but they are very important for your post-battle losses. They will allow you to heal or even reduce the troop losses that you’ve suffered during an attack, and the higher the level of your Medical Tents, the more effective they will be.
This is crucial especially if you are in the position of getting hit often by strong players. On top of that, having the Plague Doctor development hero stationed in the Town Hall building can also help increase the healing effect of your Medical Tents.
How to defend your castle against stronger players
There are two things you could do if you are brave enough to take on a player that is much stronger than you, or at least to reduce de casualties as much as possible.
Ask your fellow members to reinforce you
Now, this is a fun strategy, more like a trap that many players use during the Kill Event in CoP, a passive way to score some points. The tactic is simple: if you are below level 25 or even level 25 but do not have strong armies, you place your unshielded castle in a spot that can be easily spotted by enemy players.
Then, ask some of the most powerful members of your alliance to reinforce you. The enemies will see a juicy target and will start attacking, but they will get surprised 🙂
Uncheck your troops from the Garrison
If you are in a situation where you might be attacked by players with stronger armies than you (especially if you take part in the KE event) and you want to save your legions from being slaughtered, you can always uncheck them from the Fortress building, the Garrison section, as I described above.
How to escape from an income attack
Not every player can afford to have powerful legions, especially if Raider is not the chosen class. The best thing you can do in this case is to act fast while the red screen pops up. In this situation, you have 2 choices:
Put the Peace Shield on quickly
If you manage to pop up the Peace Shield (doesn’t matter the duration) in time while the enemy’s troop is heading towards your city, you will automatically cancel the attack and the enemy troops will return without any loot.
Personally, I always put the 3-day Peace Shield on Friday evening if I know I won’t participate in the KE event. But if you just want to escape from an income attack and protect your castle quickly, you can also use the cheapest version, the 8h Peace Shield.
Teleport randomly
The second solution, if you don’t have the time to put up the shield in time or if you don’t have any peace shield available, is to use a Random Teleport item. This will teleport your castle to a random spot on your state map. Both, the Peace Shields and Teleport items are stored in your bag in the “Buff” section.
Conclusion on how to defend your Castle
This concludes our guide on how to protect your castle in Rise of Castles. By following these tips, you can make it more difficult for enemy attackers to take down your castle and plunder your hard-earned resources. Make sure you always have a Piece Shield and Random or Advanced Teleport items in your bag and keep your castle well-defended!
