Rise of Kingdoms is an amazing and popular mobile strategy game that allows you to build your own empire, recruit powerful heroes, and battle for control of the medieval world. The game had amazing success since its release in 2018 and is still played by millions of players today. But with so much great content and a steep learning curve, new players may feel overwhelmed.
This guide includes essential tips and tricks for Rise of Kingdoms to help new players have a great gaming experience, and build a prosperous empire.
1. Pick the right civilization
That suits your play style and goals perfectly
As soon as you begin the game, you’ll be asked to choose a civilization. At the moment there are 13 civilizations in the game, each civilization having its own unique bonuses and benefits like unique special units or starting commanders.
That’s why picking the best Rise of Kingdoms civilization for your play style is important as it will affect your in-game progress. The good news is that you can change it later as many times as you prefer, as long as you meet the requirements.
2. Use your Beginner’s Immigration wisely
For a strategic placement on the map and stronger alliance support
As a beginner to Rise of Kingdoms, you have a better chance of success if you start on a new server. That’s because new servers are populated with mostly new players like you, so your chances of rising quickly in the ranks are increased. This can be a huge benefit for you, as long as you put in the effort and play smart.
Another great advantage of starting on a new server is that you get access to the Rise of Kingdoms event, which is available only on new servers. This event will last around 6 days and it will offer you a chance of being rewarded handsomely by completing various tasks daily. Among these rewards, you will find Golden Keys as well, which you can use to recruit more commanders of better rarity.
After starting the game, there is a chance that you will be teleported to a server that is not really new. Luckily you can teleport your city to a different server for free by using your Beginner’s Teleport item, as long as you meet the following requirements:
Rise of Kingdoms server immigration requirements
- Your City Hall must be level 7 or lower
- You have a Beginner’s Immigration item in your bag
- Your troops or city are not engaged in a battle
- You are not a member of an alliance
- Have no more than 1 character in the targeted server
How to teleport to a new server?
- Zoom out by using your fingers on the screen
- Tap the globe icon once it appears in the bottom-right corner
- On the left sidebar, tap “Preparation Season”
- Pick the newest server that has a “New” badge on it
- Next, tap the map to pick a province
- Click the “Immigrate” button
- Congrats, you are now teleported to a new server
3. Upgrade your best commanders regularly
And don’t forget to upgrade their skills as well
In the early game, you will be tempted to upgrade every single new commander (I know I was), thinking that it will increase your power. That’s a big mistake! Instead, you should first focus on upgrading one or two of your best Rise of Kingdom commanders as much as possible, even if they have an epic rarity.
Preferably would be two Legendary commanders, but for sure it will take some time until you can get them. Having one or two commanders almost fully upgraded is much better than having multiple weak commanders. So don’t spread your resources too thin!
4. Build a strong economy first
To have a strong foundation for future developments
Another mistake that most new players make in Rise of Kingdoms is that they focus too heavily on attacking and not enough on building up their city and economy. While it’s true that you will gain lots of resources from raiding and plundering, it really isn’t worth the effort in the early game.
You will save a lot of time and resources if you focus on building a strong economy first, as this will allow you to create powerful units and accumulate resources more quickly.
For that, you should make sure that you build all the resource production buildings, and upgrade them to their maximum level. You should as well try to research the Economic Technology tree as far as possible, before moving to Military techs.
This will increase your resource production, building, and research speed, along with many other benefits for your city’s development.
5. Use your speedups properly
To minimize the time and effort needed for tasks
Speedups and Gems are two types of items that will help you finish buildings instantly or at least reduce the time needed for their completion. They are both very valuable resources and should be used properly.
But to get the most out of your Speedups, you should try to use them only during specific events that reward you for doing so. One of the best examples is the Now or Never event which offers you amazing rewards for using your speedups.
6. Maximize your gathering potential
To ensure a constant supply of resources for upgrades
There is no secret that gathering is one of the best ways to get resources in this game. But before sending your marches out, it’s important that you maximize your potential by following these simple tips.
First of all, make sure that you always gather resources within your Rise of Kingdoms alliance territory as this will give you a 25% gathering speed bonus. The level of the resource tile is also important as the higher the level, the more resources will offer.
Next, you should increase your troop capacity as much as possible. This will allow you to gather more resources with each march. You can increase your troop capacity by upgrading your city hall, which will also unlock more marches.
You can as well increase it by upgrading your commanders and using their skills, or using capacity boosters like Basic Army Expansion, or Advanced Army Expansion. These items can increase your troop capacity by up to 50% and up to 4 hours.
Secondly, make sure that you research as many techs as possible from the Economic Technology tree, particularly techs like Handcart, Placer Mining, and Wheel. These techs will increase your gathering speed and the resource load of your troops, which allows them to gather more resources.
You should as well use only commanders that have the Gathering talent and push these commanders up to level 37 because it will give you the possibility to maximize their Gathering talent tree. This will increase their gathering speed and load by up to 25%.
Some great examples of gathering commanders include Joan of Arc, Mathilda of Flanders, Queen Tamar of Georgia, Seondeok, Cleopatra VII, and Ishida Mitsunari.
7. Claim your quick rewards
To get a hefty amount of resources with just a few taps
The quickest rewards you can get in Rise of Kingdoms as a new player, include following ROK on social media and checking your mail system folder regularly. You get 200 Gems for following ROK on Facebook, Instagram, Discord, or Reddit.
You will also get some rewards every time you level up your city. They include resources like Food, Wood, Speedups, and sometimes even Gems. These rewards will be sent automatically in your in-game mail, so make sure you claim them immediately.
8. Link your game account
And never lose your game progress again
Rise of Kingdoms allows you to link your game account to Facebook, or Google, which brings some nice benefits. The first one is that you can easily switch between different devices, as your game progress will be saved in the cloud. You also don’t need to worry about losing your game or having to start over if you need to reinstall the game.
The other benefit is that you will be rewarded with 300 Gems for doing so. While this may not seem much, it’s actually a pretty nice reward and can be used to speed up your progress.
9. Customize your governor profile
To showcase your personality and attract potential allies
This is maybe one of the most underestimated features by new players in Rise of Kingdoms. Your governor profile is how other players will recognize you and it also has a huge impact on the Alliance you join, or even on your PvP battles. By default, that game assigns new players a generic name that starts with “Governor” followed by a long number.
This can be easily changed by tapping your profile pic and pressing the little pen icon as you see in the above screenshot. The first time is free but any additional name change will cost you 500 Gems, which is not that cheap. Therefore, make sure that you choose wisely.
Likewise, you should also upload a profile photo or choose one of the over 22 available avatars (you will unlock more as you progress and recruit more commanders). Changing the avatar is completely free. You can even unlock and use avatar frames, which can be another fun way to challenge yourself.
10. Take advantage of your Beginner’s City Shield
To keep your city safe from attacks
After starting Rise of Kingdoms, your city will be protected for 2 days by a Peace Shield. During this time your city cannot be attacked by other players and you should take advantage of this to build up your city and economy.
Some of the most important things you can do during this period are joining an alliance and upgrading continuously the City Hall, Wall, and Storehouse, which will increase your city’s defense and allow you to protect more resources.
The higher the level of your Storehouse, the more resources it will be able to protect in case of an enemy attack. Once the beginner’s peace shield is gone, you can buy more peace shields from City Management many, the little arrow near your VIP level, but prepare yourself as they are not that affordable.
11. Join a strong, active alliance
It’s more fun and you’ll have your back covered in battles
In Rise of Kingdoms, being part of a strong alliance is one of the most important things you can do. Your alliance will help you build your city faster, protect you against enemies, and provide you with resources and nice daily rewards. And the great news is that you will be rewarded with 300 gems the first time you join one.
You also have the option to create one if you prefer, but it will cost you 500 Gems. On top of that, creating and managing an alliance requires a lot of time and effort. Even if you think you’re up for the task, you should first join one and collect the gem reward.
12. Hire extra builders regularly
To upgrade or construct two buildings at a time
By default, Rise of Kingdoms only offers us a single building queue, which means we can only build or upgrade one building at a time. Luckily, you can unlock the second building queue by using the included 2-day contract, which should be enough to get you started.
After that, you will have to hire extra builders again either by using Builder Recruitment scrolls (which can be obtained from events like Era Breakthrough) or by unlocking the second building queue permanently by reaching VIP level 6. Whichever option you choose, hiring extra builders will be extremely helpful in the long run as it will allow you to build and upgrade two buildings simultaneously.
13. Create a farm account and rip off the benefits
To have a steady flow of resources
A Rise of Kingdoms farm account is basically a second account that you can use to constantly support your main account with resources. The main purpose of this second account should only be to gather as many resources as possible and then transfer a large portion of it to your main account, either through repetitive attacks or via a resource transfer.
The great news is that you can easily create and manage a second account by creating a second character on the same server. You can do that by visiting the Settings menu under your profile’s page and pressing the “Characters” option.
You can have a maximum of two characters on the same server, but you can extend it by creating more accounts. This is basically the same thing but a bit more overwhelming as you not only need to switch the characters but the game accounts also.
14. Do your daily objectives every day
To unlock that 5th juicy chest
As a beginner to Rise of Kingdoms, you should take advantage and participate in every possible event and mission you can, to gather rewards and progress faster. One of the best ways to achieve this is by doing your daily objectives, which consist of different tasks that you can complete to get rewards each day. You can find this by pressing the Missions tab on the left side of your screen.
On this pop-up window, you have the Main Quests and Side Quests on the first tab. These should also be completed and claimed regularly, as they will offer you amazing rewards. Below this tab, you have the Daily Objectives. Completing objectives on this page will give you resources and Activity Points.
These points are used automatically to fill the chests progress bar at the top of that page. There you have 5 chests, each requiring a certain amount of Activity Points to be unlocked.
These chests can reward you with additional amazing items such as gems, Golden Keys, Commander Sculptures, Speedups, and much more. So try to unlock the 5th chest if possible every day before they expire.
15. Focus on the most important buildings
It will save you plenty of resources and help you level up faster
Same as with focusing only on one of two commanders, you should also focus on the most important buildings in the early stages of the game. The ones that will give you a better chance to progress faster and make your city more powerful should be your City Hall, resource production buildings, Alliance Center, Wall, and Storehouse (but only when you think you might need to increase the resource protection capacity).
The Alliance Center plays a major role in your overall progress since it will offer you the possibility to get more help from your allies by reducing the time required for your building upgrades. Of course, other buildings will be required as a part of your City Hall, and Wall upgrades but don’t push them too far and try to focus on what’s important.
16. Explore the foggy parts continuously
To discover hidden treasures and unique rewards
Once you start the game or after teleporting your city to a new server, as we described in our previous tip, if you zoom out, you will notice that the area surrounding your city is entirely covered by fog. This fog represents unexplored areas on the map and should be cleared as soon as possible by sending your scouts.
Doing so, you will discover more resource points and opportunities to get more rewards. All you need to do is to tap a foggy tile and click send, and your scout will start exploring that area.
In the beginning, you will only have one Scout but you get more by leveling up the Scout Camp building. You can unlock the second Scout at level 5 and the third one after reaching Scout Camp level 11.
17. Keep an eye on the event calendar
To never miss an important event or activity
Rise of Kingdoms constantly throws new events and missions for you to join in and get fantastic rewards. Most of these events will offer amazing bonuses such as resources, speedups, gems, and items to upgrade your commanders and make them more powerful.
Therefore, make sure you keep an eye on the Event Calendar so you can prepare yourself in advance and stay ahead of the competition. All events will have a certain period which can also be checked on that page. To do that, tap the events icon located on the right side of your screen, and select the first option at the top, the Eent Calendar.
