Focusing on the most important buildings from the early stages of the game is a good strategy to progress in the game. But as you advance, you will unlock new and special buildings that will offer you a variety of more advanced features and benefits that can help you become stronger. In this guide, we’ll go over some of the benefits that these special buildings can offer you.
1. The Rise of Castles VIP Shop
The Rise of Castles VIP Shop is a premium structure, a special shop that can be unlocked once you reach level 20 with your castle and have 10,000 VIP Badges.
There are two ways you can get VIP Badges: by purchasing them with real money from the in-game store or by receiving a small amount whenever any of your alliance members buy VIP Badges.
The latter is the only way to get VIP Badges for free, but unfortunately, it will take you years (yes years!) to collect 10,000 VIP Badges. I have played Rise of Castles since 2020 and I only got 1,235 badges so far. If you do decide to unlock the VIP Shop with real money, a full 10,000 VIP Badges pack will cost you around $110.
VIP Shop Benefits
Unlocking the VIP Shop will offer you a lot of benefits, including new buildings, Advanced Explorations for your workers, a VIP Raffle, extra Medical Tents, using the Rapid Production feature in bulk, Might and Resistance buffs for your troops, a free Super Recruitment Ticket, and much other cool stuff.
However, is still questionable if the VIP Shop is worth it, as most of its features can be obtained by other free or cheaper means.
2. The White Crow
The White Crow building provides a series of special quests that once completed, will award you with a good amount of resources, Courage Medals, Dragonite Fragments, and other essential items. Among these, you will also get Dragon Exp items that you can use to increase your Red Dragon’s level.
To start a White Crow mission, tap the building and hit the “Enter” icon. Soon after that, you will see a wooden board full of missions. Pick any of these missions, and hit the “Go to” button.
The more quests you complete, the more rewards you’ll get, so it’s definitely something you should do on a daily basis. By completing these quests, the level of your White Crow building will also increase, and with it, the quality of rewards you’ll get. But that’s not all as at level 5 you will unlock a special story questline.
White Crow’s unique benefit: a story-driven questline
The White Crow’s unique benefit is a story-driven questline that can be unlocked once you reach level 5 with this building. The story has four chapters: Memoirs of Wars, Hero Story, Riddler’s Sheet Music, and a fourth one that is not yet available.
Once you reach level five in the White Crows mission’s progress, you will be given a new quest that once completed will open the first chapter of this story. Each chapter has its own set of missions and each set has five cards that you need to reveal. After revealing all five cards, you’ll get 100 gems as a bonus reward.
These chapters can be accessed by hitting the Story button, visible in the top-right corner while inside this building. Once you hit the Story button, it will take you to a page with a short animation of an open book and a castle coming out of it. Tap that castle and there you will see the first chapter’s available sets of missions.
3. Watch Tower
The Watch Tower is your key building for defense. Think about it as your personal guardian will attack any enemy army attacking your city. The good thing about this building is that it can attack enemies but cannot be attacked or destroyed.
The more you upgrade the Watch Tower, the more damage can inflict. The Watch Tower can be placed anywhere in your city and you can upgrade it up to level 30 (previously 25). But that’s not all that this building can do for you.
Watch Tower’s special benefit: robbing other players’ workers
The Watch Tower’s special benefit is that it alerts you when another player’s workers sent on expeditions, are close to your castle and allows you to rob them. Once these workers are detected near your castle, you will see a shaking red bubble icon on top of the building.
If you tap this little icon, you will be sent to that worker’s location where you can snatch a small portion of his loot. While these amounts are not that big, and not all workers can be robbed, it can still be a good way to get some extra rewards.
4. The Architecture Institute
The Architecture Institute is where you need to go if you want to see all the Rise of Empires castle skins and decorations that you can currently buy or that you’ve already unlocked. Some of these skins for your Castle can be activated for 3 days, 7 days, 30 days, or permanent.
Each skin brings different buffs to your Castle, so make sure to check them out and find the one that best suits your playstyle. Although not all skins have buffs, and not all can be permanently activated, those that do have buffs can offer some interesting bonuses for your army that can help you become powerful faster.
What’s so unique about the Architecture Institute?
Besides the skins collection, you can also personalize your legion with different outfits and marching effects, which can also add different buffs to your troops.
Additionally, you can also customize your name tag, and your chat bubble, add decorations around your profile picture or place decorations around your town. Some of these decorations give you a small bonus to your army, but the percentage is way too small to make a difference.
5. The Military Intel
The Military Intel is your go-to place when you want to see the latest news in your Province or about your Alliance. There is also a separate section called “Nemesis” where you can find the top 10 players from all states that have done the most damage to you in terms of resources plundered, casualties, or power loss during all the battles against you.
Keep in mind that the Nemesis list is different from the leaderboard, as it only takes into account the damage done to you by other players.
Military Intel’s unique feature: the Virtue Shop
Besides the already two mentioned Intel sections, the Military Intel has also a special feature, called the Virtue Shop. Here you can exchange your Virtue points for training or healing speed-ups, Advanced Teleport, or Marching Acceleration items to increase the marching speed of your troops.
These Virtue Points are obtained by exchanging Virtue Medals, which are awarded at the end of each Clash of Provinces season.
6. The Shrine
The Shrine building is used to revive fallen troops and does not require to be upgraded. The dead units can be revived after each Wednesday and it will cost a lot of resources and Mark of Fallen items (candles).
These candles can be used or donated to other players from your alliance. Besides reviving your killed units, the Shrine structure can also be used to donate resources to other members of your Alliance, and help them revive their fallen units.
7. The Scout (or the gold horn)
It’s almost impossible not to know what the Scout does, as this is one of the first structures presented in Rise of Castles: Ice and Fire from the get-go. You can spot it on the west side of your town near the big wall, a big gold horn with a big play button. Unlike other structures in your town, the Gold Horn cannot be upgraded or moved.
The Gold Horn’s unique feature: provides gold
The Scout or the gold horn can be used to get some extra gold every 3 minutes. All you have to do is to press the play button visible on this structure and wait a few seconds for the archers to finish their attack. Once is finished, you can tap the horn again and collect your gold reward.
The amount of gold you receive is not always the same and can range from a few hundred to as high as 10,000 gold. These rewards are doubled if you have the Royal Prestige purchased. It’s a good way to get some extra gold, useful especially for low-level players.
Special Buildings and Their Benefits FAQ
Is it worth unlocking the VIP Shop in Rise of Castles?
It depends on your playstyle. If you are the type of player that wants to have everything as soon as possible and don't mind spending money on the game, then yes, it is worth it. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend it as there are many other ways through which you can progress in this game, all you need is patience.
How to unlock new VIP Shop levels?
To unlock new VIP Shop levels, you need to spend VIP Points in the VIP Shop. Every time you spend VIP Ponts, the current level progress bar will be filled and once it reaches 100%, the next VIP Shop level will be unlocked.
