This is the first article published here at RoC Fanatics! It’s probably the most important too, since knowing some Rise of Kingdoms tips and tricks is essential, especially when you’re just starting up and you need to know what to prioritize in the game and, in the end, how to play it.
The good thing is that Rise of Kingdoms plays mostly like all other mobile strategy games out there, so if you have played any before, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting used with the control scheme and the mechanics.
But since this is an original game, some things are done differently and that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today when sharing our set of Rise of Kingdoms tips and tricks for beginners.
1. Do the daily missions… daily!
A quick way to rack up some resources, boosts and other goodies is to complete as many daily missions as possible each day. The more you complete, the more treasures you unlock and the farther you go, the better the rewards.
These missions are pretty simple too, so make sure you focus on getting them all done every single day.
2. Focus on the main quests
There are a lot of main and side missions that you will automatically complete by simply playing the game.
But it’s the main quests which are more important because these are the actual milestones you have to go through in order to progress through the game’s ages and improve your Kingdom’s power.
However, as we will discuss in the other tips published below, you should only upgrade the City Hall at the right time and take things methodically, otherwise you will still be left behind.
And when it comes to actually collecting the rewards from the side missions, don’t always rush to do so. Sometimes – especially if you are at war against an active opponent, it doesn’t make sense to collect all those resource rewards if you can’t protect them or if you don’t need them.
Instead, collect the rewards that give you boosts and other items and only get the resources when you actually need them.
3. Always train troops for your army
You can never have too many troops for your armies, so make sure that you constantly train more.
Training takes time and wars require huge armies to be won, so just do that – upgrade your troop-producing buildings whenever you have the chance and train continuously.
You should always train the highest level unit available to you and the maximum available units – there’s no reason to do it otherwise!
You can read a complete guide for the RoK Troops here.
4. Always research
Research is equally important because it helps you get better troops and produce more resources, then it starts giving you all sorts of other boosts in the game.
I always recommend maxing out the Military Technology research in the Academy since the boosts offered to the troops are what you really need and only afterwards switch to the Economic Technology skill tree if you have extra time left. Take things one at a time and you will do just fine!
5. Join a really active alliance
Being part of an active alliance with many members playing in the same time zone as yourself is vital to keep you up and running, especially at higher levels when the threats from massive players become greater.
Joining an active alliance gives you the opportunity to ask for help from fellow alliance members to speed up production and research, you unlock additional technologies in the Alliance menu (read: extra bonuses to troops and production) and much more.
You can go to war together with your fellow alliance members and be protected when other people target your kingdom and want to farm your resources.
You also have the opportunity to teleport in your alliance’s region: definitely use this feature BUT only after you are 100% sure that you are in the right alliance, because further teleports to Alliance territories will be a lot more difficult (and expensive, most likely requiring premium currency).
6. Level up all other buildings before the HQ
I think that the best strategy to use when it comes to managing upgrades in your Civilization is to upgrade all the buildings you have available in your Kingdom before moving on for a new City Hall upgrade.
This way, you will always be maxed up in all areas and progress should come naturally.
The only buildings that you can skip upgrading to your City Hall’s level are the resource generating ones, because you can farm these resources on the map.
But only keep a maximum of 3 levels behind and make sure that you are really active farming resources on the map in order to have enough at all times.
7. Attack Barbarians and Resource spots early on
One great thing about battles against barbarians is that your troops never die. They get wounded, but you never lose troops from attacking them – at least not at the moment of writing this guide.
This makes them extremely solid targets for constant attacks in order to pile up on boosts and other goodies.
I always recommend you to attack Barbarians near your kingdom, as often as possible when you are online, playing the game.
Then, when you go away for a while, send two different armies to gather resources from nearby camps.
Of course, if you need to defend your castle, keep your troops at home – but usually, unless you’re at war, you are pretty much safe.
8. Develop your commanders wisely
There are many commanders available in the game and some are much better than others. You will soon have at least several to choose from, so wait a little bit before investing in a main commander or two and specialize them.
For example, we have commanders that are great against PvE (player versus environment aka barbarians), commanders that are great for gathering resources and those that are great leaders of your troops in wars against other players. Check their skills out and their stats and decide which one to work on first.
You won’t be able to develop them all into max level commanders – at least not early on, and you shouldn’t. In my opinion, the best ones to focus on early on are the ones who have bonuses against Barbarians (such as Boudica) and those who collect resources faster, like Gaius Marius.
It all depends on what commanders you’re getting though, but early on it is very important to focus on those that give you solid boosts that you can use.
And if in doubt, you can always check out their skills and specialties in order to decide. We also have a guide on the best commanders in the game in case you want to check our opinion.
9. Scouts should be exploring
The main reason why your scouts should be exploring is not that you will actually need a lot of exploring done in order to go through the main quest missions (which you will!), but the potential resource gains from these.
Whenever your scouts finish exploring a region, there is a slight chance that they will find a Mysterious cave (which will reward you with treasure) or a friendly village that will offer you a gift – usually troops or a level up in random research.
So apart from actually getting to know more of the surrounding areas and opening up various possibilities for your civilization and alliance to thrive, you also get a ton of goodies while you do so.
10. Use the items in your inventory, don’t hoard!
There is absolutely no reason for you to hoard items in your inventory, especially time boosters. These start losing their value as your kingdom grows larger and waiting times increase as well.
A one minute speed boost will be basically useless once your City Hall reaches level 10, while early on it might make a difference and help you grow faster.
Make sure that you use both building speed boosters, as well as research boosters as they are separate – so if you run out of one, you might still have some left for the other speed boosting requirements.
There are all sorts of other items that you will find in your inventory and with those you should be careful – spend resource packs only when you need them, while other types of production boosters and such should also be used when you are ready to make the most out of them – usually, the higher your level, the better the rewards from using such boosters.
And this is it – these are, in my opinion, the top 10 tips and tricks every new Rise of Kingdoms player should know. If you have additional tips to share, do so in the comment section below.