The Best Free-To-Play (F2P) Guide | Rise of Kingdoms (2023)

People usually say that Rise of Kingdoms is a strong pay-to-win game and free-to-play players do not have any space in this strong competitive environment.

While this statement is partly correct, the game still offers a great space for all free-to-play players to fully enjoy the outstanding gameplay of Rise of Kingdoms.

Rise of Kingdoms definitely offers a lot of certain ways for F2P players to have fun and be competitive in the game while most other mobile games just can’t.

Having that said, this is the best Free-to-play Guide for all Rise of Kingdoms players, including both new and experienced players.

General Tips for F2P Players

• Do not fight: Only when necessary. Your moment will come. Fighting will delay your growth in power.
• Action Points: Always spend the AP you have before the restart of the day (UTC 00:00). Use them to defeat Forts and barbarian units, you will earn various rewards.
• VIP: At all times it is important to increase the level of VIP to obtain great permanent Buffs, as well as better daily rewards per each level.
• Scouting: Exploring every corner of the map is important, Village and Caves guarantee a lot of rewards and important improvements for our growth.
• Leveling Commander: Commanders need a certain amount of XP to increase their power, defeating barbarians and guardians of Holy Sites is the fastest way to increase their levels as a F2P player.
• Farm: Whenever you are not online, you must leave your troops collecting resources from the map. You need resources for researching technologies, building structures, and training troops.
• Castle: This is the most important structure in your city and the most difficult one to level up. It guarantees us a series of improvements and the researches of T5 units, therefore, you must focus on upgrading the castle whenever you can.

Jumping

This is definitely the most important tip everyone should know when starting playing Rise of Kingdoms. It is even more crucial for new players since jumping gives you an outstanding start with loads of advantages.

Specifically, you start the game normally and push your City Hall and all of the buildings to level 7, upgrade everything you can and save all of the items you can, including speedups, resources, XP Books, etc and then teleport to a fresh Kingdom using the Beginner Teleport, where all new players have to start from scratch.

For more details, please check out the Jumping guide

Best Civilization For Starting

At the beginning, you shouldn’t care about the buffs those civilizations offer. Rather looking for the featured commanders of those civilizations. They are the Epic Commanders that you will get for free after choosing a civilization.

You should look for the commanders whose sculptures usually get offered through the events and quests in game.

Thus, I recommend F2P players should start with either Scipio or Boudica. They are, in my opinion, the best starting Epic Commanders for F2P players because:

1. Scipio is great for any mixed army composition and is quite tanky in an open battlefield.
2. Boudica is excellent for farming Barbarians/Forts and nuking.

After getting the starting commander, you can change your civilization to Japan once you have gotten to City Hall level 10 as Japan increases the attack of all troops you have, increases your scouting speed (super helpful at the beginning) and resource gathering speed.

Scouting

As F2P players, you want to explore the map as quickly as possible to discover caves and villages that offer a lot of great rewards depending on their rarity.

Every time you enter the game or have time to enjoy it, send your explorers over and over again to every corner of the map and every corner, in this way we will unlock missions and achievements that help grow further quickly.

In the caves, there are chests of different rarities and their rewards include up to VIP level points among many others of great relevance.

For more help check out our Scout guide here.

How to spend Gems Efficiently?

Being a Free-to-play Player, Gems become very limited for you. And since Gem is the most valuable resource you could obtain in the entire game, understanding the best ways to spend Gems is extremely crucial for all players.

At first, you should only focus on rushing your VIP level to 6 as this offer tons of crucial buffs in every aspect of the game. It also gives you the secondary builder permanently, you won’t have to spend Gems on recruiting builder anymore.

Next, take the advantage of being able to buy items in the VIP 6 shop. Action Potions and Speedups for more specific.

After that, use your Gems and resources to buy Items in the Mysterious Merchant’s shop whenever it appears:

• Buy everything which is sold in normal resources.
• Buy all speed-ups which are discounted at more than 60%

More details: How to Spend Gems Efficiently

How to use Speedups

• The best ways to speed up your building and technology upgrades in Rise of Kingdoms is to leverage the help from your Alliance members.
• Never use speedups before getting the maximum amount of helps from your Alliance members. You can easily check this by going to the Alliance→ Help Section.
• Use the specific type of Speedups first before using the universal Speedups.
• You should always be working on upgrading buildings/technology or training troops/gathering resources while going idle.

Upgrades

You should only focus on what is needed to get to the next City Hall level. Rushing the City Hall is the top priority you want to do.

This means you should focus on the main buildings like wall, military buildings etc while neglecting the others.

Rushing to higher City Hall unlocks better technologies, higher troop tiers, more army dispatches and a lot of other perks!

You also want to upgrade the technologies that increase the upgrading/researching speed. It will definitely pay off in the long run, a lot.

Commander Tips

I bet that all new players definitely ruin their Epic/Legendary Commanders at the beginning of the game. Lucky you, I’m here giving you the best tips!

Never star up your Epic/Legendary Commanders before having their first skill maxed unless they are Gathering Commanders. This is because, the first skill is usually the best skill. Also, during the battles, your commanders will continuously cast their active skills so you want them to be maxed to maximize the output effects.

Also, focus on only one Legendary Commander. Although it’s very hard to max out the first skill of a Legendary Commander, it’s still a lot better than using any maxed out Epic Commander.

Only skill tree of the primary commander does matter. The talent tree of the secondary commander doesn’t contribute to the dispatch.

Coupling commanders with different properties makes your dispatch more versatile and could be ready for different situations.

Gathering Tips

Being a free-to-play player, the amount of resources you could gather is pretty scarce.

Thus, you want to focus on your gathering commanders at the beginning. Level them up as fast as you can, just after your primary commander.

At first, you can aim for level 27. Getting them to level 27 gives you enough points to get the talent that offers additional resources upon completion of gathering (screenshot below). To complete the Gathering tree, you need to bring them to level 37.

Besides these, always exchange resources for resources in the Courier Station. Also don’t forget to always collect the runes for better gathering speed.

Must Read: 56 Quick Rise of Kingdoms Tips for New Players

Recommended Commanders

As mentioned above, only focus on one Legendary Commander because the Legendary Sculptures and Starlights are extremely rare. The same thing goes to Epic Commanders at the beginning of the game.

Do not spend your resources on many Epic Commanders, ideally no more than 2 until you understand the game a bit more.

Aethelflaed:

A legendary commander with a lot of versatility for any player. We can use her in both PVP and PVE activities effectively. Without a doubt, she is definitely the best option to prioritize for any F2P player.

Sun Tzu:

One of the coolest epic commanders in the game, thanks to his great damage skill in AOE and being a very effective garrison defender for F2P players.

Joan of Arc:

Extremely versatile commander for both PVP and resource gathering. She is one of the best Support commanders, her skills are great for any troop and commander.

Boudica:

She is an excellent commander for both PvE and PvP matches, super versatile. For PvP, couple her with Pelagius. For PvP, couple her with Lohar.

Baibars:

Cavalry commander of great impact for PVP, one of the most effective options for open-field of any F2P player, it has an excellent damage in AOE in addition to a great reduction in defense and attack to its rival.

Lohar:

One of the Best PvE commander. It’s very easy to max out his skills by participating in the Lohar’s Trial event. Pair him up with Boudica for PvE battles.

Spending Tips

This section is for those F2P players who finally decide to spend less than $50 into the game after a certain period of time playing.

You will want to buy 2 King’s Coordination bundles until you get all of the recharge gifts.

Once you have obtained all of the recharge gifts, get the Gem Supply and Growth Fund (for VIP5+).