Reign of Empires hit the Play Store just a few days ago and took everyone by surprise, including us. We thought that this would be another cookie-cutter mobile RTS, but once we got to spend a few hours on the game, we discovered a couple of innovative mechanics and a few reworkings of the old base-building war recipe.

In short, Reign of Empires was a pleasant surprise, at least as far as we’re concerned. Yet with new mechanics come new questions and new rules so we decided to put together these 10 essential tips and tricks for new players. We usually recommend our more advanced guides to players who are already familiar with the RTS genre, but in this case, everyone can benefit from the information below.

1. Follow the Main Questline

In most mobile RTS games, the main questline asks you to build and upgrade unnecessary things, which makes it more or less undesirable to follow its instructions. This, however, is no longer true in Reign of Empires. The main quest in this game strictly follows building requirements that will help you upgrade your Castle quickly, unlock new features, and stay safe at the same time. Not to mention, the rewards are far more attractive.

2. Join an Active Alliance Quickly

Again, Reign of Empires is rather different from other games in the same genre in that it doesn’t immediately force you to join an Alliance as part of the tutorial. Still, if you do manage to find a decent group of people to play with, it’s best to join their ranks as quickly as possible. Once your Castle hits level 6, your initial 24-hour shield is removed and you become fair game for all other players on the map. Being in an Alliance will not only help you develop your base faster, but it will also offer some degree of protection against predators.

3. Use Your Rename and Relocate Tokens

When you create a new account, you are given a random player number as a name. You are also given a Rename token, however, which you will find in your bag and should use immediately. Most alliance leaders tend to offer more spots to people who have taken the time to at least give their characters a proper name, so using this token will increase your chances of joining a good group.

Once you become part of an Alliance, find the purple Relocate Token in your inventory and use it to move your castle near the Alliance’s cluster. This will ensure a further layer of protection against players looking to pray on the weak and isolated.

4. Collect All the Freebies

From resources to building/research speed-ups and even Gold – the game’s premium currency – Reign of Empires will hand out plenty of freebies to new players. However, these will be scattered across multiple menus and you’ll have to do your best to find them all in order to take maximum advantage of your status as newbie. Keep an eye out for the 7-Day Newbie Event, the Tavern, the Caravan, the quest titled “Rebuilding Civilization” and your Achievements.

5. Talk to People in Your Castle

Once your main building hits level 6, various people wondering about the castle grounds will start to offer special missions for decent rewards. These will only become active if you click on the “?” above the heads of the NPCs, so don’t forget to look around your base every now and again so as to not miss out on anything.

6. Unlock the Second Building Slot

By default, you only have one building slot, which means that you can only build or upgrade one thing at a time. However, you can unlock a second building slot using Gold or special tokens that you earn during events and missions. Our recommendation is to do this as soon as you are able because doubling your building potential will significantly increase the speed of your base development.

Using free VIP points from achievements, you’ll quickly hit VIP level 2 and will be granted a full 24 hours of VIP status. This is the best time to make use of a second building slot.

7. Get Familiar with All the Minigames

Another thing that F2P players will definitely want to keep an eye on is the selection of minigames in Reign of Empires. These include the Gate of Ordeal, as well as a number of luck-based activities that can be found inside the Tavern. Although you only have a few attempts to play these games for free per day, you can earn handsome rewards, from resources to battle boosts and even Greatman fragments.

8. Protect Your Most Valuable Greatmen

Your Greatmen can make an enormous contribution towards the development of your base and the performance of your troops, yet the characters themselves are highly vulnerable to attacks. One way to ensure that certain essential Greatmen are never captured is to have them train for experience inside the University at all times. Characters engaged in training cannot be captured during battle, so reserve this privilege for your best 3-4 Greatmen.

9. Set Up Farm Accounts

When it comes to how many resources you need in order to progress in this game, Reign of Empires is no different from other mobile RTS titles. Once you hit Castle level 10, you will need to not only attack others more often, but also to put together a number of farm accounts that you can specialize in 1-2 resources each. Everyone does this and so should you, especially if you’re playing Reign of Empires on BlueStacks and have access to the Multi-Instance Manager tool.

10. Choose Your Civilization Wisely

Yet another new addition to the typical RTS formula is the fact that, in Reign of Empires, you have to choose to join a culture – the West or the East – and then a specific civilization once you hit Castle level 10. For the East, your options include Korea (with a special catapult unit), Japan (swordsman), China (crossbowman), and India (cavalry), while the Western nations are Islam (spearman), Egypt (mounted archer), England (archer), and Rome (battering ram).

Of course, these are not the only tricks that can improve your game in Reign of Empires, but they are perhaps the most important things you should know as a new player before you start making important decisions. Once you’ve established a solid foundation, feel free to move onto more advanced guides, such as our combat guide or our compendium of buildings.