Table of Contents

1. Rise of Kingdoms Basics
2. Rise of Kingdoms on BlueStacks
3. How to Develop Your Town
4. How Best to Spend Money
5. The Best Civilizations in RoK
6. The Best Commanders
7. The Best Guides and Tips for RoK

Few mobile strategy games reach the level of popularity that Rise of Kingdoms has attained, and with good reason. This title provides everything we’ve come to expect from the genre, including many different ways to develop your town, a variety of troops and units that you can train for your army, plenty of unlockable commander characters, and top-notch combat in a true real-time format.

In contrast with other popular strategy games like Guns of Glory or King of Avalon, where combat resolves automatically and is calculated according to the numerical strengths of both armies, there’s a degree of skill involved when fighting against other players in Rise of Kingdoms. In other words, you need to have more than just a big army if you want to join the ranks of the most powerful commanders in this strategy game.

However, this combination of features makes it so that playing and progressing through this strategy game is somewhat different than the rest. If you’ve played other similar games, odds are that you’ll be able to get your bearings in Rise of Kingdoms quickly, but you’ll still get destroyed by the vets unless you master the intricacies of combat.

Combat aside, the base building aspect in Rise of Kingdoms is quite engaging despite its long timers. Though when it comes to waiting for construction and research projects to finish, this is something we’ve sadly grown used to in this genre. And while people who pay for in-game benefits (lovingly referred to as “whales” in the community) can definitely speed up their construction projects using the premium currency, they need to pay A LOT of money if they want to do so.

Truthfully, those who want to invest in this game will find much more value putting their money towards other features in this game, though F2P gamers can definitely get by without spending a single penny in Rise of Kingdoms.

For this reason, we decided to create this guide as a compilation of articles about some of the most important aspects in Rise of Kingdoms. We will talk about several crucial elements that you should know in order to get started, and will also share some tips for both beginners and seasoned players. If you’re just starting in this game, then you’ll benefit greatly from these tips, and if you’re a veteran, you’ll hopefully learn something that you didn’t know already.

Keep in mind that, throughout the text, we’ll be leaving links to other guides where we explore these topics in further detail. Whenever you run into something you didn’t already know and that you want to learn more about, feel free to click on the links, and read the other Rise of Kingdoms guides that we’ve prepared for you.

Rise of Kingdoms Basics

Unlike most strategy games out there, Rise of Kingdoms starts by having you choose your civilization. We’ll get into the specifics of each civilization in a bit, but for now, it’s important to note that each civilization has different stats and passive boosts, as well as a different starting commander. This makes choosing the best civilization more than just picking the one that looks cool; you must carefully weigh their passive bonuses and starting commanders before making your choice.

Afterward, you’ll be thrown into the world where you’ll be presented with a short tutorial. This brief introductory section is more than enough to get you started in the world, though it does a poor job of telling you the best ways of spending your time. This is where the missions list becomes really important for your progression as it always shows you what you should be working towards, and even rewards you with resources for completing each task.

Regardless of your approach, the objective in Rise of Kingdoms is to develop your town, level up your City Hall to gain access to new buildings and features, and build your armies by training troops in the numerous military facilities available in the game. This is with the purpose of growing your power and becoming the strongest player on your server, even though this is something that is achieved by joining an alliance and collaborating with other powerful governors.

Playing Rise of Kingdoms on PC With BlueStacks

As a mobile strategy game, Rise of Kingdoms is more about careful planning and decision-making rather than quick movements or precise execution, a gameplay style that translates perfectly to mobile devices. There are few things better than spending your downtime at work or away from home by logging into the game, collecting resources, training your troops, and closing it until a few hours later when you need to do it again.

However, even though this game is quite comfortable to play on your phone, which speaks mostly about the proficiency of the devs at creating a functional and intuitive UI, it leaves a lot to be desired about the platform itself. In other words, while gaming on your phone is convenient since you can do it virtually anywhere, there are quite a few limitations in the form of the small screen size and, in the case of the older devices, the myriad performance issues that come from gaming outdated hardware.

Luckily, those who play on BlueStacks can enjoy Rise of Kingdoms on their PC, and with all the perks that come from playing this mobile strategy game using your mouse and keyboard, and on a much larger monitor. Not to mention that our Android emulator is stronger than even the most expensive phones on the market, which means that you can also enjoy silky-smooth framerates, short loading screens, and vastly-superior performance compared to gaming on your phone.

And as if that wasn’t enough, BlueStacks also has plenty of tools to assist your gameplay, such as the Keymapping tool and the Macro Recorder. The former is great for creating control schemes using your mouse and keyboard that allow you to play Rise of Kingdoms as you would any other RTS on PC. Meanwhile, the latter is a powerful automation feature that helps to save time by automating some of the most tedious tasks in the game.

We wrote an entire article with the best tips on how to use the tools that BlueStacks offers in order to improve your experience with Rise of Kingdoms. If you haven’t already, we suggest taking a look to learn how our emulator can help you in this game.

How to Develop Your Town

As we mentioned above, the objective in Rise of Kingdoms is to develop your town so that you can eventually start raising an army and actively participate in the more engaging aspects of the game such as PvP and combat, in general. However, while it’s easy to just build whatever comes to mind until you have a decent town, there are ways to optimize your efforts so that you can progress efficiently. After all, the missions list can only help you so much, and even then, it stops becoming useful once you progress far enough into the game.

The single most important structure in Rise of Kingdoms is your City Hall. The level of every other structure in this game is tied to that of this central structure. In other words, no building can ever be of a higher level than your City Hall. One of the best tips for Rise of Kingdoms that anyone can give you is to focus on developing this building above all else, until at least level 5, when you unlock the second march slot, allowing you to send out two armies simultaneously.

You will still need to continue developing your City Hall since you unlock quite a few other features by leveling it up, not to mention that you also gain access to stronger troops every few levels. However, a good stopping point is at level 5 since you’ll be able to gather resources quicker thanks to your second march slot. The third march slot is unlocked at level 11, the fourth at 17, and the fifth at 22. These are all important milestones that you should slowly work towards completing.

You won’t really need to worry about developing your other buildings since this will come organically as you work towards upgrading your City Hall, especially since leveling your other structures is often a prerequisite for working on your central structure.

A good tip for speeding up the construction of your town is by achieving VIP level 6, which is when you permanently unlock an additional worker slot, which allows you to build two structures simultaneously. You can gather VIP experience to increase your VIP level through many methods, though the fastest is by simply purchasing it with your gems, which brings us to our next point.

How Best to Spend Money in Rise of Kingdoms

As F2P players ourselves, we don’t really like the concept of spending money on benefits in any game. However, this is a personal bias and we respect those who choose to do so. Nevertheless, when it comes to investing in Rise of Kingdoms, there are packages and products that give you the most bang for your buck.

The absolute best way to spend your money in Rise of Kingdoms is, without a doubt, on the 30-day gem supply package. For just $10, you’ll get over 20,000 gems, which is great value per dollar spent. The only other package that surpasses this product is the Growth Fund, which gives you gems whenever you reach a certain City Hall milestone. However, this fund is better purchased once you reach City Hall level 23, at which point you will instantly receive 41,000 gems. For $15, the Growth Fund is the best value when it comes to spending real cash in Rise of Kingdoms.

The Best Civilizations in Rise of Kingdoms

At the moment of writing, there are 11 different civilizations that you can choose from when you start in Rise of Kingdoms, each with their own passives and starting commanders. Your choice at this point will depend on two main factors: Do you want to start off with the best hero, or do you want to make the best use of the passive perks in order to get a head start in the game?

Now, choosing the best hero seems superfluous, especially since you can acquire them later on by summoning them in the tavern. However, keep in mind that the chances of getting the hero that you want are small since they rely on having good luck with the RNG system. This is, in other words, the gacha aspect in Rise of Kingdoms.

Choosing a good civilization in this game comes down to your general playstyle. However, most players agree that the best starting civ in Rise of Kingdoms is China since you get a nice 5% speed boost to constructions, as well as a 5% bonus to action point recovery. Japan is another popular choice thanks to their increased resource gathering speed, which allows you to farm materials faster than other civilizations.

The Best Commanders

Commanders in Rise of Kingdoms are intrinsically tied to your civilizations, especially since you always start with a specific commander depending on your initial choice. Nevertheless, there are over 50 commanders that you can collect in this strategy game, and many of these often have a purpose to fill in any lineup. Whether you’re looking to fight barbarians, engage in PvP, or gather resources, there’s almost certainly a right commander for each and every task.

Keep in mind, however, that while some commanders are good for PvP, that doesn’t mean that you necessarily need to have dedicated commanders for PvE. Leveling a “PvE” commander is inefficient since you waste potential XP that could’ve gone to another one of your PvP or gathering commanders. Especially since the best way to level your commanders is by rallying barbarian forts, you shouldn’t dedicate too many resources on leveling non-essential commanders, and instead, opt to train your strongest characters.

These are some of the best commanders in Rise of Kingdoms:

• Gaius Marius (Gathering)
• Constance (Gathering)
• Sarka (Gathering)
• Cao Cao (World PvP)
• Minamoto (World PvP)
• Sun Tzu (World Group PvP )
• Joan of Arc (World Group PvP)

As you can see, we separated the regular World PvP commanders from those who are good at Group PvP. This distinction is because the ability to deal AoE damage is much more important for Group PvP than for regular combat. The heroes we tagged above as “World Group PvP” just happen to excel at fighting against multiple enemies.

The Best Guides and Tips for Rise of Civilizations

And that about wraps up our overview on some of the most important aspects in Rise of Kingdoms. Throughout the article, you’ll find various links that will take you to articles with more information on each topic. However, here’s a recap in case you missed any:

• Beginner’s Guide: An introduction to the basic mechanics in Rise of Kingdoms, as well as some beginner tips.
• Tips and Tricks: Compilations with some of the best tips for the game.
• Civilizations Guide: An article with detailed information on all the civilizations in Rise of Kingdoms.
• Commander Guide: Information on the best commander setups in the game.
• City-Building Guide: Tips on how to build and develop your town.
• Expeditions Guide: Useful advice and tips on how to complete expeditions.
• Farming Guide: How to maximize your resource generation in Rise of Kingdoms.
• BlueStacks Macro Guide: How to take advantage of the Macro Recorder and Multi-Instance Sync tool to streamline and automate your efforts in this game.

If you have any other questions, feel free to check out our Rise of Kingdoms FAQ article, or leave us a comment in the section below.