Evony Ranged General Investment Guide for Free-to-Play Players

To build an effective free-to-play ranged march in Evony, invest exclusively in farmable primary commanders, reserve all Blood of Ares for your main attacker, and avoid spending rare development materials on assistant ascension or low-tier equipment. Ranged marches serve as the core player-versus-player (PvP) attack tool in Server vs. Server (SvS) and battlefield events. Progress stalls when scarce ascension fragments, specialty runestones, and refining materials are spread across multiple incomplete projects.

Select Farmable Leaders Over Paywalled Generals

Never designate an event-exclusive commander as your primary ranged attacker. Maxing a general to five red stars requires hundreds of runestones and up to sixteen duplicate copies. Premium commanders like Simeon the Great offer solid baseline stats, but non-spending players cannot reliably acquire their duplicate fragments. Without consistent copies, a paywalled general remains locked at five gold stars, falling behind fully ascended alternatives.

Focus your primary investments on two farmable ranged commanders:

• Elektra: Obtainable and ascendable by systematically farming fragments through Relic Chambers.
• Minamoto no Yoshitsune: Available through standard Tavern refreshes and Great General Chest drops.

Committing to a farmable leader ensures your main march unlocks the percentage bonuses to ranged attack, march size, and survivability granted by full red-star ascension.

Stop Ascending Assistant Generals

Never spend Blood of Ares, gold, or duplicate fragments on an assistant general's star level. In Evony march mechanics, star enhancements and red-star ascension bonuses on an assistant general do not apply to the marching army.

Blood of Ares is a major progression bottleneck obtained through Trial of Knights and Monarch Competition events. Spending this currency on an assistant yields zero combat value.

Prevent Skill Book Conflicts

Before locking in skill books, verify compatibility between your primary and assistant commanders. If an assistant general's innate skill includes a direct percentage boost to ranged attack, equipping a standard Ranged Troop Attack skill book on that general deactivates the book. The skill will appear grayed out on the march screen, wasting a slot.

Equip your skill slots in this sequence:

1. Check innate skills: Confirm that both generals' base abilities trigger simultaneously without canceling each other out (such as pairing Minamoto no Yoshitsune or Elektra with an assistant like Henry V).
2. Equip Ranged Troop Range: Place this book on whichever commander can activate it. Maximum range allows archers to attack first and eliminate incoming mounted units before taking damage.
3. Fill remaining slots: Add Ranged Troop HP, Defense, or March Size. If your assistant's innate skill does not conflict with Ranged Troop Attack, equip that as well.

Delay Equipment Refining Until Forge Level 33

Do not spend monarch gems or refining stones trying to roll high attributes on Champion, King, or basic Dragon gear. Intermediate tiers have lower maximum percentage caps and lack the sub-city debuffs found on Forge Level 33 gear. Dragon equipment should receive only baseline refines necessary to defeat monsters.

Save your refining materials until you can craft Achaemenidae and Parthian sets. When rolling attributes on Forge Level 33 ranged gear, target high Ranged Troop Attack percentage values on the weapon, ring, and boots.

Focus Specialty Runestones on One Primary Attacker

Do not distribute Specialty Runestones across multiple generals. Each general has four specialty tiers, with the final gold tier delivering critical boosts to attack power, march capacity, and enemy debuffs.

Upgrading specialties requires thousands of runestones and monarch gems per level. Splitting these resources across several leaders leaves you with multiple weak commanders. Channel all specialty runestones into your primary ranged leader until the fourth specialty is completed before allocating remaining materials to subordinate city mayors or secondary troops.