Rise of Kingdoms: F2P Gem and Resource Spending Priorities

To progress efficiently as a free-to-play player in Rise of Kingdoms, invest your gems directly into VIP levels rather than short-term speed-ups, and leave all resource tokens sealed in your item inventory until you start an upgrade. This approach permanently increases account growth speed while protecting your assets from enemy raids.

Prioritize VIP Milestones Over Instant Skips

Gems are your most scarce, high-value currency. Spending gems to finish building upgrades, speed up troop recruitment, or purchase raw resources in the regular shop wastes non-renewable capital on minor, one-time accelerations. Instead, allocate your gems to the VIP system to secure permanent passive buffs and daily items.

1. Reach VIP 6 immediately: Your first critical objective is VIP 6, which permanently unlocks the second building queue. Without VIP 6, running dual builders costs 150 gems every two days for temporary builder contracts. Securing VIP 6 removes this recurring tax forever.
2. Bank gems for More Than Gems: After securing VIP 6, save your gems until the "More Than Gems" event appears before pushing higher VIP ranks.
3. Target VIP 7 and VIP 10: VIP 7 provides gathering boosts and a daily Epic Commander Sculpture. VIP 10 provides a guaranteed daily Legendary Commander Sculpture, making it the premier long-term target for non-spending accounts.

Keep Resource Tokens Sealed in Your Bag

Your city Warehouse has a strict protection cap for food, wood, stone, and gold. Any open resources exceeding this limit can be scouted and looted by other players. Storing millions of open resources turns your city into an attractive rally target.

Resource packs and tokens stored in your item inventory cannot be viewed or stolen by attackers. Follow these rules to protect your economy:

• Never open resource packs just to see high numbers on your main screen.
• Leave quest rewards, event rewards, and gathering items in your inventory bag until the exact second you begin an expensive building, Academy research project, or troop tier upgrade.
• Keep open resources below the Warehouse protection limit so rival players gain nothing if they attack your city.

Exchange Farmable Resources at the Courier Station

When the Mysterious Merchant appears at the Courier Station, check every offer before using free refreshes. The merchant frequently sells speed-ups and utility items at 50% to 90% discounts priced in standard, farmable resources.

Because food and wood can be farmed on the kingdom map without spending gems, buying discounted speed-ups with raw resources converts gathering time directly into account acceleration.

Spend Daily Action Points on Barbarians and Forts

Allowing your Action Point (AP) bar to sit at its 1,000-point cap wastes free energy. Convert your regenerating AP into inventory reserves and materials every day:

• Defeat wild barbarians: Barbarians drop resource tokens that go directly into your protected inventory bag, along with equipment crafting materials, universal speed-ups, and Tomes of Knowledge.
• Rally barbarian forts: Fort rallies reward Books of the Covenant, which are required to upgrade your Castle. Castle 25 is the central structural requirement for unlocking Tier 5 troops, making fort participation essential.

Maximize Alliance Help and Dedicated Gatherers

Never spend personal speed-ups the instant you begin a construction or research project. Join an active alliance and trigger an alliance help request immediately. Each member tap reduces the remaining timer by 1% of the total base time or 1 minute, whichever is greater. Wait until the help bar fills completely before using your speed-up items to avoid wasting hours of acceleration.

Additionally, field dedicated economy commanders to keep your queues funded:

• Unlock gathering commanders like Centurion, Constance, Gaius Marius, and Sarka from silver tavern chests.
• Do not spend Epic or Legendary Universal Commander Sculptures on gathering commanders.
• Specialize gatherers entirely into their gathering talent trees to maximize resource load capacity, march speed, and gathering rates on open nodes.