Basic Gameplay Elements

Core Attributes

Each of the four core attributes that make up the overall State Power score also contribute to boosting the continued growth rate of your kingdom (including but not limited to):

• Strength - Determines the effectiveness of soldiers in various types of battles (Outpost, Endless War), which in turn generate rewards of items, silver, prestige, etc.

• Intellect - Determines the amount of Silver collected per periodic collection cycle

• Leadership - Determines the amount of Grain collected per periodic collection cycle

• Charisma - Determines the number of Soldiers trained per periodic collection cycle (while consuming an equal amount of Grain)

The majority of the total core attributes for your kingdom will come from your knights (not to be confused with soldiers), which are each named/modeled after famous historical figures and each possess their own knight level, per-attribute-type talent level, and various other bonuses that further boost attributes to come up with per-knight values of each of the four core attributes.

A smaller portion of your core attributes will come from heirs, which are produced at regular intervals based on interactions with lovers.

The basic collection rates and strength effectiveness of your kingdom are determined simply by adding up the total core attribute values of your knights and heirs.

Some gameplay elements and minigames depend on having very high attributes or knight talent levels concentrated into a single knight (for example, the arena), specialized attribute types concentrated into a small, fixed number of top knights (for example, knight parades), or other mixtures of concentrating some attributes into certain knights while spreading others out among lower-level knights (for example, alliance chessboard).

Determining the most cost-effective way to boost attributes based on where to spend silver or items on different knights while balancing the needs of different game elements is where strategy comes into play.

Basic Resources

Based on the resource types provided by each of the core attributes, the three basic resources are used as follows:

• Silver - Primarily used to level-up knights, which in turn boosts knights' core attributes. Additionally used in smaller quantities to attend banquets, buy certain minigame resources, and send naval expeditions

• Grain - Primarily consumed to train soldiers in a one-to-one ratio (one grain is spent per one soldier trained). Additionally used to refresh "fortune" in patrols

• Soldiers - Consumed to make progress in increasingly-difficult outpost battles and on a daily basis in endless wars. These provide rewards of silver, prestige, and items which can be re-invested into growing your kingdom.

Rules of thumb

Spend resources

Unless hoarding for specific events, and especially early on when starting a new kingdom, you should typically strive to spend all your silver, attribute bonus books, edicts, soldiers, etc., as early as possible as long as they can be effectively re-invested into improved attributes or unlocks that further increase your kingdom's growth rate. While not a perfect analogy, the reinvestment of your resources into kingdom growth follow the basic principles of compound interest - the sooner you invest into faster growth rates, the longer you benefit from its payoff.

Exceptions may include waiting to unlock a specific knight or waiting to decide on a build or how best to allocate the resources.

Pick at least one "specialist" knight for each attribute on which to focus leveling and talents

Due to the way knight attributes scale as a function of both knight level and knight talent level, for optimal silver spend, you typically won't equally level up all your knights, but will rather focus on a smaller number of knights to take to higher, more expensive levels. Some game elements that will require assigning specific knights based on a single attribute type include:

• War of conquest

• Knight parades

• Alliance road construction

Level up knights with the highest "talent levels" first

Knight attributes scale as a function of both knight level and knight talent level, so that given equal knight levels, silver spent will be more effective if invested into the knight with the higher talent level. The analysis and calculator pages of this guide can be used to determine specifics of which level/talent ratios are most effective.

Max out your dailies

Some activities are limited to once or a small number of times per day (unless refreshed with limited in-game items or other game currencies):

• Ballroom (5 lovers per day) - provides lover points which can be used to level up lover bonuses which boost knight attributes

• Arena (depends on VIP level) - provides knight talent XP and knight skill XP, arena items, and arena ranking

• Hunting Grounds (once per day) - provides warrior points and basic rewards

• Pirate Invasion (once per day) - provides prestige, warrior points, and basic rewards

• Alliance Construction, Road Construction, and Dragon Bounty (once per day) - provides alliance coins for personal usage, alliance wealth and alliance XP for alliance growth

• Champagne Fair (3x per day) - provides basic items

• Ranking Congratulations (once per day) - provides gold and prestige

• Banquet (3x per day) - spend silver instead of gold to get banquet points, which can be used to purchase basic items

• Castle Visits (once per day) - provides gold

• Daily Quests (once per day) - provides prestige, basic items

This list is only a rule of thumb - other activities behave as quasi-dailies due to resets or gathering rates of prerequisite resources, such as Dragon Island, Endless War, and Knight Parades.