For New Players
*** I wanted to highlight just a few things that new players should probably know sooner rather than later. There’s a forum post by the player NPNKY that has collected this type of info, but it’s gotten rather long, and may not make sense until after you’ve played a bit. I’ve borrowed from that thread and added a couple items.
→ Alliance Wars is an aspect of the game that will have you using up to 30 heroes if you have them. So don’t be in a rush to use levelled heroes to advance others. There will come a time for that, but not for a while.
→ Do not level up 1* heroes! These are just used to grow better heroes
→ You’ll collect blue and white emblems that will someday be used to advance fully levelled heroes even higher. Just keep saving these emblems for now. They’re really new to the game, and there’s not much info on best use of them as of yet. But general consensus is to wait and use them on 4 or 5* heroes.
→ You will have the hero Bane early in the game. Do not use Bane to level someone else. He’s actually one of the better 3* heroes.
→ Use the lock feature on hero cards and troops you want to save so you don’t use them to level up something else! (More details in Levelling Heroes and in Troops.)
→ There is almost nothing in this game that you cannot get for free with time and effort. Spending money will speed up the process, but it isn’t necessary. Things like Emblems and Ascension materials are mostly be gained through game play anyways.
→ Much in this game is based on RNG, or Random Number Generation. What heroes are summoned, what loot you win, even which items you get when you purchase certain deals. There’s more on this in the rest of this guide. But I’d like new players to know at the outset that you can see the appearance rates for things that you can purchase with gems where RNG will be a factor determining what you actually get. Look for a small blue button with a white i in the centre.
→ Summons. You never get to pick the hero that you get from the summons. And the hero cards that you see scrolling by show the hero when they are fully trained up (though without their talent enhancements from emblems). The card you receive will be a basic level 1 hero and needs to be levelled.
About your Base
Keep building those buildings! Resources are key for advancing in this game. Here’s some info on some of the buildings:
Houses: These hold the recruits that you collect from map levels and completing quests. Recruits are used up by the training camps to create new heroes
Farms and Mines: These produce food (aka hams) and iron. The more you level these the more they produce each hour, and the more they can store. The higher storage is especially helpful if you aren’t able to collect often. The food and iron in these buildings can’t be used for anything until after it is collected. You can collect any time by clicking on the building, not just when it tells you to!
Food and Iron Storage Facilities: That’s all these buildings do. Levelling these increases the maximum amount of iron or food you can store/use at any given time. (Food and iron that are still in your farms and mines aren’t able to be used until they are collected.) Your maximum storage for each resource can be found by tapping the food and iron bars at the top of your screen on your Base or Map screens.
As you want to build higher level buildings, and research higher level training camps and forges, you will need higher and higher amounts of food or iron available. If your max storage isn’t high enough to accommodate the requirements of the building you want, then you will have to upgrade your storage buildings accordingly, and add new ones as they become available.
Stronghold:
Any building in your base can only be built up to a level equal to that of your stronghold. New areas open up in your base when the stronghold gains levels 3, 5, 8, 11, 15, and 20. As a point of interest, the Devs have said that the first 30 troops that you start with in the game are housed in the stronghold.
After the tutorial you have 5 slots available to build a farm, iron storage, and food storage.
At level 3 you can add: farm, mine, food storage, forge.
At level 5 you can add: house, farm, training camp, iron storage.
At level 8 you can add: forge, iron storage, farm, mine.
At level 11 you can add: farm, training camp, house, food storage.
At level 15 you can add: farm, mine, iron storage, forge.
At level 20 you can add: house, training camp, farm, food storage.
** At level 10 you get access to the barracks. It is an advanced building that you build over top of an existing lvl 5 building. Building over a forge is recommended. If you don’t have the right number of buildings at any given step, then there’s an excellent chance that you built a barracks over the missing building and forgot about it. More details on the barracks below!
Training Camp:
Training camps (TC) use recruits, food, and items to train heroes. When upgrading your training camps don’t waste resources on research you don’t need. Key levels are 1, 2, 4 (until 11 is available), 11, 12, 13, 19, 20. Training camps will only produce the standard heroes, never event heroes or Heroes of the Month.
Notes:
- Researching – once you research a level you will be able to use it in all your training camps, not just the one you did the research in.
- TC 13 (guaranteed 3* with chance of 4* hero) is probably preferable over TC 12 (guaranteed 3* hero), but the much higher cost for resources may make it harder to keep running for more casual players. The community feels that the chance of getting a 4* hero from TC 13 is around 3%, maybe 5%.
- TC 19 is a great way to get quick heroes, but is very food heavy. You will want to have your farms well developed to take full advantage of this level!
- TC 20 is definitely a push goal for free to play and low spending players. This is your best chance of getting 5* heroes without paying. There’s a thread on the forum where players did the research and came up with the following drop rates for heroes from TC 20. 5% chance of a 5* hero, 20% chance of a 4* hero, 75% chance of a 3* hero. For folks willing to pay to get great heroes you’ll probably just want to research up to TC 11 initially, then focus on your forge for battle items.
Training Camp broken down by levels:
| Lvl | *s | description | food | recruits | time | other |
| 1 | 1 | Common | 1.6k | 5 | 10m | 1 wooden sword |
| 2 | 1,2 | Uncommon | 2k | 5 | 30m | 1 backpack |
| 3 | 1 | Fast | 5k | 5 | 2m | 1 wooden sword |
| 4 | 1,2 | Low Cost | 1.5k | 4 | 3h | — |
| 5 | 1,2 | Fire Heroes | 8.5k | 5 | 1h | 1 wooden sword + 1 backpack |
| 6 | 1,2 | Ice Heroes | 8.5k | 5 | 1h | 1 wooden sword + 1 backpack |
| 7 | 1,2 | Nature Heroes | 8.5k | 5 | 1h | 1 wooden sword + 1 backpack |
| 8 | 1,2 | Dark Heroes | 8.5k | 5 | 1h | 1 wooden sword +1 backpack |
| 9 | 1,2 | Holy Heroes | 8.5k | 5 | 1h | 1 wooden sword +1 backpack |
| 10 | 1, 2, 3 | Advanced | 105k | 25 | 1d | 1 rugged clothes + 1 training manual |
| 11 | 1,2 | Extra Low Cost | 1k | 2 | 2h | — |
| 12 | 3 | Guaranteed Rare | 164k | 45 | 2d | 1 rugged clothes + 1 training manual |
| 13 | 3,4 | Elite | 265k | 70 | 2d | 1 leather armour + 1 wooden shieldEstimated 3-5 % chance of getting a 4* hero |
| 14 | 1,2,3 | Fire Hero | 105k | 25 | 1d | 1 training manual |
| 15 | 1,2,3 | Ice Heroes | 105k | 25 | 1d | 1 training manual |
| 16 | 1,2,3 | Nature Heroes | 105k | 25 | 1d | 1 training manual |
| 17 | 1,2,3 | Dark Heroes | 105k | 25 | 1d | 1 training manual |
| 18 | 1,2,3 | Holy Heroes | 105k | 25 | 1d | 1 training manual |
| 19 | 1 | Extra Fast | 5.5k | 2 | 1m | 1 rugged clothes |
| 20 | 3,4,5 | Legendary | 297k | 100 | 2d | 1sharpening stone |
Forges & Research:
Forges allow you to create battle items by combining resources with ingredients obtained while playing the game. As with your Training Camps, you can pick and choose which levels of the forge you wish to research.
**** a note on research- as with the training camp, once you research a level you will be able to use it in all your forges, not just the one you did the research in
Forges Broken Down By Levels:
**If a description isn’t provided, then you can find the information in the game shop under battle items. Or click here to go to the corresponding page in the wiki for more detailed information. (Item description, required resources to craft items, how many of each item can be equipped in a slot.)
Lv 2 – minor mana
Lv 3 – antidotes ** remember, 1 vial will cure your whole team of negative status effects! Not just poison!
Lv 4 – arrow attack
Lv 5 – healing potion
Lv 6 – bear banner
Lv 7 – turtle banner
Lv 8 – axe attack
Lv 9 – potent healing potion
Lv 10 – mana potion
Lv 11 – super antidote
Lv 12 – bomb attack
Lv 13 – revive scroll
Lv 14 – dragon banner
Lv 15 – super healing potion
Lv 16 – dragon attack
Lv 17 – super mana potion
Lv 18 – time stop (all enemies lose 100% mana and have their attack delayed by 3 turns- delays are cumulative!)
Lv 19 – tornado (all heroes gain 50% mana and board is shuffled)
Lv 20 – miracle scroll
Uncertain where to find a crafting material?
Click on the image of an item when in your forge or inventory to find out where you can find it!
Don’t forget to equip battle items depending on your needs! This is done the same place where you edit your teams. (More info further down the guide.)
Also, you are able to equip a different battle item setup for each team.
Watchtower:
Building a watchtower allows you to participate in raids. This allows you to attack other players teams (controlled by AI while they are offline); it also allows them to attack YOU. Killing opponent’s heroes will fill the heroes chest for the wanted missions. Only the food and iron stored in your watchtower is vulnerable to being stolen when you are raided. While this building can be a source of income, it is quite expensive to build when compared to farms and mines. If you aren’t using it to it’s full storage capabilities it may not be a good deal.
**more on raids and cups further along in guide**
The watchtower’s food and iron revenue comes from the outposts that you conquer at the end of certain provinces. Levelling your outpost will give a % production increase of these resources, and increases how much your watchtower can hold at once.
Barracks:
This the advanced building that allows you to level up your troops!
The requirements for building a barracks are a lvl 10 Stronghold, 250k iron, and any level 5 building to build your barracks over the top of (you can’t put it on an empty lot). You are only able to have one of these buildings at a time.
If you meet the above criteria, then select the building that you wish to build your barracks over top of. Once built, you will be able to change back and forth between your new barracks and your old building (it’s free!). Each building will retain its levels when you do this. It is worth noting that you lose the storage or revenue of resources from buildings that you write over top of. Many people are choosing to overwrite their extra forges. It is possible to convert back to the original building and select a new building to build over. All buildings will maintain their level. The game doesn’t allow you to build over iron storage, because it creates issues with having enough storage available to continue to progress through the game.
When you tap on the building you will see an icon with two arrows that says convert. This is what you need to tap to get your build started. It’s also the button you will use to change it back to the original building. Be aware that you will be unable to convert a building if your builder is busy with another building!
10 is the max level of the barracks. The stronghold requirement increases as you level up your barracks. At each level of barracks there is a maximum that you can level a troop to, and the max level is variable depending on the rarity of the troop.
Example, using a Lvl 2 Barracks, maximum you can level a hero to is:
1* – lvl 10 2* – lvl 7 3* – lvl 5 4* – lvl 3
The info regarding levelling troops is in the Troops section of this document!
Mystic Vision:
Clicking on the purple and white play button sends you to watch a 30-second advertisement. Afterwards you get a small amount of loot. There is a slim chance of getting ascension items too!
Common Questions about the Base:
Can I Delete A Building?
No. But don’t worry! This game really hand-holds for building. You can’t really do it wrong. Build what you can & level up as you go. If you want to move your buildings around tap and hold the building you want to move, then tap the new destination for your building.
Current maximum building level is 20.
Heroes
Heroes can be summoned from the Summon gate, trained in your training camps, and occasionally purchased from the special shop. For a complete list of 2*-5* heroes, their stats and abilities, please follow the link to Pois’s spreadsheet!
Levelling Heroes
- Do take the time to mark heroes as favourites! A hero marked in this way can’t be accidentally used to level up another hero. To do this access your heroes roster (the page you go to to level heroes). Tap on the hero you want to mark as a favourite. Just above the hero’s card is a faded out lock, with the word favourite beside it. When you tap the lock it changes to white. Done!
- Don’t waste resources on 1* heroes. You’ll want to replace these as soon as possible, because they die easily.
- It isn’t possible to train a hero up in stars. A 1* hero will always be a 1* hero.
To level up a hero
- click on the heroes button at the bottom of the base or map screens, and then select the hero that you wish to level up. You then select up to 10 heroes you want to ‘feed’ to your chosen hero.
- Using all the same colour characters (gives 20% more xp than using other colour). Eg. using red heroes to level another red hero gives 20% more experience than using green heroes to level up a red hero.
Increasing the Special Skill of a hero
- When you feed heroes to another hero you also gain a chance to increase the hero’s special skill. There are 8 levels to each special skill.
- The % chance of a special skill increasing when you level up a hero depends on the colour and * ranking of the feeder heroes.
A single 1* hero gives a 1% chance of skill increase, 2* is 2%, 3* is 3%, 4* is 4%, 5* is 5%. Using the same colour feeder heroes doubles the % chance increase the special skill.
- Feeding a hero identical to the hero you are levelling gives you a 25% chance increase to the special skill. Feeding 4 heroes identical to the hero you are levelling will guarantee your special skill increasing when you level up your hero.
- Feeding 10 at a time raises the % chance of your hero’s special skill going up, but a lot of people get lucky when feeding fewer heroes at a time (eg. enough heroes of any colour that together would give a % chance to increase around 18-24%).
- Honestly, there’s little risk with 4 or 5* heroes that you won’t get the heroes to max skill, even if you aren’t optimizing the chance to increase your skill each time you level a hero. For 3* heroes you need to be a bit more careful. For those it’s probably worth sticking to feeding 10 heroes at a time, preferably of the same colour to max out your chances. Also, skip using trainer heroes or 3* heroes as feeders until the special is maxed.
- Please see the next section regarding heroes that are fully levelled without their specials being at max.
Ascending heroes
- Each hero has a maximum number of tiers it can achieve. 1* heroes can achieve 2 tiers, 2 and 3* heroes can achieve 3 tiers, 4 and 5* heroes can achieve 4 tiers.
- When you ascend a hero it automatically gains a level to its special skill.
- When you max out a hero’s growth in a certain tier, you will be able to ‘feed’ it food and items to get it to ascend to the next level.
- With 4 and 5* heroes there are rare (3*) and epic (4*) ascension mats that you will have to get before being able to ascend your heroes to the higher tiers.
- There’s a chart here that shows the max stats of each 4 and 5* heroes at the points where they need the rare and epic ascension items. It also shows what ascension materials are required for each colour hero. The image with the ascension materials sometimes takes a moment to load.
Where do you get Ascension Materials?
Some Ascension Mats are farmable on the map, for example chain shirts, tall boots, backpacks, and wooden swords. You can also get them from doing the things listed for the Rare and Epic Ascension Mats. If you are looking for high boots most people will send you somewhere in province 12, and to province 13 for chain shirts.
Rare and epic Ascension Mats are not found by playing levels on the map.
It is possible to get these Mats through gameplay by opening wanted mission chests, mystic vision (video ads), completing quests, killing titans, participating in war, and from monthly or seasonal challenge events. It is also possible to purchase them in deals for money, or occasionally, for gems. I really do consider this game play to win. The more aspects of the game you play, the more chances you have to collect these Ascension Materials.
These rare and epic Ascension Mats do take time to collect. In fact it will take quite some time before you have what you need to take a 5* to its maximum potential. It’s recommended that you work on getting some 4*s maxed as you get the Mats for them. This will best help you to collect the ascension materials more regularly.
The non-farmable Ascension Mats are:
| Damascus Blade | Tome of Tactics | Compass |
| Fine Gloves | Farsight Telescope | Mysterious Tonic |
| Mystic Rings | Poison Darts | Royal Tabard |
| Hidden Blade | Orb of Magic | Sturdy Shield |
| Warm Cape |
Trainer Heroes
Trainer Heroes can be won as rare loot, or from a special bundle in the shop. Trainer Heroes give a big XP boost when used to level up your heroes, and do give an extra 20% xp when used to level up same colour hero. There are 1, 2, 3, & 4* trainer heroes. Trainer Heroes can be equipped to be used in battle, though usually not recommended, and are already maxed out for levels.
Summoning Heroes
Section updated February 12/2020
Important highlights
*** The odds for what you will receive for each type of summons are posted within the game, and I highly recommend that you take a look at them. To see them tap on the information symbol (white ‘i’ in a blue circle) that shows on every summon screen. I have seen people overspend on this game many times chasing heroes. I will say this right now. Set your limits and stick to it.
– if you are looking at the info tab
Common = 1* hero
Uncommon = 2* hero
Rare = 3* hero
Epic = 4* hero
Legendary = 5*
– if you do a 10x summon they all roll at once. So if you do a 10x elemental summons you will get 10 heroes of the same colour!
– Summoned heroes are at Level 1/ Tier 1. Even though the hero’s card in the summon gate is fully levelled, the one you receive will not be.
About the limited time hero of the month (HotM)! This hero can be gained as a bonus summon from any elemental, Atlantis, event, or epic summon. Bonus summon means that for every hero you summon from these categories, you will have a chance of getting the monthly hero as well! Note that doing a 10x summon will give you 10 chances to get the hero of the month! The past heroes of the month cycle through the Atlantis gate 2 at a time. You can view an updated list of past HotMs created by the player Pois1 here.
List of Summons:
Atlantis Summons (350 gem): gives 3* and higher heroes of any colour. This type of summons runs only during the monthly Atlantis Rises events. By design you have a higher chance of summoning an Atlantis hero over one of the regular/classic heroes. Each month different heroes will be featured, and will include 2 past Heroes of the Month and 2 Atlantis Heroes. These featured heroes have a slightly higher chance of appearing over any other 5* hero. This is currently the only way to get past Heroes of the Month. This type of summons is a smidge more costly, but gives you access to some great heroes!
For a free Atlantis summon you can collect Atlantis Coins. These are collected when you complete a level of the Season II map for the first time, and other ways listed at the bottom of this section. You also receive a variable number of Atlantis Coins by defeating Orichalcum Seadragons. These spawn randomly in Season II levels during Atlantis Rises. You need 100 Atlantis coins to get a free summon.
As a bonus with this type of summon you will receive a free Ascension item for every 10 Atlantis summons.
Season III Summons
Season III is coming late February 2020! This summon gate is supposed to have the same mechanics and pricing as the Atlantis Summon Gate. Free coins are also to be available by completing the Season III map stages. More details will be added here once the game goes live! (**waiting to confirm if past HotMs will be included here**)
Elemental Summons (300 gems): gives 3* and higher heroes of the colour that is featured at the moment, with a higher chance of Legendary (5*) heroes. Only the classic/regular heroes are available with this summons. [The colours will cycle through the following order: red, blue, green, yellow, purple.] This type of summons is helpful if you are missing a colour for a rainbow defence, but more powerful heroes are available through the Atlantis or Event summons. If you do need a certain colour try to time your summons to when the Hero of the Month is the colour you need. You might get it as a bonus!
Event Summons (300 gems): replaces the Epic Summons when the monthy Challenge Events are running. It includes all 3* and higher regular heroes, and the heroes associated with the current monthly event. If you are looking through the pictures of the heroes in this summon please be aware that not all possible heroes will be shown.
Monthly challenges (in order) are:
- Guardians of Teltoc
- Knights of Avalon
- Pirates of Corellia
- Riddles of Wonderland
- Fables of Grimforest
This type of summons replaces the Elemental Summons while a challenge event is running. Some of these heroes will give you great advantages in raids, wars, or against titans.
You can gain free Event Summons by collecting Challenge Coins as rewards for completing all stages of a difficulty level in the Challenge Events.. 10 coins will give you a free summoning. There are also two ways to pay for Challenge coins – Path of Valor and special offers.
Epic Summons (300 gems): 3* and higher heroes, randomized for colour. Keeps you from having to wait for the colour you want to come up in an Elemental Summons, but only really helpful if any colour would help you get ahead. These are all heroes that you can train in your Training Camps. You can collect golden Epic Hero Tokens through gameplay that will give you a free summoning here.
Seasonal Summons : this is more of a sub category to the Epic Summons. When the Seasonal Events are running special seasonal heroes are added to what’s usually available. Some of the seasonal heroes, like Mother Nature, are highly desirable. Many people save up their golden Epic Hero Tokens for free summons when the seasonal events are running. There’s 4 seasonal events.
Epic Troop Summon (200 gems): 3 & 4* troops. This seems to be the only way to get 4* troops.
Daily Summons (150 gems): Don’t waste any money on these! You will get lots of them through gameplay. If you’re really, really lucky it might toss out a 3* hero or troop to you (a 3* is the max!). Otherwise, just consider them a fodder donation for levelling heroes.
Gems and tokens for Epic Hero, Epic Troop, Atlantis, and Daily summons can be won from titan battles, opening the chests from the wanted missions (chests) in your town screen, watching Mystic Vision ads, Quests, as war rewards, event rewards, and facebook contests put on by Empires & Puzzles.
Bonus: the Summon Gate can be used like a catalogue to flip through the heroes. You can get a look at the fully ascended and levelled stats of any hero. Click the little mark if you want more details on their special abilities. Or use Pois’s lovely rosters for hero stats! (Didn’t do anything with 1*s because you are just using them to feed to bigger heroes. Put resources into 2*s sparingly)
A Note on the Costume Shop – as this is a form of summon gate I will add the info here. This will be in the next round of edits.
Setting Up Your Hero Teams
You can build 5 teams. (Menu, Heroes, Edit Team – swipe left/right to view different teams) Some players build different teams for different purposes. Common teams are based on map/raid attacks, titan attacks, raid defence, map farming. You are able to purchase the ability to create more than 5 teams.
** You can use the same hero in more than one team!
When editing your team you can also equip battle items and troops! Do this by tapping on the picture of the troop or item you wish to change. Items and
troops won’t automatically appear in these slots.
Defense:
One team must be marked defence. The team marked defence is what gets attacked when you are raided. The positioning of your heroes matters in your defense team. When first starting out put your strongest dead centre & weakest at the edges. (New players – put your Bane front and center on your defense team! He’s the best you have for taking the hits!) When you are being raided, the centre gets hit most in attacks, the far sides are hardest to hit. When you get a stronger team you’ll probably put strongest dead centre & heavy hitters far sides with healers or weaker heroes in the other 2 spots. On your defense team choose your strongest heroes/best combination of special skills. Your defense team does not depend on gem matches to hurt opponents, so you do not have to worry about having one of each colour.
With the teams you use when you are raiding, battling titans, or doing map fights you will most often want to have one of each colour hero on your team. If any colour is missing, the gems of the absent hero will only do 1 damage. There are times you might make a strategic choice to eliminate a colour.
You can play around with the combination of heroes and their special abilities. By raiding you will get a feel for what the other heroes can do.
Troops
How do I get troops?
You gain troops from Daily Summons (up to a 3*), from Epic Troop Summons (up to 4*), as loot from battles, & from wanted mission chests.
How Do I Assign Troops To A Hero?
Tap the Heroes button on the main menu. Next click Edit team – then click on the picture of fighters below a hero. Your troop options will come up for that colour. Click on them to see what they add to your hero. Click on “done” at top of page when you’ve assigned the one you want. Do that for each troop below each hero. Any time you change a hero remember to add your troop back on!
What do troops do for me?
Troops positively affect the statistics of your heroes. The chart below shows what each of the icons mean. You can also tap the icons in the game to get a description of what they mean.
One special thing about troops is that they are they only thing that will boost a damage over time (DoT) special skill. Example of a DoT is each turn the afflicted hero will receive fire damage. The higher the attack stat of the troop, the more fire damage will be done each turn.
The previous compendium version recommended watching your team power as you switched troops to help gauge which one would benefit you most. Now, with the ability to level troops, and the new boosts for them, this feature might not give you the full picture. I’d recommend trying global chat, or the forums to get ideas from other players. Rare and Epic troops have special effects including healing effect increase, mana gain increase, and health increase!
Training Troops Using the Barracks:
Training troops is very similar to training heroes. Select the troop you wish to level up. Once selected you can see the maximum level that troop can attain from your current level of stronghold. At the bottom of the screen will see the troops that you can use to level up. For troops, you are only able to train with same coloured troops. You can use up to 10 troops to level with at a time, but there is no advantage to doing this.
Maximum Level By Troop Rarity:
1* – 10 2* – 15 3* – 20 4* – 30!
Until the wiki is updated, you can use the summon gate to see stats at max level.
Alliances
When Can I Join An Alliance?
When you reach Player Level 4.
Why Should I Join An Alliance?
Social benefit to a chat board with less people – and your fellow alliance members will be able to offer you game advice. You also get to fight Titans and participate in Alliance Wars together, which leads to more loot! (Alliance Wars is available to players level 12 and above)
There’s an alliance out there for everyone, just look around. Alliances range from being very game focused to very social; chatty or quiet. There are even some alliances that are specifically set up so new players can get help getting started!
Honestly, I can’t say enough about joining an alliance instead of starting your own right away. There’s a lot of competition to gather alliance members, and you have to be really proactive to collect a full team. Also, playing with an established team for a little while will help you learn things to pass onto your future alliance members should you decide to pull together a team.
How Do I Find An Alliance?
There’s 4 good options for finding an alliance:
– There’s a dedicated Alliance Recruitment Chat in game! Tap the options button at the top of your screen in global chat to find it.
– Hang out in Global! Alliances will pop up recruitment posts regularly in global chat. This gives you the benefit of getting to chat with the person trying to recruit.
– Check out the alliance recruitment section of the forums! Here players will post descriptions of their alliance. People will highlight the best features of their group (eg- social, focused, helpful, relaxed). More and more folks are advertising their group on the forum. You could even post a home wanted ad for the type of alliance you’re looking for.
– Using the alliance search feature in the game. Tap the Alliance button at the bottom of the screen. Under the Join tab use the Alliance search feature, but leave the search bar blank. It will bring up a list of alliances with space.
To learn more about a group you can view the alliance to see its stats & see more info about the players in that alliance by clicking on the player pictures. It’s a good idea to take a look at when the players were on last, especially the leader!! A good alliance will have people logging in daily, or even more frequently. Some alliances are invite only, you will have to send a request to these alliances, as there is no way to send an invite as yet.
I really do recommend that you join an alliance instead of starting your own. Generally, it’s a good way to learn more about the game, and a better way to advance in the game.
Please note:
– the game will not allow them to accept your request if you are currently part of another alliance!
– there is no invite functionality in the game at this time! If you wish to join an alliance you will have to use the search feature to find them and join (see #3 above for use of the search feature.). Alternately, if you wish to know more about the alliance of someone you’re chatting with in the game you can tap on their avatar, choose View Profile, and then the View button in the section about their alliance. If you aren’t in an alliance when you do this a Join button will show on the screen. If it is greyed out, then either the alliance is full, or you don’t meet the cups requirements of the group.
Why Do Some Alliances Require A Certain Number of Cups?
Often those alliances are working hard to climb the leaderboard or
** You don’t have to start in a top alliance! Find one that suits you and have fun! If you find your alliance isn’t a good fit later on you can leave and search for a new one.
Alliance Scores
The alliance score is a combination of the trophies of the members, as well as the points earned from fighting titans. The points gained from titan battles decrease over time. You can get a breakdown of an alliance score by tapping the ? button beside the score listed on an alliance’s summary.
Roles Within Alliances
Leader – The current leader, and sometimes the creator, of the alliance. Can promote members to elders, co-leaders, or leader. Able to kick anyone in the alliance, and change the alliance description/banner/language, and accept new members. One leader per alliance.
Co-Leader – Can promote members to elders, ability to kick elders and members, can change the alliance description/banner/language, & accept new members. Alliance may have unlimited co-leaders.
Elder – Can accept new members, can kick members. Alliance may have unlimited elders.
Member – Basic role in an alliance.
Titans
What is a Titan?
It’s a really big, strong enemy that you and your alliance battle together. You will get a little extra loot from battling them even if they get away. More if you defeat it! Killing titans also gives you a kill point towards opening the chest for the titan wanted mission. As a note, you will gain no loot or kill point if you don’t hit the titan, or you are not within your alliance when the titan dies.
Attacking a Titan costs alliance energy, which are represented by the purple flags at the top of your screen. These regenerate at a rate of 1 flag every 4 hours. The number of alliance energy points does not increase with player levels. These alliance points do refresh when you gain a player level, and occasionally you can buy alliance flasks to refill alliance energy at the special shop in game. The alliance flask can also be obtained from opening chests of wanted missions, mystic vision, and as titan loot.
Your alliance has 22 hours in which to kill a titan. If you kill it early you still have to wait the full length of time for the next one. The new titan will spawn 23 hours after the previous one, so there’s always a minimum of an hour between titans. Titans scale up as you successfully defeat each titan. The time it takes to defeat the titan does not impact on how the titans scale up. (Confirmed directly by Petri.)
Talk within your alliance and with other players to see what titan strategies they’ve got. Here’s a few to get you started!
– If you send 3 or more gems up into the weak spot that is marked on the titan then you will stun it for a turn.
– take a moment to tap the ? on the titan’s screen beside the label Special Skill. This will let you know if you need to bring antidotes for the fight. Remember, any antidote will remove any negative stat modifier for all of your heroes!
– In a titan fight gems in the outside columns won’t hit the titan. Only gems that go up from the 5 central columns will actually hit
– arrows are awesome! Cheap, and easy to make. Any time a titan misses your heroes is a real bonus!
* Recent changes to titans include *
- Higher level titans (levels 11 and 12) are now in the game!
- Rare Titans
Rare Titans
Rare titans have stronger special skills (always check them out by using the ? mark on the titan preview screen!), and an element that they are immune to. ** This immunity means that tiles of that colour won’t count towards stunning the titan when you hit the weak spot.
Also, rare titans give an extra chance at a 4* ascension item being given by the titan. The community hasn’t started gathering data on the drop rate for this yet.
If you would like to preview a list of titans Pois has a great Titan Roster on the forum. The roster shows the highest level of each type of titan.
Maps and Quests
When Can I Do Quests?
When you are at Player Level 10. Quests are accessed from your Base screen, in the lower left corner.
Regular quests let you battle for resources, recruits, gems, experience, ascension materials, battle items, or materials. They are time limited events. Quests use map energy. Beside the map energy for each level you can see a number to the right of a sword. This indicates a recommended team power level to try that level of the quest.
Hint: occasionally the Recruits II quest has a troop token at the end. Any time that quest comes up you can ask in the in game global chats and someone will be able to tell you if the troop token is a reward this time around.
Rare quests is the one way to consistently get the rare and epic ascension materials. Rare quests are something new players will have to work towards. It will take time before you have a team that’s capable of surviving the third round (receive 3* items!) or the fourth and final round (receive 4* items!). This is another reason why it’s recommended to build a solid 4* team of heroes first, as they are sturdy enough to survive this task. There’s helpful guides and players on the forum, or in the peer support chat in the game. Strategies will make a big difference, and depending on the quest and the heroes you have, items may play a big part in your success as well.
The quests cycle through in the following order, and show up roughly once a week.
- Farholme Pass (Fine Gloves and Tome of Tactics)
- Shiloh Desert (Orb of Magic and Poison Darts)
- Morlovia (Trap Tools and Royal Tabard)
- Farholme Pass (Compass and Damascus Blade)
- Mount Umber (Hidden Blade and Mystic Rings)
- Shrikewood (Sturdy Shield and Mysterious Tonic)
Map Provinces:
Just keep plugging away at these levels. There’s no rush, as there’s no prize waiting for you at the end. At some point you’ll hit a wall where it is too difficult to go further. Go back to previous levels to win materials you need to train up your team and your base to make you stronger. Depending on your playing style you can push forward with battle items (potions/weapons/tools, etc), but really, for the most part you will get there with patience and time. Around Province 19 or 20 it gets much more difficult to do levels without battle items.
Each stage on the map requires a different amount of map energy to do. Map energy is represented by the red flags at the top of your screens. It takes 10 minutes to regenerate a point of map energy. Each time you reach a new player level your max map energy goes up 1 point. (Highest max energy I know of in the game is 45.) You can refill your map energy from energy flasks that you can win from titans, mission chests, and mystic vision, or purchase from the store.
When you tap on a stage in a province you get a summary of what types/colours of opponents you will face, and a list of potential (not guaranteed items) that you can find here. You’ll see that some stages look like on the map. These stages are more challenging, and give out slightly better rewards.
Battle Stuff!
The battle mechanics are something most players are familiar with. Match the tiles (also known as shields or gems) in sets of 3 or more and they will turn into troops to attack your enemies. Match 4 tiles for an Explosive Dragon shield, and 5+ tiles for a Power Shard.
Also, each time you match tiles your heroes will gain mana to charge their special skill. Something to be aware of and take advantage of, is if you match tiles and no opponents are hit, the mana you gain from this will be double what you would have gained if your tiles struck something. Sending tiles up without hitting something is known as ghosting.
Something that was shown in the tutorial was the explanation of how the tile damage works when you make matches and send them up to your opponent.
This chart can be accessed anytime during a battle by hitting the small icon in the top left corner of the screen. As the image says, hit a weaker element for double damage. So going the direction the arrows are pointing, green tiles will do more damage against blue enemies, blue will do more damage against red enemies, yellow will do more damage against purple enemies, and so on.
What this handy little image doesn’t mention in words is that if you hit a colour in the opposite direction to the arrows, so a weak colour hitting on a strong colour, you will only do half damage. Yellow will only do half damage to a yellow opponent, green will only do half damage to red enemies, red will only do half damage to blue enemies.
Special skills aren’t affected by this rule. Elements do come into play with special skills if it is in the description of the skills. Example, Domita’s skill will give nearby allies a boost to their defense against Holy (yellow) for 4 turns. During that time, both tile damage and damage from special skills would be reduced. In Zeline’s description it says that her special deals extra damage against ice.
An invaluable aid during a raid or battle is that you can tap and hold on an opponent to find out total hp, current hp, special ability, and any buffs or debuffs currently on that hero and when they will run out. You can tap and hold on your own heroes to get these stats as well.
** Note! You may have any number of special statuses active on your heroes or your opponents at the same time. However, you can’t stack enhancements (buffs/nerfs) that affect the same stat on the heroes or monsters. To clarify, please see some examples below.
**Changes have been made with version 1.6! **
** Please see the inset for details!**
There is an auto attack that can be used in map and titan battles. It is the fast forward symbol (two triangles) in the top right corner of your battle screen. You still see the battle being played, and you can tap the auto battle button again to take back control. The computer won’t use any items. Only use this on levels that are very easy to beat, because the auto battle AI isn’t intelligent at all. Over time this button will get more useful for farming as your strength increases, and higher levels get easier to beat.
If you have decided to take two or more of the same colour heroes when attacking, then the gem energy gets applied to each hero in full. It is not split between them. You might do this to increase the gem and special damage of the colour strong against the titan or monsters you are fighting, and then leave out the hero matching the colour that does weak attacks. (Remember, gems will do 1hp damage from that colour though!)
There is a flee button in the top right corner of your battle screen. Use this button and you gain no loot, resources, or recruits from the current battle. However if you flee, any heroes you take down while raiding will still count towards opening the wanted missions heroes/monsters chests.
Raids
Raiding lets you take a team to fight against another player’s defense team (controlled by an AI) to win cups and resources from them. Raiding uses raid energy, represented by the blue flags at the top of your base and map screens. Raid energy refills at a rate of 1 point per hour. You can have a max 6 energy ready at any given time, regardless of level. You can only raid people that are currently offline (unless the player is currently ranked top 100 worldwide). To refill your raid energy you can make a purchase at the store, or use an energy flask won from a mission chest, mystic vision, or from titan loot.
Winning raids will award you with iron and food from your opponent’s watchtower. Any of your opponent’s heroes that you kill will count towards opening the heroes wanted mission chest ,whether you win the fight or not.
Winning or losing your raid will affect the number of cups (aka trophies). If you attack someone with more cups than you, there is lower risk, with higher potential gain. (If you lose the battle you won’t lose many cups, if you win the battle you will gain many cups.) On the other hand, if you attack someone with less cups than you then there is greater risk, with lower potential reward. (If you lose the battle you can lose many cups, if you win the battle you will win a small number of cups.) Raiding players with a low team power and low cups may still be desirable if you are trying to fill your chest for your heroes wanted mission. You can see how many trophies you can gain or lose before you start a PVP battle.
Your opponents are randomly drawn from players that are within 300 cups up or down from your number of cups. Team power does not come into the equation for selection of opponents. You can reroll opponents if you wish, though this will cost you an amount of food equal to 100 x the level of your stronghold.
At one point, the function of cups in the game were mostly for bragging rights. They give you and your alliance a higher standing on the leaderboards. Alliances will also use number of cups to vet candidates coming in. More recently though raid arenas were added to the game. The possible loot gained from the ‘Wanted: Heroes’ mission chest improves as as you advance through the arenas. The arena you qualify for at the end of the battle that fills your chest is the one that affects your loot. The raid tiers are Bronze (0-599), Silver (600-1199), Gold (1200-1799), Platinum (1800-2399), Diamond (2400+). The arena you currently qualify for creates a small decoration in the top left corner of your profile picture.
Your watchtower will keep a record of your most recent raid activity. It will show the fights where you were the attacker, and the players that you defended against. If someone attacks and you lose that battle, then you will see a revenge button by your name. The revenge button will not show up if you previously attacked that player, and they chose to revenge your attack. (You can’t revenge a revenge.)
Raid Timer
There is a raid timer of 10 minutes. If the raid timer runs out the defender always wins. The timer is intended to simply terminate a battle in the case that the player is not active. If the battle is taking a lot of turns both attacker and defender will eventually start to gain notable bonuses to their attacks.
Accounts – Tips & Answers to Common Questions
The first recommendation I have regarding your game account is to take a screenshot of your account id. It shows in the bottom right hand corner of your login screen. As well, take the time to link your facebook account. If you ever need to have Small Giant help you recover your account, or you need to switch game platforms, this will greatly help the process! If you are ever in need of this type of assistance please go to the official FAQ & Quick Help for more specific directions!
** Do note that linking to Facebook does not save your game progress! **
Game progress must be saved to Google Play (android) or Game Center (iOS). You can tell if you are saved by going to the game menu and selecting Options > Support. You should see something like this:
If you don’t, then you’re not saved! Click the button that says save progress here. As a note, there are some risks doing this. Saving multiple accounts to the same device being one thing that could cause problems. So make sure you set up the save to Google Play or Game Center as soon as you read this! Small Giant has told me nothing is ever lost in the game, but it will take time to get the account recovered.
Answers to Other Common Questions:
Q: Is the intro package a good deal?
Yes, if you are going to spend any money on the game this limited time offer is a great deal!
Q: How do I save my progress/how can I delete my progress and start over?
You have to log into Game Center (iOS) or Google Play (android) to save your data. If you want to delete, you should be able to delete the game from these accounts. But really, you can’t build things wrong, so not really worth starting over. You can play on two different devices with the same operating system by using the same Game Centre or Google Play accounts on each device.
Also helpful is to link your account to Facebook. While this does not save your game data it can help facilitate the recovery process if you do have a problem.
Q: How do I delete heroes?
You don’t need to. Just use them to level your other heroes (see that section for more details).
Q: I’ve heard there’s a second builder, how do I get it? How does it work?
This feature is part of the VIP pass. You can either pay a small fee monthly for this, or get a bit of a deal to subscribe to the feature for a year. It can be found in the gems section of the game’s shop.
Many players find it very helpful to be able to work on two buildings at once. And something nice, is that even if your VIP pass has expired, both builders will continue work on their assigned buildings until they are complete. They won’t just disappear and end the job.
The Bonus Daily Summon is done just like the regular Daily Summon that everyone gets. You need to collect it before the timer will start the countdown for the next free summons. So if you don’t collect around the same time each day you may end up with less than a free summon per day.
The Daily Gems are a little more flexible. Your gems do need to be collected daily, but you can do it anytime in the 24 hour period. The next day’s gems will always be ready for you at the same time of day. Getting gems this way is one of the best deals in the game.
Emblems. You gain one emblem each day with your VIP pass.
Q: What is a Daily Loot Ticket?
The daily loot tickets allow you to replay any map level you have previously completed without having to play it out or use auto battle. It does use up your world energy. I really like them for farming before bed or any time I want to make sure my world energy doesn’t go to waste but I don’t have time to keep hitting autobattle. The loot ticket also guarantees a win, so is helpful if you want to farm the higher levels without using items. You receive 3 loot tickets from your VIP pass each day.
Q: What is a wanted mission?
Wanted missions are the chests on your base and your map screen. There is a chest for killing monsters in map battles, one for killing heroes in raids, and one for defeating titans. When you have filled the chest you can open it to see what rewards you get! Often gems are part of the reward, and there’s a very small chance of ascension items! Even if you don’t successfully complete a stage or a raid you will be credited with the monsters or heroes that you took down before being defeated.
**Note: There is a timer associated with the titan chest. When you leave an alliance there is a 12 hour cooldown before you can put another kill point in that chest. This starts whether you leave an alliance on your own, or are kicked. The timer will restart each time you leave an alliance.
There are also elemental wanted missions. These chests will be a different colour, depending on what faction of creatures you have to kill to fill it. If you get an elemental chest, then kill any monsters from the map/events or heroes in raids matching the faction written on your chest. (Example: the Fire chest will show red on your screen, and only fire monsters or heroes will count towards filling it)
Best way to fill it is to find levels with only that colour and farm it. The rewards of these special chests are usually really good, possible goodies include summon tokens, energy flasks, and ascension materials! The chests appear randomly, and at different times than other players. They can be from any element. Click here to access the forum topic that lists single colour levels for efficient farming to fill these chests!
Q: If I pay gems to resurrect my heroes, what happens?
You have all of your heroes come back at full health, and whatever mana they had when they died. Your items stay as they were before you used the gems to resurrect your heroes.
! : Yes, Bane is always going to be summoned for you when you first start the game!
! : There is currently no ability to whisper to players or set up a friend list.
! : Around the time of writing this compendium (April 2017) there was an announcement that there were 2600 alliances!!
Found a glitch or have an account issue?
Send a message directly to Small Giant support at https://smallgiant.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/newhttps://smallgiant.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
Still have more questions? Ask in the game’s Peer Support chat. Usually there’s friendly, helpful folks that would be happy to help with your questions. As things change I will try to keep the Compendium up to date.
- Coppersky
Community Links
External Resources
Empires & Puzzles Official Forum
This has become a great resource for the game. It’s a platform for the players to discuss all aspects of the game, find information and help, and suggest new ideas. As a note, it is well worth the time to use the forum’s search feature before you start a new thread. If there’s already one started that’s discussing the topic or idea you want to post, then it’s better to join that one and further the conversation then it is to start a new thread.
Empires & Puzzles Official Quick Help / FAQ
This is actually accessible from the in game options/support menu. From technical issues to common game questions, there might be answers when you need them!
Dragone’s Wiki for Empires & Puzzles
Dragone’s built a good reference to E&P in the wiki. Definitely the place to go for things like build stats.
Complete Heroes Roster – created by player Pois
Still flipping through the summon gate to find out a hero’s special, or what a hero looks like when completely levelled? Try these handy summaries instead, where they’re all laid out side by side for easy comparison. This replaces the old Artemis Appendix
Complete Troops Roster – created by the player N.o.X
A summary of all available troops in the game
Seven Days Departed – Gaming Tips and Guide – with videos!
Guia Básica en Español – Basic game guide in Spanish
Ascension Materials Chart and Max Stats For 4* and 5* Heroes
This has a full list of materials required for ascension to the higher tiers, and the max stats of the heroes that may be stuck waiting to ascend to a high level tier
Farming to Fill Special Elemental Mission Chests – forum link!
Resume of how Titan loot works – Tiers, Scores, theories -forum link!
This thread is devoted to how titan loot tiers works
Quick Walkthrough, Tips, and Strategies by Urgametips
(The link posted on the E&P facebook site)
This is the link you’ll want to keep handy for when you have those rare elemental wanted missions chests to fill! It’s a list on the levels that have a single colour of monster so it’s more efficient to fill the elemental chests.
Thanks!
There have been many, many more people that have been helping me with information for this guide, and with passing it on to other players. I will be adding to this section soon!
