From dealing with overpowered players to struggling to progress at the pace you’d like, it’s easy to get irritated with how your game is progressing.
Although the game’s opening tutorial phase does teach you how to play and show you some of the core mechanics involved, it doesn’t position you for the most possible success.
That’s where this guide comes in.
Choosing Your Starting Nation
One of the ways Rise of Civilizations lets you customize your settlement is to choose what nation you hail from, and each option provides its own unique perks to get you going forward faster.
However, it is not always easy to know how effectively these perks will translate in the actual game, particularly when first starting out. Consider the way you want to play first, as this will change the ideal starting nation for you. We look at those options below.
Aggressive Nations
If you enjoy PvP (player vs player) combat, you want to take on an aggressive posture with your play. This means a lot of sending your armies out to take on other players. For this kind of a play style, you want a build which offers perks for attacking, such as:
Germany
The Germans receive a boost to the attack strength of their cavalry units, and also have boosts to their AP recovery and troop training, so you can push out more and more troops to keep attacking.
Japan
Like Germany, the Japanese troops get a boost to their attacking. Instead of a larger 5% boost to one unit type, however, Japan grants a 2% boost across the board, creating a uniformly strong army. They also can train 5% more troops at a time to speed up your army building.
Defensive Nations
Not everyone enjoys going out and facing off with other players regularly. If you prefer taking a hands-off approach and tend to your own business instead, you want to choose different starting nations. Instead of focusing on your ability to venture forward on offense, look for defensive perks.
Spain
The Spaniards specialize in looking out for themselves, not disturbing others. In addition to a 5% boost to their cavalry’s defensive abilities, they also gather gold at an increased speed, allowing you to stockpile the money you need to keep upgrading your buildings.
China
As with the Japan-Germany similarities, China takes Spain’s specific defensive boost and makes it more generalized with 2% across the board. They also gather resources and build more quickly so you can get more done with less downtime.
Don’t Pass on Freebies
Like nearly every mobile game, Rise of Civilizations makes use of the most dreaded phrase in video games: microtransactions.
The gems you can purchase are very useful for you and your civilization’s development, and fortunately, you aren’t forced to rely on opening your wallet to earn them if you don’t want to. The game offers you plenty of opportunities to earn them for free.
Taking on Barbarian hoards has the potential to earn gems with minimal effort from your army.
Once you have researched Jewelry you can even find and collect gem caches on the world map.
You’ll also earn gems without even trying when you complete daily goals and quests, so don’t forget to spend those gems on improving your civilization.
Fundamentals of Managing Your Army
Whether you’re sending your troops out into the world aggressively or turtling up and playing defense, it helps to have an army that knows how to handle itself when push comes to shove.
There are two components to your army’s make-up, and it’s important to manage both effectively to get the most out of your military.
As you open free chests, you are going to begin earning new generals to go with your starter general, and this opens the door to creating multiple talented warriors. This is a strong strategy to implement, but not right away.
In the early game, there is not much need for multiple forces, so you only need one MVP general to lead your troops. Focus on a complimentary general, one that fits your playstyle. Then develop subordinates after you have maxed out their abilities.
Once you begin training additional generals, make your second general a compliment to your first. If you have a strong defender to watch over your city, choose one with boosts to offense. If you have a marauder, start training somebody to protect your walls.
No general can win a war single-handedly, so you also need to worry about the troops under their command. There are two very simple principals to follow which, once understood, will turn your armies into lean, mean killing machines.
First, always train new troops. If you’ve got capacity for more troops and military buildings, but are doing nothing, you’ve got a waste of military resources on your hand. More troops equal more strength, so keep producing more warriors to power your civilization’s growth.
As your civilization develops, you’ll also begin researching your military tech tree. Rather than focusing on powering up your troops, progress along the tree as quickly as possible to unlock the stronger units as soon as you can – then worry about the upgrades.
There’s more to be gained in hiring better units than in improving overall strength while sticking with low-end warriors.
Protect Yourself Before They Wreck Yourself
Acquiring the resources you need to grow and expand your civilization is a game of accumulation, and you don’t want outsiders coming in and spoiling your progress.
While you can’t fully prevent your civilization from ever being attacked, you should always do your best to protect your hard-earned resources from other players’ greedy hands.
There are a few key steps that are easy to overlook when getting started that will help to minimize your losses to other players.
First, create a strong defense, which means looking after both your soldiers and your structures.
Always keep a commander stationed on defensive duties. Leaving this spot open is just passing up a free boost to your defensive capabilities.
You should also look to upgrade your walls and watchtower as quickly as possible to increase your resistance.
Unfortunately, even the best-defended civilizations will occasionally lose. This is where it is important to upgrade your storage facility. The higher level you’ve progressed it to, the greater percentage of your resources it will protect, meaning when you do get overrun, you lose less.
By following these core principals, you can significantly lessen the threat to your progression from other players.
Scheduling Upgrades is Key
Once you have the keys to managing your units and gathering valuable resources, your civilization will likely be progressing quite well. This is where you have the opportunity to give yourself your biggest boost yet.
Many new players completely mismanage the upgrades to their civilizations, so if you take these simple steps, you will be starting out with a huge advantage.
The first key to upgrade management is to always leave your City Hall for last. You’ll notice as you look to upgrade other buildings that eventually, you get capped by your current City Hall level.
So move on to a new building and upgrade everything else first, until there are no other options before moving on to the City Hall. This keeps your civilization balanced across the board.
As you begin to upgrade your City Hall, don’t progress past Level 7 on your initial server, as there are regularly new servers being added for players to populate. The game lets you relocate your civilization as long as it has not reached Level 8 yet.
This means, once at Level 7, you can pack up and move to a server just a day or two old, where other players will not yet be at your level. This grants you an early edge over other players, making offense easier and your defenses more secure.
That’s it for our Rise of Civilizations beginners guide to winning like a pro. Have you been playing Rise of Civilizations? What tricks do you use to get the most out of your digital civilians? Let us know in the comments.
