Me Is King Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Grow Your Kingdom

Me Is King is a relatively simple resource collection simulator published by Pixio, where the goal is to get as huge a caveman kingdom as you can through getting as many resources as you can. You order your subjects around to gather resources and construct buildings, and your ability to pick new workers wisely can determine how quickly your kingdom grows.

Meanwhile, your Explorer looks for fancy artifacts to line your museum, and to make your kingship look more attractive, in spite of your citizens’ questionable work hours. Which tend to be their fault since they decide how much time they spend working per unit anyway!

Me Is King has a very strong focus on gathering loads and loads of Food, which you’ll notice being emphasized heavily in this guide.  As you get more workers, recruitment becomes more expensive, so recruiting wisely according to where you are during a playthrough is the name of the game.

You don’t want to recruit workers who are useless for the stage your kingdom is currently in. Even the resources you get from watching ads is based on your worker composition, so getting certain workers early and others later is key.

Now, if you are looking to boost your progress early on and run a prosperous kingdom, then stay with us and check out our Me Is King beginner’s guide below for some useful tips, tricks and strategies!

The Basics Of Me Is King

Me Is King, while a very simple game, comes with a couple of weird quirks that will affect your gameplay, to the point even advertising rewards are affected rather severely. Of particular note is the hard to notice and clog-prone worker’s queue, the first free-to-upgrade House, and the importance of an early Food supply.

Food Builds Nations

Okay, so technically, Wood builds nations, but you’re not getting any of that without a healthy Food supply. Food is by far the most important resource, simply because it allows you to recruit more workers.

The faster and earlier you get Hunters and Harvesters in large numbers, the easier it is to hire other units like Woodcutters and Builders later on when you need them most, in spite of the constantly rising recruitment costs. In fact, these recruitment costs are why you need more Food gatherers: You don’t want to get stuck on an expensive new recruit simply because your Food takes forever to pile up.

On the other hand, if you’ve got enough Food gatherers, the price won’t rise fast enough to beat your spending power. As for Wood, the fact that you need much fewer Builders than gatherers (to prevent Builder-clog, something we’ll discuss later on) results in it not getting spent as often and the price for construction rising much more slowly. By the time recruits regularly cost 100+ Food, structures only cost about 20+ Wood.

Pink Bar Ads

Sometimes, you’ll see pink timer bars on your screen, usually on top of your Builders, Woodcutters, Travelling Merchants, or Sages with pink outfits and big white beards. The ones on your builders and Sages are free stuff: You’ll watch an ad to get some resources, with the number based on both the resource and the number of gatherers you have for that resource.

As for Builders, using these ads means they don’t spend any wood (but still use up Energy), to build something. For merchants, they’ll try to sell you workers for Gems. This is completely wasteful for reasons we’ll explain a few examples below.

Sages are also a good way to gauge the health of your current world, resource-wise: The more you have of a worker, the more of a certain resource the Sage gives you per ad, so if you notice you’re being given 200+ Food for ads but less than 100 wood, it might be time to invest in Woodcutters. If you have it backwards on the other hand, you’ve done something seriously wrong!

As for the Sages that give out instant rest, they’re based on how many workers you have that were given orders to rest. Note that we said given orders, the Sage can’t see anyone who has a bed or bandage icon on their heads but haven’t been directly told to go to sleep and heal up.

If you see a rest Sage (indicated by their healing icon) and you have a bunch of workers with bed icons over their heads, tell them all to go to the houses THEN watch the Sage’s ad to make the most of it.

Starting Home

In every new world past the first one, you start with one house. This house comes with free upgrades, but you need a Builder to upgrade it for extra space. Before spending any wood to build anything, upgrade this house with your first Builder for the map. It’s pretty easy to miss this and end up with your one builder sleeping in the house, clogging it up!

Builder-Clog: A Royal Pain

The easiest way to get a clogged queue is by hiring too many Builders too early, especially in the Night Forest world where there is very little build space.  Usually, this happens not through any error of the player, but due to a lot of Recruitments that only give you a choice between Builders and Farmers, in which you have no choice but to pick the Builder if you lack farms.

While this isn’t particularly serious as you can simply tap the Builder and they’ll move to the back of the queue, this gets irritating really fast if you’ve got 7 of them all unable to build, and maybe 5 more waiting in line. Tapping them to make them move to the back of the queue also moves the camera toward the blocked piece of terrain they want to build to.

If it’s too late and you already have a ton of Builders at a stage in the world where resources are still a bit slow, it might be a good idea to log off and work on another world for a short while. Come back to the Builder-infested world for the login reward, then use it to hire a burst of Woodcutters and Harvesters who can clear the terrain.

Keep doing this until the land is flat as a bomb crater and the Builders stop whining. This also moves all the ready workers to the front of the queue, so it’s less annoying than constantly tapping at builders who can’t build.

Ironically enough though, you also have the option of hiring even more Builders: No two Builders ever want to build in the same spot, so if you have enough of them, some of them will eventually pick a good spot to build. That being said, your Builder-clog will get even more annoying once those guys run out of space too, so think very carefully before doing this.

Unless you have no farms and the recruitment option at the moment is the ever annoying Builder vs Farmer: You’ve got no choice in the matter, might as well grab the Builder.

Play In Bursts

Speaking of switching worlds, you should play in each world in bursts and make use of the passive worker income that comes from occasionally logging off. Whether you do this by exiting the game entirely or focusing on a different world is up to you. Either way, you’ll get a break from said world and   when you come back later, you get a coming home reward that can be doubled by watching an ad.

In fact, this reward can be so large, it can jumpstart a recruitment or, later on, a construction drive. The reward for logging off for an hour doesn’t differ much from the reward you get from logging off for an entire day, so switching between worlds fairly often is an option if you’re having a bit of a hard time.

You’ll know it’s a good time to log off once you’ve burnt through all your resources, particularly when you already have a very healthy economy. All that means is you tapped faster than your workers can work!

Gathering Time

The way gathering works is based on how much time the worker decides they should work, and how many of them are in the squad. All tasks cost 1 stamina to do, but they can take a random amount of time.

A longer gathering time is always better, as resources aren’t dumped onto your lap in bulk: A half-hour chicken hunt won’t dump 150 Food immediately while giving you nothing for 30 minutes, instead the Hunters gather the 150 Food over the course of that time in a trickle. This means longer gathering times means more stuff for less stamina, without worrying that you won’t be able to recruit or construct for an extended amount of time.

Gem Expenditures

If you’re going to spend gems on the game, spend it on upgrading newly constructed houses and not travelling merchants. Gems are rare, so you shouldn’t spend them on anything that you can get by spending Food, which if you’re playing well, shouldn’t be a problem anyway. On the other hand, you have no choice with house upgrades other than spending Gems.

As for getting Gems, you get them most often from Harvesters and Woodcutters, who sometimes pry them from trees and destroyed obstacles. Sages occasionally give them out too, but usually after your economy is healthy enough that they decide you don’t really need that much in the way of extra Food or Wood, in which case they give those less often.

Worker Types

There are several types of workers in Me Is King, and you need them in different numbers depending on where you are in the game. You’d also do best to hire them in different stages of kingdom progression, to prevent yourself from getting stuck for too long being unable to hire new workers.

Hunter: Your primary Food source, they use bows to shoot chickens. Get a lot of them early on so you’re able to recruit more workers early. Even the small chickens can breathe fireballs, so the Hunters eventually run out of HP fighting them.

This necessitates a trip to a House even if they still have energy, and they stay for 30 minutes rather than 12. They can be built up to squads of 5, increasing their general payout. They’re decent at clearing the Fog-of-Not-War on the map while chasing Chickens. They have a very high 7 Energy, making them the most consistent Food source you have.

Harvester: Another source of Food, and needed to clear tree stumps, dead bushes, and rocks for construction space, but never both at the same time. They gather Food from bushes, and are important for your Builders to do their job. They’re your best map explorer, considering they have to actively go out and look for debris and bushes if they clear out your immediate vicinity.

If you’re not getting a lot of Hunters, get these guys whenever you can instead. They gather a fairly random amount of Food (Usually more than a Hunter) per Harvester everytime they’re not on a debris cleanup job, and have slightly less energy than Hunters, at 5. On debris cleanup, they occasionally hand out Gems.

Woodcutter: Your only source of Wood other than watching the Sage’s advertisements. They expend a small amount of Food to gather a large amount of Wood, especially in squads of 5.

They’re your third priority, as not only do you need Wood for builders to do their job, you also need them to chop down trees, allowing Harvesters to get rid of the tree stumps for construction space. They are very likely to clear the Map’s Fog-of-Not-War once you’ve chopped down enough nearby trees, forcing them to explore.

Builder: Important for progression, you should get one as soon as possible, but after that they’re a fairly low priority to get. Builders build up your village, and they generally decide what gets built in your village.

Getting more of them is best done once your Wood production is running smoothly. 5 builders are plenty, 10 is pushing it but can be useful as no two builders ever want to build in the same spot, and 15 can be blamed on too much Farmer-induced RNG nonsense.

Farmer: A strong source of Food, but they are tied to the Builder in terms of priority. They are completely useless before your Builders build Farms, so get only one for every Farm you have. They take a long time to gather Food, but they get a lot of Food for a small amount of Wood.

They do not gather in squads, and have low Energy (Only 3!) that also gets spent very slowly due to the long nature of their work. Building these guys early in a world’s run is a quick path to abject disappointment.

Explorer: You get one Explorer per world, and their job is to unlock the local world’s Museum, look for artifacts in Dungeons, unlock portals to new worlds, and if you have money to burn, unlock certain paid Structures like the Hot Springs. They’re also tied to your progression, as you need to gather all the artifacts in a World to complete it 100%.

You can get them whenever you want, though it’s better to wait until you have a moderately stable Food supply. Treasure hunts increase in Food cost if you keep sending the Explorer to the same Dungeon.

Steps To Building Your Kingdom

In this section, we list down the typical steps one would take in properly constructing their kingdom. This order is rather important to stop oneself from getting stuck at a certain stage, mostly due to a Food shortage preventing both wood gathering and recruitment of new workers. This can be boiled down to get Food first, then get wood while clearing space, then get builders, then get farmers.

STEP 1: Accumulate Chicken Legs

Early on, you’re gonna want either a ton of Hunters, Harvesters, or both. Food is extremely important since it allows you to recruit new members to your town more quickly. You may want to plan out which of these two you prioritize first: Getting loads of Hunters early gives you a more consistent Food supply, and getting more Harvesters gives you a less consistent Food supply (They cannot gather Food and clear debris at the same time), but your builder’s won’t have to worry much about build space later in a world’s playthrough.

Since they also determine how much Food you get not just from going offline, but also from Sages and their ads, having a ton of them can also make the second login lucrative in terms of worker recruitment.

STEP 2: First Home Upgrades

While getting extra builders is usually a low priority early on, getting your very first builder is highly important. Most worlds come with a free-to-upgrade house early on, and you can’t upgrade it without a builder. Rather than giving them orders, fix that house first so when they inevitably get tired (Builders have a low stamina of 4), they don’t clog up the entire house.

This also allows the Sage to insta-rest more workers: The Sage doesn’t notice tired workers, only those who have been specifically ordered to rest. And workers will refuse to take rest orders if there isn’t any available housing for them, though the Sage can still see those waiting in line at a House due to how worker squads work.

As long as you have an empty housing slot, that slot can work for the, say, next 5-worker squad to get rest orders, which is good enough for the Sage to make the most of that advertisement.

STEP 3: Royally Sanctioned Deforestation

You probably have a couple of Builders now, probably from the game giving your a few Bulder vs Farmer recruitment choices. You’ll need Woodcutters to gather wood and let them do their jobs. It might be a good idea to try and get a squad of five to ten, while still prioritizing Hunters (or Harvesters if you’re in the Night Forest world) over the other worker types at this stage.

This is important for the next stage, since you need to cut down trees before Harvesters can clear them permanently. Very few things are more annoying than several Builders complaining that they have no space to build anything!

STEP 4: Recruitment Drive

By the time you get 15-20 Hunters and maybe the same amount or fewer Harvesters, and a couple of Houses, your Food supply should be rather healthy and quick to replenish. This is your time to really start piling up Woodcutters, extra Harvesters, and a couple more Builders, while slowing down your recruitment of Hunters in favor of the Harvesters. It might do you well to log off for a bit, or check on a new world you’ve just unlocked if your Explorer already found the local Portal.

The passive rewards you get from even just an hour of logging off from a world is no joke at this stage, with roughly 150 Food and 60 wood before you even watch the ad that doubles them. You can then use said reward to recruit a ton of other workers to really get your town moving. Don’t get any Farmers yet unless it’s the first world, since you get a lot of farms early there.

STEP 5: Heightened Infrastructure Efforts

Food is no longer a huge problem, and your Wood supply is relatively healthy. You will now either spend the majority of your time in any particular world constantly burning through wood to build up your village. Or in the case of Night Forest, yelling at your Harvesters to quit gathering from bushes and for the love of all that is good, clear the debris from the map.

While this goes on, you use your ample Food supply to recruit Harvesters and Woodcutters in particular, since both of them help with construction, while Harvesters and the slowed down but still existing trickle of Hunters (You should still prioritize Hunters over Farmers, and occasionally just grabbing one every two or three recruitments is pretty helpful to combat the rising recruitment prices when paired with your Harvesters) helping with Food gathering whenever they decide they don’t want to clear debris.

Depending on the world, you might get the majority of your houses or passive Food gathering baskets (Baskets scattered around your village that magically have Food appear in them every few seconds) during this construction burst, or earlier depending on the recruitment RNG occasionally messing up and giving you too many Builder vs Farmer choices.

STEP 6: Finally, Agriculture!

Eventually, (much earlier in the Green Field, perhaps even during the third or fourth step, extremely late in other worlds) your Builders will decide they finally want to set up farms. Now you can recruit Farmers, which are very powerful Food gatherers, but utterly worthless before any Farms are built.

One Farmer per farm is enough, so keep a close eye on how many farms and Farmers you own at the moment. You aren’t just wasting Food (By this time, Food isn’t a big issue), but also causing a potential clog in the worker order queue by recruiting more Farmers than you have Farms. The only thing worse than Builder-clog is Farmer-clog!

STEP 7: Relax and Wait

Other than potential Builder-clog which is an annoying but non-crippling inconvenience at worst, you have nothing to worry about anymore. Your focus by this time is usually just waiting for the Explorer to come home with dungeon artifacts. You’ll be switching between worlds following these steps, since every new world might as well count as a new playthrough.

After all, you can’t bring resources from one world to the next and vice versa, unless it’s Gems. You’ll know you’ve made it here, or at least made it to step 5, once the Sage starts offering you Gems for watching ads. Or at least when your Food supply hits 2000.

In conclusion, your kingdom is built on everyone’s stomach. Getting Food early pretty much snowballs into getting everything else quickly and with little pain. Above all else, keep your Food supply in mind!

And this ends our beginner’s guide for Me Is King. If you have information we don’t have, or just want a chat with fellow players, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below!