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Empire of Heroes Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Cheats & Strategies to Improve Your Heroes and Defeat Powerful Warlords

Looking for a new massively multiplayer online real-time strategy (MMORTS) game to play? If you’re an iOS device owner, you might want to head to the App Store and download Empire of Heroes, which comes to us courtesy of Ujoy. This is the same company that gave us War of Rings and Loong Craft, and in this latest offering, you shall be taken back to the era of the Three Kingdoms in this game inspired by “true historical events.” In here, you will be playing a lord who has been bestowed with “great power and great responsibility” as you recruit heroes, fight enemies in PvE and PvP modes alike, come up with the best strategies and choose the right units for these battles, and keep building your city, creating new buildings and upgrading existing ones.

We can tell you straight-away that this is a game loaded with features, and like many others in its genre, learning the game can be quite a daunting task. But even the best players have to start out as beginners, and if you’re playing this game for the first time or are in your two to five days or so of gameplay, we recommend checking out our Empire of Heroes beginner’s guide, which includes nine tips, cheats and strategies specifically written for the first-time player. So without further ado, here’s our list of Empire of Heroes tips, cheats and strategies!

1. Know The Basics Of The Game

The first thing to remember about Empire of Heroes is that this is a city-building/base management game. In other words, that means a lot of social elements in the game, and at least thousands of other players from all over the world competing against you. Of course, there are also campaigns where you can fight battles against AI enemies, though we will get to these campaigns later and explain how they could benefit you in a game where getting social, in one way or another, is paramount to success and truly enjoying the game to the fullest.

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The tutorial segment, which features one of the game’s heroes, Da Qiao, leading you along and telling you what to do, is quite extensive, and it’s highly recommended that you pay close attention to what she says — of course, you can always reinstall the game if you miss out on a few key details, but we all know that this can be quite inconvenient. While in the tutorial stages, you’ll be asked to create a few basic buildings — your first Sawmill, Farm, and Barracks — and get to upgrade the Palace and the Wall, but as you progress into the game, you’ll be able to unlock new buildings that allow you to do more and make improvements not only to your city, but also to your troops and heroes.

Progressing in the game will allow you to improve your player level/Lord Level, but you’ll also increase your Peerage level, which we’ll also be explaining in a bit. Simply tap on your player avatar on the upper left corner of the screen if you want to customize the appearance of your character, as well as your lord name. (You’ll start out with a generic name, which you may want to change.) The player screen will also allow you to see how many points you need in order to make it to the next Lord Level, and check what’s in it for you when you reach the next Peerage level. Likewise, you can check the Enhancements tabs, which shows you how much your buildings, equipment, and other items are improving certain aspects of your city/base management.

Lastly, at least as far as the basics go, Story Mode battles and just about any other type of battle in this game will cost you SP, or Stamina Points. You can view this on the upper left of your screen, above your CP rating (essentially the strength of your army) and to the right of your player/lord avatar.

2. Do As Much As You Could In Your First Three Days

As far as we’ve noticed, most games of this kind give players two days, or 48 hours, worth of immunity. Empire of Heroes allows more leeway, as you’ve got a good three days, or 72 hours, to get your city up to speed and make sure all your proverbial ducks are in a row, without having to worry about getting attacked by other players. This is what the game calls the Truce Token.

Although the game does seem overwhelming, especially for those who don’t play too many titles in the MMORTS/base management genre, that extra day will really come in handy, giving you enough time to learn how things work (though that’s also why we’re here) and enough time to level up your buildings and troops and increase your player/Peerage level to a fairly decent point. Make the most out of things and don’t spend too much time inactive — you don’t want to see your poorly-prepared city obliterated by opposing players once the 72 hours are up!

3. Increase Your Peerage By Completing Imperial Missions

empire of heroes peerage

On the bottom right of your screen (second button from the bottom), you’ll be able to access your Imperial Missions, which are generally tasks which you will need to complete in order to be up to speed in the game. For example, you may need to level up your buildings to a certain level, own a certain number of heroes (sometimes have a hero or two with a certain star rarity), or unlock a certain building in order to gain Merits. Collect enough Merits and you’ll level up from one Peerage to the next, which would allow you to earn chapter rewards. These rewards may include hero shards, food, wood, speed-ups, hero shards (as a chapter reward), and more. You’ll also be able to unlock new game modes (Story Mode, for instance, once you reach Peerage II), unlock new land or hero slots, or master certain talents, such as Farming, that speed up production or building time. Most of all, these missions make sure that you’re progressing smoothly in the game, just as we mentioned. They are, however, not to be confused with what we shall be discussing in our next tip.

4. Complete Those Quests

Once you reach Peerage IV, you’ll unlock Quest mode, which, of course, allows you to complete quests. These are very, very similar to the Imperial Missions we discussed above, as these keep you up to speed and are very important to complete if you’re in your first three days and still immune from opposing players’ attacks. Quests are divided into multiple categories — your Main Quest, which is the most important to complete, and the Normal Quests, which you can treat with less priority. You also have Guild Daily quests, which are largely based on how much you donate toward your guild or how often you help your fellow guild members within the day.

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For the Normal and Main Quests, you can earn Silver (your main currency), food, wood, speed-ups, and a variety of other goodies. Guild Daily Quests allow you to unlock Redpacks, which contain similar rewards to the ones we mentioned, but with the notable addition of Guild Coins, which allow you to purchase special items exclusive to guild members. Be sure to keep donating and helping out, as the contents of the Redpacks get progressively better as you reach certain thresholds, as seen in the Guild Daily tab.

5. Why Should You Play In Story Mode?

Compared to the stuff you’ll be doing later on in the game, Story Mode might not seem a lot of fun. Even if your army is far outnumbered compared to the enemy, it’s very easy to win the battles in the first few chapters of this mode and if we are to be brutally honest, it could get boring at times. However, there are several reasons why you shouldn’t take Story Mode for granted.

For starters, some Missions or Quests may require you to complete a certain stage in Story Mode — considering how quick the battles are and how easy it is to win at first, there really isn’t much work to be done in such a situation. Secondly, completing stages will reward you with speed-ups, EXP books, and other freebies that you can use to your advantage as you go along in the game. You can also earn experience points toward your Lord Level, as well as Crystals, which are used to enhance your individual heroes’ gear. Lastly, some stages could reward you with hero shards, which you could use either to promote your existing heroes or unlock new ones, provided you’ve collected all the required shards for that hero.

Again, we understand that you may want to make this a second, or even third priority once your 72-hour Truce Token expires and you start battling other players in earnest. But there is no downside to Story Mode, if you come to think about it, so make sure you’re completing some stages as often as possible!

6. Essential Things To Remember In Story Mode Battles

When it comes to Story Mode battles in Empire of Heroes, you may not pay much attention to strategy because it’s so easy to win when you’re just starting out. But that doesn’t mean strategy should be completely ignored — in fact, you should be using the early, easy-to-beat stages as an opportunity to practice and experiment with different strategies.

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The first consideration in Story Mode battles is the elemental hierarchy. It’s easy to miss this in the tutorial, especially since you have to scroll down in order to view everything that Da Qiao is saying. But the basic hierarchy works like this — Footman beats Archer, Archer beats Cavalry, Cavalry beats Footman. Take note of this when reviewing the composition of the enemy army, and make the necessary adjustments on the left side of the screen — for example, if the enemy army is heavy on Archers, you’ll probably want to make up for that by mostly assigning Footmen.

During battles, you’ll also want to activate your heroes’ skills in order to give yourself even more of an advantage and deal more damage against the enemy. Simply tap on a hero on the bottom left corner of the battle screen once the circle surrounding them is fully lit up, or charged — skills are charged progressively as your troops continue attacking.

The quality of rewards you can earn in Story Mode would all depend on how many stars you’ve earned at the end of the battle. If you’ve satisfied all three conditions — win the battle, have a certain percentage of troops survive, win the battle within a specific amount of time — you’ll get all three stars and the best possible rewards. Always check the recommended CP before starting a battle and compare it to yours — if your CP is substantially higher, then you’ve got a pretty good chance of completing the stage with a perfect three stars, but if it’s only slightly higher, around the same, or lower, that’s where strategy will come into play and make the difference in terms of how many stars you can expect.

Certain stages can be Blitzed once you’ve three-starred them — this is a great way to grind for resources and other items by getting the same rewards you got for three-starring the stage the first time, though this will obviously cost you SP per attempt. Also take note that while some stages can be Blitzed infinitely, others will only allow you to Blitz them a certain number of times.

7. Don’t Forget To Collect Your Wood And Food And Check Your Mail

Although the amount of wood and food you’ll typically end up collecting may appear negligible to your current stockpiles (as seen on the top portion of your screen), it’s always a good idea to check on your Sawmills and Farms from time to time and collect wood and food respectively. As far as we’ve seen, wood and food doesn’t get automatically added, so you’ll need to keep a close eye on both Sawmills and Farms, upgrade them whenever you can, and collect whatever has been sawed off or harvested to make sure you never run out of resources, or have as much resources as possible.

Likewise, you should also be regularly checking your mailbox to see if you’ve earned some rewards which you haven’t collected. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that you’ve completed a certain task in the game and earned the corresponding rewards for that task. By regularly checking your mail, or by tapping on the Mail button when you see a red number on the upper left of the button, you’ll always be sure you’re up to date when it comes to your rewards and other important in-game notifications.

8. Obtaining And Improving Heroes

As a beginner Empire of Heroes player, you’ll first be getting three heroes corresponding to the three basic unit types — Zhang Fei (Footman), Da Qiao (Archer), and Zhao Yun (Cavalry). You won’t get all three right away — Zhang Fei will be your starter hero, Da Qiao becomes available at Peerage III, and Zhao Yun gets unlocked at Peerage VI, and once you create your Tavern, where you can also visit if you want to recruit new heroes. So how do you go about the all-important business of improving your existing Heroes?

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The first step would be to tap on the Heroes button on the bottom right of the screen to access the Heroes menu. Once there, tap on the hero you would like to improve and tap on Upgrade if you’re merely trying to level them up. The EXP Books you may have won in Story Mode would go toward upgrading your heroes and getting them from one level to the next. You can also tap on a specific piece of gear, or on the Enhance All button, to use your Crystals to enhance each hero’s gear and improve their stats, which, in turn, improve the heroes’ stats. Once a hero reaches a certain level, you can also Advance the gear, which is the gear equivalent of what we shall be discussing in the very next paragraph.

While you should indeed be leveling up your heroes and their gear, you can also promote them from one star level to the next. You can only do this once you’ve got enough shards corresponding to that hero — for example, if you’re promoting a hero from 1 star to 2, you’ll need to have 20 shards of that hero. When you promote them from 2-star to 3-star heroes, you’ll then need 30 shards. You get the idea — as heroes improve in rarity, they’ll need a progressively higher number of shards in order to get promoted. Doing so, however, doesn’t just improve your heroes’ stats, but also upgrades their existing skills and could unlock new ones!

9. Join An Active Guild And Participate In It

Empire of Heroes will automatically prompt you to join a guild during the tutorial stages, and we suggest that you accept the offer and join that guild — for one, that’ll reward you with a whopping 1,000 gold (the premium currency), among other goodies. As we’ve seen, the game seems to choose active guilds for you to join, but if you choose to leave that guild, always make sure that you’re joining an active one in order to make the most out of this very socially-oriented feature.

Once you’re part of a guild, it will be very important for you to contribute whenever possible. Tap on Aid to either ask for help for ongoing quests (if applicable), or assist fellow guild members who are in need of help. Tap on Donate in order to donate currency to your guild fund — Level 1, which is the lowest, would require you to give 10,000 silver (the common currency), though if you’re feeling generous and are loaded with resources, you can donate up to 1,000 gold as part of your Level 3 donation. And since you won’t go unrewarded for those donations you made and those times you assisted your fellow guild members, you can tap on Guild Gift to claim whatever gifts you may be eligible to receive — as we mentioned several tips ago, this means more resources (food, wood, speed-ups, etc.) plus Guild Coins.

And this wraps up our Empire of Heroes beginner’s guide. If you know additional tips, cheats or strategies or just want to share your thoughts about the game, then feel free to drop us a line in the comments!