Evony: The King’s Return Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Expand Your Empire

Evony: The King’s Return, formerly known as Civony, is a game that migrated from its original Flash incarnation to a mobile-friendly engine. Available on both Google Play Store and the App Store, this game challenges players to stake their claim in the world of Evony and rise up to become ruler of the City of Throne.

As a new ruler, you’ll need to establish your capital, raise an army, find and train capable generals, forge strong alliances, and so much more. Then and only then will you be ready to ride forth to conquer and defeat other aspiring emperors and reach your rightful place as the supreme monarch of Evony!

There’s a lot to do in Evony: The King’s Return. Unfortunately the game doesn’t do very well in teaching new rulers the ropes, so that’s what this guide is for. We’ll teach you the basics in managing your empire and commanding your armies, so that you’ll be prepared for when you face the world!

So let’s get started with this Evony: The King’s Return beginner’s guide, as we share with you a number of tips, tricks and strategies to expand your empire!

Pick Your Starting Culture Carefully

Quick Tips:

• Europe = strong early game PVE with buffed cavalry. Good defensive income.
• China = better node exploitation. Faster research.
• Japan = faster food production, high infantry survivability. Crafting speed boost.
• Korea = strong rangers for PVP. Faster healing.
• America = boosted gold income which is important for just about everything. Faster troop training.
• Russia = late-game defensive juggernaut.
• Arabia = unique bonuses that require specific actions, in particular daily Shrine Offerings.
• You can change culture once for free, then 2000 gems for any further changes.

The first choice you’re given in Evony: The King’s Return is one of culture. You’ll only get a cursory view of these cultures, so here’s the breakdown on each of them.

Europe

Europe is a solid choice for the early to mid-game.

Europe’s advantages are +10% stone production, +5% mounted troop attack, and +5% march speed to monsters. These buffs give Europe a clear advantage in PVE, with better cavalry off the bat as well as a quicker march time against monster targets. These bonuses are especially potent against big targets, such as Boss Rallies.

The stone production is okay for a new player as you’ll need quite a bit of the stuff for infrastructure and defensive units such as traps and abatis. However, stone does absolutely nothing when it comes to training human units.

China

The Middle Kingdom is an excellent choice for players who like to take their time before swooping in.

China’s benefits are +5% troop load, +5% ground troop attack, and +3% research speed. The increased troop load means that China gets quite a bit more mileage out of harvesting resource nodes as each of their units can carry more stuff. More ground troop attack means that Chinese players will likely be using infantry-heavy armies.

China’s biggest benefit is its 3% research speed buff. As research easily eats up days of time, any small boost will help.

Japan

The Japanese are excellent craftsmen whose defensive infantry can hold the line longer than other warriors.

Japan comes with +10% food production, +5% ground troop defense, and +8% crafting speed. Unlike Europe’s stone boost, Japan’s food bonus is almost always relevant as you need food to both train and maintain a standing army. The bonus to ground troop defense means that your infantrymen can take more damage. This also means that your ranged units have better cover. Ideally.

Japan’s biggest boon comes from its Katana Forging passive, which gives +8% crafting speed. You won’t generally be crafting until the mid-game, so keep that in mind if you go with Japan.

Korea

Korea prefers to let its archers do the work, and has the woods to provide them with deadly bows and arrows.

Korea’s passive buffs are +10% lumber production, +5% ranged troop attack, and +5% healing speed. Ranged PVP is the name of the game for Korean sovereigns as their rangers are second to none – though do be sure to provide backup in the form of other units. Korea’s boosted lumber production plays well into its strategy of training ranged units almost exclusively.

Korea’s last bonus is a 5% boon to healing speed – perfect if you’ve been getting into several fights and have a lot of wounded high-tier units.

America

Despite being the youngest culture in the game, America is more than ready to prove its mettle.

America comes with +5% gold levy, +5% siege machine attack speed, and +3% training speed. While stone is a lower priority, and food, lumber, and ore are used for training units, gold is always needed. Getting more gold out of your levies is thus a very powerful buff. This gold can then be used to build machines of war, leading to a more offensive strategy.

America’s most potent bonus is its expedited training speed. 3% may be small, but this means that you’ll be churning out units faster off the bat. Almost every player can get mileage out of this buff.

Russia

Russia has powerful defensive bonuses that give it better turtling potential in the early game.

Russia’s passives are +10% ore production, +5% mounted troop defense, and +10% trap building speed. The boosted ore production means that Russia will have less of a problem training more advanced troops when the time comes. More troop defense means that your cavalry will have higher survivability, meaning less resources spent training more and healing them. Finally, 10% trap production speed means that your citadels are much easier to fortify with high-power traps. Make them regret ever stepping foot on your lands!

Arabia

Arabia’s intrepid merchants find ways to maximize profit in ways unavailable to anyone else.

Arabia’s buffs are +5% gem gathering speed, +5% mounted troop HP, and +5% offering bonus. These bonus are very unique, and you’ll need to be sure you can make use of them before picking Arabia.

Increased gem gathering speed allows you to smash and grab in hotly-contested gem mines more easily – though do note that there are other safer ways to earn gems. More cavalry HP means better survivability, especially for units that have more base HP than defense; factor this into your research priorities.

Finally, 5% offering bonus gives you just a bit more out of those sweet offering rewards. Be sure to join an alliance to start farming tributes as soon as you can, and don’t forget your daily offerings.

Culture Swapping

You’re not locked into your beginning culture.

You can change your culture for free once, and any subsequent changes will cost 2000 gems. Changing cultures is great if you’re trying to accomplish new goals or find yourself in dire need of another passive bonus. Try not to be willy-nilly about it; 2000 gems is a sizeable amount!

Use Your Beginner’s Protection Well

Quick Tips:

• Beginner protection lasts until Keep level 11 or once 7 days have expired.
• Taking an offensive action breaks your shield instantly.
• Use the time to build a solid foundation, train units, make friends, and join an alliance.
• You can buy new shields (Truce Agreements) at the Alliance Shop.

Evony: The King’s Return is a PVP-centric game. After all, there can only be one master of the world. This means that you will have to be prepared in both attack and defense. This is where the game’s Beginner Protection comes into play.

Called a bubble by long-time players, this Beginner’s Protection is a tool to help new players find their footing. While it’s s active, you can neither attack nor be attacked by other players. You can’t scout their cities or be scouted either. On the other hand, you lose this protection if you upgrade your Keep to level 11.

This first week of relative peace is vital to your success in Evony: The King’s Return. Use this time to build a solid foundation for your further conquests. Upgrade your buildings and train as many men as you can. Acquire generals and outfit them with the best equipment you can find. Muster your armies and fight monsters in the open world.

When you open the world map for the first time, you’ll notice that your capital is surrounded by a dome of blue energy. That’s a visual representation of Beginner’s Protection. You’ll also notice the many monarchs around you with the same dome as well. Be mindful of when your protection expires, or seize the initiative and strike first!

I Need More Time!

If you find that you need more time to set up, don’t fret – you can buy Truce Agreements to create a new shield. The best way to do this is via the alliance shop.

Make Friends

Quick Tips:

• Make friends. Seriously. Apes together strong.
• Learn your server rules.
• Learn from veteran players. Don’t hesitate to ask questions; the community is very welcoming.
• Join an alliance as soon as you can!

If there’s one thing I learned from strategy RPGs like Evony: The King’s Return, it’s that a lone player cannot succeed without ridiculous whaling. Without friends, you’ll be bereft of support, additional troops, and coordinated operations. Network or die.

Learn Your Server Rules

Servers usually have a set of rules that are enforced by the top players (that is to say, the King or Queen who holds the city of Throne and their alliance) and all players in this server are expected to play by these rules or face server-wide judgment.

These rules usually contain, but are not limited to, times when PVP is allowed, what sites/cities you can hit without repercussion, and so on. If these rules didn’t exist, each server would quickly devolve into one-sided stomping matches by whoever the current top alliance is – so follow them, as they’re also for your own protection.

Learn From Veterans

Evony: The King’s Return is an established game, and a lot of the players you see have been around for some time. This means that the community is very welcoming of new blood, so don’t hesitate to speak up in world chat.

And while this guide will help you get off your feet, it’s always important to ask veterans for advice, specifically about current events and advice on how to progress in your server. Who knows? You might make some new friends or even get an invite to an alliance!

Join An Alliance

It’s a dog-eat-dog world outside your city walls. Everybody wants to be supreme ruler of the world of Evony, and there’s only room for one. But what if that one could be a group of rulers?

An Alliance is similar to a guild in other games. Alliances have their own chat channel, can send resources to one another, and are there to bail each other out of tight spots. Alliances can declare either friendship or war with other alliances, and large-scale battles are virtually guaranteed. Alliance politics extend far beyond the game’s mechanics, with leaders often negotiating and communicating in real-time via the game’s chat system.

To join an Alliance, you’ll need to construct an Embassy. This diplomatic building becomes available at Keep Level 9. On the other hand, if you want to head an alliance, you’ll need to upgrade your Embassy to Level 2. You’ll also want to build a War Hall while you’re at it so you can join your alliance during battles.

Alliance War

When you or your allies engage another player or a boss monster, you have the option to convert the skirmish into an Alliance War. When an Alliance War is active, your allies can send their own armies to bolster your own. It’s worth jumping in and helping your allies whenever you can as this nets you resources and alliance points. You’ll also be able to take on big bad boss monsters with the help of your allies, letting you get resources and boss materials you wouldn’t be able to beat solo!

Alliance Help

Whenever alliance members undertake a construction or research project in their cities, they’ll automatically be added to the list of projects that members can help with. It costs members nothing to help each other with these projects – and this can shave off hours from even the longest project timers. To add a project to your alliance’s help board, tap the handshake bubble above the relevant building.

Alliance Science

Members of an alliance can contribute resources to unlock even more passive skills in a tech tree. This tech tree benefits all alliance members and stacks with other sources of these buffs. Since there’s a limit to how many times you can donate to a research project, it’s best to donate whenever possible, and to the maximum amount.

Alliance Treasure

Alliance treasures are acquired by filling up an even bigger activity meter, similar to your personal Activity Panel. However, this larger meter fills up when any alliance member gets activity points. If you’re in a big alliance, this will fill up very quickly and let you get even more resources to grow your empire.

Alliance Shop

Alliance points acquired through donation or fighting bosses can be spent here. However, note that your alliance needs to be prestigious enough – that is to say, have a high enough Alliance Honor rating – before you can even shop here. Honor points are acquired in the same way as points.

Build Your Infrastructure

Quick Tips:

• Keep = your HQ. Higher levels mean more features but note that going above level 11 will break your bubble.
• You can only build one barracks/archery range/stable.
• Rally spot = important to upgrade as it affects march size. Bigger march size = more deployable units per army, which means less casualties, faster combat, and more resources from nodes.
• Watchtower = important for PVP. The higher its level, the more detailed reports you get.
• Warehouse = important to upgrade as it determines your resource cap and keeps some resources safe from PVP invasions.
• Hire a second worker if you’re doing a lot of upgrading/building.

Your empire revolves around your capital city. It’s here that you can build buildings, issue orders, solve puzzles, and much more. Below is a list of the basic buildings you’ll need to be build and utilize all throughout your Evony journey.

The Keep

The Keep is the seat of your power and prestige. This palatial central building unlocks new technology levels in the form of building upgrades as it ranks up. It’s also where you can Levygold for free a certain number of times or get more by paying gems.

Leveling up your Keep takes considerably more time than other buildings. However, it’s key to always level up your Keep as its level directly influences what features are open to you. It’s generally a good idea to save your big hourglasses, like the 7 day ones, just for your Keep upgrades.

As a new player, you may want to wait a bit before you rush the keep as breaching level 11 removes your protective bubble. Make sure you’re good and ready before setting out.

Military Buildings

Military buildings are among the first you can build. These are the Barracks, Archer Camp, Stables, and Workshop. Units are trained from these buildings. You can only have one each of these vital buildings in your capital. It’s important to note that you have to tap the bubble that appears on top of these buildings once training time is over to add units to your army.

The Inn is built by default. At the Inn, wandering generals looking for a new liege to serve will pop in from time to time, and can be hired for hefty sums of gold. Fallen generals can be revived here as well – it will cost time though.

The Rally Spot determines how many units you can send per march. This means that the more you upgrade it, the bigger your fielded armies can be. Upgrading this structure is very important – the bigger your march size, the more units you can deploy per army. More units in an army means they’ll work faster, possibly have less casualties, and bring back more resources if you deploy them to a resource node.

The Rally Spot also allows you to assign March Presets which are tied to your VIP level. March Presets are preset army compositions that you can save so you don’t have to manually assign units every time you want to deploy somewhere.

Located far from your Keep, the Watchtower serves as a recon and intelligence building. An upgraded watchtower is necessary to scout rival empires to see how many resources they have, as well as serve as an early warning for incoming raids.

Your city’s Walls serve as an obstacle for aspiring raiders. Upgrading your walls increases their ability to repel invaders. From your Walls, you can assign a general to lead your defenders in battle. You can also issue Patrol orders from here, which generate resources for free up to thrice a day.

Archer Towers further protect your city from assault by raining arrows on your enemies. Upgrading them increases their health and defense.

At Keep Level 8, you’ll gain access to the Bunker. This building allows you to safely store a number of units, protecting them from assault.

Economic Buildings

Resource buildings like Farms, Sawmills, Quarries, and Ore Mines are built outside your city walls. These buildings provide your empire with the resources it needs to grow.

It’s worth noting that there are only a certain number of plots for these buildings. It’s a good idea to plop down as many of them as you can as you can demolish them for free (or minimal cost, in some cases). While we’re on the topic of resource generators, you can upgrade most of these for free twice as soon as you put them down. Do so – the higher a generator’s level, the more resources it produces and the faster it goes.

The Warehouse is the economic heart of your empire. It’s here that resources your workers gather or your armies plunder are stored. At the same time, the warehouse offers protection against raids by safekeeping a certain amount of your resources. Upgrading the warehouse both increases its storage cap and the amount of “safe” resources.

You can either tap the bubbles above your economic buildings to gather them building by building, or the hand bubble above the warehouse to gather everything at once.

The Market provides a score of free resources daily via the Tax button. Like the Keep’s Levy function, you can pay in gems to buy more resources. Upgrading the market gives bigger batches of resources per transaction and increases the efficiency of buying resources with gems. Note that free tax attempts are shared between all resources.

Tech Buildings

The Academy is where your empire’s scholars reside. This is a very important building, as it’s here that research is conducted. I’ll talk more about research later, but the long and short of it is that research benefits all aspects of your empire passively. Upgrading the academy unlocks more complex research projects.

The Hospital tends to your wounded and can even revive your dead, for a price. Troops that fall in combat can either be wounder or killed. If a unit is wounded, it’s placed in the hospital for a while as it recuperates. Wounded units also save you resources by virtue of not having to train replacements. Upgrading the hospital increases the number of wounded troops it can tend to at once.

Workers

Workers are responsible for constructing and upgrading buildings. By default, you have one worker, and can unlock more by paying gems. Each worker can only build or upgrade one building at a time, so if you’re building a lot of things, it may be worth investing in that second worker. You can access your workers in the upper left of the screen, under your monarch’s portrait.

Raise An Army

Quick Tips:

• Ground > Ranged > Mounted > Ground.
• Siege units are essentially ranged units with much greater ranged.
• Focus on training cavalry in the early game for hitting PVE targets.
• Generals – the higher the rarity, the better.
• Generals have different stats leading to different specializations. Some are good army leaders; others are better suited for staying home and helping with your economy
• Generals can be cultivated for more stat gains. Better to save this for higher rarity generals as they have better base stats.
• Level up and equip your monarch to get even more empire-wide boosts.

There are four kinds of units that can be trained in Evony: The King’s Return. They are ground troops, ranged troops, mounted troops, and siege weapons.

Weaknesses and Strengths

There’s a triangle to remember in combat: ground beats ranged, ranged beats mounted, and mounted beats ground. The fourth unit type – siege weapons – are a special case in that they don’t have a damage bonus against anything, but serve as a hard counter against massed ranged troops. This is due to siege machines having superior range, thinning enemy hordes before they can even get near your forces. On the other hand, their defenses are virtually non-existent and ground and mounted units make quick work of siege weapons.

Veteran Evony players go by the adage “Cavalry for PVE, everything else for PVP”. As a new players, it’s a good idea to train up a sizeable cavalry force – this way you can amass resources more quickly by picking fights with neutral mobs.

As with any war game, you should constantly be training units to bolster your ranks and replace lost or healing units. At the same time, don’t overinvest in low-level units that other players can steamroll. Make sure you keep upgrading your unit training buildings so that you can always produce the highest tier of unit available. It’s also a viable strategy to hold off on building units as long as you’re bubbled via peace treaty or Beginner’s Protection so you can save your resources for the highest tier units possible.

Combat and Stats

Keep in mind that battles in Evony: The King’s Return are automated. While you receive battle reports almost immediately, Evony actually auto-resolves combat under the hood.

While the actual mechanics of combat have yet to be revealed, players have created a working model for understanding how it plays out. It’s best to imagine battles as similar to a real time strategy game, where all units follow the simple rule of “move forward and attack everything in the way”.

Here is where a unit’s stats come into play. The first five stats of Attack, Defense, HP, Speed, and Range are used in combat, while the latter three – Load, Upkeep, and Power – don’t factor into battle.

Attack and Defense are measures of a unit’s offense and defense.

HP is the amount of health a unit has. When it hits 0, the unit is either wounded or dies, depending on the general, the battle area, and your luck.

Speed affects how fast the unit walks on the simulated battlefield. Naturally, cavalry have the highest speed.

Range is the unit’s attack range. A higher range means the unit’s attacks fly further. Siege units have an unrivaled advantage in range.

Load is used by armies gathering resources on the world map and doesn’t do anything in battle.

Upkeep is how much food this unit uses, just from existing.

Power is how much combat power each individual unit of this type adds to your power rating.

Generals

Generals are the greatest of your warriors and are emissaries and extensions of your will. These elite individuals are very useful and will see use in almost every part of your empire, from leading your glorious armies to tending to the day-to-day affairs of state.

Generals are divided by rarity. The color of the border around a general shows how rare they are. Rarer generals perform much better than common ones. In descending order, the rarities are gold, purple, blue, green, and white. There may also be a helmet icon in the upper left of the general’s portrait. The presence of a helmet means that this general is Historic. Historic Generals are based on true military leaders that have distinguished themselves in one way or another. In Evony: The King’s Return, Historic Generals come with a built-in skill. It’s important to note that only Historic Generals come with these innate passive skills.

Generals can learn more skills through the use of skill books. However, take note that there’s a chance-based mechanic when adding skills to generals that already have skills. In general, the more skills, the lower the chance of adding a new one.

Generals have four statistics that measure their abilities.These are Leadership, Attack, Defense, and Politics.

Leadership increases a general’s ability to command their men. When in an army, a general’s Leadership score determines how much of an HP buff units have, and boosts their march speed accordingly. If a general is assigned to head a subordinate city, their Leadership increases troop training speed there.

Attack isn’t just a measure of personal strength. When in an army, troops receive bonus attack damage based off their general’s Attack.

Defense works similarly to attack, giving troops more defense based on how much Defense their general has.

Politics affects resource gather speed and the chance that units will be wounded rather than killed, if in an army. If the general is acting as a subordinate city mayor, their Politics stat increases construction speed and gold production.

You can also Cultivate your generals via gems or gold. This can give them random stat gains or losses that you can either keep or discard. It costs 20 gems or 6000 gold to cultivate a general once. You can also bulk roll 10 cultivation attempts for 200 gems.

General items can vastly improve their abilities. Generals have 6 slots for equipment, and filling each one up can give notable bonuses to your armies and defenses. General items can be crafted at a Forge, but it’s suggested that you refrain from crafting the most expensive items until you find a general that’s really worth investing in.

Generals can be recruited from the tavern or by completing their puzzle pieces. This allows even non-spending players to acquire some of the best leaders in the game!

A Question of Size

When building armies, it’s important to take note of your March Size and Training Capacity stats. March Size refers to how many units your generals can actually take with them when they depart from your capital. Training Capacity, on the other hand, is how many units (of the same type) you can train at once. Both will be important in raising fast and effective armies.

We, The Royal Monarch

As the supreme leader of your people, you can also outfit yourself – your Monarch – with gear and learn new skills to support your campaign.

Monarch equipment is particularly potent; for example, I was able to gain 2000 extra March Size just from equipping a horn. But beware – savvy players can look up your monarch’s gear and use that to determine what your strategy is. You can change this by going to settings, options, then turn Monarch Gear Settings off.

Monarchs can also level up by collecting Monarch experience. This in turn allows you to invest points in the Monarch’s skill tree, which provides even more potent bonuses than basic research. Most monarch experience comes in the form of books. To use these books, tap on your monarch in the upper left of the screen, then tap the plus sign on the exp bar.

Resource Management Is Key

Quick Tips:

• Always look out for resource opportunities outside your city walls; gather resource nodes, snag treasures, do your quests, and fight monsters.
• Ration your bundles carefully – these are “hard” resources that can’t be stolen. Use them if you need a big amount of resources to complete a project.
• If you’re in PVP range, upgrade your warehouse to keep a bigger share of your stuff safe.
• VIP bonuses are very strong; save your VIP hourglasses for when they would matter.
• Save hourglasses for big projects, such as Keep upgrades.

Aside from the base resources of food, wood, stone, ore, and gold, there are several other resources that must be maintained. But there are other and maybe better ways of getting resources.

Secure A Resource Base

Naturally, running an empire isn’t cheap. Buildings must be constructed, maintained, and repaired. Armies must be fed and paid. Swords must be forged and arrows fletched. Your empire will need food, wood, stone, gold, and ore to survive.

While your resource generator buildings serve as good passive income, an even better and faster way to get resources is to occupy resource nodes on the world map. To do this, tap on a resource node, like a farm, a sawmill, or a stone mine, and tap occupy. You’ll then be asked to dispatch an army to move to the node and gather resources. Units with a higher Load stat are more efficient at bringing back resources. Your expedition general’s Politics stat affects gathering speed on that node.

Take note that other players will likely be doing this as well, so don’t sit on your toes if you see an opportunity.

Grab Treasures

Treasures can appear on the world map. These range from basic resources to coveted speed-ups and even monarch and general equipment, so make sure to grab these as soon as you can!

Do Your Quests

Evony’s quests represent milestones in your progress to conquering the world. These one-time rewards provide healthy infusions of resources into your treasury, and should be completed whenever possible. You can access your quests in the upper left of your capital screen.

Kill Monsters

Killing monsters on the world map gives your generals and your monarch valuable experience points as well as resource bundles. When attacking monsters, you can read up on what kind of troop the enemy party is composed of so you can counterpick with your own army. While some of your men may be injured or killed, that’s what the hospital is for. And hey – you can always train more.

Ration Your Bundles

As a new player, you’ll be bombarded with packages of resources ranging from meager 1k packages to outrageous 50k packages. Quests and Mysterious Puzzles dole a lot of these resource bundles out. You can also get them from daily logins, events, patrols, and other activities. However, your warehouse can only secure so much. The game will warn you if the amount of packages you’re about to open will lead to resources being unprotected.

One of the most common mistakes that new players make is spending these bundles too quickly – particularly food. There are currently no downsides to having a negative food upkeep, so keep those bundles for when you’re about to bulk upgrade or train units.

Upgrade your Warehouse

Upgrading your warehouse should be one of your top priorities. Not only does your warehouse level affect how many resources you can store, but it also determines how much of your resources are protected if you get raided.

VIP Points

You accumulate VIP Points through various activities, but by far, the easiest way is logging in. As your VIP Points build up, you’ll gain VIP levels. With each new VIP level comes new powerful passive benefits that you can activate by turning your VIP mode on. You can get VIP hourglasses from various means, but it’s advised you save them up for one big push when you need them.

Time Is Money

Hourglasses are a premium resource in Evony: The King’s Return. These handy timekeepers allow you to fast forward chunks of time in research or production. You get them from quests, special daily Mysterious Puzzle runs, and from treasures and monsters on the world map.

Be especially wary when using hourglasses to speed up research or production as the game tends to overestimate the amount of time you skip. For example, if skipping a 27 minute production timer, the game will automatically select a 30 minute hourglass. It’s best to use 5 5 minute hourglasses, then use the free skip that follows.

Finish Your Daily Activities

Quick Tips:

• Spam daily activities for resources.
• Mysterious Puzzle is a big one-time payoff (except for the daily puzzles).
• Shrine Offerings are almost always worth it. Set aside gems and always go for 675 gems or however much you need to trigger the upgraded login bonuses. Arabia gets a bonus from the resources here.
• Activity Panel gives resources and a Great General Chest if you fill it all the way up.
• Patrol – gives monarch equipment. Good idea to reroll if it just gives you regular resources.

The world of Evony is rife with daily activities that you can complete to gain resources, production boosts, hourglasses, and even gems. As the game is highly competitive, you definitely don’t want to miss out on these daily bonuses as they can spell the difference between victory or defeat.

Mysterious Puzzle

Mysterious Puzzles are a great way to gather basic resources as well as gems and hourglasses. This sliding gate puzzle is something that you can do while waiting for stamina to regenerate or if you need a quick infusion of resources. As your keep’s level increases, you’ll gain access to more and more puzzles with even better rewards.

In addition to the preset stages in Mysterious Puzzle, there are also daily puzzles that can be cleared for more rewards. These daily puzzles have a 3 minute cooldown between completing each of them.

There are different types of mechanisms in Mysterious Puzzles. Glowing pins can (usually) only be tapped once, where they’ll be pulled back from their pins. Buttons with arrows represent on-off mechanisms and tapping the button toggles the machine’s state. Round buttons with no icons indicate a mechanism that has to be held down. You’ll have to use your judgment as to when to hold or to release these buttons. Springs on the ground must be tapped to propel your character upwards. When picked up, ropes will cause your character to first move upwards – as high as possible – before continuing their horizontal travel.

Shrine Offerings

You can offer gems at the Shrine located near your palace. For the most cost-effective tributes, players suggest offering 675 gems per go. These offerings are the fastest way to gain Monarch Exp. In addition, if you make 7 offerings in a week, your next set of daily login rewards becomes better!

Alternately, Tributes can be used as Shrine offerings. These items can be bought in the Alliance shop.

The Activity Panel

The Activity Panel represents a mixture of varied activities. As you play the game, you’ll score points that accumulate in your activity panel. These range from gathering resources to doing research and even playing PVP battles. Upon reaching certain thresholds, you’ll gain a bonus chest filled with goodies to help you expand even more. Take note that you’ll have to tap the open chests to collect rewards from completing activity thresholds.

It’s highly suggested that you finish the activity panel all the way to 145 points, as you’ll get a Key of Conscription. This key is used to open the Great General Chest, which awards you with general fragments. If you’re lucky enough, you might even get a gold Historic General fragment.

Patrol

You can dispatch your troops to patrol from your city walls. This can be done for free thrice a day and give you some resources. More importantly. patrols are a great way to get Monarch equipment – especially since the other rewards are usually resources you can get over the course of normal play.

If you don’t like the rewards in the forecast, you can reroll the patrol rewards for a meager 10 gold. You get 3 patrols per day for free and can spend gems for additional patrols afterwards.

Invest In Technology

Quick Tips:

• ALWAYS BE RESEARCHING SOMETHING. The bonuses are small, but they add up.
• New players should beeline for Formation as it lets you deploy a second army on the world map. More armies = more stuff you can do.

The academy is a very important building as it allows you to research passive bonuses with empire-wide effects. There are multiple tabs in the academy.

Advancement is mostly economic upgrades – faster output and better yields for your resource generators, as well as construction speed. Military Research deals with your soldiers. It allows you to upgrade training time, individual troop stats, and more. Defense Research upgrades your walls and gives buffs to your defending units. Other, more advanced research tabs will become available to you as your academy receives upgrades.

One of the earliest technologies you should beeline for is Formation. This tech can be found in under the Military tab. Formation is very important because it gives you one more march slot: with that, you can deploy two armies on the world map instead of one. Academy upgrades don’t eat up a construction slot. It’s best to always be researching something as these bonuses will quickly add up.

Take Subordinate Cities

Quick Tips:

• Subordinate Cities = vassal states that can be claimed by players. They will produce resources and train units for you, though not to the extent of your capital.
• Culture bonuses apply for Subordinate Cities. The free one you get is always the same culture as you.
• You can recruit Generals by taking over subordinate cities.

As your empire grows, you’ll find it necessary to expand your infrastructure and seize other production centers. This is where Subordinate Cities come in.

At level 11, you’ll unlock a free Subordinate City. These centers serve as mini-cities; while you’re unable to control them with the same freedom as your capital, they will produce gold, upgrade structures, and train units by themselves. These units can be used to bolster your ranks, should you decide to summon them. This is done by selecting which Subordinate Cities will send troops when you assemble a march.

You can also find some of these city-states on the world map, but attacking them – whether they’re NPC or player-owned – requires that you have no protective bubble. NPC Subordinate Cities are usually fair game, but double-check with your server rules!

It’s important to note that Subordinate Cities have their own culture. This means that they have all the passive benefits of being from that kingdom. Use this knowledge to your advantage: if you need stone, take over European Subordinate Cities; if you need wood, conquer Korean Subordinate Cities. For reference, the first Subordinate City you get for free always has the same culture as you even if you shift.

In addition, if you take an NPC-owned Subordinate City, that general will be recruited to your ranks! You can only hold so many Subordinate Cities at once, however, so it’s best to go for those near you for ease of army joining.

The World Can Be Yours

The world of Evony is full of treasures just waiting to be seized by a mighty hand. By the time you’ve reached the end of this guide, you’re probably close to breaching the vaunted Keep Level 11 – if you haven’t already – and will be more or less armed with the basic information you need to make your mark in the world.

There’s so much to explore in Evony: The King’s Return, and this guide just barely scratches the surface of the world. If you have any more tips or information that you wish you knew when you were starting out, or have suggestions to make, let us know in the comment section below!