Picture this: a boy and his friend, isekai’d to another world that’s exactly like the game that boy just played. Yes, it’s an old story at this point, but it still holds water. After all, wouldn’t you jump at the chance to not just rule, but dominate?
Grand Cross: Age of Titans is an empire builder in the same vein as Evony: The King’s Return. In this game, you’ll take on the shoes of a new lord who may or may not want to abandon their isekai quest to go home. Along the way, you’ll meet new characters and recruit them to be your heroes, build an army, hunt monsters both small and large, and band together with other liege lords towards a common goal. Aspiring lordlings can get Grand Cross: Age of Titans on the Google Play Store, the App Store, or on PC via a standalone client from NetMarble’s site. For the purposes of this guide, I’ll be using the PC version.
While Grand Cross: Age of Titans does have a more detailed and comprehensive tutorial than other empire builders, some of the finer details of the genre are glossed over – hence, this beginner’s guide. Players already familiar with empire builders will likely not need to read this guide!
In this Grand Cross: Age of Titans beginner’s guide, we’ll be going over:
- Empire infrastructure: your various buildings, what they do, what you should prioritize leveling.
- Your army. A good fighting force is more than just the highest numbers cobbled together.
- Heroes – your generals and frontline representatives will be key to creating an organized army.
- Alliances and what they can do for you.
A Foreword: Your Beginner’s Shield
Every empire-building mobile game has what’s known as a beginner’s shield. This shield is a powerful tool that prevents new players from being picked apart by veterans. Thus, maximizing your free protection is imperative so that when your shield does go down, you’ll be on more even footing with your potential rivals.
Do note that your beginner’s shield will only last while you’re in Zone 0, AKA the outermost parts of the map, AKA the noob frontier. Thus, we have a lot of time – more than enough really, to go over the basics and ensure you have a solid grasp of the game before delving deeper inland.
Empire Infrastructure
Every empire needs structures. How else can you impose your power and authority over everyone else? More importantly, how are you going to get anything done without buildings? Here’s a quick rundown of the early buildings you’ll unlock, what they’re used for, and why you should upgrade them.
Quick Tips:
- Your castle level is tied to your game progression. Always upgrade your castle level to stay in pace with other players.
- Castle upgrades are both very expensive and very long. It’s a good idea to reserve some, if not all of your speed-ups for your castle’s upgrades.
- The artisan’s house is not a structure per se, but it houses your workers. You have one worker at a time and can hire another – do so if you’re going to be building and upgrading a lot.
- You can upgrade your free daily pulls by upgrading the Star Fragment. Prioritize this.
- You can research economic, combat, and special troop technology at the academy.
- Never leave your academy idle. Always be researching something or upgrading the academy.
- The storage protects some of your resources when you get raided. Prioritize this if you’re going to be fighting other players a lot.
- Larie’s Mansion just unlocks the battle pass.
- The trading port is essentially a shop where you can buy resources or hero items, like star level fragments or experience.
- You can also trade in hero-strengthening items at the trading port. The currency you get from trading in can be used to buy other hero-strengthening items.
- Barracks are where you train units. Each unit type can only be trained in its specific barracks.
- The higher the level of a barracks, the more units it can train at once and the bigger of a passive buff its unit type gets.
- The titan hangar recharges and repairs your titan when it’s not in the field.
- The hospital treats units that are wounded, not killed. The higher its level, the more wounded it can treat at once.
The Castle
Your castle is your central building. Without it, nothing happens…although the castle doesn’t do anything on its own.
Your game progression is heavily tied to your castle level. If you don’t upgrade your castle, you won’t be able to unlock new buildings and improve existing ones, meaning you’ll soon be left behind technologically. Upgrade your castle whenever you can.
Related: Grand Cross: Age of Titans Tier List: A Complete Ranking of All Heroes in the Game
However, castle upgrades are both expensive and long (we’re talking potential days here) In empire builders like Grand Cross: Age of Titans, it’s always a good idea to reserve most (if not all) of your speed-ups exclusively for castle upgrades.
The Artisan’s House
Just like your castle, nothing gets done without your artisans. These workers are responsible for all the construction work in your territory, from building new structures to upgrading existing ones.
While the artisan’s house can’t be upgraded, it’s where you hire additional artisans. By default, you have one artisan, which means you can only build or upgrade one thing at once. Be sure to hire another artisan if you’re going on a heavy build or upgrade spree – like at the beginning of the game!
The Star Fragment
This…thing in the middle of the road is where you do your gacha pulls. Surprisingly, it can be upgraded too!
Upgrading the star fragment is very important, especially for F2P players, as the star fragment’s level increases the number of free pulls you get, as well as the cooldown for these pulls!
The Academy
The academy is your empire’s scientific hub. Here, your finest thinkers, alchemists, mages, charlatans (probably), and actual scientists gather to unlock new technologies for your empire.
The academy has three branches of study – economy, combat, and special troops.
Economical upgrades deal with your resource production, such as making it faster, more effective, or unlocking the ability to harvest resources on the world map. If you’re not researching anything else, research economic tech.
Combat upgrades influence your armies. This branch tends to split a lot as each unit type has its own sub-branch. I suggest focusing on the unit type you use the most.
Special troops research is focused entirely on your combat machines. Carts are useful, but they’re worthless in combat. Invest in some special troop research here to get machines with bite – catapults, cannons, and so on. You can ignore this branch until you’re ready to fight other players.
The academy is the one building in empire builders which should never be idle. Always make sure you’re either researching something to make your empire stronger or upgrading the academy to unlock new technology!
The Storage
The storage is a powerful building that protects your resources from being plundered.
The higher your storage level, the more “safe” resources you have. Safe resources cannot be stolen by other players if they attack you, so prioritize upgrading this if you’re fighting a lot.
Larie’s Mansion
Larie’s Mansion is a structure you’ll unlock later. Essentially, it’s the battle pass.
You don’t need to tap Larie’s Mansion to open the battle pass menu (the button is near your name in the upper left) but you will need to repair the mansion before you can redeem your rewards and complete missions.
The Trading Port
The trading port is unlocked after clearing chapter 10. It’s essentially a shop that allows you to buy resources as well as hero-strengthening items, like star level fragments or experience scrolls.
You can refresh the trading port’s stock once for free each time a shipment is made. Further restocks cost gems. There’s no confirmation if you tap the refresh button, so make sure you’ve thoroughly browsed all offers before refreshing!
Note that you can also exchange hero-strengthening items for currency at the trading port. Said currency can be used to buy more strengthening items, allowing you to focus on a specific resource.
Barracks
Barracks are where you train new cannon fodder troops for battle. Each unit type has a unique barracks – there’s one for infantry, another for archers, another for cavalry, and so on.
The higher a barracks’ level, the more units it can train at once. At certain levels, a barracks can also give a small buff to all units of its type. Note that you can only have one of each type of barracks at once.
The Titan Hangar
Your titan hangar is where your titan – essentially a giant death robot – is docked for repairs and recharging when it’s not deployed.
Titans are more of a mid-to-endgame thing in Grand Cross: Age of Titans, and thus we won’t be discussing them (ironic, right?). By the time you unlock titans, you’ll be well-versed in the game’s basics and will no longer need a beginner’s guide!
The Hospital
The hospital is where your units that don’t die are sent. Injured soldiers are a blessing as it’s infinitely cheaper and faster to treat them than to train up a new batch of fighting men.
The higher your hospital’s level, the more wounded men it can treat at once. While this won’t really be a problem for newer players, keep the hospital in mind if you’re going to fight a lot of PVP battles.
Castle Walls
Your castle’s walls serve as the primary deterrent for invaders.
If another player tries to raid you, they’ll need to break through your walls first. The higher the level of your walls, the more health it has and the faster it recovers over time.
Note that the walls are also where you assign which heroes will take over the defense. This does not remove them from the pool of active heroes that you can send into the world, so be sure to place your aces here!
Creating A Strong Economy
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” While you may argue the validity of this statement in real life, it’s a very apt saying for empire builders like Grand Cross: Age of Titans. You’ll need to learn how to build and maintain a strong economy from the get-go so that you’re never bereft of resources and options.
Quick Tips:
- Set up and upgrade resource generators as soon as you unlock them.
- Once you unlock the academy, you can research technologies to improve resource generation.
- Resource nodes on the world map can be gathered by armies. Note that this is neutral territory and you may be attacked by other players seeking to gather from these nodes.
- You can attack monsters on the world map to get resource packs.
- Resist the temptation to open your resource packs as “hard” resources (inventory items) cannot be plundered by other players. Instead, save these packs for a quick resource burst before a big upgrade, and only use as many packs as needed.
- There are several ways to get free resources, such as events, the gacha, and so on.
- The most important source of free resources is your VIP level. The higher this is, the better and more potent your VIP freebies become.
- You also gain access to a VIP shop with higher VIP levels, allowing you to trade resources for stuff you may need.
Resource Generators
Among the most basic buildings in empire builders is the humble resource generator.
These buildings aren’t flashy, but they continually provide the raw resources you need to build and maintain your empire. Farms produce food, sawmills yield wood, and quarries dig up stone. The more resource generators you have, the better off you’ll be as almost everything in the game requires you to pay with resources.
One oft-overlooked aspect of the resource generator is its upgrades. Always upgrade your resource generators to the highest possible level as that improves not only their production speed but also how much of a resource they can hold. It’s good practice to check all your resource generators for available upgrades after you’ve upgraded your castle.
It’s also a good idea to put your resource generators together (long press on one to move it) as it makes collecting your income easier.
Resource Nodes
Your resource generators at home will provide you with a steady stream of vital materials to keep your empire running. But what if you needed a burst of materials now? That’s where resource nodes come in.
Resource nodes can be found on the world map. By sending an army to a resource node, you can gather a large amount of that resource and have it brought back to your city for immediate use. The catch? These resource nodes are neutral ground, meaning that you may be attacked by another player who wants to use that resource node. Stick to nodes close to you to avoid conflict and for shorter travel time.
An army’s gathering efficiency is largely influenced by its members’ carrying capacity stat. This is a 1:1 representation of how many of a resource a single unit can carry; if you send 10 horsemen to a node (horsemen have a carrying capacity of 14) they’ll be able to bring back 140 of a resource. Thus, the best gathering armies are comprised not only of units with a high carrying capacity stat but also have as many units as possible.
However, the best units for gathering are carts, which are produced at the combat engineer workshop. With a name like that, you’d expect scorpions and trebuchets, but no, you get those later. For now, you just have carts. Carts move incredibly quickly on the world map and have a massive carrying capacity stat, but they suck at everything else. On the plus side, you can also assign a non-combat army slot for your gathering hero and your carts, so that’s a win!
You can use the search function on the world map to look for specific resource nodes. To do that, tap on the magnifying glass…
…and then select what you want to look for.
Picking Fights with Monsters
When you gain access to the world map, you may notice the many monsters running about. Don’t be scared – these foes present a great opportunity to gather extra resources!
To attack a monster, you’ll need to send an army to its position. After a brief scuffle, your units will head back home. If you win a fight with a monster, you’ll receive a bunch of resources in the mail. Easy!
While monsters are an effective and fast way to farm resources, there are a few things you should be aware of. First off, fighting monsters is gated by stamina. Stamina regenerates slowly over time. Secondly, you need to beat monsters in ascending order – you need to first defeat a level 1 monster before you can fight a level 2 monster, and so on.
Fortunately, you can use the search function to look for monsters of a specific level. Also, if your units have defeated a monster, you can tap a new monster on the field and send the same army to save on march time. Happy hunting!
Popping Resource Packs
As you play Grand Cross: Age of Titans, you’ll notice resource packs appearing in your inventory. These packs are a great way to get an instant amount of resources – though do practice moderation.
Do not immediately pop these resource packs. It may seem counterintuitive, but it’s generally better to operate with a deficit. The reason for this is that resource packs in your inventory cannot be raided by other players. They’re yours to keep – until you pop them and get raided. Thus, the best use of these packs is to stash them away and pop them only when necessary, such as before a big upgrade or large-scale unit training.
While one could argue that “I have a storage to protect my resources anyway”, it’s best to start this habit early rather than running into a resource deficit after being raided. Keep your storage’s limit in mind, and try to stay below that resource total so that other players won’t be able to make off with your hard-earned resources!
Free Resources and Your VIP Level
There are a lot of free resources to be had in Grand Cross: Age of Titans – events, daily and alliance missions, achievements, and so on. As a general rule, tap anywhere there’s a red dot – chances are there are freebies waiting to be claimed!
However, the most important source of free resources in Grand Cross: Age of Titans is your VIP level. This can be seen below your profile on the upper left of the screen.
The longer you play and the more consecutive logins you do, the more VIP points you get. Accumulate enough VIP points and your VIP level increases, netting you bonuses such as faster resource generation and world map gathering speed, as well as increasingly better daily freebies. But the kicker here, I believe, is the VIP shop.
Once you unlock a certain VIP level (2, I believe), you gain access to the VIP shop. This is a store that offers a lot of special items, like speed-ups, manastones, hero experience, and more. Seriously, if you can think of it, the VIP shop has it. The catch here is that you need higher VIP levels to unlock more stock, and the higher your VIP level, the bigger your discount. This also means that players with maxed-out VIP will inherently have an edge over players who don’t.
As I mentioned earlier, you earn VIP points by just basically existing, but if you really want to, you can buy more of them for gems.
Understanding Your Army
A ruler is only as effective as their army. Sure, you now have barracks pumping out men by the thousands (seriously, where are all these people coming from?) and have the academy researching the latest in weapon technology to keep your fighting men equipped with the very best. But without understanding the basics of combat, you’ll find yourself scratching your head, wondering where it all went wrong.
Quick Tips:
- There are two kinds of combat in Grand Cross: Age of Titans: tactical and automatic.
- Tactical combat only applies to story-mode PvE, while overworld PvE and PvP are automatic.
- In automatic PvP, units basically just run at each other via attack-move.
- All units have stats. Pick the right unit for the job.
- There’s a unit triangle in the game. Infantry beat cavalry, cavalry beat archers, archers beat infantry.
- If fighting other players, try to scout out what they’ll be defending and attacking with so you can train the appropriate counter-troops.
- It’s also a good idea to train a variety of units so that you don’t have a single, glaring weakness.
- Scouting is the process of getting information on a rival player. With a higher scouting structure level (we’re not covering this), you can get more information. Note that in most empire builders, scouting a player is interpreted as a hostile action.
- It’s a safe idea to focus on cavalry if you’re just fighting against monsters.
- You can have 3 troops at once – 2 combat and 1 non-combat. The non-combat troop will have carts as its unit type by default.
- Each troop can only have 1 unit type.
Combat
Combat in Grand Cross: Age of Titans can be roughly divided into tactical or automatic.
Tactical combat is where you manually control your armies on a small battlefield. Each of your armies will await orders on where to move and who to fight, though they will automatically engage nearby foes. You can also activate your liege skills here without fear of the lengthy cooldown as each tactical battlefield is instanced. Tactical battles only work in story-based PvE missions – namely, the stages that appear within and outside your castle walls.
Automatic combat, on the other hand, happens for any other battle that isn’t a story-based PvE mission. Fighting monsters, assaulting monster fortresses, attacking other players – these all happen in automatic combat.
In automatic combat, units are essentially placed on either side of a field and given an order to attack-move towards each other. Heroes leading the army will use their skills automatically, so you don’t need to worry about that. If you need further assistance, you can use liege skills on the overworld to assist in automatic battles but watch out as this will incur the full cooldown of the liege skill, which is usually 3 hours.
Unit Stats
Each unit has stats. These stats govern how a unit performs in many aspects, from fighting and defending to running around on the world map and gathering stuff.
The stats each unit has, and what it does, are as follows:
- ATK: attack power. A rough estimation of how much damage this unit does when it whacks another unit.
- DEF: defense power. Mitigates incoming damage. Among unit types, infantry have the most defense.
- HP: how much health this unit has. Units that hit 0 health are either injured (PvE) or killed (PvP).
- Range: this unit’s attack range. A higher number means the unit can attack from further away.
- Carrying Capacity: how many units of a resource a single unit can carry. Carts are the best at this.
- Marching Speed: how fast this unit moves on the overworld. The higher the number, the faster their movement. Cavalry are best at this.
- Combat Power: how much player power each instance of this unit gives you.
Note that the higher a unit’s tier, the higher its stats. Each tier provides a significant stat boost, so try and tier up as soon as you can.
The Unit Triangle
There’s a unit triangle in Grand Cross: Age of Titans. Infantry beats cavalry, cavalry beats archers, archers beat infantry. Machines, like carts and catapults, have no bonus or malus when fighting any unit type.
Thus, if you’re planning to fight other lords, it’s a good idea to scout their city and amass units that have an advantage over your opponent’s army. At the same time, it’s also a good idea to train a variety of units – this way, it’ll be harder to poke holes in your defense.
Note that in empire builders like this, you can safely focus on cavalry for the early game as you’ll be mostly fighting monsters. Monsters on the overworld (and thus automatic combat) don’t have a unit type, so it’s best to just hit them with whatever moves fast and hits hard – namely cavalry.
Scouting
Scouting is the act of getting information on a specific entity on the world map. Against monsters and resource nodes, this is free. Against other players, this is widely interpreted as a hostile action. You have been warned. If you’re sure you want to scout another player, tap their armies or city then select “scout”.
Empire builder games like Grand Cross: Age of Titans normally have a structure that improves your scouting level. The higher your scouting level, the more information your scouts will reveal, such as what heroes are leading your opponent’s armies, the strength, level, and skills of these heroes, their army composition, the strength of their walls, and so on. We won’t be covering this structure or scouting in-depth but keep it in mind as you climb the ranks and get into kingdom-wide PvP.
Once again, scouting is usually interpreted as a hostile action.
Troops and Marches
Did you notice the game nagging you to create troops when moving on the world map? That’s because you have a limited number of marches at once.
Each troop must be made up of a leader and a specific unit type. No, you can’t mix and match army compositions. You can tap the refresh button under the hero’s portrait on the left if you want to change the army leader. Once your troop has been assembled, that army will move to wherever you tell them to.
By default, you can have 2 combat troops and 1 non-combat troop. Your combat troops can be assigned to fight or gather, while your non-combat troop is set to use carts by default. Note that while your non-combat troop can be attacked, it can’t be given an order to attack. Given the crappy stats that carts have, it’s best to beat feet if you see someone making a move against your non-combat troop!
It’s important to understand troops and marches because of the various bonuses to march speed in the game. A higher march speed means that an army moves faster on the world map, allowing them to reach positions first, attack vulnerable spots, and outmaneuver foes. Once again, cavalry are the best at this.
Pumping Up Your Heroes
Your mighty heroes serve as generals and leaders in battle, so it’s vital that you strengthen them. That way, they’ll be better equipped to face whatever challenges your empire might face.
Quick Tips:
- Levels are the fastest way to improve a hero. Each level increases a hero’s attack power. You can fight monsters on the world map or eat experience scrolls to gain levels.
- Each level also gives a hero a talent point, which can be spent on two talent trees based on that hero’s abilities.
- A hero’s level cap can be broken by increasing its star rating. You can get star level fragments from fighting monsters.
- Each hero has a list of powerful skills that they automatically use in combat.
- Skills can be leveled up by consuming manastones, which you get from pulling duplicates of a character.
- As a hero’s star rating increases, it learns new skills. It’s a good idea to read up on a hero’s skills ahead of time as star rating boosts can be tedious.
- Most legendary and unique heroes also have liege skills. These skills are slotted in your liege skill slots (up to 3) and are called in manually during battle or the overworld, or automatically in battles where you have no control.
Leveling Up
Level ups are the fastest, most basic way to get stronger in almost any game. In Grand Cross: Age of Titans, this is done by either fighting monsters on the world map or by feeding a hero experience scrolls.
Each level gives a hero a minor increase in their base stats. While individual levels may be small, their bonus stats do add up, so don’t neglect to level your heroes!
Talent Points
More importantly, each level also gives your hero a talent point. Talent points can be spent on a hero’s talent tree – which trees they have will depend on their abilities.
These talents can be used to both improve and specialize heroes. For example, Valkyrie has both cavalry and hunt abilities, so she has those two talent trees unlocked. If you want to make an all-around cavalry hero, you can invest in her cavalry talent tree, but if you want to make her a monster-hunting leader, you could instead invest in her hunt tree. The choice is yours.
Note that unlocking a tier of the talent tree requires you to spend 3 points in the previous tier. It doesn’t have to be in the same talent, either.
Star Rating
Heroes can’t keep growing forever. Sooner or later, you’ll hit a hero’s level cap, which stops them from gaining levels until the cap is surpassed via the star rating system.
Increasing a hero’s star rating is relatively easy – just collect the required star level fragments, use them on the hero, and bam, new star. The catch? Earning star level fragments. This stuff drops uncommonly from monsters or from completing quests. It’s not a rare resource, but don’t spend it willy-nilly.
Skills
Heroes distinguish themselves from your rank-and-file soldiers not only with their prettier graphics but also their powerful skills. These skills are unleashed automatically in combat and can make a huge difference in a battle’s outcome.
To get new skills, you’ll need to increase a hero’s star rating. Because of the difficulty of that process, it’s prudent to check a hero’s skills beforehand to see if they’re worth investing in. Who knows – you might have someone who can do the job better at hand.
Upgrading skills is a different matter. While you can acquire new skills by unlocking new star rating levels, you’ll need manastones to increase their skill levels. The higher the skill’s level, the more manastones you need to level a skill once.
Manastones come from pulling duplicates of a hero. Alternately, you may earn (rarity) manastones. These can be exchanged for any manastone of a hero of that rarity, allowing you to use them as universal skill-up items. Do note that rarer manastones are harder to come across. You did upgrade your star fragment structure, right?
Liege Skills
Some hero skills aren’t used automatically on the battlefield. These skills are liege skills, incredibly potent active skills that are called in during combat.
Liege skills allow you to use abilities to push for game at a vital moment, patch up weaknesses in your own army, or unload a ton of hurt on your foes. As a rule of thumb, only unique or legendary heroes have a liege skill, and you can only equip 3 at a time. And while Princess Destina comes with her liege skill unlocked, other heroes need to hit level 20 to unlock the base level of their liege skill.
In any fight where you have manual control (mostly story-based PvE missions), you can activate a liege skill by tapping on it. In battles where you have no control, such as PvP, these skills are used automatically (if at all). You can also use some liege skills on the overworld.
Note that the wielder of the liege skill does not have to be the hero in combat, so you can use liege skills from your support heroes as well. However, you will still need to build up those heroes to improve their liege skill level!
Stronger Together
Unless you’re a leviathan, you’re not going to survive by yourself in an empire builder game. That’s why it’s important to find (or found) an alliance as soon as you can. One ruler alone may be strong, but many rulers joined together are a fearsome force to be reckoned with. Here’s a rundown on why you should join an alliance and what they can do for you.
Quick Tips:
- Alliance members can assist with most timed projects. Tap the gauntlet handshake bubble on top of a building to request help.
- Your ability to send and request help is affected by your embassy’s level.
- Alliances can rally together to take down boss monsters. These enemies give big prizes to everyone in an alliance, so participate whenever you can.
- Alliances have a shared technology tree. Anyone can contribute to this. The more you contribute, the more merit you receive.
- Merit can be spent in your alliance’s shop for some special goodies.
- Veteran alliances have experienced members that are usually very helpful and welcoming to newbies. Don’t be afraid to speak up if you have questions!
Alliance Assistance
Remember at the start of the game when you’d randomly get help from “a liege lord”? If you’re in an alliance, you can continue to avail of this assistance.
Any time you start a timed project while in an alliance, you can tap the gauntlet handshake bubble that appears above. This will forward a request for assistance to your alliance members. Whenever someone assists with a project, some of the timer is shaven off. It also costs *nothing* to help an alliance member, so be a friend and help anyone when they’ve got a project up – chances are they’ll do the same for you!
Note that your ability to send and receive assistance is tied to your embassy’s level.
Alliance Rallies
While out hunting monsters, you may have noticed bosses with combat power in the tens or hundreds of thousands. While a new lone lord will have difficulty taking that beastie down, you’ll have a much better chance of defeating it if you combine your forces with your alliance members via a rally. As I mentioned in the “Empire Infrastructure” section, maximum rally size is tied to your Operation Command’s level.
When an alliance member – usually an officer or designated marshal – begins a rally, you can send some of your armies to join it. At the end of the rally timer, all units that joined the rally will essentially become one gigantic super army, and thanks to the combined combat power of all its component parts, it can square off against even the toughest foes.
Most alliances regularly hold rallies to earn resources and prizes for all their members; yes, even those that don’t participate usually get something. However, a rally depends on teamwork, so be sure to help out whenever you can!
Alliance Technology
All alliances have a shared technology tree. This tech tree offers small, but wide-sweeping passive effects to all alliance members. Thus, the more members an alliance has, the bigger the bonuses they actually receive!
Any alliance member can contribute to a research project with either gems or basic resources. However, these projects require a truly gargantuan number of resources, either in in-game resources or premium currency. Because of this, coordination is a must – get in touch with your alliance via chat to find out what projects they’re focusing on.
Alliance Shops
Your contributions won’t go unnoticed. Active, helpful members often earn the respect of their peers. That, and they earn a lot more merit points than other members.
Alliance merit points can be spent in a special alliance shop, which holds various goodies including a peace shield if one of your officers buys one with your accumulated alliance points and puts it up for sale, making it one of the more reliable ways to keep your empire protected. The higher your alliance’s level, the more high-quality items will be put on sale, so keep helping your alliance members and contribute however you can – you will be rewarded!
Ask the Veterans
One often-overlooked advantage of joining an alliance is that you’ll be able to draw on the experience of hardened veterans. Empire builders like Grand Cross: Age of Titans are often very welcoming to new blood, and experienced veterans are often happy to share specific advice in their respective empire builder. Don’t be afraid to speak up!
To The Royal Castle!
The path to the Royal Castle – and home – is one fraught with peril and fearsome foes. Will you build your path on the ruins of your enemies, or will you climb that mountain together with your friends and allies? Only you can decide the path your empire will take, but one thing is for certain: it’s a long, long road.
And this wraps up our Grand Cross: Age of Titans beginner’s guide and I hope that after reading it, you now have a firmer grasp on what to do to become stronger and stake your claim on the world. If you have any suggestions on how to improve this guide or would like to share some of your own tips and tricks, the comment section below is open to all!