Top Troops Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Strengthen Your Units and Win Epic Battles

The kingdom is in ruins. The dark lord has triumphed. Defeated, we crawl back to fade into obscurity. But just when all hope seems lost, a miracle happens – we find a place yet untouched by the forces of evil. Saddle up. The fight has just begun.

Top Troops is part empire builder (well, empire reclaimer) and part merge/autobattler from Zynga. In Top Troops, you’ll step into the shoes of a commander working with your king to take back the realm from his EVIL TWIN (probably) BROTHER who, shockingly, has no administrative skills of his own and has left the kingdom to rot. To do that, you’ll need to build a fortress, make new allies, raise an army, and merge anything you can. Top Troops is available on the Google Play Store and the App Store.

Top Troops has an excellent in-game tutorial that will ease you into the game’s mechanics. If, however, you want to read up on them on your own, if you missed something because you were mashing buttons (we’ve all been there), or just want a taste of the game before deciding if it’s for you, you’ve come to the right place.

In this Top Troops beginner’s guide, we’ll be covering:

• A basic guide to your fortress – constructing buildings, annexing new territory, training new units.
• Understanding your units. Learning how to read, analyze, and break down each unit in your army will help you turn your guys from lone brawlers to a unified fighting force.
• Strengthening your units. Knowledge is power, yes, but brute force is also power. Let’s talk about how to bulk up your fighters to ensure they’re the best they can be.
• Where to get the multiple resources you’ll need to strengthen your army: quests, freebies, and other game modes.

Fortresses for Beginners

Even though we’ve lost the war, the dark lord has very kindly decided to just not squish us out of existence. Thanks to his mercy (or oversight), we can secure a new base from where we’ll launch our counterattack. Managing this base can be a tricky business, so here’s all you need to know about building our new base of operations.

Quick Tips:

• Always upgrade your Town Hall. Town Hall upgrades allow you to climb higher on the tech tree, unlock new buildings, increase maximum upgrade levels for all other buildings, and allows you to place more copies of buildings you already have.
• Resource generators and resource storage buildings should have second priority when it comes to upgrades.
• It’s a good idea to move your generators close together to make gathering your freebies easier.
• Always make sure your Training Camp is either making new units or being upgraded. The higher your Training Camp’s level, the better the units you can produce.
• Each construction or building upgrade project requires a dedicated builder. You have one builder by default.
• Try to annex as much territory as you can so you have more space for units and resources.
• Claiming new territory tends to yield chests, which grant a random assortment of units when opened. You can either open them as is or merge these chests to get better rates.

The Town Hall

While Top Troops isn’t strictly an empire builder, it still has one important factor it shares with those types of games – the importance of the Town Hall.

The Town Hall not only serves as your erstwhile seat of power but also as your technological center. The higher your Town Hall’s level, the more buildings you unlock, and they’ll also be able to reach higher maximum upgrade levels, vastly improving their efficiency. You’ll also be able to place more copies of buildings you already own, increasing the productivity of your base.

Resource Generators

At the beginning of the game, you’ll be prompted to put down resource generators, such as the Gold Mine and the Squad Coin Mine. These are key structures that will periodically create free resources for you to collect. You’ll also be prompted to build storage facilities for these currencies. Remember to upgrade them too – better mines mean bigger and better returns for your time, while better storage facilities allow you to hold more of their respective resource.

It’s a good idea to put these facilities beside each other for faster and more efficient collection. To move a structure, long tap on it, then drag it to its new position.

Training Camp

The Training Camp is a very important structure as it allows you to generate units that you can merge or use as you see fit.

At the Training Camp, you can pay gold and resources to generate units of a particular rarity. In the beginning, you can only train a random assortment of common units, but as you upgrade your training camp, you’ll get more detailed training programs as well as the opportunity to create higher-rarity units. Your takeaway: keep the Training Camp upgraded and running at all times.

Builders

Just like other empire builders, Top Troops’ building upgrade system is tied to builders.

You have only one builder by default. While this won’t matter in the early game due to very fast timers, keep the limit of “one thing at a time” in mind as upgrades and construction start to take longer.

Annexing New Territory

If we’re to use this island as our base of operations, we’ll need to expand. This is done by annexing new territory.

As your level increases, more territories become available for annexation. These can be identified by the plus symbol and tag above them. To claim these territories for your use, you need to fight off the forces of darkness lurking in there. After that, they’ll flee, and the land (as well as any treasures it was housing) will be yours to use.

…believe me, you will need a lot of space in this game.

Chests

As you claim new territory, you’ll gather chests that contain a random assortment of units.

Opening a chest gives you units of variable rarity and quality – the higher a chest’s quality, the better the chance for rarer units. You can see the rates of each chest when you tap on it (no, that doesn’t automatically open it).

Chests can be merged to improve their rarity. Merging three of the same type of chest yields one of a higher tier while merging 5 at once results in a merge bonus that grants extra goodies. Open or merge chests at your discretion.

Understanding Your Army

If you’re to have any hope at all of taking back the kingdom from the forces of evil, you’ll need to raise a competent, organized fighting force. You’ll need to learn how to read each unit’s strengths, weaknesses, abilities, factions, and so on if you want to make well-informed decisions and devise effective strategies to ensure you always come out on top.

Quick Tips:

• Each unit has stats, and understanding these stats is key to recognizing a unit’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Each unit has access to several skills. Skills are used without any user input.
• Units have rarity. Rarer units are almost always better than more common ones.
• Each unit belongs to a faction, which serves as Top Troops’ elemental weakness system. The weakness cycle goes like this: Militia (Blue) beats Hunter (Red), and Hunter beats Wildling (Green). Infernal and Divine are strong against each other.
• Units attacking a faction they’re strong against deal 30% more damage; units attacking a faction that they’re weak against deal 20% less damage.
• Each unit has a class, which helps you determine what that unit’s role is.
• Keep a unit’s role in mind when building your formation. Squishy damage dealers should be sheltered by tough frontliners, and the further back a unit is, the longer before it can engage in combat.

Unit Stats

Each unit has numbers that dictate how it does in certain areas, and it’s vitally important to understand each unit’s statistics. By knowing a unit’s statistics, you can not only determine its strengths and weaknesses but also see how that unit meshes with its owner’s army – and whether it will be an asset or hindrance to you.

To the right of a unit’s profile in the Library are its Health and Attack stats, but if you want a more detailed look, you can tap the Stats button on the right to bring up a larger, more detailed readout.

The stats in Top Troops are:

• Army Power – how much combat power (an estimation of a unit’s strengths based on its stats, tier, and skill levels) each instance of this unit adds to your army power. Two swordsmen with an army power of 100 would give you 200 army power.
• Attack – attack power of this unit.
• Attack Speed – the interval between this unit’s attacks. A lower attack speed means a unit attacks faster.
• Critical Chance – the chance that a unit’s attacks deal critical damage…
• Critical Damage – …and the multiplier for the damage of critical hits. A Critical Damage of 2 means an attack that does 100 damage does (100*2) 200 damage.
• Range – how far this unit can attack from. The higher this is, the further a unit’s attack range. Large, towering melee units tend to have more range than other melee fighters.
• Health – health points. How much damage this unit can take before it goes down. This refers to the health of the entire unit: a unit with 3 members that has 2000 health only has 2000 health, not 6000!
• Population – how many members this unit is composed of.
• Defense – percent-based damage reduction.
• Movement Speed – how fast this unit moves. Cavalry units move faster, while large, heavy units move slower.
• Block Chance – the percent-based chance to negate incoming ranged attacks.
• Immunities – lists the immunities that a unit has, whether it’s to specific damage types or status debuffs.

Skills

Each unit also has access to a few skills that help define its role and help it on the battlefield.

Skills can range from passive buffs to triggered effects and even automatic nukes. The best part about unit skills in Top Troops is that you don’t need to do anything to get your units to use their skills – they’ll do it entirely on their own!

Rarity

Each unit also has a rarity attached to it.

Rarer units are superior to their more common counterparts not only due to higher stats and more skills but also because they have access to powerful Talent trees – more on that in the “Building A Fighting Force” section.

In ascending order, the rarities are Common, Rare, Epic, and Legendary.

Factions

Each unit belongs to a different faction. Factions are Top Troops’ equivalent to the rock-paper-scissors element system.

Remember: Blue militia beats Red hunter, Red hunter beats Green wildling, and Green wildling beats Blue militia. I tend to focus on the colors as they remind me more of elements; red fire is strong against green earth but loses to blue water.

There are two other factions besides these three, namely Divine and Infernal. These two factions are strong against each other.

Weakness bonuses in Top Troops are pretty big. Attacking an enemy you’re strong against results in 30% more damage while attacking a foe that’s strong against you results in 20% less damage. Make sure to exploit this system and build a variety of units that can effectively counter faction bonuses!

Unit Archetypes

Each unit belongs to a certain archetype, which helps you determine what its combat role is.

The archetypes in Top Troops are as follows:

• Melee units are generic frontline warriors that use a blend of offense, defense, and raw survivability when squaring off with their foes.
• Frontline units are matchless melee defenders who have no offense whatsoever. They’re excellent when paired with ranged or mage units.
• Assassins are quick, tricky combatants that have a ton of offensive prowess, at the cost of having almost no survivability on their own.
• Ranged units excel at picking off their foes from a distance. They tend to have lower survivability than dedicated frontline fighters, so they’ll need some sort of protection.
• Mages are powerful casters that excel at dealing damage and inflicting status effects from a distance.
• Support units are incredibly varied, but they all share the same trait of making battle easier for their allies, whether that’s via providing buffs or inflicting debuffs.

Formations and Scouting Enemy Units

Archetypes are very important not only because they help you determine a unit’s place in your army, but also how that unit should be placed in battle.

Logically, you’ll want your bulky Frontline and Melee units in front, with your damage dealers following suit. However, be sure to change your formation to adapt to your foes – some enemies, for example, have units that will attack your backrow as soon as the battle starts.

This is where a bit of knowledge comes in handy. By tapping on an enemy unit before battle starts, you can see not only its stats, but also its class, faction, and any skills it may have. This will allow you to prepare your countermeasures, especially if they have skills with tricky targeting!

Building A Fighting Force

Yes, knowledge is power, but power is also power. You may have read up on your units’ strengths and weaknesses, but unless your guys are sufficiently beefed up, they’ll still lose to foes that outmatch them in sheer brute strength. Here’s a quick breakdown of the many methods you can use to ensure your fighters are at the top of their game.

Quick Tips:

• The easiest way to raise a unit’s stats is by leveling it up. Leveling a unit up costs Squad Coins (the blue ones with a helmet on them) and occasionally other materials.
• Units have level caps. These can be surpassed by merging them.
• You can merge similar units (minimum 3) to create a unit with higher stats and more members.
• Merging is a tactical choice – you can either run with 5 tier 1 units or 1 tier 2 unit. Always keep your strategy and circumstances in mind before mindlessly merging your units.
• Be sure to raise the skill levels of the units you frequently use as those can give you a massive edge in battle.
• Epic and Legendary units have access to a Talent tree, depending on their archetype. The Talent tree gives potent passive bonuses that can vastly increase the strength of a unit.

Leveling Up

Now, let’s bump those stats up. The easiest way to make your guys stronger is by leveling them up.

Leveling a unit up is easy – just go to their page in the Library and mash the level up button in the lower right of the screen. Each level grants all units of that type a minor increase to their stats – nothing fancy or exciting, but always necessary.

Levels cost Squad Coins – the blue ones with a helmet on them – and occasionally require other materials to surpass certain breakpoints.

Note that when you level up a unit, you’re not leveling up an individual unit – you’re upgrading a unit type. Thus, all units of that class (say, all Archers or all Swordsmen) will benefit from levels. The higher a unit’s tier (aka the more times it’s been merged), the higher its level cap.

Finally, the stats that appear when you level up a unit refer to the highest tier of that unit that you own. This means that units of a lower tier get less of a bonus than what may first appear. Don’t worry though – you’re still strengthening your units.

Merging

Merging your units is a great way of consolidating your forces. Troops fighting together as a single unit makes them much more organized and effective.

Merging is done by lining up at least 3 identical of the same tier (star rating) and dragging one of them on top of the other. You can also merge 5 or 6 units at a time; merging 5 at a time yields a merge bonus, meaning you get bonus yields from that fusion.

However, merging is always a tactical choice. For example, would you rather have 5 tier 1 Swordsmen or 1 tier 2 Swordsman? In essence, you’re trading field presence for empowering a single unit. Consider your circumstances carefully before mindlessly merging units.

Since we’re on the topic of merging, let me take this opportunity to remind you that you can also merge chests and resources. Seriously, do it.

Skill Levels

Another quick and easy way to strengthen your units is by raising their skill levels.

To start upgrading skill levels, you first need to reach account level 9. After that, simply head to the unit’s Library page, tap “Skills”, pay the fee (gold and Soulstones), and bam – new skill level. You can get more Soulstones by participating in Ancient Battles; more on those in the “Sourcing Materials” section.

Note that skills are unlocked by reaching certain unit levels but are not automatically strengthened. You can also only increase skill levels once you’ve unlocked all of a unit’s skills!

Talents

Rare and Epic units have an additional advantage over their more common peers – they have access to a Talent tree that provides them with a lot of passive boosts.

Unlike skill levels, talents can pretty much be leveled from the get-go. The catch here is that you’ll need special materials that are only unlocked in a special game mode down the road. For now, don’t worry about these – just try to get Rare or Epic units to build up.

Note that a unit needs to be at least level 40 to start investing in its talent tree.

Sourcing Materials

Even in these desperate times, nothing is free. You’ll still need money and other resources to ensure that your units are the very best they can be. Here’s a quick rundown on where to get the various materials you need to get your Top Troops base up and running smoothly.

Quick Tips:

• I’ve included a reference sheet on where to get the various resources in the game in case you just need a quick peek.
• Always make sure to do your quests as they give a ton of experience points and resources.
• Don’t forget to claim your quest rewards from the daily bar!
• The Royal Season is Top Troops‘ battle pass system. There’s a free and paid version.
• Adventure Mode forms the bulk of Top Troops gameplay.
• Each Adventure Mode stage has 3 stars up for grabs: one for clearing it, one for finishing with > 40% team health, and another for finishing at > 60% health.
• Stars earned are added to a meter. You can get specific rewards at certain meter levels.
• You can replay Adventure Mode stages for more drops.
• You can also sweep Adventure Mode stages you’ve earned 3 stars in. This will cost an auto-win ticket on top of the usual energy cost.
• Ancient Battles are raid bosses that require you to be in a clan before you can participate.
• The more damage you do to a raid boss, the higher your placement in your clan’s leaderboard and the more prizes you’ll get the next day.
• You get the most prizes if your clan actually kills the raid boss, so try to join an active clan with a lot of members.
• Fight in the Arena to gain chests and Trophies (arena points). More trophies mean a higher ladder rank and a better chance at getting higher-rarity chests whenever you win.
• PvP fights also give you Arena medals with which you can buy supplies. You need to be at Bronze III or higher to access the Arena Market.
• The merchant north of your Town Hall allows you to watch an ad for some free resources, including gems. This has a 2-hour cooldown.
• Tap on the yellow motes of light that fall from the sky while in your fortress. These are Divine Particles and will yield resources on one of your tiles when tapped.
• Don’t forget to claim your once-a-day free pack from the shop.
• Check the stories of units you’ve collected for a small number of gems.

Reference Sheet

If all you want is a quick reference sheet for the game’s various resources (at least in the very early game), look no further:

Material	Where Do I Get More of It?
Player EXP	Completing stages, doing quests (including dailies)
Gold	Completing stages, doing quests, sometimes found as pickups, the gold mine.
Squad Coins	Completing stages, doing quests, sometimes found as pickups, the Squad Coin mine.
Units	Chests, annexing new territory, trained from the Training Camp.
Chests	Quests (activity bar), Arena fights, annexing territory.
Soulstones	Ancient Battle.
Materials (Training units, leveling up, skill upgrades, etc.)	Adventure mode stages.

Quests

Every game has a cleverly disguised to-do list, and that’s done by hiding said tasks in the form of quests.

Quests (I know they’re called “missions” in the game, but old habits die hard) are a fantastic way of bulking up your army and resource pool in the early game. On top of that, they’re also an easily accessible source of valuable experience points which you’ll need to level up your account and unlock new features.

Quests are divided into daily or lifetime (“all missions”) quests. Daily quests, as the name suggests, are repeatable daily tasks meant to help you slowly make progress in Top Troops. Lifetime quests, on the other hand, are like achievements; they’re milestones that reward you for performing certain deeds. Both of these are very important but remember that daily quests disappear if you don’t complete them, while lifetime quests are here to stay.

Finally, don’t forget to claim your daily prizes for completing your daily missions. Each completed mission fills one section of the bar; fill it up all the way and you’ll get some free Essential Summon Shards!

Royal Season

Top Troops also has a battle pass, called the Royal Season.

As you complete missions for the Royal Season (which you can see on the same screen as your other missions), your battle pass gains experience. Each time it levels up, you can collect some freebies, whether you’re using the free or paid pass!

Adventure Mode

Adventure Mode forms the bulk of Top Troops‘ gameplay. In this mode, you’ll guide your army through the land, liberating it from the forces of darkness and finding allies to help you take the kingdom back.

Each chapter in Adventure Mode has 3 star marks for you to earn: 1 just for clearing it, another if you finish with more than 40% of your army’s health remaining, and yet another for finishing with 60% or more health left. These stars are then added up to a meter that’s exclusive to each chapter – the more stars you earn, the bigger the prizes you can redeem!

Finally, you can replay any Adventure Mode stage you’ve already cleared. You can also sweep any stage you’ve gotten 3 stars in, though this also costs you an auto-win ticket per sweep on top of the regular stamina cost.

Ancient Battles

Ancient Battles are essentially raid bosses. In an Ancient Battle, you’ll be pitted against a nigh-impossible foe, and it’s your job to damage it as much as you can before it inevitably defeats you.

Ancient Battles are only available to players who have joined a clan (hint, hint, nudge, nudge). Once you’re in a clan, tap on the Ancient Battle icon to participate in the current brawl. The more damage you to do the raid boss, the higher you’ll rank in your clan’s leaderboard – and the bigger your prizes the next day. Of course, the biggest prizes come from actually felling the beast, so try to find an active clan.

You can challenge an Ancient Battle once every 4 hours, and you can store up to 3 tickets at once.

The Arena

Even at the end of the world, we need to make time to smack each other in the face, because it’s fun. And profitable.

PvP battles in Top Troops are conducted in the Arena. Here, you’ll be able to participate in asynchronous PvP against other commanders in a bid to see who’s the best. There’s more than pride at stake though – there are Trophies to be earned and Arena Medals to spend!

Each time you win a battle in the Arena, you earn some Trophies. Or to be more precise, you steal some from your opponent. The more Trophies you have, the higher up the PvP ladder you climb, and the higher your rank, the better the odds of getting rarer chests per victory.

When you visit the Arena, you’ll be presented with a group of five random players. Tap on any of them to fight them. Note that fighting someone costs an Arena Ticket; these regenerate over time and will not be consumed unless you tap the button to start the battle. While we’re on the topic, don’t forget to claim your reward for participating in a certain number of PvP fights per day:

If your opponents are too strong or you don’t want to deal with their teams, you can opt to refresh your five opponents. This can be done for free once every 30 minutes, though you can also skip the line by paying gems.

Offense is only half of the PvP equation. You’ll not only need to build a powerful army to take Trophies, but you’ll also need to set up a defensive team to ensure that your hard-earned Trophies are safe from other players. While the game will force you to set a defense squad the first time you visit the arena, don’t forget to update this squad as you grow stronger.

Finally, each PvP fight gives you a certain amount of Arena Medals, which can be spent in the Arena Market. Note that you must be at least Bronze Rank III to access this feature!

Free Stuff

North of your town hall is an opportunist merchant who will sometimes have offers for you.

Tap on the merchant to see what he has for grabs. The good news is that it’s technically free – all you need to do is watch an ad. Note that watching an ad for freebies causes the merchant to go into a 2-hour cooldown, so try to time this for maximum gains.

Divine Particles

See those yellow motes of light that sometimes drift by while in your fortress?

Those are actually free resources called Divine Particles. Tap on them to add them to your territory as a collectible resource. You will, however, need space for these items. It’s your call whether you want to pop them immediately or merge them for a bigger payoff, like chests – but I would suggest merging them as the payout is better.

Note that popping six of these a day is a daily quest.

Free Shop Pack?!

Yes, there’s a free daily shop pack that you can claim. Just swing by the shop and claim your freebies. Not much, but it’s something, and you can watch up to 2 ads to increase your gains.

Like popping Divine Particles, claiming your shop freebie is also a daily quest.

Unit Stories

Each new unit you unlock comes with a freebie in the form of stories.

Whenever you get a new unit, don’t forget to swing by its story page in the Library as there’s a small amount of gems waiting to be claimed.

And The Fight Continues!

The fight for the kingdom won’t be won in a day. After all, evil very nearly won. But it has not won completely, and while we live, we’ll continue fighting for the freedom of our homeland, even if we have to claw our way up to do it.

That concludes my beginner’s guide to Top Troops, and I hope I was able to guide you through the basics of reestablishing the kingdom and mustering an army to fight back against the forces of darkness. If you have any suggestions on how to improve this beginner’s guide or are feeling generous and want to share some of your personal tips and tricks, let me know in the comment section below!