Top 10 Tips for Game of War

New players in Game of War: Fire Age have a lot to learn. Game of War isn't exactly an easy game to understand. With that in mind, I've assembled my top 10 tips for Game of War. If you've just started out and you have no idea what you should be doing, this Game of War guide is for you! Read on for my Game of War tips!

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# Tip 10: Always be Building

Game of War has a ton of buildings to construct and upgrade. Chances are there's always a new building or upgrade you could be putting your construction time towards. Every time you log in, make sure you're building something! Even if you're just upgrading a farm to the next level, it starts to add up over time.

Especially at the low levels, try to pick buildings to upgrade based on when you'll be playing next. You can only upgrade or build one building at a time, (in CoC parlance, we'd say "you only have one builder") so try to maximize the amount you can get built while you're away. For example, if you're going to sleep after playing, try to start something that takes a long time to construct.

Pro Tip The Gymnos and Storehouse are both important to upgrade early. The Gymnos increases your gained Hero XP, which benefits you more the earlier you take it. The Storehouse protects your resources from attack, which is always a good thing.

# Tip 9: Pick the Right Upgrades

At the Academy, you can level up various aspects of your empire. In Game of War, there's just a ton of upgrades to be researched here, they all take a long time, and in total it can take years to unlock them all at the default speed.

Pro Tip Some hero gear can boost the research speed - chalices, for example. Try to prioritize crafting some of these at your forge early in the game, and you'll save a lot of time!

So what should you prioritize? Keep in mind that you can't upgrade further down the research tree without doing the earlier upgrades first. However, each additional point in an upgrade generally only adds 1% to the total ability.

Thus, from my perspective, it makes the most sense to get the minimum levels possible on the early research before working on upgrades lower in the tree. You can always come back to earlier upgrades, but there are a lot of things that are locked behind weeks worth of research that you'll miss out on if you don't try to hit the bottom of the tech tree as fast as possible.

# Tip 8: Army Training Takes Forever

Unlike in faster-paced games like Clash of Clans, in Game of War your army training times are totally insane. The amount of troops you can hold in your base is way, way higher, and the training times are stretched to the max as well.

When playing Game of War, you are going to spend a lot of time training troops. Here's yet another tip for every time you log in - make sure you're checking in on your army! It can take more than a couple of hours to train even 1,000 troops, so time not spent training is time wasted.

Pro Tip Bear in mind, though, that your standing army eats food - so make sure you're producing enough to feed everyone, or you'll go bankrupt! If you've trained more than your farms can support, the number beside your food count will flash red to indicate that you need to keep an eye on your food, build more farms, or dismiss some of your army.

Reddit Suggests... SavageKitty adds: If you wear a Upkeep Reduction helmet / Large Food Upkeep Reduction, you can have 0 upkeep with 100m troops.

# Tip 7: Keep Moving!

We've just established that Game of War: Fire Age armies are costly in terms of time and resources. Knowing that, you'll want to protect your investment in troops.

Armies parked at your base are vulnerable to enemy attacks. Basically, you're going to get attacked for resources often, and if you lose resources AND your army investment, that's a double whammy of bad news.

The easiest way to keep your army safe is to keep them on the move. You can send them out to distant lands and keep them away from your base for hours on end if you so choose. Depending on how hardcore you are about checking in, it can sometimes be best to send them to an ally's town, or prepare a bogus attack on a distant enemy that you plan to cancel before it arrives.

If you're not that hardcore, you can at least send them to resource sites nearby, which kicks them out of your base for a short time and gives you some bonus resources to boot.

Pro Tip Check in the "Report" tab of the "Mail" screen to see how your army did while they were out. Game of War doesn't do a great job of informing you about their progress otherwise.

Reddit Suggests... SavageKitty adds: Usually Athena gifts with gold can provide you a shield that can last almost 24/7. If you can't pop on too often think about keeping your SH shielded.

# Tip 6: Find a Good Alliance

Alliances are key to Game of War: Fire Age. Obviously, a solid tip for the game is to get in one as soon as possible. However, being a part of a good alliance makes a big difference compared to being in one that's just mediocre. What makes a good Game of War: Fire Age alliance? That depends on how you play.

For instance, if you're planning on spending a lot of real-world cash on gold and other powerup packs, you probably will want to be in an alliance where other people are doing the same thing. That way, you're all sharing the free alliance gifts that come with purchases. You don't want to be the one guy in an alliance who is hardcore enough to spend money, and have everyone else mooching off of you.

On the other hand, as profitable as it might be to be a moocher in a clan where everyone else is constantly buying stuff, it can lead to a lot of pressure to conform in super hardcore alliances. In fact, it's possible to get kicked out of alliances that spend a lot of money if you're not willing to pony up the cash. Thus, if you're a player who isn't planning on paying, you might want to find a more chill alliance to call home.

No matter your play style, good Game of War alliances are active - that means they're online when you are, and they're willing to help alliance goals and each other frequently. Give a new alliance a day or so, ask questions, and see how they react. If they're not an active alliance that is willing to help, ditch them and find a better one!

Five Game of War tips down, five more Game of War tips left to go! Without further ado, let's continue the countdown of my top 10 tips for Game of War!

# Tip 5: What is Your Quest?

Quests are another easy thing to take advantage of in Game of War. The basic tip here is to always be running quests. They're super easy to start - just tap one! The rewards tend to scale with the amount of time it takes to complete the quest, and at low levels they can be pretty meaningless, but every little bit counts in my opinion.

There are several different quest groups available. The daily quests only benefit your town, and they change over (you guessed it!) daily. Alliance quests give rewards that benefit both you and your alliance, so being a good Game of War alliance member means doing these as much as you can. VIP quests are only for people with active VIP benefits, which we'll cover later on.

Finally, there are Empire Quests, which are just simple goals for your base. At the low levels, you'll always have an "active" one of these that you're supposed to be shooting for.

Pro Tip There's no reason why you have to do whatever this one quest says - in fact, most things you build, train, upgrade, etc, have corresponding Empire Quests. If you don't like the one that's currently active, just ignore it!

# Tip 4: A Dark Energy Flows

Game of War also features special dungeons where you can attack enemies in return for Dark Energy. Each attack makes the enemy drop an item, and killing an enemy gives you a chance at even more loot.

For the most part, the only way to make progress in these dungeons is to use Dark Energy, which is a pretty rare resource at the low levels. Sometimes you might find some, but mostly you won't. It sometimes drops from attacking the monsters in the dungeon, which can keep your dungeon attacks going temporarily.

There is one free attack in the dungeon per day - when it's ready, a little red lightning bolt will show up on the screen in line with the free chest icons. Tap it to go to the dungeon, use your free attack, and get your free loot!

# Tip 3: WTF VIP BBQ

VIP is one of those things that Game of War doesn't really explain. You have a VIP level, which you can raise with VIP points. You get VIP points from certain items, and from logging in daily. Your VIP level determines what sort of benefits you get whenever your VIP is active. You can see your current VIP level and your benefits by tapping on the VIP icon in the upper left of the main game screen.

Without your VIP being active, your VIP level is effectively useless. However, once you activate your VIP benefits, they stay on for some length of time depending on how they were activated. These benefits include production and speed bonuses that reduce most of the game's timers. They also boost the amount of time you're allowed to skip completely.

Pro Tip One thing you might not know is that leveling up your VIP level actually activates VIP benefits for a little while. If you stockpile VIP points, you can get a short burst of VIP to go with them!

# Tip 2: Use Your Items

Over time, you're going to acquire a wide array of items, which all end up in the "Items" tab, under "My Items." None of this stuff is available for your base until it's been used on this screen.

As you level up your Stronghold, new chests will unlock for free in the "Treasures" section. These can be redeemed at any time for small bonuses that can help you get a leg up every time you rank your Stronghold up.

Pro Tip Speed Ups can be helpful for reducing the amount of time any of your builds/upgrades/trainings/etc are taking. You can use small Speed Ups in concert with your VIP benefits to clear out a lot of smaller upgrades.

Resource items are among the most common, and you might consider saving these if you can. While they're in item form, they can't be looted by invading armies. Once they've been added to your stockpile, though, they're fair game. Thus, it makes sense to save them for right before you need them to get over the resource hump of a new upgrade. You can use them and then immediately spend the resources, which sinks them into your base and keeps them safe permanently.

Reddit Suggests... SavageKitty adds: Don't keep too much resources opened if you aren't shielded, larger players are constantly looking for weaker players to grab resources from!

One weird item is the Treasure Map. You'll find these occasionally, but they're not in the items interface. Instead, you'll have to go into "More" and then scroll down to the bottom to find "Treasure Map." Opening one of these will highlight a treasure on the world map, which you can then send an army to excavate.

# Tip 1: Open Athena's Chest

This is quite possibly the best advice I have for new Game of War players. You should make sure the notifications for Athena's Chest are turned on, and you should open it ASAP after it shows up. These rewards are extremely powerful for new players, and they expire if they're not claimed.

It's possible to get dozens of chests with rare items from Athena, or massive speed boosting items. Even gold sometimes drops in Athena's chest! Make sure you check in with Game of War frequently enough that you can pick these items up before they go away, and you'll be on your way to profit!

That's My Top 10!

That's my top 10 tips for Game of War: Fire Age new players - thanks for reading! No doubt I'm missing something you think is important, so if you're a Game of War pro, I'd love to hear your tips as well! Who knows, maybe you'll make it into our next Game of War guide!