New Kingdom Playbook
Day-0 doctrine: build order, research routes, farm accounts, and the road to City Hall 25 — with the real bills attached.
The road to City Hall 25
Reaching CH25 costs roughly 246M food, 246M wood and 107M stone — about 600M total — plus a Master’s Blueprint, and the curve is almost flat until ~CH18, then explodes: the final three levels are the bulk of the whole climb. CH25 alone is ~200M resources.
- In gems
- 200,950 gems
CH25 cumulative: ~600M resources. The endgame’s quiet gem sink: sixteen buildings each need a Master’s Blueprint (~2,000–2,500 gems each if bought) for their 24→25 step, and the Castle needs 20,095 Books of Covenant (≈200,950 gems if bought at 10/book — farm barbarian forts instead, starting early).
What would this cost in dollars? → Gem Value calculator- The Wall is the constant hidden gate: it must sit one level below City Hall at every step — budget it inside every CH push.
- Milestone levels to rush: CH10 (Iron Age, free Civ Change), CH11 (3rd march), CH16 (Dark Age, T3), CH17 (4th march), CH21 (Feudal, T4), CH22 (5th march), CH25 (T5).
- Stone is the binding constraint late — the 82.2/82.2/36M split repeats across the upper levels, so plan stone gathering ahead.
Farm accounts: the doctrine
A farm is a second city feeding your main with resources, event gifts, and — in war — disposable garrison troops. Make one on day one; two to four is the sweet spot for one active player.
- Civilisation: start China for build speed, then use the free Civ Change at CH10 — France is the best all-round gatherer (free Joan of Arc: +25% gather speed, +25% load). Single-resource farms: Rome (food), France (wood), Byzantium (stone), Japan (+5% all).
- Cap farms at CH17: it unlocks the 4th march queue and is the point of diminishing returns.
- Build: Trading Post (cuts transfer tax), Storehouse, production buildings, Economy research only. Skip military research and big hospitals.
- Gatherers to level 37 (completes the gathering tree): Joan of Arc, Constance, Sarka, Cleopatra, Gaius Marius. On a dedicated farm, spending legendary gathering sculptures is fine.
- Below Trading Post 7 the tax is steep — pull troops out and plunder your own farm instead: faster, and no troops die on either side.
- Tooling: BlueStacks Instance Manager + Multi-Instance Sync makes 2–4 farms manageable; keep all accounts in one alliance for help and transfers.
What to buy — and what never to buy
Raw gem packs are the worst value in the game (~210–250 gems/$). The Growth Fund (~$14.99 → 81,000 gems as City Hall climbs, ≈5,400 gems/$) and the 30-Day Gem Supply (~$9.99 → ~19,500/month, ≈1,950 gems/$) dwarf everything else — roughly an order of magnitude better than raw packs.
- F2P / low-spend path: Growth Fund + 30-Day Gem Supply if you spend at all; save gems for More Than Gems and Wheel of Fortune; push VIP to 10 (a free legendary sculpture every day). Never buy raw gems for speedups, resource packs, or shop refreshes.
- First $0.99 goes to the First Recharge Bonus: Minamoto plus doubled gems — the highest-priority first purchase.
- Spender additions: King’s Coronation, Writer-of-History multi-packs, equipment-material bundles — timed to Recharge-Reward events to double-dip.
Sites advertising 20–30% discounts use account-login delivery and carry real account-security risk. Prices and bundle contents also shift with updates — treat published numbers as directional.
The routes, step by step
KvK Building Priority
- For
- A support-alliance account heading into a war season.
- Prioritises
- March queues, garrison survival, hospital capacity, rally cap.
- Trades away
- Cosmetic and economy buildings until post-season.
City Hall
March queues (CH11/17/22) and tier gates (CH16/21/25); more queues = more rallies fed.
≈600M RSS cumulative to 25; CH25 alone ≈200M + a Master's Blueprint.
Wall
One level below City Hall always (the hidden gate); drives garrison survival.
Tracks CH costs; budget it inside every CH push.
Hospital — THE KvK building
Capacity separates wounded from dead; KvK doubles capacity but base level decides overflow.
Cheap relative to retraining: two hospital levels cost less than 5,000 lost T4s.
Academy
Gates all research and the T5 climb; no research runs during its upgrade — schedule upgrades between big nodes.
Castle
Rally capacity scales with level (max rally cap ≈ 2.0M) — the support alliance's force multiplier.
- In gems
- 200,950 gems
20,095 Books of Covenant to 25 (5,000 for 24→25 alone) ≈ 200,950 gems if bought at 10/book — farm barbarian forts instead, starting now.
What would this cost in dollars? → Gem Value calculatorWatchtower / Storehouse / Trading Post / Siege Workshop
Frontline survival / raid protection / farm-feed tax / CH prerequisite.
- In gems
- 36,000 gems
Sixteen buildings each need a Master's Blueprint (~2,000–2,500 gems each if bought) for their 24→25 step — the endgame's quiet gem sink (≈32,000–40,000 gems total).
What would this cost in dollars? → Gem Value calculatorEconomy Research (any account)
- For
- Every account, main or farm — these four pay for themselves.
- Prioritises
- Build & research speed before everything else.
- Trades away
- Nothing — this is the universal opening.
Masonry
+15% building speed — do this first.
Writing
+10% research speed — cuts all future research.
Engineering
+35% construction speed — stacks with Masonry to ~50% (trims roughly a month and a half from the CH25 climb).
Mathematics
+15% research speed, then all-in on gathering speed, load, and production.
General Building Order
- For
- Every account climbing toward CH25.
- Prioritises
- City Hall velocity, prerequisites in parallel, milestone levels.
- Trades away
- Everything cosmetic.
Rush City Hall each time it's available
Spend universal speedups on the City Hall, not other buildings.
Pre-build prerequisites in parallel
While the CH timer runs: the Wall (always one below CH) plus the specific building each level demands. Favourite the in-game CH-requirements mail to plan ahead.
Economy buildings before military early
Resource production, Storehouse, Trading Post — so your economy funds the climb; on farms, skip hospital/military buildings.
Prioritise milestone levels
CH10 (Iron Age, free Civ Change), CH11 (3rd march), CH16 (Dark Age, T3), CH17 (4th march — farm cap), CH21 (Feudal, T4), CH22 (5th march), CH25 (T5).
Late game: pivot to Castle + Academy
Every building to 25 for Academy 25, and farm Books of Covenant for the Castle well in advance.
Alliance help on every timer
Request help on every build and research — the only zero-cost speedup in the game.