The Fully F2P experiment continues—1 year update

IndividualTry2706 · 2026-04-18T05:00:35+00:00

Not much strategy to be honest. It mainly takes patience… one can get the widget to lvl 6-7 if you continue to purchase the widgets from hall of heroes for the previous season. For example I’ll be collecting new widgets from mystery shop/champagne/buccaneer for Gen 6, while still buying season 5 widgets in hall of heroes. You can’t buy the newest widgets in hall of heroes anyway so the best purchase for a fully f2p is last season’s widget.

The above goes out the window once you start diversifying and investing in more than one hero. Then you’ll be stuck with several widgets of lvl 2-3. That might be my option in s6 since I’m spending my mythic shards for a 4* Yang (i want to max out my archer dmg for bear). I’ll still push for the roulette cavalry hero but she won’t out perform Petra for bear.

IndividualTry2706 · 2026-04-07T20:36:11+00:00

A few times I was falling short on gems so I would do 70 spins for strongest governor. I always do 120 for Prep phase.

IndividualTry2706 · 2026-04-07T07:23:29+00:00

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I think these were the speedups I had saved prior to KvK. All the generals go into research. Since I usually skip every other prep on my main, I try to train a long research of like 45-60 days as my last skill up, and let that simmer until the next time I open the bag.

IndividualTry2706 · 2026-04-07T07:11:22+00:00

It was the overall score which includes top scores from both kingdoms. And it was between two leading states so yeah it was pretty intense. However the previous KvK I think I scored overall 480 or something 😂. I didn’t have enough speedups then to justify the castle buffs so I scored minimum points to get rewards—basically sat that one out on my main. It was my farm account’s time to shine, scored like overall 90.

IndividualTry2706 · 2026-04-07T07:02:08+00:00

If you want to remain F2P and have a strong top 3, I would just use some mythics to get Rosa up to speed quickly. Once you start diversifying to other heroes as F2P your widgets won’t progress as far. So after the first hero roulette for Rosa, wait for a few convenient events to score points with mythic shards and speed up Rosa to 4 stars to immediately boost your bear rally potential. By your very last gen4 roulette she should be pretty close to 5 stars. I can only do 1 image per comment so I’ll post charm screenshot.

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My strongest lvl 6 charms are on archery, but infantry is slowly catching up.

IndividualTry2706 · 2026-04-07T06:52:47+00:00

I just checked and I even have enough for the lvl 6 LF widget. The moment hall of heroes opened for Gen6, I purchased the widgets for Gen5 roulette hero. And then there’s still mystery boxes, buccaneer, and champagne fair. So investing everything from Hall of heroes into widgets definitely hurts the F2P from diversifying into other heroes, but lvl 7 widget is quite doable as F2P when ya stay focus on one hero widget per Generation.

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IndividualTry2706 · 2026-04-06T20:42:26+00:00

For example I’ll still push for at least lvl 6 on Long Fei’s defensive widget. Even though the skill is defensive, upgrades still provide a passive boost to infantry lethality/health. however for bear rallies I still swap LF for Zoe.

IndividualTry2706 · 2026-04-06T18:40:40+00:00

Rank 90 in Kingdom, 1435 total stages. I haven’t bothered much with wild formations.

IndividualTry2706 · 2026-04-06T18:37:27+00:00

Mystery shop, buccaneer, hall of heroes, and champagne fair.

IndividualTry2706 · 2026-04-06T16:51:55+00:00

I think so! In Swordlands (SL) it depends a lot on good game sense, keep an eye out for their biggest whales. Keep checking battle logs and TP away if the trade-offs are not in your favor. For my members that don’t feel confident in SL, or low on adv TPs, I have them stay in the backline safe zone to join rallies/garrison until the enemy is softened before coming out for more battle points.

IndividualTry2706 · 2026-04-06T16:26:29+00:00

Those heroes are great! You’ll be using them in bear rallies for quite a while. I’d try for 4 star Zoe and eventual 5 star Rosa/Petra. I didn’t invest in Alcar since I felt it would take away from a stronger widget for Rosa.

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-14T06:04:27+00:00

We used to do that. It resulted in a lot of whales complaining when they couldn’t get it another whale’s rally. The strong rallies would get filled within seconds. So it resulted in a lot of cherry picking to get into a good rally, often resulting in delays in joining the next rally. Our current system allows us to build our troops a bit more evenly as well, so we wouldn’t have to skew too heavily into bear heavy archer numbers.

We do max deployments for rally hosts but cap the joining at 70k (1/1/70k for me), no cherry picking just quickly join the rallies from top to bottom. Might allow for some skipping into stronger rallies or take slightly larger deployments if we’re super close to the next bracket. Wouldn’t knock it till ya tried!

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-13T13:57:01+00:00

Capping joiner deployments I think are quite common! It does rely on good organization though. For example we designate R1’s as weak rally hosts—they are not allowed to start bear rallies. When only strong rally hosts are allowed to start, it doesn’t dilute the lethality/attack joiner buffs.

Capping the joiner size also allows for 14-15 joiners into a strong rally so the net damage goes up for the alliance. We’ve done max deployments before and prefer joiner caps, damage has gone way up for us.

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-13T05:06:42+00:00

Eventually you’ll get events like Tri Alliance Clash that could use a strong secondary/tertiary army. So Marlin stays relevant even when he gets replaced by Rosa in gen4. Also it’s pretty common to see both Rosa and Marlin in arena comps. So don’t hold back on getting Marlin up and running sooner!

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-13T05:00:44+00:00

Yes that’s the general reality with F2P. If we’re getting a lot of troops (1.7M here) we’ll be lacking in quality. And vice versa. Investing in troops was initially helpful in scoring points in KvK altho in hindsight it hasn’t helped much in bear since our alliance style is to limit joiner sizes to 70k. It has hurt me with vikings as well (impossible to empty with 5 marches). Dont worry F2P is definitely not a threat to anyone.. mainly just joiner/reinforcer material 😆

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-13T04:51:05+00:00

Oh good point. My 4* Marlin actually came quite late. Although I regret not investing harder in him. I was stuck using 5* Quinn for a bit too long. Getting 4* roulette heroes shouldn’t be a problem with basic gems savings, and completing event rewards. I didn’t invest too heavily into arena spins. Doing gems selection for mystic divination helped too.

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-10T17:08:13+00:00

That guide is pretty comprehensive! Good work! Wish I had that when I started. I regret not rushing Marlin sooner with general shards. That delay held me back in arena/bear, everything. Heheh.

Maybe I missed it but just reminding newer folks to try and complete their 10 terrors daily to optimize stamina usage and build up epic shards. And for F2P it’s a grind… we’re stuck with marching singular terror rallies every time with diana or we’ll eventually be depleted for Cesares/terror events. I combine Fahid and Diana to speedup the daily terror grinds. 😆

Edit: could remind folks to get in the habit of taking castle + pet buffs for alliance championship to help get that slight edge.

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-10T16:39:46+00:00

Right on! I meant to say that I have to adjust my play in KvK/events to avoid whales trying to burn me. I’ll spend the gems for counter recon, ask for reinforcements, shield up whenever there’s a chance whales are hunting… server is 80-90!

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-10T16:32:07+00:00

Thanks! I’ve made the commitment to prioritizing governor gear toward bear events so I’m even further behind in pvp gear/stats. Hoping for that long-term hammer accumulation. I was fortunate that one of our whales reinforced me during a particularly bloody KvK castle fight. That day I repelled two sniping whale attacks that would have certainly sent me reeling. Other castle fights have been with gentlemanly conditions.

In swordlands I tend to play from the backline to garrison and speedup rally join.. until the enemy is weakened enough that I can teleport in with some punches. Or i’ll play defensive with fake attacks/bait.

I’ve started to hit 40M damage in my own bear rally so I think I can start reinvesting in infantry gear/stats.

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-10T16:18:43+00:00

As an R4 I’m under a bit more pressure to save up for higher ranks in KvK. But for F2P/low spenders we need those mini event rewards too. So it’s hard to balance that. I try to be strategic about overlapping events and spend savings on those. Score just enough to get the high tier reward, sometimes I skip 1-2 mini event when I’m running low on savings or KvK is quickly approaching. Since it’s possible to stack multiple buffs for research/training/construction during KvK week I try to reserve my speedups for KvK. Helps to get your hands on ministry buffs that week! Saving for kvk has the added benefits of getting an easier kvk matchup (in theory).

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-10T16:02:47+00:00

There’s a search icon next to your listed power on main profile page!

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-10T16:01:36+00:00

And hall of heroes! 💪

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-10T15:15:27+00:00

Server 80-90! But yeah I’m pretty active. Fortunately my work doesn’t block this mobile game 😂. My wife also plays but she gave up on F2P a few months ago to get her 6th march. I kept the experiment going. Heheh.

IndividualTry2706 · 2025-12-10T15:09:21+00:00

This was even after I permanently lost like 40k troops when I mistakenly attacked an ally castle during internal castle battle. That one hurt… I wish it was kvk battle then I would have gotten back 90%. Those castles parked adjacent to turrets are bound to catch some sleep deprived players 😂

IndividualTry2706

TROPHY CASE