Table of Contents
This Call of Dragons guide covers everything you need to know as a beginner, from choosing your civilization to understanding key systems like troop training, research, alliances and more.
Call of Dragons is a real-time strategy game where players build cities, collect heroes, train troops, and battle enemies on a massive open map. Similar to games like Rise of Kingdoms, it blends kingdom-building with PvP, PvE, and seasonal objectives.
It’s free to play, but like many mobile games, it includes optional in-app purchases. If you’re a free-to-play (F2P) player, you can play smart and still stay competitive if you plan ahead.
The game can be downloaded on both iOS and Android.
Choosing Your Starting Faction
Before you even jump into the game, you’ll be asked to choose your starting faction. There are three to pick from: Springwardens, League of Order, and Wilderburg. Each one comes with its own starting hero and unique city buffs, giving you a slightly different experience depending on your choice.
While the factions are fairly well balanced overall, the “best” one really depends on your personal playstyle and what kind of start you’re aiming for.
It’s recommended a lot of beginners pick the League of Order faction. Waldyr is a great mage hero and is very useful early game. As-well as this, the faction comes with a 10% gathering buff and the Workhorses special unit which increases load capacity.
If you want a full breakdown of each faction, check out our more detailed guide on the best faction in Call of Dragons.
Learning the Interface
In Call of Dragons, you’ll spend most of your time switching between city view and map view, so it’s worth getting comfortable with both early on:
City View is where you build and upgrade structures, train troops, collect resources, and manage your growth. You’ll return here regularly to keep your progression on track.
Map View lets you explore the wider world. From here, you can scout new areas, defeat Darklings, gather external resources. The map is completely free to explore, meaning you can deploy troops wherever.
Second Builder Que
It’s highly recommended for new players will want to get the second builder que as soon as possible. You’ll be able to build or upgrade two structures at one time with this unlocked, increasing your early game power much faster.
You’ll have access to a 2-day trial for the second builder que which costs 150 gems. To unlock it permanently, you can either pay $4.99 or spend 5,000 gems.
If you’d rather not spend real money, don’t worry, you’ll earn a good amount of gems early on through quests, daily logins, and the Augurstone, making the 5,000 total very achievable.
Upgrade Priorities
There’s a wide range of buildings available in Call of Dragons, and upgrading all of them can take a while. Knowing which ones to prioritise can improve your power and gameplay progression at a faster rate.
Below i’ve listed the upgrade priority for optimal progression, in order of importance:
1: City Hall – The most important building to upgrade, this should be your first priority. Unlike other city builder games, you can rush this to max as soon as possible to access new buildings and research. View our full City Hall guide for costs, requirements etc.
2: College of Order – Access higher level research faster, unlock better troop tiers, and more economic and military power. Obtain a 25% research bonus at level 25.
3: Alliance Centre – Provides more help chances to reduce the need for speedups.
4: Watch Tower & Rally Beacon – These require a LOT of Treaties and Sentinel Arrows to get to max level. If you don’t want to spend gems on these, it will take a lot of darkling and forts kills so keep these buildings in mind early-game. You cannot upgrade the College of Order to level 25 without these buildings being maxed, limiting your access to tier 5 troops.
5: Hospitals – Important for increasing resource healing limits and elixir production for healing troops. You’ll want high-level hospitals by the start of the competitive season for longer fighting capabilities.
Joining an Alliance
As soon as the tutorial is out of the way, you will want to join an alliance as soon as possible. You will progress your account at a much faster rate being in an alliance.
Alliances offer benefits such as:
Reductions on builds and research through alliance help
Access to rallies for forts and events (forts are needed to obtain Treaty’s for upgrading the rally beacon)
Gifts and alliance technology
Territory control that can speed up your gathering and movement
If you haven’t already got a group to play with, find an alliance with lots of members. At the early stage of the game, it doesn’t matter if they’re the strongest. You just want to take advantage of the alliance help requests to upgrade your buildings and technology more quickly.
As the game goes on you will want to make your way into the stronger alliances. These are the ones that will participate in the competitive seasons, just make sure you meet their requirements to secure a spot.
Resource Management
At the start of the game you’ll mainly be using food and wood as your main resources. As your City Hall gets higher, you’ll have access to stone and mana which are used for higher level buildings, technology and healing. Mana is arguably the most important during the late game due to high healing costs for tier 5 troops.
To get more of these it’s simple, gather a lot. You can also get noted versions of each of these resources by killing darklings & forts and through various events and in-game quests.
Noted resources are not added to your main total at the top and cannot be looted if your city is attacked. Don’t redeem noted resources unless you’re about to spend them. Invest in good garrison heroes and upgrade the storehouse for better protection.
Legendary Heroes
Legendary heroes are the strongest heroes you can acquire in the game. They are indicated by their gold frame. They’re typically obtained through the Gold Chest or by participating in the Strongest Lord event.
These heroes are upgraded using Legendary Tokens, but not all tokens work for every hero. Each legendary hero is assigned a G1–G4 marker, and you can only use tokens of the same or higher grade to upgrade them. This system keeps things balanced, as newer (and usually stronger) heroes are given higher G ratings.
Whilst all legendary heroes are worth using in Call of Dragons, some are better than others. The ones you should aim to build include:
Liliya – Only accessible through the store but one of the strongest mage heroes.
Yun-Ming – New meta mage hero, obtained quite late but worth it. G4 tokens required.
Maggrat – Marksman hero, plenty of damage. G3 tokens required.
Goresh – Solid infantry pick. G2 tokens but can now be obtained in gold chest.
Check out our Hero Tier List to see where every hero ranks in Call of Dragons and find out which ones are truly worth investing in.
Research
Research is one of the most important ways to grow your overall strength in Call of Dragons. You should always aim to keep both research queues active whenever possible to maximize progress.
In the early game, focus on economic technology first, especially Scholarship and Architecture. These increase your research and building speeds, which gives you a strong foundation for faster development later on.
Tip: The first few tech nodes can be unlocked by exploring villages and caves on the map. Thorough exploration can save you valuable resources early on.
Once your initial economic technology is researched, turn your attention to military tech, prioritizing troop tier upgrades first. Stronger troops will make a big difference as you start battling and expanding.
A good rule of thumb is to push military tech until you start to hit a resource bottleneck, then switch back to economic upgrades to catch up and keep things balanced.
Troop Types
In Call of Dragons, there are four core unit types and one special unit type. The special unit is a flying version of one of the core types and is more powerful, varying depending on the faction you choose.
Note: Units will look visually different between factions, but their core stats tend to be the same.
Standard Unit Types
Magic Units – Attack from a very far distance, effective against infantry.
Marksman Units – Medium attack range, high physical attack. Effective against magic units.
Cavalry Units – Fast, melee attack range good physical attack. Effective against marksman units.
Infantry Units – Melee, high HP and DEF. Effective against cavalry units.
Flying Units
Flying units start at T3, you cannot start training them until they have their technology researched.
Celestials (League of Order) – Flying magic units, higher attack than standard magic units. Perfect for mage players.
Wyvern Riders (Wilderburg) – Marksman flying units, can destroy buildings from a distance. Ideal for marksman players.
Forest Eagles (Springwarden) – Flying cavalry units, great speed ideal for cavalry players.
Troop Tiers
As your city hall level increases, you’ll gain access to higher tiers of troops (providing you upgrade the College of Order aswell).
T1 & 2 – Early game troops, easy to train. You’ll want to upgrade these to higher tiers when they unlock.
Note: The exception is T1 cavalry units, these are used for gathering so keep plenty of these.
T3 – First taste of real power. Can be unlocked fairly early.
T4 – These troops are strong enough for PVP battles and competitive play. They’re unlocked at College of Order Level 22.
T5 – Unlocked at max College of Order level. T5 troops are extremely powerful but costly to train and heal. They offer huge merit gains in battle, though reaching this tier can take years for F2P players.
War Pets (Early Game Overview)
As you explore the map, you’ll come across plenty of neutral units and buildings, things like Darkling forts, resource nodes, and various mythical creatures known as War Pets.
Unlike Darklings, War Pets have a “Capture” button instead of “Attack.” That’s because these creatures can actually be captured, assigned to a hero, and used in battle. To capture one, you’ll first need to weaken it, just like you would when fighting a Darkling. The difference is that you won’t kill the War Pet, you’ll bring it down low enough to make the capture successful.
Once captured you can view it in the enclosure and tame it ready for battle.
For a full breakdown of how the system works, check out our War Pets Guide. If you already know the basics, head over to our War Pets Tier List to see which ones are best for the current meta.
PvE: Darklings & Forts
When you first get into the game, you will want to farm regular darklings to earn hero XP and items. Always attack the strongest darklings your heroes can defeat as the rewards are much better. This is important for early game progression, make sure you use all your free CP.
When you’re in an active alliance you can start farming forts for treatys. These also drop tactics manuals which can be used to level up random heroes.
PVE: Behemoths
As you explore the map, you’ll come across Behemoth Lairs, massive creatures that can only be challenged by alliances whose territory reaches their lair.
When a lair opens, multiple alliance members can join forces to take down the Behemoth, earning valuable rewards in the process.
Alliances that successfully defeat a Behemoth gain the ability to summon it during PvP battles, giving them a powerful strategic advantage.
Behemoth battles can be challenging, and a few mistakes can ruin the run for everyone. It’s important for members to learn the mechanics of each Behemoth beforehand to ensure a smooth fight.
Tip: If your alliance is the first on the server to defeat the elite (stronger) versions of Behemoths, all participating players will receive a unique avatar frame as a reward.
Bundles Worth Spending On
There’s a huge variety of bundles in the Call of Dragons store, but if you’re a low spender or just want to get the most value for your money, these are the bundles to look out for:
Daily Deals – You can purchase all three of these for $2.39 a day. This is a fantastic way to collect legendary hero tokens for a hero of your choice at a low cost. While sculptures aren’t guaranteed, they drop frequently, and you’ll still receive a good amount of gems and other useful items regardless.
Monthly Packs – Over 30 days, you’ll receive 20,250 gems, along with VIP points, resources, and speedups, all for under $10. Excellent value for consistent daily rewards.
Growth Fund – One of the best long-term investments. For $9.99, you can earn 82,000 gems as you level up your City Hall.
Legendary Trailblazer – This bundle is available after unlocking a new legendary hero. It’s only available for 2 hours, costs $4.99 and provides five legendary hero tokens. A good investment at any stage of the game.
Daily & Weekly Checklist
It’s a good idea to get into a regular routine to keep your account active and progress. Here are a few suggestions to help you stay on top of things:
Daily:
Send out all gatherers when possible – more resources = more fighting power.
Kill darklings or forts with CP – use all of your daily free CP (This doesn’t carry over when full).
Train troops – Never leave your troop training ques empty, always train.
Do daily objectives – you can earn lots of rewards from doing this, and 100 gems a day.
Weekly:
Events – Some events can span overall several days, try and finish these over the course of the week.
Upgrade key buildings – High level buildings can take weeks, even months to upgrade. Try and work towards upgrading these.
Increase hero levels – This can be a slow process, keep up with using your daily CP and you’ll increase hero levels much quicker.
Key Terms You’ll Hear Often
AoE – Area of Effect (damaging multiple targets)
T1 to T5 – Shortcode for troop tiers. You’ll hear T4 and T5 a lot.
CP – Command Points. These are needed to carry out various actions.
KVK – Stands for Kingdom vs Kingdom or also known as the competitive season.
Slow Build – Indicated by alliance leaders that you should send 1 troop for building to generate member points.
Murder Ball – Gather in the designated area for PVP combat. PVP fights are better in groups.
Common Questions & Answers
When and how do I migrate? There are several reasons why you might decide to migrate. You could be asked by your alliance leadership to move, you might be looking for a new challenge, or your current server may be losing players and starting to decline. Migration is done using permits, and you can only move to other servers within the same season. Read our full migration guide.
Summary
Call of Dragons can seem like a complicated game at first. There is such a wide range of mechanics and it can be easy to fall behind if you don’t play smart.
This guide was created to help with this. Many players go into the game spending lots of real money on accounts that don’t end up being competitive. Use this as guidance when building your account, and i’m sure you’ll end up having a successful journey in Call of Dragons.
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