From first city to island campaign

Begin a kingdom

Sign in with Google, choose The Crown Marches, and enter the shared realm. A new ruler claims an available starting city in a starter region. That city becomes the main city: the default rally point for certain returned troops, recovered losses, and rewards that need a stable destination.

The opening goal is not to attack every nearby marker. First identify the main city, its current troop count, the rate at which it produces gold and troops, and the neutral cities within practical marching distance.

Build production deliberately

Regular cities produce gold and troops in real time. Higher city levels create more victory points, which increase production and make the city more valuable. Upgrading costs gold, so each upgrade is a choice between stronger future income and keeping resources available for immediate actions.

Troops remain in the city that produced them until they march. That means a productive city can become a useful defensive reserve, but only if its troops are not repeatedly drained. Gold is held at the kingdom level and can be used across the realm.

Useful habits

• Upgrade safer interior cities when the border is unstable.
• Keep enough troops in exposed cities to discourage easy captures.
• Use the owned-city list to compare levels, troops, and regions instead of searching every map manually.
• Review production after gaining or losing cities because kingdom totals can change immediately.

Read the regional map

Crownlands is divided into connected island regions. Edge connections move the view between neighboring regions, and armies follow valid routes across those connections. Cities, camps, Strongholds, and the Crown Citadel appear as interactive markers over the map.

Select an owned city to review its troops, level, production, and available actions. Select a neutral or rival city to see scouting, attack, and information options. The home indicator recenters the view when the main city is outside the current screen.

Scout before attacking

A scout is a small march that reveals a snapshot of a target after arrival. The report shows the holding owner's garrison separately from each clan member's stationed reinforcements, along with city level, wall contribution, total defense, and relevant bonuses. Intelligence is time-sensitive: a player may reinforce or move troops after a scout arrives.

Use the combat preview together with the latest report. The preview explains estimated attack and defense power, likely losses, survivors, and the expected capture or defeat result. Estimates are planning tools rather than a reason to ignore travel time or changing ownership.

Send armies and protect holdings

Choose a source city, target, and troop amount to create a march. The server validates ownership, available troops, route, protection rules, and other requirements before accepting the order. When the march arrives, the server resolves the outcome and records a report.

Successful captures transfer the city and reduce its level by one, never below Level 1. Failed attacks can still award reduced experience. A captured city may have a temporary experience cooldown, which lowers repeated capture rewards without preventing future attacks.

Defense is preparation

City defenders benefit from stationed troop strength and city walls. Upgrades and defensive skills improve the cost of taking an important holding. If an attack is already marching, decide whether to reinforce the target, move vulnerable troops, or accept the battle and preserve resources elsewhere.

Contest camps, Strongholds, and the Citadel

Resource camps reward a ruler who defeats their defenders and holds the position for the required time. Gold and troop camps provide production-based rewards, while Deed and Relic camps use their own award rules. Camps are temporary objectives rather than ordinary permanent cities.

Strongholds grant strategic benefits to their controller. Different Strongholds can improve gold, training, defense, or movement. The Crown Citadel is the realm’s central prestige objective: its current controller receives the Citadel effect, and the Reign Ledger records cumulative control time.

Develop skills and use items with purpose

Hero levels award skill points. The current skill paths improve attack power, city walls, gold production, troop production, upgrade efficiency, march speed, or the return of battle losses. Skill choices apply across the kingdom, so invest according to the type of campaign you are actually playing.

Three private skill-preset tabs unlock at Hero Levels 50, 75, and 100. Rename an unlocked tab and use Save Current Build to store the exact seven-skill allocation in it. Applying a different saved build costs 1,000,000 gold, just like Reset Skills; applying a build that is already active is free. Skill points earned after saving stay available and unspent when that older preset is applied. Presets change only when you explicitly save them, and the original Reset Skills control remains available.

Shop and reward items provide temporary protection, production, concealment, faster transfers, or army recall. Most items are bought with in-game gold and have daily limits. Read the description and duration before use; a timed effect is most valuable when it supports a planned sequence of actions.

Coordinate through a clan

Clans provide a shared identity, membership roles, applications, allied map information, shared rewards, and coordinated attacks. Clan members cannot treat allied cities as ordinary enemy targets. Instead, they can send reinforcements to eligible allied holdings.

Reinforcement troops continue to belong to their sender. In battle, each reinforcement package combines its troops with 25% of the destination’s base wall defense and that sender’s full Stoneworks bonus calculated from the base walls. The sender’s applicable objective defense bonuses then affect that complete package. You may maintain up to two assignments with each clanmate, but each assignment must support a different holding. Ordinary cities reserve up to five reinforcement contributors as soon as their marches launch; allied Strongholds and reward camps do not use this city limit.

The sender may recall stationed troops, the holding owner may send them home, and battle losses are applied when the position is attacked. Troops return to the city or Stronghold they originally left while it remains owned by the sender. If that holding has been captured before the return begins or while the troops are marching, the server redirects survivors to the sender’s current Main City.

Coordinate rallies in the War Room

Open Clan → War Room to form, join, inspect, launch, cancel, or withdraw from clan rallies. The War Room is focused entirely on rallies and shows the same authoritative rally state available under Kingdom Activity.

Form and join rallies

Any clan member may form one rally against a Stronghold, the Crown Citadel, or a reward camp. Select the objective and choose Rally, then commit troops from an owned city or Stronghold. A rally holds up to three rulers: the leader and two allies. There is no launch timer; only the leader decides when to launch or cancel.

Rally details and the final objective stay private to current clan members while the force forms. Other rulers can still see allied contribution marches traveling to the leader’s assembly city. Committing troops immediately removes the contributor’s Royal Peace Shield, and cancelling or withdrawing does not restore it.

Open Clan → War Room or Kingdom Activity → Rallies to check participant slots, assembled and inbound troop totals, and arrival times. Allies may withdraw before launch. If the leader launches while a contribution is still inbound, that contribution turns around automatically and does not join the attack.

Once launched, the combined force appears as a normal incoming attack and the defender can see its objective. The rally uses the leader’s march bonuses while each participant keeps their snapshotted attack strength for combat. Only the leader may spend one Recall Horn to recall the combined army. After battle or recall, allied survivors march back to their source city, or to their main city if the source is no longer available.