Game of War: Fire Age - Stronghold 1-5 Quick Start Guide
Stronghold Level 1 - The Game of War Fire Age Tutorial
Immediately after starting the game for the first time, you will begin the tutorial. The tutorial is very quick with the only steps needed to move to SH being:
- Build a Farm
- Upgrade your Stronghouse
Once these two quests are done, continue with the tutorial to complete the following quests.
- Open Beginner Chest in your inventory
- Claim Empire Quest Food for your People
Your tutorial is complete, now click the alliance button at the bottom of the screen and join an alliance. You get a 100 gold bonus from joining an alliance plus members are able to Speed up your build time (very important at the lower levels).
A note about empire quests. It is advised that you do NOT claim empire quests during the first 5 stronghold levels. There are events later on for which you will need those quests during your run from SH6-9. You also get more hero experience by waiting because you will have the Gymnos before you start collecting the experience from the empire quests.
Stronghold Level 2 Power Trick - Build 10 Destroy Several
You have completed the tutorial and are ready to start building out your new city. There are a few things that you should do first to prepare yourself for the next 7 levels. There is a specific empire quest that gives you a ton of resources and power early on. In this step, you will build 10 each of the following buildings and then remove several. Here is what my buildout looks like at SH2.
- Build 10 Logging Camps and destroy 5
- Build 10 Quarries and destroy 5
- Build 10 Mines and destroy 5
- Build 10 food farms
Then we move to the interior
- Build 10 Barracks then destroy 6
- Build 10 Hospitals then destroy 6
- Build 10 Villas
Once all this is complete you will have seven empire quests completed that will give you a large boost to your hero experience and a lot of resources to help you level. DO NOT claim your empire quests yet. You will want to save them until at least Stronghold 5 once you have a Gymnos.
Stronghold Level 2 - Base Building and Events
Once you have done the build 10 quests you should have a Stronghold level 2 filled with level 1 buildings. Be sure all 25 of your outside spaces are full but leave some room inside as you will get more buildings later. I suggest in the early stages keeping 4 hospitals, 4 barracks, 10 villas and the rest open for the required buildings. At this level, you should Build these unique buildings.:
- Academy
- Forge
Before you starting upgrading, look at the pair of crossed swords on the right center of your screen. That is the available Events. You will need to be looking at the events very closely and should try to time your construction so you are gaining points for the right event. At Stronghold level 2 you want to make sure you complete the solo event that gives the Haunted Gauntlets as the top prize. 1100 points are required to complete this event. You will get most of the way there by upgrading all your buildings to level 2. If you are short points, you can train wall bricks (click the wall). They are cheap, quick to train and count for 1 point each. You can use wall bricks to hit a lot of the events from SH1 thru 6.
Once you have won the solo event and have your Haunted Gauntlets you are ready to upgrade your Stronghold to level 3.
Stronghold Level 3 - Base Building and Events
Your Stronghold level 3 has just been completed. If you already built your Academy, you should have researched scouting as part of the tutorial. Now is the time to research Construction 1 in the Economics tree. You will only have the resources to do this if you get resource help from your alliance or if you completed the solo event at Stronghold 2. I can't stress enough the importance of the solo events.
The only requirement to upgrade your SH from Level 3 to Level 4 is to have your walls at Level 3. I upgrade all my interior and exterior buildings to level 3 before upgrading my SH. The added production early on comes in handy later.
Solo event for SH3 - The solo event you are looking for at this level is the one that has Hide Boots as a prize for achieving 1540 power. You can gain the power by upgrading buildings or by building 1540 wall bricks (takes about an hour so make sure you start in time).
Once you complete the solo event, have your level 3 wall, and have everything else you wanted built up, you can upgrade your Stronghold to level 4. You can also start building up your army at this point. Train troops of all three types as often as you can.
I personally bring every building up to level 3 at this point. If you are pushing all to level 3 please see the VIP instructions in Stronghold 4.
Stronghold Level 4 - Base Building and Events
Your SH is 4 and you are ready to begin building. You may have noticed that the building upgrades were no longer free on some buildings and you had to wait. Your build time is now longer than the free 5 minutes of speed up. I suggest you open your inventory and find the item that gives 100 VIP points. You would have received this from one of the first secret gifts (bouncing chests). Using this item will get you from VIP 1 to VIP 2 instantly and will give you 24 hours of VIP buffs. This extends your free speed up time on building from 5 minutes to 7 minutes for 24 hours.
Next we look at the buildings required to update the Stronghold from Level 4 to Level 5. You will need to update these buildings:
- Mine Level 4
- Forge Level 4
- Wall Level 4
The solo event you are looking for is the one that has Silver Ring as a prize. Again, you can earn points building or by building wall bricks.
Research Monster Attack 1 in the Hero Tab. This one is expensive early on but worth it. Once this skill has been learned you should always be looking for a monster to hit when you have the power.
Keep training troops and upgrade all your buildings to level 4 if you prefer. I always push everything up to 4 at this point before moving on to SH5.
Stronghold 5 - Base building and Events
Stronghold 5 opens up some new interior buildings. We will want to start by constructing:
- Building 1
- Building 2
- Building 3
Your Marketplace lets you send resources to other members of your alliance; your Gymnos provides extra experience for your hero. It is very important to always keep your Gymnos the same level as your stronghold. You can build the minimum stronghold requirements and new buildings and level up to 5 or you can build out your entire base to 5 before moving on. Beginning at level 5, I start to only upgrade the minimum required buildings (plus my Gymnos) until I get to Stronghold 9.
Events to look out for at SH5: You want to get the solo event that gives the Robe as the final prize. You also may want to stick around and complete the troop training/trap training event for the 50,000 hero experience points. You can complete these events by building wall bricks or upgrading your buildings.
Getting all 4 event items will yield you a nice starter set of gear
Item
| Bonuses
|
---|---|
Haunted Gauntlet
| 4% Research and Construction Speed
|
Hide Boots
| 24% Food Production
|
Silver Ring
| 9% Silver Production 2.3% Research and Construction Speed
|
Robe
| 26.4% food production 13.2% Silver Production
|
Re-Evaluate your Alliance and Location
You are now Stronghold 5. It is time to teleport your stronghold to the next destination. You get two free beginner teleports that are only usable through Stronghold 5. Once you start the upgrade to 6, they disappear. If you have friends you want to play with, you should teleport to the kingdom they are in. Otherwise, teleport to your alliance location. This will be your last chance at the free teleport so choose wisely.
It is also time to re-evaluate your alliance. Is there very little interaction from the leaders? When you look at the member list, is it filled with Empire names with less than 1000 power? If so, you probably want to quit your current alliance and find a more active and well-structured one. Being in a good alliance will make worlds of difference in your growth.
I hope you enjoyed this guide. Look for the Starter guide for Strongholds 6-9 to come soon!