Welcome to the Kingshot Bootcamp: The Ultimate Beginner's Guide

Welcome to the Kingshot Bootcamp! While the guidance below is general, it serves as a solid starting point packed with power-boosting strategies and key insights to level up your gameplay in Kingshot. This guide is inspired by the remarkable work of WhyBanditWhy.

1. Resource & Backpack Optimization

Not enough resources when you need them? Read on!

Get familiar with the Resource Overview screen

If you go to your Backpack and click the chart button in the top-right, you'll see the Resource Overview screen. This shows you a total of the resources you've got in your City, and the items in your backpack. It also shows the number of speedups you have, which is super handy for planning things.

Check your Chests

Different resource chests do different things, and the Resource Overview doesn't take them into account when calculating your resource totals.

• "?" Chests: Give you a random selection of potential resource items, so should be opened as soon as possible so you know what you're dealing with.
• Normal Resource Chests: You can choose what resources you get out of them, so it's cool to save some of these in case you're in a pinch with one particular resource. If you start hitting 2,000+ of these chests, open a bunch to ensure you're making use of those resources rather than letting them go unaccounted.

Plan Ahead

This is going to be a theme with the tips in this guide, but seriously, if you're not a whale, you have to plan and only engage your resources/materials on the most worthwhile things. If you take the time to properly review your account setup and focus your upgrades with clear goals in mind, you can massively boost your power and dominate in the early stages of any event.

For example, at the start of True Gold age and for every True Gold drop, if you calculate the required resources and speedups before the update is released, you can hit the #1 spot on the TC Leaderboard within just 3.5 minutes of Double Time going live. (Don’t do it before SvS though!)

2. Gathering & Farming Strategy

As part of the Daily quests, you need to gather at least 4 times, and once across each of the resource types. This is best completed before bed or just after reset, so that you're gathering overnight and have the resources there in the morning.

If reset is a bad time for you, then set gatherers on Lv. 7-8 camps whilst you sleep, and hit a Lv. 1 camp in the morning for the daily quest. The world map view shows which camps are currently occupied (Blue for your Alliance members, Red for other Alliances, Green for your own gatherers), so don’t be afraid to scan further afield if the initial ‘search’ feature doesn’t bring any Lv. 8 camps back. Check near the center of the map and send your gatherers there—especially if this is overnight, even a 10-minute march won’t be noticed whilst you sleep!

Also, you can purchase Gathering City Bonuses (the arrow button under your profile picture) which will speed up gathering times (note: needs to be activated before you send the gatherers).

3. Hero Progression & Gear Optimization

Focus on One March

It sounds counter-intuitive, but this is the easiest and most effective method to maximize your power. There are so many events that are limited to, or primarily based on, the strength of your main march (Kingdom of Power, Alliance Championship, Sanctuaries, Outposts, and PvP Kill Events). This means you must choose your main march, and prioritize them for best gear, shards, widgets, and mastery forging.

Drill Camp Management

The drill camp is an amazing tool, but players often forget they've got EXP lingering in older heroes. Go to Drill Camp > Level Reset, and if there are more than 5 heroes in that list (your instructors), reset them and reinvest that EXP directly into your main heroes. Read our full Drill Camp Guide to optimize this further.

Command Center & Deployment Capacity

Your deployment capacity is based on your Command Center level, deployment research (Regimental Capacity in the Academy's Battle tab), and the level of the heroes in that march. Max hero level capacity at Level 80 is 13,470 per hero (40,410 total). Always use City Bonuses to temporarily increase deployment capacity during competitive events.

Arena Gear Optimization

You have a 1% chance to get Mythic Hero Gear (Gold Gear) from a general chest, or you can purchase specific chests from VIP 12 or the Arena Shop. Arena is the most accessible way to build gold pieces. Target matches as close to reset (00:00 UTC) as possible to secure your placement.

Your goal is to obtain 12 pieces of Mythic Gear:

• 1 set for your main Infantry Hero ( Gauntlet and Breastplate first for defense).
• 1 set for your main Lancer/Cavalry Hero.
• 1 set for your main Marksman Hero.

4. Hero Roulette Shard Mathematics

Hero shards are your most sacred resource. It takes 1,065 shards to max a hero. Saving universal shards for the next Gen release lets you jump straight to the top of the food chain on Day 1. Read our Hero Roulette Strategy Guide for deep calculations. Here is the math summary for the three main wheel strategies:

5. Rally & Garrison Combat Formations

Who you send to join a rally or garrison has a real impact on the outcome. For events like Castle Battles, incorrect setups can cost you the victory. Follow the meta formations for each generation below:

Rally & Garrison Joiners:

• First Skill Priority: Only the first four joiners with the highest 1st Expedition Skill count for the rally/garrison. Make sure to check your skills! If you join with a meta hero whose first skill is level 1, you can block someone with a level 5 Olive skill.
• Adjust to Weakness: Send Chenko/Amadeus/Yeonwoo for extra lethality, Amane for attack, Gordon for health, and Fahd for reducing incoming damage. Use only 1 Petra (rallies) or 1 Ahmose/Hector (garrisons) per combo, as chance-based skills do not stack!

6. Free-to-Play (F2P) Growth Blueprint

The only weapon against ignorant spending is smart planning. As F2P, do not try and do everything:

• Selective Participation: Save your speedups and shards for big monthly events like SvS. Attempt events that spenders ignore, such as Armament Competition or seasonal mini-games.
• Shop Routing: Purchase speedups, shards, and taming marks from the Alliance Shop, Arena Shop, Mystery Shop, Nomadic Merchant, and VIP shop using resources/tokens.
• Academy Research Focus:
  • Growth Section: Prioritize Tooling Up (construction speed), Tool Enhancement (research speed), and Command Tactics (extra march queues). Ignore Camp Expansion.
  • Economy Section: Focus 100% on Gathering Research. Ignore Mill, Sawmill, Mine, and Quarry output boosters.
  • Battle Section: Max out Assault Techniques (Lethality), Survival Techniques (Health), and Regimental Expansion. Then focus on class-specific Health for Infantry, and Lethality for Archers and Cavalry.

7. Watchtower & Intel Missions

After the True Gold Age event, everything changes—especially with the new Intel Missions that reward True Gold and the Rebel Bounty: Elite challenges. There are 4 different mission types, and they refresh twice a day.

Each refresh gives you:

• 4 Mythic Conquest skill books
• 4 Mythic Expedition skill books
• 4 Epic shards + 1 Mythic shard
• Two 1-hour speed-ups

8. Oasis Island Layout Secrets

Oasis Island becomes available at TC 19. Check out our full Oasis Island Guide for detail. Key points:

• Max Fountain & Reservoirs: Always upgrade your Fountain of Life and reservoirs to increase essence storage capacity and avoid production overflow.
• Worker Routing: Direct your workers by placing decorations (like walls or rocks) to block them and force them to gather chests in the right direction.
• Chest Color Rewards:
  • 🟢 Green Chests: 500 water essence + 3 generic mythic shards.
  • 🟠 Orange Chests: 5,000 water essence.
  • 🟡 Yellow Chests: 3,000 water essence.
  • 🔴 Red Chests: 1,500 water essence.
• Use our interactive Island Chest Route Optimizer to calculate paths.

9. Stat Priority & Battle Formulas

Understanding how damage works is essential to route your gear upgrades effectively:

• Lethality: Deals damage directly to Health, mitigated by enemy Defense.
• Attack: Lowers the enemy's Defense, causing Lethality to strike harder.
• Defense & Health: Frontline survival stats. Once Health drops to zero, units enter the Infirmary.

10. Whiteout Survival Hero Translation

Are you a veteran from Whiteout Survival (WoS)? Use this translation cheat sheet to match your WoS knowledge to Kingshot characters: