Top 5 Traps of Kingdom Conquest II

Kingdom Conquest II is one of those games that I play despite knowing better. The premise hooks you by weaving together city building, action, and real time strategy in a way that no other franchise on Android or iOS attempts. But every time I load it up, anxious to conquer another piece of territory, those immortal words of Admiral Akbar echo in my head, “It’s a trap!”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happily addicted and plan to keep playing for a long time. But I have identified five traps (from experience) you can fall into that can turn this fun, rewarding F2P title into a miserable chore.

KC2 is basically the same game as the first Kingdom Conquest, in that you (along with every other player on your server) are tasked with conquering Magna. To do so, you must raise powerful monster armies that can capture the 9 Towers of Magna scattered about the huge map. Sounds simple enough, right?

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Trap #1: Getting in over your head
While it starts off simply enough, and the tutorials do a nice job, this game is actually very complex.  I’d need 10 pages to fully explain it all. In simplest terms, city building provides resources to build your army, action mode provides Monster Cards that define what monster species and skills your army employs, and the RTS mode is how you send your army to conquer territory to increase your resources and possibly capture more dangerous dungeons for action mode.

This all works together really well if you know what you’re doing.  But if you don’t, you’re going to hit a point where you don’t know how to conquer a particular territory, or why your army of orcs keeps getting steamrolled by your neighbor’s bug brigades.

Escape: If you’re already confused, turn back now and don’t start this game. If you’re with me so far, I suggest visiting the Kingdom Conquest forums and learning everything you can from the experienced players there.

Also, pay attention to the quests the game provides for you. These ease you into the many nuances slowly.

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Trap #2: Investing too much time
Even if you escape trap #1, you might find the rabbit hole goes deeper than you anticipated. Learning on the forums could lead you to trying everything at once. I spent an hour yesterday micromanaging my town, then another 30 minutes launching raids to grind XP, and I still had to do a few dungeon runs to collect my daily Monster Cards.

I also cannot overstate the monumental nature of capturing the Towers of Magna.  It is a task that will require months of dedicated playing to accomplish. In that time, you need to at least check in once a day, if to at least make sure nobody is trying to break into your castle.

Escape: You either have to limit the amount of time you play every day (while still checking in on the game daily) or accept the fact that you’re not going to rule the world. If you want to play this game casually and relaxed, you must not be surprised that someone came  along and captured your castle while you took a week of vacation.

Also, take advantage of the “Entrench” feature. It basically gives your castle 8 hours of immunity from attacks and it the only reason I can sleep at night. You can even set this to automatically happen at a set time each day.

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Trap #3: Being a lone wolf
You begin the game under a protection aura that prevents players from attacking you for a few weeks. This lulls many players into a sense of security. But once that protection is gone, solo players are like chum in the water, and there’s about 500 sharks circling.

Also, as I mentioned, the task of capturing a Towers of Magna is monumental, and no player is going to capture one on his own while fending off the competition.

Escape: You need to join an alliance of powerful, well-coordinated players. You need to communicate with them, come to their aid, and even negotiate with the enemy at times. Many options open up by being in an alliance, and the game was designed with cooperation in mind.

But do choose your alliance carefully. You’re not allowed to drop out of one without the leader’s permission. And if the leader is captured, all the alliance members become enemy property too. So it’s kind of important to pick a good team.

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Trap #4: Expecting to win for free
The hardest pill to swallow is that no matter how much progress you make, no matter how proud you are of your strategy, a player shelling out $30 per month in the game (and there’s a surprising number of them), will always produce more resources, have rarer monster, and be able to beat you in a fair fight. It’s the price you pay for a free game.

Escape: The obvious escape is to invest in the game’s cash power-ups (increased unit Cost is the most important), but this is F2P Friday! Just refer to Trap #3, and remember that multiple free players can still pound a pay player. But even if you do remain free, there will be a time in the game where even the NPC opponents start to become a little much for you.

Trap #5: Quitting when you lose
Whether it’s because your army was wiped out in a tower, or an enemy has captured your castle, this is the worst trap you can fall into because it means all the time you’ve invested went to waste.

Escape: In actuality, getting captured is kind of an escape all its own. One of the great things about the design of this game is that captured players aren’t eliminated; they don’t even lose much more than their troops. They simply become “subsidiaries” of the alliance that captured them.

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Subsidiaries pay a little tithe to their masters, and they can’t attack their captor’s alliance either, but otherwise you’re free to play as you were. You can even take advantage of the situation as you gain access to any dungeons your captors have unlocked.

Without the constant worry of being conquered (unless you care about a different alliance taking you over), the game almost becomes casual at this point, and that comes as kind of a relief for me. Roll with it, and be ready to roll with it at any moment, and the game will never feel like a trap again.

If none of that does the trick for you, keep in mind that power shifts often in Kingdom Conquest, and your captors today may themselves be captured tomorrow. When that happens, you’ll be set free! So just take the time to relax, and plot your return to greatness!

Have you fallen for any of these traps in this, or any other game? Tell us in the comments!