Rise of Kingdoms farming guide: gems and resources for free players

If you are brand new, read the beginner guide first. This page is about the long game: steady income and not wasting it. More guides are on the Rise of Kingdoms hub.

Where free gems come from

Sources: RiseofKingdomsGuides' gem guide, Pocketgamer's City Hall guide and LDShop's Ark of Osiris guide. Amounts can change with patches; daily quests and deposits are the reliable base.

Gem deposits: the free player's main income

Gem deposits are map nodes like farms or quarries, but they pay gems. You need the Jewelry research in the Academy's Economic tree before you can gather them. After that it is a routine:

1. Research Jewelry as soon as it opens, then the gem gathering upgrade after it.
2. Scout regularly around your city and alliance territory. Deposits are spread thinly and get taken fast.
3. Send a gathering commander with a full march and the Gathering tree. Constance is the cheap classic for gems.
4. Resend as soon as a march returns. The more often you resend, the more you get.
5. Stay safe. Gathering marches outside your territory can be attacked. Deposits inside or next to alliance territory are the safest.

AllClash measured roughly 80 gems an hour without bonuses and up to about 140 an hour with five marches in their deposit guide, which adds up to several hundred gems a day for an active player. Those numbers date from 2020, so treat them as an order of magnitude, not a promise.

Gathering resources efficiently

• Gather inside alliance territory. Guides measure a gathering speed bonus of 25 percent inside your borders, and a share of what you gather goes to alliance storage.
• Use high level nodes and fill the march. A full march on a high level node beats several half marches on small ones.
• Research gathering speed in the Economic tree for the resource you need most.
• Use gathering boosts during gathering events. The Mysterious Merchant sometimes sells an 8 hour gathering speed token for resources instead of gems.
• Use all march queues. City Hall 17 and 22 add march slots, which is extra gathering for free.
• Mind the gold. Gold becomes the bottleneck in the late game, for research and tier 5 troops.

Remember that gathering marches outside your territory can be attacked and their resources taken. In KvK especially, gather inside alliance land or close to it, and pull marches home before you log off when enemies are near.

Best gathering commanders

List based on RiseofKingdomsGuides' gathering commanders guide (January 2026) and AllClash's gathering tier. Elite gatherers are cheap to max and do most of the work for a free player. Do not pour universal sculptures into gather-only legendaries; save those for the commanders on the tier list.

For a free player the best gatherer is the one already maxed. Do not chase a legendary gatherer from the shop; level Constance or Sarka fully, and the extra few percent of a legendary gatherer will not matter.

Where to spend gems: the order that pays off

Rise of Kingdoms Lyceum: Gem Spending Tips (official channel)

1. VIP 6. Permanent second builder. One gem buys one VIP point.
2. VIP 10. The free daily VIP chest starts giving a legendary sculpture every day.
3. Books of Covenant when you work on the Castle (10 gems each in the shop).
4. VIP 12, then Wheel of Fortune. The first 10 spins cost 5,600 gems and include guaranteed sculptures.
5. VIP 14 as the long term target.

This order follows RiseofKingdomsGuides' gem spending guide (January 2026). Spend the gems for VIP and Wheel of Fortune during More Than Gems, which rewards gem spending with extra prizes, so the same gems pay twice.

Some guides also say that heavily discounted speedup bundles are a reasonable use of gems. We agree only with one condition: buy them during More Than Gems and spend the speedups inside Mightiest Governor, so the same gems pay three times.

What not to spend gems on

• Random offers in the shop. Most are poor value compared with VIP and event spending.
• Mysterious Merchant items for gems. Buy the resource priced items, skip the gem ones.
• Gambling events you cannot finish. Wheel of Fortune pays best when you reach the guaranteed thresholds; a few random spins usually waste gems.
• Gather-only legendary commanders. Their sculptures are better spent on fighters.

Farm accounts are the other classic free to play tool: small second accounts that gather and send resources through alliance features. Gems cannot be moved between accounts, so a farm is for resources only. For the timing of gem events, see the events calendar.

Resources: what runs out when

Plan your gathering one stage ahead. If you know gold will be the bottleneck in two months, start gathering it now while food and wood still come easily.

A daily routine for free players

1. Morning: collect city resources, the VIP chest and tavern chests, send every march to gather.
2. Gem deposits first: if a deposit is in reach, send your gem gatherer there before anything else.
3. Daily quests: finish them for the 100 gems.
4. Lyceum of Wisdom: answer the daily quiz.
5. Barbarians: spend action points before they cap.
6. Evening: resend all marches with the longest gathering trips so they run overnight.

Over a month that routine gives a free player thousands of gems from daily quests alone, before deposits and events. Put them into the spending order above and you reach VIP 6 and VIP 10 far sooner than most players expect.

Farm accounts done right

• Pick a gathering civilization for the farm: Spain for production, or Rome, France, Greece or Maya for the resource you need. See the civilization guide.
• Keep the farm in the same alliance and close to your main city.
• Level only what gathering needs: City Hall for march slots, the Academy for gathering research, a cheap gathering commander.
• Never use a farm to attack. A farm that loses its shield and troops is just resources for someone else.

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