You win your KvK in the month before it starts. Bank action points, speedups, teleports and shields, push your hospital to capacity, and finish one commander pairing, because a Rise of Kingdoms KvK guide that begins on day one of the season is already a month late.
What follows covers the ladder of KvK formats, the prep that actually pays, how honor scores, what taking a level 4 Pass costs, and the specific mistakes that get accounts zeroed. If your kingdom has not reached its first season yet, the first-60-days breakdown covers the account work that comes before any of this.
Updated September 2026. Checked against Rise of Kingdoms version 1.1.11.28, which shipped on September 2 and moved the level 4 and level 8 Pass openings in Warriors Unbound, and the level 4 and level 6 openings in Siege of Orleans, into a Friday to Saturday window.
Work Out Which KvK You Are Actually In
Check your kingdom’s age and your City Hall level before you read another word of strategy, because the formats do not share rules. KvK 1 and KvK 2 need City Hall 17 to teleport in. Season of Conquest formats need City Hall 25.
That one number invalidates most of the advice you will find. A Rise of Kingdoms Lost Kingdom guide written for KvK 1 describes an eight-kingdom map, a roughly 50-day season, and a 30 percent return on dead troops. Season of Conquest adds fog to clear, Bastions to level, crystal research, support skills, and a camp system your King registers the kingdom into. Same vocabulary, different game. Structures, zones and reward tables for each format sit on the community wiki.
Matchmaking runs on kingdom age first and then on the power of your top 1000 players, so a young kingdom never lands against a two-year-old one. Your first season arrives at roughly 100 days of kingdom age and the next about two months later. That gap is your restock window and the most useful line on the calendar, which the rest of our 4X guides get into for the genre generally.
The Prep Month That Decides Your Season
Save action points above everything else. They convert straight into honor once you are on the KvK map, and they are the one resource you cannot buy back at speed when the season is running.
After that the list is short and boring. Speedups for healing rather than building. Teleports so you can reposition without walking a march across the map. Shields so that going to bed is not a loss. Resources banked, because you will not have time to gather once the fighting starts. Hospital capacity high enough that one bad rally is recoverable. A farm account gathering while your main fights is the difference between free accounts that last the season and ones that stall in week three. The honest cost is that the format asks a month of homework before the fun starts, and that front-loading is the single biggest reason people bounce off KvK entirely.
Commanders come last on that list and first in importance, which sounds contradictory until you have watched someone arrive with four half-built pairings and no finished march. If you are free to play, back fighting commanders over rally and garrison specialists, because rally leading belongs to the accounts that paid for it. Check the season schedule in the client and the official Rise of Kingdoms site for anything that shifted between seasons. Our Whiteout Survival SvS prep guide makes the same case in a different game, where prep week is scored and burning speedups early is how you lose it.
How Honor Actually Scores
Farm individual honor first, because individual points gate your access to the alliance and kingdom achievement rewards. An alliance that places well in a season you sat out pays you nothing at all.
The rates are public, and they are not close.
| Action | Honor |
|---|---|
| Complete a gathering node | 3 |
| Barbarian, level 26 to 30 | 5 |
| Barbarian, level 31 to 35 | 8 |
| Barbarian, level 36 to 40 | 10 |
| Level 6 barbarian fort | 15 |
| Level 8 barbarian fort | 35 |
| Level 10 barbarian fort | 60 |
| Ancient Ruin, per minute held | 15 |
| Dark Altar, per minute held | 75 |
Read the last row again. An altar held through one activation window outscores a very long night of barbarian killing, which is why occupation fights decide honor rankings and grinding does not. Parking a march on an altar your alliance can actually hold is the highest-value thing a small account does all season. Save your action points for the zone 3 and zone 4 barbarians where the levels are higher, then spend them in bulk instead of trickling them out.
The fair criticism is that honor rewards attendance more than skill. A mediocre player who logs in for every altar window beats a better one who plays twice a week, and the design is entirely comfortable with that. Our Whiteout Survival Bear Trap guide runs into the same scoring logic, where turning up on schedule outperforms raw power.
Taking Pass 4 Without Losing the Kingdom
A Pass falls to a coordinated rally, not to a crowd of individuals arriving whenever they log in, and the level 4 Pass is the first one where a disorganized kingdom gets punished for it. Join the rally, do not fight next to it.
Passes open on a schedule rather than whenever your kingdom feels ready, and version 1.1.11.28 moved the level 4 openings in both current season stories into a Friday to Saturday window. Treat that as a planning change rather than a patch note. Your fighting core now has to be awake on a weekend, and time zones settle more Pass fights than commander pairings do.
The trap on both sides of a Pass is the structure’s own area damage. Troops lost to a Pass, fortress, flag or holy site do not go to the hospital, they die outright. That single mechanic turns an ambitious attack into a wrecked account faster than any enemy march will. The siege of Orleans that lends one season story its name went much the same way, decided by who arrived and when rather than by the walls, and the MMORTS field on PC runs the same territorial math.
How Not to Get Zeroed
Shield whenever you are not actively fighting, and keep your hospital large enough to absorb one bad rally. Getting zeroed is survivable in a format with a troop return rate, but in Season of Conquest it costs weeks that a free account does not have spare.
Three things kill troops outright instead of hospitalizing them: attacking or defending a structure, taking area damage from an enemy structure, and overflowing your own hospital. The first two are the price of playing. The third is entirely self-inflicted, and it is the most common way an otherwise careful account gets taken apart. If you came from a raid-based builder where losses reset overnight, this is the adjustment that stings.
Run tier 4 troops in mass fights and keep tier 5 for rallies, garrison duty and one-on-one. T4 trades better in a scrum and costs a fraction to replace, and holding position behind the front lane is worth more than any talent build. Most of what circulates as a KvK Rise of Kingdoms prep guide skips all of this and hands you a shopping list instead.
How to Use This Rise of Kingdoms KvK Guide
Answer three questions in order. Which format is your kingdom actually in, how many action points can you bank before it opens, and can your alliance field a full rally at the hour the level 4 Pass opens. If the third answer is no, your season is about honor farming and survival, and that is a perfectly respectable season to play.
A Rise of Kingdoms 2nd KvK guide is mostly the first one again with better commanders and less patience from the people around you, so the habits you build in season one are the ones you keep. The neighboring systems are broken out across the strategy guides shelf.
If two months of scheduled war reads as more commitment than you want, that is a fair verdict on the format rather than a failure of nerve. Our roundup of online war strategy games covers the long-campaign field on friendlier terms. Everything else sits at Strategygame.org.
Frequently Asked Questions
What City Hall level do you need for KvK in Rise of Kingdoms?
City Hall 17 for KvK 1 and KvK 2, and City Hall 25 for Season of Conquest formats. The requirement exists to keep low-level bot accounts off the KvK map, and it is the first thing to check before following any KvK advice, because guides written for different formats assume different rules.
When does a kingdom get its first KvK?
At roughly 100 days of kingdom age, with the next season about two months later. Matchmaking uses kingdom age first and then the power of your top 1000 players, so a young kingdom will not be matched against a long-established one.
What is the fastest way to earn honor points in KvK?
Holding occupation targets, not killing barbarians. A Dark Altar pays 75 honor per minute held and an Ancient Ruin pays 15, while a level 40 barbarian pays 10 for the kill. Farm barbarians with banked action points in the higher zones, but win the season on altars and ruins.
Do you get troops back after being zeroed in KvK?
Partly, depending on format. KvK 1 returns 30 percent of dead troops. Troops lost to structure area damage or to hospital overflow are gone regardless, which is why hospital capacity and a shield habit matter more than any single fight.
Should free-to-play players even bother with KvK?
Yes, but play for honor rank rather than for kills. Individual honor points gate the alliance and kingdom achievement rewards, and the sculptures and speedups from a solid individual placing are among the best free income in the game. Skip rally leading and let the spenders pay for it.
