If you are new to Call of Dragons and decide to play the game as a free-to-play player or low-spender at first to explore it, read further. This Call of Dragons Free-To-Play guide contains all of the best tips for you to grow fast in the game in the right way with so much less effort!
We will try to keep this article short and focus only on the most important steps you need to know first.
What Faction To Choose?
In the beginning, undoubtedly, League of Order is the best faction for everyone as it offers the resource gathering speed bonus.
Plus, the starter 
Waldyr hero is very good at all aspects of the game.
Where should I spend Gems?
Here is the top priority to spend your 
Gems on:
- The second builder (5,000 Gems)
- Honorary Membership level 8: 2nd Research Queue Permanently Unlocked & 1x
selected Legendary Hero Token daily. - Lucky Spin Event
- Goblin Merchant: Speedups and small purchases under 100 Gems.
- End of Season Artifact Draws
selected Legendary Hero Token daily.How to Use Speedups
- Upgrade the Alliance Center first as it dramatically reduces the building time and researching time of all upgrades.
- Only upgrade your Research Building if you are able to speedup the progress otherwise you will waste a lot of time just for waiting for it.
- Troop Training Buildings
Building
If you upgrade your research or troop training building without using speed-ups, you will lose valuable time that could have been used for research or training.
This is especially important if you have VIP 8, as it means losing 3x the time.
As a F2P player, it’s crucial to save your speed-ups for research and troop training buildings.
Although it may be tempting to use your speed-ups on other buildings, such as your Hall, however, actually, upgrading your Hall is the best time to focus on improving your economy in general.
If you need to rush your hall, doing so is recommended when going from level 16 to 17 or 21 to 22, as these levels grant an extra march for gathering.
Any other building upgrades before Hall 25 are not worth using speed-ups on.
Researching
You want to focus solely on the Economy technology tree until you get the Architecture 2 and Scholarship 2 to max level. Save your speedups for them as well.
You also want to rush for at least one T4 unit to be relevant for the server migration. It would also help you throughout different aspects of the game by a lot.
You generally only want to use speedups during the wars. You want to save the speedups for T4 troops and then use training speedups to fill up your Legions.
How to Gather Resources
Follow our gathering hacks to farm more efficiently.
Always send all of your gatherers out for farming resources and getting hero EXP at the same time.
Look for those resource nodes inside your Alliance territory for the +25% gathering speed bonus.
Focus on training Warhorses (Tier-1 Cavalry unit) as they are best for loading resources. You want to have at least 50k of them.
Farming Mana is important but you will not need a lot of them in the end. Also, farming the other resources are easier, while giving you more hero EXP. You want to get the Gatherers to at least level 43 as soon as possible for the Windfall talent skill (Receive additional reward Items when your Legion depletes a Resource Point.) If you have time, aim for low-level resource nodes for extra rewards when you get the Windfall.
You don’t need to focus on Gem Gathering until some of your heroes get to level 60, or wait at least 30-40 days after the season starts.
Read more: Gathering Talent Tree Builds.
What Heroes to use as a F2P Player?
As a free-to-play player, initially, you should only focus on Epic Heroes.
Peacekeeping god for all free players.
Great deputy for all Legions. She makes you more tanky.
Great for both PvE and PvP. Focus on Magic & Skill talent tree.
Fly, fly, we can fly! Good damage as well!
You will get a lot of Epic Hero Tokens while completing tasks and events, which are enough to max them all.
For more details, take a look at our Call of Dragons Hero Tier List!
Policies
Policies play a huge role in this game, whether you are free-to-play or big spender players.
The Policies always reset at the beginning of each season.
Never use Gems on Policies.
Always pick the Free Healing upgrades.
It’s best to focus on farming policies at first if you are using your gatherers all the time. Resource gathering speed & expansion policies are super helpful in the beginning.
Military Expansion is the most important policy as it increases the power of your Legions by a lot. Try to focus on it later after maxing out the farming policies. It will help you a lot in fights.
War Studies are also very important at leveling up your heroes as your hero levels will be reset when the new season starts.
