Leveling up a commander in Rise of Kingdoms is one of the game's longest but most rewarding investments. Taking a newly recruited commander from the first levels to level 60 can take weeks, and if this process is managed poorly, your action points will run out without accomplishing anything. The good news is this: leveling up is not actually hard; it just requires patience and a proper daily routine. In this guide, we cover all experience sources, from forts to barbarians and from guardians to events, and the order in which you should use them.
What Does Commander Level Actually Unlock?
The most concrete benefit of leveling up a commander is that it unlocks the talent tree and skills. You cannot spend talent points without leveling up; and without spending talent points, you cannot see the commander's true potential. So leveling up is the step that creates the difference between saying "I have a strong commander" and "this commander really performs." The same commander starts behaving like a completely different unit once it reaches the right level and its skills are unlocked.
The ways to gain experience are actually limited, and they all complement one another. Tomes of Knowledge are the most direct source you have; spending the tomes piling up in your inventory on the right commander is the easiest way to level up without waiting. Apart from that, there are four main activities: destroying forts, killing barbarians, hunting guardians, and joining events. These four differ significantly from one another in terms of action point consumption and time cost.
The most common mistake new players make is spending tomes randomly or using experience sources in a scattered way. However, it is much more efficient to first decide which commander you want to upgrade and then direct all resources to that commander. If your goal is not clear during the leveling process, the XP you have will melt away among several commanders, and none of them will reach a usable level.
Action Points: The Single Resource That Determines Your Leveling Speed
Whichever method you choose, the real constraint is action points. Barbarian and fort hunting directly consumes action points; how quickly this point regenerates depends directly on your account settings. So if you want to increase your leveling speed, you first need to increase your action point generation.
There are several ways to do this, and when they stack, the effect is seriously noticeable. Raising your VIP level increases your action point recovery speed. The Shrine of Radiance on the map does the same job, and access to this building is usually easier in an active alliance. Collecting runes that grant action point recovery before going barbarian hunting is the easiest advantage to apply, yet most players skip it.
- Raise your VIP level — it provides faster action point recovery.
- Use the Shrine of Radiance regularly — it gives a permanent recovery bonus.
- Collect action point recovery runes.
- Do not interrupt your daily fort and barbarian rotation — keep points flowing constantly.
- Stay in an active alliance — it is decisive for both forts and events.
Action points accumulate and store up to a cap; therefore, not entering the game for a long time means the points generated go to waste. Spending your points regularly can unknowingly double your leveling speed. So the answer to "what should I do today" should always be the same: find a target on which to spend the points you have.
Forts: The Fastest Experience Source
The method that gives the highest yield in terms of experience is destroying forts. A level 5 fort grants you about 46,000 experience points and also drops valuable rewards such as covenant books. Moreover, each destroyed fort gives you a chance to recover some of your action points; according to what is reported in the source, this return can go up to 50 points. This combination makes forts almost free in terms of both XP and resources.
The most critical requirement for fort hunting is being in a highly active alliance. Forts are usually destroyed with coordinated attacks as an alliance; on your own, you remain very inefficient in both damage and time. An active alliance directly affects not only forts but also action point recovery and event success. A large and active alliance is the invisible engine of your leveling speed.
For free-to-play players, the standout names in fort hunting are Boudica and Aethelflaed. Using Cao Cao as a secondary commander with a 5-1-1-1 skill distribution also significantly lowers action point cost. The skills of such commanders increase damage dealt to barbarians and forts, allowing you to destroy more forts with the same points. When commander selection is done right, the amount of experience you gain in the same time can nearly double.
Another advantage of forts emerges in the long term: destroying forts does not require your castle, the game's hardest building to upgrade, to be at maximum level. Even if your castle is not yet fully leveled, you can hunt forts to collect covenant books and use these books to improve commander skills. In other words, forts are a rare activity that lets you progress simultaneously in level, skills, and resources. So even if at first glance it seems "not for me," it should remain in every player's rotation no matter what stage their account is at.
Barbarians and Guardians: Two Alternatives for Different Time Budgets
If you do not have time to spare for fort hunting, or if your commander lineup is not ready and strong enough to destroy forts, barbarians offer a much more comfortable alternative. Using Lohar and Aethelflaed as primary commanders increases your commander experience gain by about 35 percent. It is no coincidence that these two commanders are made primary commanders: their talent trees increase damage dealt to barbarians while also reducing the action point cost required to attack barbarians.
The best part about barbarians is that they do not only give experience. Hunts regularly drop gems and training speedups; that means the same action point works for both commander level and account development. The most efficient period for leveling up with barbarians is during KvK. During this period, barbarians spawn at higher levels, so you earn both more experience and more gems. Seeing KvK only as a war period causes you to miss a large part of this opportunity.
Before going barbarian hunting, make it a habit to find a rune that increases experience gain. This percentage difference that seems small turns into a serious level advantage when accumulated over dozens of hunts. Scanning the map briefly to find a rune can be much more profitable than hours of hunting. This is why experienced players scanning the map before hunting has become a habit.
Guardians, on the other hand, work on a completely different logic: you do not need to spend action points to kill them. Guardians that appear in the third zone of the map and during KvK are among the most efficient targets in terms of experience. The only requirement is to prepare Peacekeeping commanders that increase experience gain before going guardian hunting, and again to collect an experience rune. In return, you gain not only XP but also a chance to drop equipment blueprints. This turns guardians into a dual-purpose activity for both leveling and equipment.
Events, Tomes, and the Sum of Small Gains
The continuously rotating events in Rise of Kingdoms are an experience source that should not be ignored for commander level. The experience from a single event may sound small; but because events are spread across every day of the week, the total gain is not to be underestimated at all. Moreover, these events do not only give XP; they also drop additional rewards such as speedups, gems, and resources. So joining events is a habit that strengthens your account overall in addition to leveling up.
So the principle is simple: the more events you join in the game, the more your leveling speed increases. Skipping an event where the experience points are small may seem tempting, but in a game where every XP counts, such skips create a serious cumulative loss in the long run. Do not forget the Tomes of Knowledge piling up in your inventory; these tomes from events are the most practical tool for directly giving your commander levels when you need to hurry.
Activity is the invisible but most decisive part of leveling up. A player who spends fifteen minutes a day repeating the fort, barbarian, and event rotation progresses much faster than a player who occasionally plays for hours but acts in a scattered way. Because experience gain here is accumulated through consistency, not one-time bursts.
Which Player Should Choose Which Route?
Because every player's account is different, it is not possible to talk about a single "best" method. What determines it is the commander roster you have, your alliance's activity, and the time you can dedicate to the game daily. The short roadmap below will help you choose the one closest to your own situation:
- If you have a strong lineup and an active alliance: Make the daily fort rotation your main XP source, and add action point recovery alongside it.
- If you are free-to-play: Use Boudica and Aethelflaed as primary commanders in fort hunting, and Lohar and Aethelflaed in barbarian hunting.
- If your castle is not yet at maximum level: Continue fort hunting anyway; the covenant books you get upgrade your castle while also feeding your commander skills.
- If your daily time is limited: Focus on guardian hunting, because you gain experience and equipment blueprints without spending action points.
- If you are in the KvK period: Go hard on barbarian hunting; higher-level barbarians increase both XP and gem returns.
Combining these routes is also entirely possible, and most experienced players already do it. Spending action points on barbarians in the morning, doing a fort tour with the alliance in the evening, and squeezing events in between creates an ideal daily cycle. The critical point is never leaving your action points idle and acting with knowledge of which activity gives which reward.
Conclusion: Slow but Steady Progress Wins
Leveling up commanders in Rise of Kingdoms is not a task to be solved quickly; but with the right habits, it is a fully manageable process. While forts offer the highest experience yield, barbarians and guardians create more flexible and lower-cost alternatives. Events and Tomes of Knowledge add regular small contributions on top of this picture.
The common denominator of all these methods is action point management and activity. Raising your VIP level, using the Shrine of Radiance, collecting the right runes, and staying in the game regularly all serve the same goal: extracting the maximum possible experience from every action point. Set yourself a realistic daily routine, focus on the commander you are targeting, and do not underestimate small gains. Everyone who plays patiently and consistently eventually takes the commander they want to the level they want.