Throne Rush Guide for Beginners - Detailed Guide on Playing without Paying

This is a guide to playing the Facebook game Throne Rush in a way that will not cost you money. It will help beginners with planning build queues, knowing what unit to focus, and small tips about building placements!

Ducking the Invoice is (sometimes) possible

F2P (Free To Play) games nowadays are less enticing than before, not because they are getting worse. The proven micro-transaction model have proved to be rather successful (people are more likely to spend many small doses than a single big one), but it is due to this tried-and-true technique that playing F2P games feel less comfortable. You play a game, realising that sometimes the balancing is not quite right, and there are people who can just pay-to-win.

You can't be bloody serious mate

There are, however, many ways to gather money from a game for the publishers -  like fair-minded cosmetics only that doesn't affect gameplay, or pay-to-win purchases that gives stats or units. For Throne Rush, unfortunately, it is possible to pay-to-win. I will show you some tips on how to be comfortable with the game without dropping a dime, but if you want to win fast and big with pure skill and no dough, better pick a F2P MOBA like Smite (click here for the review!) or DotA. Be prepared to offset a bit of planning and a lot of waiting.

This is just the beginning

Start small, build fast

The rule of thumb of Throne Rush is - build the quickest build you can. There is a very limited amount of builders you can have at any one time (in my case, being a penny-pincher I only have 2 as I have not spent a dime on this game), so build the building with the shortest build time first.

As a beginner, complete all the quests, and fight around the PvE map. You know, the one that they said you should fight around.

A single path to conquer in the most linear map of the history of cartography

Strategy wise, this period is quite clear-cut. You get used to the interface, the mechanics, crop up the most gold and food you can, and feel like you are really making progress. There's not much to this period. Build the wall which ever way you like (it doesn't matter that much anyway, for now), as it would be natural to surround the castle with walls and buildings and towers.

Everyone started like this...

...and now strategise

...before having a bloody fort

If you are getting to the point that you don't see new missions every 20 minutes (which is, to be honest, about an afternoon into the game), then you have come to the nasty part. The arduous wait.

So what do you do?

First, focus your resources.
For people who have the time (AND THE MONEY) to spend on Throne Rush, the focus would be food. With enough food, you'd be fighting, climbing the stairs of heavens and so forth.

But as stated very clearly in the title of this blog, I'm not here to give you guys tips on how to play it quick and damaging. I'm here to give out tips on the most time-saving and penny-pinching Throne Rush strategy possible.

So what resource do we focus as free players? Gold. We get tons, and tons, and tons of gold.

Food build gold mines, armies, upgrade troops and extend your cha-ching storage. However, with only 1 level 9 gold mine and all the rest level 10, I lived in excess with 3 of my barns still at level 7, the rest are 8s and a single level 9 barn. I always went for gold first. Why is that so?

Because if we don't buy heroes, if we don't rush armies, then our best attack is defence. Defence strategies need towers, high level walls and clever placement of buildings - and 2 out of 3 of those ideas need tons, and tons, of gold.

Loving that coin rustle when you wake up.

Upgrade your storage sparingly, but always remember to do so when you can fill half of it in a day or so. Focus on the Treasury, as a large gold storage means better castles, and better castles means better (and more) buildings and walls.

Surround your castle the right way

Of course you cover your castle with walls, towers, and buildings. But some ways will be better than the other.

Distract the enemies

Throne Rush units while attacking are uncontrollable, quite literally so! Once the attacker clicks for the release, the units will commence their attacking according to their type and proximity. But this is not always the case. Sometimes, they will divert to a building that you don't even think might work. And on their way to something they might even change their target! Thank God that the AI is stupid from time to time (when you are the defender, of course)

It always advisable to have one of the disposable buildings (Barracks or Barns) at a corner. Some enemies will get distracted by this loner from time to time. Even the time they take to move away is already crucial - in Throne Rush, number wins battles, and for the defender you have to divide and conquer.

These level 7 Barns saved me a lot of times. Seeing the tanky units or the slow ones flock to the Barn must have been quite a sad sight for the attacker

Make rows of increasing importance

Some units focus storage (goblins), some focus towers (orcs), and some have no preference at all (knights). By making rows of increasing importance as you go deeper in, you fulfill 2 objectives - spread out your attackers as much as possible, while keeping the damage to your buildings at a minimum, especially the Castle.

Notice the rows. Weak towers -> Weak storage + Utility buildings + Walls -> Medium towers -> Strong outer wall -> Strong towers + Strong storage -> Inner wall -> Castle

Make sure that the range of the mid-towers can reach both inside and outside, and that the innermost towers can still reach beyond the edge of the outermost row. This is because the units of Throne Rush are very imbalanced in favour of the attacking side, and you'd need a lot of defence when it comes to mid-to-high-tier units. Having rows like this, whichever the focus of the enemy units is, they will be attacked to the most of your towers' ability. Here you see why gold is important - my walls are very highly-leveled compare to the other parts of my set, and I can afford a strong defence suit.

The cannon, for example, has splash damage, huge range but a limited circle next to its base in which it cannot attack. This makes the cannon suitable for the innermost row, where it can wreck havoc before rendered useless.

Do remember folks...

...cover all your bases

Compartmentalise the rows

If the rows divide the space using buildings lined horizontally, then the same thing with walls and towers vertically will cut the space in to compartments, extending the distance on both directions that the enemy must cover, while giving them random targets. This is especially powerful against ground troops, but only marginally useful against air-attacks, like eagles. This game is so unfair for attackers, eh?

Protect the powerful towers as much as possible, while walling the castle in. Notice the anti-air towers on both sides of the castle, to cover the whole map with anti-air. It's never enough, air units are too OP in this game. But it helps.

Make bastions that peeks out of the walls

In the Middle Ages, bastions are fortified towers that peek out from corners and the middle of long stretches of walls to protect blind spots. In Throne Rush, however, it makes for strong towers that are rarely focused. There are no blind spots in Throne Rush anyway!

Bastions will rarely be focused because they are enclosed by walls (unless the enemy is airborne...did I say air units in this game are OP?), and by default the anti-defence units will find the exposed towers first, then go for these later. The other types of units will just get wrecked, and for the anti-defence unit it will serve as the distractions in the case the rows are gone (ouch). It's like the loner Barn distraction, but for Orcs. Furthermore, it will increase the reach of towers by a few blocks without putting it in danger.

A weak tower but works wonders as a distraction, and as first-and-last line of defence. Notice that the anti-airs on both sides (only East wing shown) have a bastion, to extend the anti-air range as much as possible without leaving openings

..but my level is low and I can't employ all these tactics!

Get the gold, up the castle and build things as quickly as you can. I understand that it's tough early on - right after the easy phase and before the stable you-have-to-wait-a-week phase, so employ the strategies as the order above. Rows first, then compartments, then bastion corners. Use bastion corners as your first compartments (divide the sides to 4 slices!) then gradually, extending the rows. Avoid having unprotected rows. All areas should be under the overlapping range of at least 3 towers or more. 

what about the fighting?

Mass the eagles. Easiest way to win as a free player, as the air units are immensely hard to defend against. Air towers are shorter ranged for splash damage and too slow for single-target damage, and there aren't enough anti-air to begin with, not until very late in the game, where the units are crazy anyway. Since we focus the gold, even with one or two battles a day we will still have excess of food, so upgrade your unit often, mass the eagles, and increase the number and size of Headquarters for more troops. The new updates make it easy to train units at all barracks compared to before, so place the Barracks wherever you want and spawn the eagles like crazy.

"How do you like them apples"

Recruit when you can as massing eagles (building anything is this game, in fact), takes tons of time. Avoid fighting strong opponents (by skipping - you will have an abundance of gold to do this), and choose an angle that has the least possible things to attack to get to the castle, and the least flak (haha bad anti-air pun). Basically the shortest safest route.

Leave questions in the comment and I'll answer them in my weekly FAQs, or my intermittent blogs. I promise :D

Wait it out, do other things, and have 15 minutes of fun everyday!

My other Throne Rush posts:

* Throne Rush Guide - Upgrades