There are many researches in the Academy, but not all of them are equally important. Since Academy researches can take years of base time without speedups, it is important to know which ones are actually worth focusing on.
There are generally two types of players in the game:
- F2Ps and low spenders, usually called rally joiners
- Heavy spenders, usually called rally leaders
Your research priorities change a lot depending on which type of player you are.
Rally leaders are the players who lead rallies during events and alliance battles. They are the backbone of the alliance, so improving troop stats is very important for them.
Rally joiners mainly send troops to the rally leader. Their troop stats do not matter much because rallies use the rally leader’s stats. Because of this, joiners should focus more on account growth, troop capacity, and unlocking better troop tiers as quickly as possible.
Research Priorities for Joiners (F2P & Low Spenders)
Growth Tree Priorities
Recommended Researches:
- Command Tactics
- Tooling Up
- Tool Enhancement
- Trainer Tools
Researches You Can Ignore:
- Camp Expansion
- Ward Expansion
- Bandaging
Command Tactics
Command Tactics is the highest priority research in the Academy overall. Your main focus should be maxing this research as early as possible.
The good thing is that it does not take very long to complete, and you can usually finish it around Town Center Level 18.
This research gives you 3 extra march queues, which is huge for account growth. You can use them for gathering, hunting, intel missions, and events. The extra marches make a massive difference in your daily progress, so this should always be one of your earliest priorities.
Tooling Up
Tooling Up is another important research for joiners.
There are a huge number of building upgrades in the game, especially with Truegold levels going up to TG8 and possibly TG10 in the future. As a joiner, you are almost always upgrading buildings, so this research gives a lot of value.
Tooling Up is especially useful up to around Tier 6. It helps you upgrade faster and reach higher Town Center levels sooner, which unlocks stronger troop tiers. Better troops make you a more valuable joiner for your alliance.
Tool Enhancement
Tool Enhancement increases research speed, making it another great investment.
Getting this research up to around Tier 5 is usually the sweet spot. Beyond that, the costs and time required become much higher, while the returns start to drop off.
For most joiners, Tooling Up to Tier 6 and Tool Enhancement to Tier 5 is a very balanced stopping point.
Trainer Tools
Trainer Tools increases troop training speed and is another strong research for joiners.
Faster troop training helps you grow your army quicker, making you more useful in rallies and alliance events.
It is also very helpful for events like:
- KvK
- Strongest Governor
- Hall of Governors
- Alliance Brawl
You will be able to gain more points while using fewer speedups.
Researches to Ignore in Growth Tree:
Camp Expansion
Camp Expansion only increases the number of troops you can train at once. It does not improve training speed, which makes it much less useful.
Ward Expansion
Ward Expansion is not very important for joiners because you are usually not leading rallies or taking heavy troop losses.
Bandaging
Bandaging can also be safely ignored early on since other growth researches give much better value.
Economy Tree Priorities
Focus On:
- Gathering Researches
Ignore:
- Resource Output Researches
In the Economy Tree, you should mainly focus on gathering researches.
Resource production researches give very poor returns compared to gathering. Resource buildings simply do not produce enough to matter in the long run.
Gathering is a much more efficient way to get resources, so prioritize gathering speed and gathering capacity researches instead.
Only do resource production researches when they are required to unlock the next gathering tier.
Battle Tree Priorities for Joiners
Focus On:
- Regimental Expansion
Ignore:
- Everything else early on
Regimental Expansion is the only truly important Battle Tree research for joiners.
Most of the other researches focus on troop stats, but joiners do not contribute stats in rallies. The rally leader’s stats are what matter.
Regimental Expansion increases the number of troops you can send in marches and rallies. This helps you contribute more troops to alliance rallies and also increases your Bear Trap damage.
Research Priorities for Rally Leaders
When you are a spender and rally leader, your priorities change a lot. Since your troop stats affect the entire rally, Battle Tree researches become extremely important.
Growth Tree Priorities for Rally Leaders
Recommended Researches:
- Command Tactics
- Tool Enhancement
- Trainer Tools
- Ward Expansion
Command Tactics
Even for spenders, Command Tactics is still one of the best researches in the game because the 3 extra march queues are extremely valuable.
Tool Enhancement
Tool Enhancement is very important for spenders because Academy researches require over 4000+ days of total base time.
Even small research speed boosts save a huge amount of speedups over time. This becomes even more valuable later when War Academy is unlocked.
Trainer Tools
Trainer Tools is another high priority for spenders.
Troops are one of the biggest power factors for whales, and faster troop training allows you to build armies much more efficiently while also scoring better in troop training events.
Ward Expansion
Unlike F2Ps, spenders should prioritize Ward Expansion because rally leaders take much heavier troop losses during alliance battles and events.
Higher infirmary capacity helps reduce permanent troop losses.
Economy Tree for Rally Leaders
This tree can mostly be ignored early on by spenders.
Resources are usually not a problem for whales, so spending a lot of time in the Economy Tree early is not worth it.
Later on, gathering researches can still become useful for events like KvK, but resource production researches are still not worth prioritizing.
Battle Tree Priorities for Rally Leaders
The Battle Tree is the most important section for spenders.
You eventually want to max the entire tree, but knowing the correct stat priority is also important.
Regimental Expansion
This research increases the number of troops you can send in rallies, making it one of the highest priority researches in the Battle Tree.
Stat Priority Order:
- Infantry Health
- Archer Lethality
- Cavalry Lethality
- Infantry Defense
- Archer Attack
- Cavalry Attack
- Infantry Lethality
- Archer Health
- Cavalry Health
- Infantry Attack
- Archer Defense
- Cavalry Defense
Some researches affect all troop types, while others only affect specific troop types like Infantry, Archers, or Cavalry.
Researches that boost all troops should generally be prioritized higher.
Following these Battle Tree priorities will help you deal much more damage and perform better in events like:
- Flamedragon Tyrant
- Bear Hunt
- Swordland Showdown
- Castle Battle
- KvK
“One research you can completely ignore in the Growth Section is Camp Expansion. This one lets you train more troops at once, but it doesn’t speed up the training process.”
I disagree. It’s not useless at all!
‘Training more troops in the same time’ may have the same effect as ‘training same troops in less time’.
And there’s more! If I let it training overnight and don’t get the exact moment when troops finish training, this bonus extra minutes are wasted. But if I had bought the Camp Extension instead, I would still have made more troops
Thanks for your input! You’ll still need to do some Camp Expansion research to unlock more important techs that boost your Training Capacity. Your Training Capacity also depends on your Training Camp level. Plus, higher-level troops take more time to train.
By the time you reach T8 or T9, it’ll take around 8 to 9 hours to train a batch — perfect for starting before bed and having them ready when you wake up.
Very useful website. Thanks for the work