Base building

Your base is a kingdom in one of the eight realms: a Keep at its heart, a buildable claim around it that grows from 14×14 to 50×50 tiles, and your realm's trees, farm and water all around. This page covers what you can build, what it costs, how long it takes, and the Keep-level rules that decide when each piece unlocks.

Everything here is enforced by the game server; the game only draws what the server says is there. Prices in SOL and KEEP are devnet test tokens with no real-world value.

Quick facts#

• You build only inside your claim: 14×14 for a new base, growing to 50×50 with 12 land expansions.
• Every base starts with a level-1 Keep and a one-time gift of 5,000 SHARDS. Nothing else is pre-placed.
• You start with 1 builder and can own up to 6; extra builders are bought with SOL. One builder = one job at a time.
• Walls never use a builder: they place and upgrade instantly.
• Every level-1 building takes 60 seconds. Upgrades climb one ladder from 10m (L1→2) to 3d (L19→20); the Keep and Gold Forge take that ladder ×1.2, and traps keep a shorter curve of their own.
• No building can be upgraded above your current Keep level (the Keep itself excepted).
• Moving buildings is free and instant. Placing one is permanent — there is no sell, remove or demolish.
• Two saved layouts per base: HOME (free) and BASE (unlocked once for 500 SHARDS).
• The Gold Forge, extra builders and land expansions need a Land Deed; everything else is open to free players.

Your land and claim#

Your base sits in the middle of a realm-themed field. The buildable claim is the square in the middle: 14×14 for a new base. Around it, your realm's kit — trees, rocks, a farm, water and a quay, creatures and a landmark — makes the base feel lived in. The scenery is decoration: it never changes footprints, where attackers can deploy, Mine output or battle results.

Placement rules:

• A building's whole footprint must sit inside the claim.
• Footprints cannot overlap another building, including one still under construction.
• Footprints cannot overlap an uncleared obstacle — a tree, stump or rock. See Obstacles.

The Keep (2×2) comes with the base and stands at the centre of the fresh claim. Everything else you place can be moved; a whole run of walls can be dragged together.

In a raid, attackers may drop troops on any tile that is part of a fully empty 2×2 square — anywhere on the battlefield, including open ground inside your walls. See Raids and loot.

Land expansions#

Each land expansion adds a ring of tiles around your claim. There are 12 in all: the first six grow the claim to 26×26, and six larger steps take it to 50×50 for Keep 19 and 20. Each has a Keep-level gate and a SOL price, and you need a Land Deed before buying any.

Land expansions

Expansion	Claim (tiles)	Needs	Price (devnet)
Start	14×14	—	Included
1	16×16	Keep 3	0.15 SOL
2	18×18	Keep 6	0.25 SOL
3	20×20	Keep 9	0.4 SOL
4	22×22	Keep 12	0.65 SOL
5	24×24	Keep 15	1 SOL
6	26×26	Keep 18	1.5 SOL
7	30×30	Keep 19	1.75 SOL
8	34×34	Keep 20	2 SOL
9	38×38	Keep 20	2.25 SOL
10	42×42	Keep 20	2.5 SOL
11	46×46	Keep 20	2.75 SOL
12	50×50	Keep 20	3 SOL

The purchase is priced by the server: the game checks the Keep gate when you start and again when the payment is verified, then adds the ring. If you abandon a free base, its expansions reset to zero.

See Land Deeds and realm tiles for deeds and Deposits, withdrawals and 2FA for payments.

Builders#

Builders are your bottleneck. Every base starts with one; you can own up to 6. Builders 2 to 6 are bought one at a time with SOL, permanently, and need a Land Deed.

A builder handles one job at a time: new construction, an upgrade, clearing an obstacle or repairing a spent trap. When every builder is busy the game says so. On your base, each builder appears as the Builder Workman, hammering away at his job.

Two things never use a builder:

• Walls — placement and upgrades are instant.
• Troop research in the ALCHEMY LAB — it has its own queue.

A building under construction occupies its tiles at once, but it does not defend or add capacity until the job finishes.

Speeding up a job (FINISH)#

Any running job can be finished instantly for KEEP. The price depends only on the time left, counted in 30-second units:

• Let u = remaining seconds ÷ 30, rounded up.
• Cost = u × 2 + ceil(2u² ÷ 9,000) KEEP.

Short jobs are cheap and multi-day jobs get steep: one hour left costs 244 KEEP, a full day left 7,604 KEEP. KEEP spent on speed-ups goes back into the reward pool rather than being burned — see Economy: SHARDS and KEEP.

The Keep gates everything#

The Keep is the spine of progression. Its level decides:

• What you can build — many buildings have a minimum Keep level.
• How high you can upgrade — nothing else may go above your Keep's level.
• How many you can place — count caps grow with the Keep.
• Mine and trap caps, heroes (Keep 5), Rally (Keep 3) and expansions.

The Keep also multiplies your mining income, and from Keep 15 it fires its own long-range gun, adding a close-range gun at Keep 17. Tapping the Keep shows exactly what the next level unlocks.

Keep levels

Keep	Upgrade (SHARDS)	Upgrade time	Mines	Walls	Traps	Opens
1	Start	—	2	40	2	—
2	182	12m	3	51	4	Alchemy Lab
3	290	24m	4	62	6	Mortar, Gold Forge, Rally
4	464	54m	5	73	8	Powder Mine
5	741	1h 12m	6	84	10	Hero Altar (Vex), Siege Stool (Theodor), Clan Hall
6	1,180	1h 48m	7	95	12	Pitfall
7	1,890	2h 24m	8	106	14	Air Defence
8	3,010	3h 36m	8	117	16	Air Mine, Electric Tower
9	4,810	4h 48m	8	128	18	—
10	7,690	9h 36m	8	139	20	Mage Tower
11	12,300	12h	8	151	20	—
12	19,600	14h 24m	8	162	20	Laser Tower
13	31,200	19h 12m	8	173	20	—
14	49,900	1d	8	184	20	Dragon Nest
15	79,700	1d 4h	8	195	20	Keep long-range battery
16	128,000	1d 9h	8	206	20	—
17	203,000	1d 14h	8	217	20	Keep close-range battery
18	324,000	2d 9h	8	228	20	—
19	517,000	3d	8	239	20	—
20	826,000	3d 14h	8	250	20	—

Building roster#

Every economy and support building, with its footprint, hit points at level 1 and maximum level. Towers and traps have their own tables on Defenses, traps and walls.

Build costs and Keep gates#

New construction costs SHARDS, with two exceptions: hero altars cost KEEP (or a Hero Contract item), and Mines after the first cost KEEP. Every new building takes 60 seconds of one builder's time; walls are instant.

Tower and trap prices are on Defenses, traps and walls. KEEP spent on Mines 2–8 goes back into the reward pool. When you place a hero altar, the game uses a Hero Contract from your inventory first and only charges KEEP if you have none.

Upgrades#

Upgrades cost SHARDS and occupy one builder (walls excepted). Each building runs one upgrade at a time, and nothing but the Keep may go above your Keep's level. A spent trap must be repaired before it can be upgraded.

Costs rise steeply. The table shows four steps of each curve; the building's sheet always shows the exact next price.

Upgrade timers follow one ladder for every building except traps. The KEEP and the GOLD FORGE take the same ladder ×1.2, so the Keep stays the slowest thing in the game and paces everything gated on it.

That is 342.8 hours from level 1 to 20 for an ordinary building and 411.3 hours for the Keep or the Gold Forge. The four traps keep their own short curve — 10m for L1→2 rising to 8h for L19→20 — because a defense you spend every raid should not be a long investment. Walls upgrade instantly.

Upgrades that also cost SOL#

Two buildings have deeper steps priced in devnet SOL on top of SHARDS, paid from your wallet:

• MINE: levels 2–4 are SHARDS only. Upgrading to L5 costs 0.5 SOL, rising level by level to 3.2 SOL for L20. The full list is on Mining and the Daily Cache.
• GOLD FORGE: every upgrade costs SOL — 0.1 SOL for L2, then a further 0.05 SOL per level up to 1 SOL for L20. See Gold Forge.

This SOL goes entirely to the liquidity wallet.

Count caps by Keep level#

How many of each building you may place grows with your Keep. The table samples five Keep levels; the Keep's sheet in game shows the exact next unlock.

The wall cap rises every Keep level; cannons and archer towers gain a slot every two levels; traps allow 2 per Keep level up to 20; and the ALCHEMY LAB, GOLD FORGE, CLAN HALL and each hero altar are strictly one per base.

Walls#

Walls are the one thing you build in bulk without waiting — and the one thing whose look changes most as you level them. Wall art has five visual tiers:

Joins adapt to the neighbouring tiers, so a mixed wall still reads as one wall. The art never changes a wall's stats.

• 150 SHARDS a segment, placed instantly. Dragging places a whole run as one all-or-nothing purchase.
• Upgrades are instant and SHARDS only, per segment, up to level 20.
• HP from 300 at level 1 to 13,201 at level 20 — the full table is on Defenses, traps and walls.
• Cap 40 at Keep 1, rising to 250 at Keep 20.

In combat, walls slow and steer attackers; each troop type breaks through, burrows under, flies over or walks around. See Defenses, traps and walls.

Layouts: HOME and BASE#

The LAYOUT button opens the LAYOUTS editor, where a whole arrangement of your base is saved on the server and applied in one move. HOME is free; BASE unlocks once for 500 SHARDS from that base's balance. Pick buildings up one at a time or PICK UP ALL (the Keep included), drop them on new tiles — arrow keys or the pad nudge one tile — and SAVE. CANCEL sends nothing; a save is refused while anything is still in the tray, and a saved layout applies as one step that moves everything or nothing. An incoming raid locks the editor (AN INCOMING RAID HAS LOCKED THIS BASE). Layouts only move buildings: they never build, sell, upgrade or touch resources, traps or jobs.

The Vault and what raiders can take#

The Vault does not store your SHARDS; it protects them. A raid can take up to 50% of your liquid SHARDS and open Gold Forge SHARDS combined. Your highest Vault still standing at the end of the fight shields part of that: 1.5 percentage points at level 1 (48.5% lootable), 15 at level 10, and 30 at level 20 (20% lootable). A destroyed Vault protects nothing, so wall it in. Uncollected Mine buffers go to the attacker only if that Mine is destroyed.

The full loot rules are on Raids and loot.

Obstacles (clearing terrain)#

Every base starts with trees, stumps and rocks, mostly outside the starting claim with a sparse scattering inside it. They block placement until cleared; in raids they are decoration only.

Clearing uses a builder and pays back 15 SHARDS when it finishes. You can clear only obstacles fully inside your current claim. A cleared obstacle never comes back; its stump or rubble stays on the ground for 7 days as decoration.

What you cannot do#

• Remove, sell or demolish a building. Placement is permanent; move it instead.
• Build the Keep. It comes with the base.
• Upgrade past your Keep level (Keep excepted).
• Upgrade a spent trap before repairing it.
• Build the Gold Forge, buy builders or buy expansions without a Land Deed.
• Clear an obstacle outside your claim.

See also#

• Getting started
• Realms and the world
• Defenses, traps and walls
• Mining and the Daily Cache
• Gold Forge
• Raids and loot
• Troops and heroes
• Land Deeds and realm tiles