Kingdoms, Economy & Warfare
Kingdoms
Each zone has 24 unclaimed Kingdom plots plus one Capital at its center. Claiming a plot opens the full economy and warfare layer.
Claiming
Any unclaimed Kingdom plot can be claimed for gold, spent immediately on claim — but the price scales with your ambitions. Your first claim costs 500 gold; after that, each claim costs 1,000 gold × kingdoms you own + 10,000 × capitals you own (never less than 500), so a hero holding three kingdoms pays 3,000 for the fourth, and a capital owner pays a premium everywhere. Claiming also provisions your first Generals (see Armies & Warfare). A plot stays yours until another player's army defeats your defenders down to 0 troops, at which point it falls back to unclaimed with a reduced starting garrison.
Buildings
Each holding can build and upgrade the following. Every level costs next level × 100 gold plus next level × 5 each of Wood and Ore, drawn from the holding’s own stockpile — so a Walls upgrade from 4 to 5 costs 500 gold, 25 wood and 25 ore. Four buildings also want next level × 5 of a third material: Barracks takes Meat, Gem Mine takes Gems, and Herb Field and Cattle Field both take Herbs. (A War Camp’s Tents are the one exception — a flat 300 gold, 30 wood and 30 ore each, at every level.)
| Building | Effect |
|---|---|
| Resource Depot | Boosts the holding's general resource storage |
| Barracks | Increases troop attack power |
| Housing | Increases troop capacity (troop cap = Housing level × 50) |
| Walls | Increases defense against incoming attacks |
| Stable | Level 2+ opens a mount shop for visiting heroes (max mount sold = Stable level − 1). Mounts are bought one level at a time at 1,000 gold × the level, with a cut of every sale tithed to the selling holding's treasury — so a high stable is a real income source |
| Cattle Field | Produces Meat over time |
| Gold Mine | Pays Gold directly into the holding's treasury |
| Iron Mine | Produces Ore over time |
| Gem Mine | Produces Gems over time (slow) |
| Lumber Yard | Produces Wood over time |
| Herb Field | Produces Herbs over time |
Resources & Economy
Two currencies drive the kingdom layer: personal Gold (carried by your hero) and each holding's Treasury and Resource stockpile.
Resource Types
Production buildings accrue ore, wood, herb, gem, and meat at a flat rate of 2 per building level per hour, capped at 24 hours of unclaimed accrual — so there's no benefit to checking in more than once a day, but no penalty for checking in less either. Collecting moves accrued resources into the holding's stockpile.
Gold & Taxation
Every monster kill on claimed land pays a cut of its gold reward to the holding's treasury, up to a rate the owner sets:
| Holding | Max Tax Rate |
|---|---|
| Ordinary Kingdom | 20% |
| Capital | 50% |
Because every new hero spawns inside their zone's Capital block, a Capital owner taxing at the maximum rate collects up to half of every new player's earliest kills.
Capital Tribute
Owning a zone's Capital also makes every kingdom on that map your vassal: the Collect Tribute button takes 10% of every claimed kingdom's treasury on the map — rounded down per kingdom, so exactly what leaves their vaults arrives in your pocket as personal gold — on a 1-hour cooldown. Kingdom owners can't opt out; the only defense is keeping your treasury empty by collecting it yourself before the crown comes calling.
Deposits & Withdrawals
A holding's owner (and any guild member with the right permission — see Guilds) can move resources and gold between their personal inventory and the kingdom stockpile via deposit/withdraw actions, which also power the Barracks/Housing/Walls/Building upgrade costs in Kingdoms. The Collect Treasury Gold button on any holding you own — ordinary kingdom or Capital — empties its accumulated tax treasury into your hero's gold.
Abandoning a Holding
An ordinary kingdom you own can be abandoned from its Kingdom-tab card (the Capital never can). Abandoning resets the plot to unclaimed — its buildings, garrison, treasury, and generals are permanently lost, and anyone may claim it fresh. There is no refund and no undo, so empty the treasury and withdraw the stockpile first. Its main use is escaping the escalating claim cost: shedding a holding lowers the price of your next claim.
Armies & Warfare
Kingdom-vs-kingdom combat is asynchronous: you send troops under a General to raid a rival holding on your own zone, and the outcome resolves immediately based on both sides' strength.
Training Troops
Troops cost 10 gold each to train, capped by your Housing level (max troops = Housing level × 50). In a War Camp the same maths runs off Tents instead: capacity is tents × 50. Alongside the usual count box, a Train Max button fills the garrison in one press — it trains whichever is smaller, the room left under your capacity or what your gold affords, and tells you which limit stopped it.
Generals
Claiming a holding provisions your Generals, each with a Rank (increases with victories, granting +3% attack power per rank) and one of three specializations:
| Specialization | Effect |
|---|---|
| Siege | +25% attack power when the target has Walls |
| Vanguard | +10% attack power, unconditionally |
| Raider | +15% troop survival rate regardless of outcome |
Resolving an Attack
You choose a holding to send troops from, a General, and a unit count (up to your available, non-cooldown troops). Both sides' power is randomized ±15% and compared:
- Attack Power = units × attacker's troop ATK × (1 + Rank×0.03) × specialization multiplier × random(0.85–1.15)
- Defense Power = defender's available troops × defender's troop DEF × random(0.85–1.15) + defender's Walls level × 5
If Attack Power exceeds Defense Power, you win: survivors return between 55–95% of sent units (better with a bigger margin), you plunder some of the defender's treasury (50 gold + 3 gold/unit sent, capped by what they have), and the defender loses 20–40% of their troops. If the defender is reduced to 0 troops, their holding is sacked — it falls back to unclaimed. If you lose, survivors drop to 10–60% of sent units, and a loss so lopsided that your Attack Power is under half the defense counts as a Rout.
Cooldowns
A General and the troops they led become unavailable for 8 hours after any attack, or 48 hours if the attack was routed.
War Camps
Every zone has a fixed 24 kingdoms plus a Capital, so a full map used to mean no way into the war. A War Camp (⛺) is the answer: a temporary siege base you raise on open ground, giving you troops and generals without owning a kingdom at all.
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| Where | An empty plain tile you are standing on. Not in a dungeon, and not where a camp already stands |
| Cost | 1,000 gold plus 99 each of ore, wood, herb, meat, and gem, taken from the hero raising it |
| Limit | One camp per hero — it must fall or expire before you raise another |
| Lifespan | 72 hours, then it disappears on its own |
| Starts with | 1 Tent and 1 General, rolled with a random name and specialization |
A camp’s only building is the Tent, at a flat 300 gold + 30 wood + 30 ore per tent from the camp’s own stockpile. Each tent adds +50 troop capacity and houses one more General, up to 20 tents — a fully-pitched camp fields 1,000 troops under 20 generals, which outguns most claimed kingdoms.
Player vs. Player
Hero’s Ark does not currently have live, duel-style PvP. Player conflict happens entirely through the asynchronous kingdom-warfare system described in Armies & Warfare — sending troops to raid, plunder, and potentially sack a rival's claimed holding.