Rise of Kingdoms Civilizations

In this first main article I want to concentrate on civilizations.

For many this is a matter of personal choice, and in part depends on the type of troop you will mainly use which fall into either Infantry, Cavalry or Archer.

That said you can change civilization later on so are not stuck with the same civilization.  For that reason it is worth starting out with a civilization that assists you in what boosts you need at the beginning of the game such as boost building speed, research speed, gathering speed, action point recovery.

In theory many of these will give a boost to one of these elements (you will get 3 different type of boosts per civilization, plus your starting commander).

For me personally, I always start with China, as this gives a 5% building speed boost, 5% AP recovery and most importantly gives me a powerful epic commander which many will use in the early game - Sun Tzu.

Other civilizations that are worth considering when first starting out tend to be Japan (for the 5% gathering boost); Spain (for the 20% resource production and 10% barb experience - plus getting Pelagius commander); or Britain (mainly for getting Boudica commander who is good fighting barbarians - but also you get 5% training speed).

Let's do a summary of each civilization boosts below, along with the starting commander which I will put in brackets and will go more into commanders in a later article (it should be noted you can and will win each of this commander in time no matter what civilization you start out so don't worry too much if you badly want a specific commander - in time you will get them).

• ROME (Scipio) 
•  infantry defence 5%; march speed 5%; AP recovery 5%
• GERMANY (Hermann)
• cavalry attack 5%; training speed 5%; AP recovery 10%
• BRITAIN (Boudica)
• archer attack 5%; training speed 5%; garrison capacity 20%
• FRANCE (Joan of arc)
• health 3%; wood gathering speed 10%; healing speed 20%
• VIKINGS (Bjorn)
• infantry attack 5%; counter-attack 3%; load 10%
• CHINA (Sun tzu)
• troop defence 3%; Building speed 5%; AP recovery 5%
• JAPAN (Kusunoki)
• attack 3%; speed 30%; gathering 5%
• KOREA (Eulji)
• archer defence 5%; hospital capacity 15%; research 3%
• SPAIN (Pelagius)
• cavalry defence 5%; barbarian experience 10%; resource production 20%
• ARABIA (Baibars)
• cavalry attack 5%; barbarian damage 10%; rally damage 5%
• OTTOMAN (Osman)
• archer health 5%; speed 5%, skill damage 5%
• BYZANTIUM (Belisarius)
• cavalry health 5%; stone gathering speed 10%; hospital capacity 15%

later on into the game you may wish to switch to Germany mainly to boost training speed by 5% but also gives AP recovery 10%.

Even further on down the line (late game), research speed is important so switching to Korea which gives a modest 3% research speed may help.