Clash of Kings (CoK) - The West: Hide Your Troops

I dedicate one post to hide your troops as this is key to survival.

*Updates

Free

1. Hide Your Troops By Exploring Ancient Ruins (Max: 8 hrs)

Ancient Ruins spawn and appear around the World Map. These ancient ruin castles are also where the “black knights” respawn during the Black Knight event. You can send out your troops to explore ruins and be protected during the duration. When the Castle Ruins spawn initially, they can last up to 24 hours and they disappear when the timer runs out. You can pick different exploration times to hide your troops.

The exploration times are Easy (15 Minutes), Normal (1 Hour), Difficult (4 hours), and Hell (8 Hours). You can only send 1 march worth of troops to the ancient ruins. Troops that are exploring the castle ruins cannot be attacked.

It should be noted that you can gather small amount of resources and lord EXP during your exploration. It appears that the higher your castle level and troops sent, the higher amount of RSS and EXP that you can obtain.

2. Protect Your Troops by Gathering at Alliance Super Mine

Alliance Super Mine is a special building that your alliance can build. These Super Mine grant you additional resource gathering bonus as well as valuable protection. Troops that are gathering at the Alliance Super Mine cannot be attacked and thus cannot be injured nor killed.

You can only send 1 march to an Alliance Super Mine. However, as you build out your Castle and improve your marching size, you will be able to send out more troops to the mines. Consider sending out Siege Engines as they have higher troop load, which can camp at the Super Mines for even longer periods of time.

3. Avoid Head On Battles with Long Marches

Troops that are marching towards a destination cannot be attacked or intercepted. This means by sending out troops to the longest path possible, you can potentially keep them safe from all the marching time. You can send out a march to attack a faraway abandoned castle and keep your troops safe for that entire duration. Below are some of the key points to obtain longer duration march.

a. Use Siege Engine as a Part of March
Siege engine is the slowest troop unit that can prolong your marching time. It should be noted that this strategy is best when combined with the lord skill Immediate Return to instantly recalling your troops back.

b. Go through center zones or dark ground area (throne)
Dark ground areas are the slowest area of the game. Troops take more than double the time to travel through the area.

c. Check out multiple targets for varying path
Certain terrains such as mountain and forest add to the marching time. Make sure you check out several targets to find the “sweet” path that take the longest.

d. Unequip equipment that improve marching speed
Finally, remember to remove your lord’s equipment that improve marching speed. You want your troops to march as slow as possible for protection and hidden from attack.

4. Initiate “Fake” Rally for Short Term Protection

Troops that are a part of rally cannot be attacked. You do need a Hall of War to be able to start a rally. Or you can shield your troops by joining another alliance’s member’s rally.

To start a rally in Clash of Kings, you first tap on the enemy’s castle, and tap on “Declare War”. The players from your alliance can add their troops toward the rally. During the rally preparation time, all the troops as a part of the rally are protected against attacks.

To join an alliance member’s rally, tap Alliance and Alliance Battles, and finally the plus sign.

The pro is that you can cancel the rally and have access to your troops right away, compared to a simple long march. The con of a fake rally in the game is that the longest rally preparation time is a mere 1 hour.

5. Utilizing Alliance Member’s Castle as Protection

When your alliance is under heavy attack against an incoming invader, sometimes sending your troops out to reinforce alliance member’s castle can be an awesome strategy. There are two situation where you can take advantage of such a situation.

Your alliance member should be either under a peace shield, or strong enough that they are very unlikely to be attacked.

6. Camping Troops at Distant Location Away from Battle

When it is not a Kill Enemy event or KE, most of the attackers invade your castles for resources. This means that they will typically not out to kill your troops and getting you. You can potentially hide your troops and save them from being attacked by tucking them away. However, this is risky as your enemy can still follow the path to know where your troops are.

Not Free

1. Activate Peace Shield

This is the most basic way to hide and prevent incoming attacks in Clash of Kings. It should be noted that your troops that are out on farming tiles can still be attacked. You can mainly get peace shield from various packs, from store or from alliance store. Peace shields are found under “buff” tab of Store. Generally speaking, the higher time duration peace shields is a better deal in terms of gold per amount of time.

*Pro-tip: You can still attack monsters. But if you scout or attack your enemy, your shield will break.

1 Hour Peace Shield
?

8 Hour Peace Shield
100k Alliance Honor or 500 Gold

24 Hour Peace Shield
1000 Gold

3 Day Peace Shield
2500 Gold

*2. Activate Resource Shield on Gold Mine

I discovered this when I was given free resource shields. This was pretty cool as I needed to protect my third marching troop contingent plus it lasted more than 8 hours. I recalled it was about 11+ hours and if you factor the marching about 2+ hours to-and-fro, it can last about close to 14 to 15 hours. (1) Explore ruins. (2) Alliance super mine. (3) Resource shield. Most of the time, I do not want to waste my Peace shield since my castle is empty and low resource anyway.