Ironhold Empire Game Guide

Every attack in Ironhold Empire is resolved as a scripted battle between two armies. Attackers select troop counts, choose a mission type — Raid, Scavenge, Bandit (PvE), or Sack — and dispatch their army on a real-time march. Marches take a minimum of five minutes, and honor and faction titles adjust march time by up to ±10%.

Troop composition matters. Spearmen counter cavalry, archers punish slow infantry, and Sappers are expensive specialists that destroy a random enemy building if the defender is wiped. Every troop type has an attack, defense, health, and speed profile that stacks with building bonuses.

Fog of war: if all of your attacking troops die, you cannot see how many enemy troops you killed. Survivors return with a full casualty breakdown and a timestamped resolution timeline for post-battle review.

Your keep is the heart of your empire. It houses economic buildings (Mines, Farms, Quarries, Markets), military structures (Barracks, Stables, Archery Range, Siege Workshop), and defensive works (Walls, Watchtower, Traps).

Buildings level up to a cap of 75. Each level increases output, unlocks new troops or technologies, and multiplies construction cost and time. Higher-tier walls and towers reduce incoming damage dramatically — a well-defended keep is often a better investment than another regiment of infantry.

Shields (12/24/48h) purchased from the shop or won from the Wheel of Fortune prevent enemy attacks. Use them when you're offline, banking large amounts of Gold, or coordinating a coalition strike.

Ironhold's three core resources are Gold, Grain, and Stone. Mines, Farms, and Quarries produce them continuously; storage capacity is limited by your Warehouse level and excess is vulnerable to raids. A Sapper attack that lands successfully imposes a 50% production penalty on the target building until it is repaired.

Resource Boosts (2× for 12/24/48h) stack multiplicatively with faction production buffs and subscription bonuses. Time boosts strategically around long offline periods and daily quest windows.

Scavenge and Bandit missions send troops to abandoned camps and bandit hideouts for guaranteed loot. Bandit camps scale to your army size and usually field slightly weaker forces, making them the highest reward-per-troop PvE option.

Raiding is the most common form of PvP: attack another player's keep, defeat their garrison, and haul back a percentage of their unprotected Gold, Grain, and Stone. Warehouses provide a small protected reserve; outstanding loans protect an additional amount of Gold equal to the loan principal.

Sacking is punitive. Sappers march at −15% attack, but if the defender is wiped, the sack destroys a random building. Sacks are the answer to a rival hiding resources — you can't steal the Gold, but you can burn their Mines to the ground.

Scavenging is the risk-free option: no PvP, guaranteed loot, but smaller yields than a successful raid. It's the safest source of income while you build up your army.

The Exchequer is Ironhold's economic hub. It hosts the marketplace, auctions, investments, loans, and the Merchant Bank.

Auctions let players list resources and inventory items for competitive bidding. Investments let you buy stakes in other keeps and receive a small return based on their raid income and production. Loans provide an emergency Gold injection at interest — and, uniquely, protect an equal amount of your Gold from being stolen while the loan is outstanding.

Merchant Bank pays fixed daily interest on term deposits: 0.05% for 1 month, 0.10% for 3 months, 0.20% for 6 months, and 0.30% for 12 months. Locked funds are not raidable.

Ironhold rewards patience. Every building tier is more expensive than the last, so plan your queues around your production ceiling. Complete daily quests, spin the free daily Wheel of Fortune, and claim starter packs as soon as you unlock the shop.

Choose your faction wisely — buffs from weekly top-player titles extend to the faction (at 25%). Honor above +100 shortens march time and improves scavenge yields; honor below −100 penalizes both.