Rise of Kingdoms – Best Civilization Tier List 2024

Your Civilization, also known as nation, in Rise of Kingdoms, determines the perks of your city and what special unit and starting commander you get access to.

Picking a strong civilization that matches your goal and progress can help you progress and expand your kingdom faster.

At the moment, there are a total of 11 unique civilizations in Rise of Kingdoms.

Many players have difficulty choosing what civilization to go for at the different stages in the game.

Therefore, we’ve created this Rise of Kingdoms civilization tier list to give you an overview of the best civilizations overall later in the game, as well as recommendations for early on and for specific tasks.

Table of contents

• Civilization Tier List
• Best starting civilization
• Best civilization for F2P
• Best civilization for farming
• Best civilization for infantry
• Best civilization for cavalry

Civilization Tier List

When you start playing Rise of Kingdom, you will be required to choose your civilization.

Every civilization features unique architectural building styles, special units, starting commanders, and perks. The diversity in the civilizations gives Rise of Kingdoms an exciting twist.

One civilization may speed up resource production and gathering or increase the speed of research and building, while another may offer stat boosts to either a specific troop or to multiple troops.

The following tier list ranks all civilizations in Rise of Kingdoms based on how powerful and useful they are late-game.

Icon	Civilization	Rank	Perks	Starting Commander	Special Unit
	Britain	S	+5% Archer attack, +5% troop training speed, +20% ally garrison capacity	Boudica	Longbowman
	France	S	+3% Troop health, +10% wood gathering speed, +20% hospital healing speed	Joan of Arc	Throwing Axemen
	Vikings	S	+5% Infantry attack, +3% Counterattack damage, +10% Troop load	Björn Ironside	Berserker
	Germany	S	+5% Cavalry attack, +5% troop training speed, +10% action point recovery	Hermann	Teutonic Knight
	Ottoman	A	+5% Archer health, +5% troop march speed, +5% active skill damage	Osman I	Janissary
	China	A	+3% Troop defense, +5% action point recovery, +5% building speed	Sun Tzu	Chu-Ko-Nu
	Rome	A	+5% Infantry defense, +5% troop march speed, +10% food gathering speed	Scipio Africanus	Legionary
	Korea	A	+5% Archer defense, +15% hospital capacity, +3% research speed	Eulji Mundeok	Hwarang
	Egypt	A	+5% Archers' Attack, +5% rallied armies' damage dealt, +1.5% Research Speed	Imhotep	Maryannu
	Arabia	B	+5% Cavalry attack, +10% damage to barbarians and neutral units, +5% rallied armies damage	Baibars	Mamluk
	Japan	B	+3% Troop attack, +30% scout march speed, +5% resource gathering speed	Kusunoki Masashige	Samurai
	Greece	B	+5% Infantry health, +5% Damage dealt by rallied armies, +10% Stone gathering speed	Pericles	Argyraspide
	Spain	C	+5% Cavalry defense, +10% experience gained from barbarians and neutral units, +20% resource production	Pelagius	Conquistador
	Byzantium	C	+5% Cavalry health, +10% stone gathering speed, +15% hospital capacity	Belisarius	Cataphract

The current tier list is based on rankings of civilizations by Rise of Kingdoms YouTubers and the Rise of Kingdoms subreddit community.

The civilizations are ranked in tiers from S to C, with S being the highest and C the lowest.

You can change your civilization later, but getting one that helps you from the start is a big advantage.

If you are just starting out, check out the later parts of this guide for recommendations at earlier points in the game, as well as for specific objectives.

We will update this tier list as the meta evolves, the game is updated, or a new civilization is implemented.

Given the perks each civilization offer, some civilizations are better earlier on while others are better later on in the game. Therefore, it’s recommended that you change your civilization at some point.

In exchange for 10,000 Gems, you can use the Civilization Change feature to shift to a civilization that excels in a specific task or playing style or one that suits your status in the game.

With a specific strategy in mind, you can choose the perfect civilization that aligns with it.

For example, you should choose a civilization that is excellent at rallying if you are a rally leader in your alliance. The civilization you choose should boost your specialty if you excel in a certain activity.

Best starting civilization

The best civilization for new players of Rise of Kingdoms is China.

Led by commander Sun Tzu and improved troops, China’s defense capabilities are strong and compact.

As a starter, China will offer you great perks, especially in the beginning stages of the game where building up your city is crucial.

At this point in the game, you should focus exclusively on upgrading your City Hall.

Perks

China is the best civilization for starters because it offers a 5% increase in Building Speed Boosts.

Most of the powers you have will be coming from the buildings you make.

You can then use the power to rush to higher City Hall levels and increase your chances of getting into a powerful alliance.

You will also get 5% Action Point Recovery as you start.

With action point recovery, you can recover action points swiftly.

You can use them to excel in multiple events and boost your commanders faster.

At this pace, you can also hunt more barbarians because your playing style will shift to action-based combat.

China also boosts your Troop Defense by 3%.

This amazing trait applies to units such as siege, cavalry, infantry, and archers.

You will appreciate how useful this trait is as soon as you start building armies consisting of various troops.

Focus for China

• Quickly build up your city – especially your City Hall
• Focus on defense rather than offense while making your city powerful
• At the start of the game, focus on building a strong city, not a strong attacking army

Commanders

Sun Tzu will boost your defense as a starting commander, but you will also meet other commanders such as:

• Cao Cao.
• Wu Zetian.
• Guan Yu.

You can also use Sun Tzu’s active skills in PvP and field battles. 

Special units

As soon as you unlock tier 4 troops, you will acquire two special units – Chu-Ko-Nu and Elite Chu-Ko-Nu.

These special units have a great balance of attack and defense stats.

They allow you to withstand powerful attacks and vigorous blows.

They help counter infantry rushes as well.

China is the ideal starter civilization because it offers the necessary building speed boosts and defensive boosts.

Starting out, you should focus on development and stay clear of open warfare, which is exactly what China allows you to do.

Best civilization for F2P

The best civilization for F2P (free-to-play) players of Rise of Kingdoms is Britain.

Britain is a civilization that proudly offers a mixture of defense and offense.

With Boudica as the starting commander, Britain boats immense power.

She is quite powerful when it comes to killing barbarians, which is why she levels up quickly.

In Britain, the archers are slightly stronger, and the units can be trained faster than in other civilizations.

Britain is an alliance-based civilization, a very important trait to have later in the game, as alliances are more likely to want you in their group.

Perks

Britain offers a 5% archer attack bonus.

This bonus works well when focusing on commanders that also boost the power of archer units.

By increasing archer attack by 5%, Britain becomes one of the best support civilizations in Rise of Kingdoms.

With a 20% increase in ally garrison capacity, you can accommodate a large number of allies in your city.

With more allies and a good defender, you will have a strong, powerful defense against incoming attacks.

Increased garrison capacity also makes you able to inflict a ton of damage, and more troops are a very powerful trait to have during alliance wars.

You need to be in a strong alliance to maximize this trait.

Within an alliance, you can help speed up the building of flags and alliance garrisons.

Troop training speed is increased by up to 5% in Britain.

Speed is critical when you start training your tier 4 and tier 5 units.

Later in the game, this perk will result in many hours of training saved.

The extra time saved can be used to train and establish other units.

Focus for Britain

• You should always be training troops to maximize the benefits of your perk. 
• Use the fact that other alliance members benefit from your perks to get into a great alliance. 
• Focus on archer-boosting commanders. Expert archery commanders are deadly and are even more powerful with your perks.

Commanders

Your starting commander when choosing Britain is Boudica.

Later on, you will also get to acquire:

• Lancelot.
• Richard I.
• Edward of Woodstock.

Special units

When you unlock tier 4 troops, the Longbowman will become available to you.

On advancing to tier 5 troops, you will also get access to the Elite Longbowman.

These two are special strong archer-type units.

They are some of the best attackers in Rise of Kingdoms, and they can deal with massive blows, and even more when paired with an archer-based commander and Britain’s perks.

Best civilization for farming

The best civilization in Rise of Kingdoms for farming is Japan.

If you’re looking for a solid civilization that offers good farming capabilities and a great starting commander with active, offensive troops, then look no further than Japan.

This civilization is focused on strategic development and tactical awareness.

The available bonuses empower players with strong map exploration abilities.

Players can identify critical zones that they can prey on, attack, or pillage.

With the exploration capabilities of Japan paired with its gather speed bonus, you can farm more efficiently than other civilizations in the game.

Perks

As you play, you will be interested in unlocking everything in your kingdom.

A 30% increase in scout march speed will help your scout move around the map faster.

Because of this significant scout marching speed, you don’t have to wait for your scouts as much, which allows you to discover more of your kingdom, including places to farm some extra resources.

Furthermore, when you discover the entire map of your kingdom, you get 10 golden keys as a reward.

You should consider working with gathering commanders because, in Japan, resource gathering speed is increased by 5%.

You will be able to gather all types of resources faster and speed up your expansion.

The pairing of a gathering-focused commander and this perk creates an amazing farming environment.

In this civilization, all your units will also benefit from a 3% increase in troop attack.

An increase in your troops’ attack is a useful bonus that benefits you in both fighting other players and farming barbarians.

Focus for Japan

• Scout as much as possible. You will get 10 golden keys for free through the monument if when you’ve cleared the entire map in your kingdom of fog.
• Use gathering-focused commanders. Having a gathering speed boost of 5% helps you gather stone, gold, food, wood, and gems. If you make use of gathering commanders, you can farm even more resources quickly.
• Always have some farming running, be it gathering or attacking, and always have scouts out exploring if you haven’t discovered the entire map yet. 

Commanders

Japan has one of the highest numbers of commanders in Rise of Kingdoms.

It has a total of five with Kusunoki Masashige as the starting commander.

Later you can also get:

• Ishida Mitsunari. 
• Tomoe Gozen.
• Takeda Shingen.
• Minamoto No Ypshitune.

Special units

During the Feudal age, you will unlock the special unit Samurai, an infantry unit.

You can train him when you’ve got access to tier 4 troops using technological research.

You unlock the Elite Samurai upon getting access to tier 5 troops.

They launch powerful offensive attacks, which makes them some of the best attackers in the game.

Japan is an exciting civilization to play in Rise of Kingdoms as it allows you to make strategic setups and discover the map quicker than others.

Best civilization for infantry

The best civilization for infantry in Rise of Kingdoms is France.

It features some of the strongest infantry units in the game and perks to boost them further.

Joan of Arc is the starting commander, and she will help you in your development.

With increased healing speed, you can get your army back to speed quicker than others, which is beneficial late-game.

Joan of Arc has gathering bonuses that allow you to build faster and thus advance at a quicker pace.

Perks

You are going to face hard battles later on in the game.

With a 20% increase in the hospital healing speed, your units have a faster recovery and can get back to the battlefield sooner.

If you focus further on your hospital healing speed, you can build a strong setup where you can dish out many units throughout a prolonged battle.

France increases wood gathering speed by up to 10% – another useful buff for upgrading your city.

Archers, infantry, and calvary will all enjoy a 3% health bonus.

This trait is critical on the battlefield.

Pair this perk with a commander that boosts infantry units and the special units of France, and you have a powerful combo.

Focus for France

• Build up a powerful army with infantry and an infantry-focused commander.
• Use the quick unit turnaround to keep bringing units to prolonged battles.
• Take advantage of the wood gathering buff France has to get your farming going.

Commanders

The starting commander of France is Joan of Arc.

You can also get the following later on:

• Charlemagne. 
• Charles Martel. 

Special units

You will meet the Throwing Axeman and the Elite Throwing Axeman, two special units, during tier 4 unit training.

They both have good health stats and attacks.

They can take in strong blows, mobilize quickly throughout the map and deal a lot of damage.

Best civilization for cavalry

The best civilization for cavalry in Rise of Kingdoms is Germany.

Germany offers you more action point recovery compared to other civilizations and is very focused on calvary.

The increased troop training speed will be a helpful trait later on in the game.

With the 10% increase in action point recovery, you can quickly build up a powerful army.

Germany is a versatile civilization that is perfect for doing well in battles, progressing through the game at a quick pace, and leveling up commanders fast.

Herman will be your starting commander, and together with horsemen, he will protect the city at all costs.

Germany gives players an advantage in growing and building armies.

It is important to note that with Germany, your playstyle should be more focused on attacking rather than defending.

Perks

With a 10% increase in extra point recovery, you will be in a better position to participate in anything that involves action points.

You can, for example, take advantage of barbarian camps using your extra point recovery and acquire more resources and experience, as you don’t need to spend long hours training your troops.

With a 5% increase in troop training speed, all your units can be trained swiftly.

You will enjoy this bonus throughout the ages as a member of Germany.

Training tier 5 units is usually quite time-consuming, making this boost very beneficial.

To optimize your power, we recommend finding commanders such as Attila or Shingen who synergize well with the 5% cavalry attack bonus Germany gives.

Rise of Kingdoms has multiple playing styles, but if you are looking to throw some money at the game, then Germany is definitely one of the best choices.

All in all, Germany is a well-rounded civilization that does very well offensively throughout the game, and especially late-game.

Focus for Germany

• Take advantage of the training speed bonus. You have to keep training troops to stay ahead of your competitors. The bonus becomes even more helpful as you start the training of tier 4 and tier 5 troops. 
• Focus on cavalry-boosting commanders. You already have a 5% attack boost for cavalry, so pairing it with a commander that further boosts them can result in an incredibly powerful cavalry-based army. 
• Your playstyle should be offense-oriented when playing as Germany. Its perks enable you to create powerful armies quickly.

Commanders 

Herman is the starting commander of Germany.

He excels in silencing enemy commanders.

Later, you can also get:

• Constance. 
• Frederick I. 

Special units 

The two special units of Germany are Teutonic Knight and Elite Teutonic Knight.

They both become available for training upon unlocking tier 4 units.

They focus on mobility and attack.

Being large units on the tankier side, they can also take heavy blows without being too harmed.

They can easily clear enemy archers too.

This unit’s defense is better than that of original knights and have a stronger attack.

That’s our take on a tier list on the best civilizations in Rise of Kingdoms as well as the best civilizations in specific categories.

If you want to help us improve this tier list, leave your suggestions and input in the comment section below.