Basics: Season Start Guide

We have seen how to level commanders, but let's have a look how to do this effectively during season start and make the most of the stamina we have as well as grow with resources and look at the Ring Trees and other things you need to know. This guide is more of an overview on all aspects you should consider. It might not always give you the one fool-proof recipe, but rather help you guide into making your own decisions based on knowing what options you have.

Disclaimer: Seasonal information is subject to change depending on patches brought out to the game by the developers. If there are any mistakes, please bear with me and let me know on discord where I need to make adjustments. Thank you.

Building Levels

Your Settlement restarts every season at the same basic level - you have to level up all the way up to level 20 respectively depending on the building in your base. Very few buildings require only one level.

General rule to make the most of the resources you have, is to follow the guide by the game that will lead you through 20 chapters to progress at season start. See next big headline "Chapter Progress" below. 

Your buildings will give you access to more resources (some buildings "produce" certain resources) and also to higher level troops, bigger armies and other things you need. Depending on the campaign or season you are playing the buildings might look significantly different in what you have available. 

If you don't need the season/campaign related information, you can skip these paragraphs and jump directly to "Important Buildings".

Season 1

The structure of the buildings looks different to what seasoned players are used to from campaigns and the earlier season 1 servers. We see the connection of buildings to each other a bit more clearly. There are still some level requirements that are not displayed at first sight though.

The buildings are (numbers in parenthesis indicate max level, "?" indicates unknown with best guess from other campaigns)

• 
  Main Hall (10), then on the left side 
• Storage (20) that unlocks access to the 
• Resource Tributes (20), first Wood and Stone, which unlocks then Grain and Ore. 
• The tributes unlock the Market (1), which in turn unlocks the 
• Resource Center (4)
• Underneath that you have the building Battlements (10?), which unlocks with Main Hall 6, and this will unlock the
• Bowman Tower (10?)

On the right side you find the buildings 

• Barracks (20), which unlock the
• Commander's Chamber (3), which in turn unlocks
• Training Grounds (10).

On the far right you can see

• Conscription Post (20), which unlocks the
• Apothecary (10).

Then you have the Troop Quarters with the respective races' troop buildings. For your main troop you have a t4 building. All quarters go up to level 10 and the troop buildings up to level 6 each.

Season 2

At the time of writing no access to this campaign and no information on what the building tree looks like currently. However, this season is NRP based, so it will probably have an Embassy building to allow you the option to build camps for opposite alignment troops outside your base.

Campaign Rebuilding Glory

The main buildings are: 

• 
  Main Hall (10)
• Tier 1: Storage (20), Apothecary (10), Barracks (20)
• Tier 2: Lumber & Stone Tributes (20), Conscription Post (20)
• Tier 3: Grain & Ore Tributes (20), Fellowship Hall (5)
• Tier 4: Market (1), Battlements (
• Tier 5: Military Embassy (if NRP, 6?), Training Grounds (10), Resource Center (4)
• Tier 9: Bowman Tower (10)
  

Then you have the Troop Quarters with the respective races' troop buildings. For your main troop you have a t4 building. All quarters go up to level 10 and the troop buildings up to level 6 each.

Campaign Tactics Evolved

At the time of writing no access to this campaign. It is however available as NRP only and should look similar to Rebuilding Glory with the difference of an Embassy Building to unlock opposite alignment's camps outside the settlement and by levelling this building you enhance the amount of camps you can build.

Campaign Rings of Power: Kings of Men

The main buildings are: 

• 
  Main Hall (10)
  
• Tier 1: Storage (20), Apothecary (10), Barracks (20)
• Tier 2: Lumber & Stone Tributes (20), Conscription Post (20)
• Tier 3: Grain & Ore Tributes (20), Fellowship Hall (5)
• Tier 4: Market (1), Battlements (10)
• Tier 5: Military Embassy (6?), Training Grounds (10), Resource Center (4)
• Tier 9: Bowman Tower (10)

Then you have the Men and Evil Men Quarters with the troop buildings. For both types you have a t4 building, which allows you to conscript Swans or War Chariots or both. All quarters go up to level 10 and the troop buildings up to level 6 each.

Important Buildings

Of course, all buildings are needed and give you different value. There are however some that you might need more attention than others at any given time. Here are some examples of the more important buildings, on which you should focus during your start:

• Main Hall: imperative for overall progress and to unlock higher level troops, which let you take higher level tiles. 
• Barracks: increases number of formations in your army, number of armies and amount of troops you can own at a time
• Conscription Post: Conscription Time and Conscription Queues
• Training Grounds: increases the Command one commander can carry, i.e. it increases the amount of troops in your army
• Quarters: grant access to building and upgrading the troop buildings, which reduce conscription times of the troop types for which they grant access. The quarters also give additional resource production (one resource type per quarter)

Before you start taking tiles, make sure to build your Apothecary, Conscription Post and Barracks. You do not want any troops to die when instead they could end up wounded and you want to start conscripting more troops immediately. Some players don't start taking tiles before they unlocked the third formation.

Chapter Progress

As mentioned above, the game provides you with a guide on how to develop your settlement. In most cases you want to follow that guide's suggestions - in order to progress and get more  tile space and resources as reward, which will help you proceed, you will have to finish most of them as advised. However, at times you might want to deviate and also focus on some buildings that the game does not particularly suggest to you. 

There are 20 chapters with progressive tasks, which can include building tasks, taking tiles, reach certain levels on commanders, joining a fellowship/warband and others. As mentioned, you will be rewarded with additional tile space and resources (in season 1 you also get other items like gems) to help you progress.

At the end of the day you should still apply common sense and not just follow blindly, but it is a very good guide to follow in general in order to avoid wasting your early game resources unnecessarily on buildings you might not need at that time.

Tiles, Mobs, Special Structures

(*Season 1 & 2 values may differ)

The most important thing to do at season start is to take tiles. This is how you gain ring power, which allows you to unlock ring abilities over time and progress faster. 

Tiles 

Tiles require 20 Stamina and are also needed to gain ring power as well as build a steady income on resources.

• Level 1: 
  available rss: produces all types of resources, 50/h each, total production 200/h
  (1) army Level 1 defender, (1) formation, t1 troops, ~30 EXP
• Level 10: 
  available rss: grain, ore; produces 240/h
  (1) army Level 4 defender, (2) formations, t1 troops, ~650 EXP
• Level 15:
  available rss: wood, stone; produces 280/h
  (1) army Level 7 defender, (2) formations, t1 troops, ~1,200 EXP
• Level 30:
  available rss: grain, ore; produces 360/h
  (1) army Level 12 defender, (3) formations, t1 troops, ~3,200 EXP
• Level 40:
  available rss: wood, stone; produces 420/h
  (1) army  Level 15 defender, (3) formations, t1 troops, ~4,000 EXP
• Level 60: 
  available rss: grain, ore; produces 560/h
  (1) army Level 18 defender, (3) formations, t1 troops, ~7,100 EXP
• Level 90: 
  available rss: wood, stone; produces 640/h
  (1) army Level 20 defender, (3) formations, t2 troops, ~9,500 EXP
• Level 130:
  available rss: grain, ore; produces 800/h
  (1) army Level 25 defender, (4) formations, t2 troops, ~18,700 EXP
• Level 150:
  available rss: wood, stone; produces 880/h
  (1) army Level 28 defender, (4) formations, t2 troops, ~23,000 EXP
• Level 200:
  available rss: grain, ore, wood, stone; produces 1000/h
  (2) army Level 35 defenders, (4) formations, t3 troops, (2x) ~33,000 EXP
• Level 230:
  available rss: grain, ore, wood, stone; produces 1200/h
  (2) army Level 40 defenders, (4) formations, t3 troops
• Level 260:
  available rss: grain, ore, wood, stone; produces 1400/h
  (2) army Level 42 defenders, (4) formations 
• Level 300:
  available rss: grain, ore, wood, stone; produces 1600/h
  (2) army Level 45 defenders, (4) formations

I do not have any reports of the current level 230/260/300 tiles to provide you with the EXP info, but when you are ready to take them you might already be past level 40 - unless your commanders are quite well developed.

Mobs

Mobs require 10 Stamina and are easier to beat for good EXP with fewer losses, which makes them a good source for your main army once you have gotten over the first stages of growth. On top of saving a lot of stamina you also get some goodies. However, these have been capped per day. Mobs appear in the levels 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40. Compared to tile defenders they are easier at the same/similar level.

With DD commanders you can even go ahead and hit them with 1 troop each. Commanders heal fast and the troop losses are neglectable with such numbers.

Special Structures 

All across the map there are special structures that have defenders on them and almost all of them give you PvE EXP. Keeps are an exception to this and will not gain you any EXP from hitting them.

• Camps: Some camps are easy and give good Exp. Other camps can be tricky, watch out not to waste too many troops for too little exp. 
  The defenders vary from 2x level 15 (Hobbit Camp, 500 health) to 2x level 50
• 
  Altars: 2x level 20 defender
• Springs: 3x level 30 - careful here though, make sure that you don't occupy all Springs around a structure and leave the other teams in your faction out cold. They are needed to build fortresses to occupy structures
  
• Neutral or (unguarded) enemy crossings (3x level 30)/tunnels (2x level 20) are fairly easy and depending your level worth it to hit - careful here that you don't hit accidentally a pass, which is much stronger.
• Defensive Camps: Now, these you can hit only later in game once they have been taken. They do however give you EXP also beyond the confinements of other PVE, which means you can get EXP beyond level 40.

Commander Levels

In all seasons (except season 1) you start with your commanders at level 5 and have to work your way up to max their levels at 50. The levels require increasing amounts of EXP per level. This lets you progress very quickly in the beginning, but requires a bit more "stamina" on your account to see things all the way through.

You gain EXP with PvE up to level 40. Beyond that there is no way to level your commanders other than PvP - fighting with other players' armies. The only exceptions are purple scrolls which can be used until you reached level 45 (do not waste those scrolls before you reached level 40, even if it may be tempting sometimes). The other exceptions are Defensive Camps, which can give you decent amount of EXP also when you are above level 40. For some reason the game counts this as PvP - no guarantee though that they might not change this (secretly).

While levelling, make sure not to aim for too high levels of tiles or mobs. If you keep losing a lot of troops per every hit, you will not be able to sustain that for long and end up being much slower than you would hope for. Aim preferably for slow and steady. 

Try to rotate through your commanders. There are several options to approach the season start. Some say to wait till you have 3 formations available for your army. If you do that, make sure to hit once or twice with your main commanders before you do the real start with the secondary and lower commanders. That way you do not lose Stamina while you wait to be ready to unlock the third slot.

You can use your main gear on the weaker commanders. This will aid you with limiting the troop losses as much as possible. You can then work through your less developed commanders and take tiles in the meantime to get your resource and power production running. Once you reached the point where you can use 3 armies, go ahead and set up two armies for your main army commanders: in each army 2x main commanders + 1x less developed commander. Since you likely used all your commanders already, you can also rotate through on this spot. The advantage is that the higher EXP level on those commanders will also make up a little for lower respect levels and you can comfortably hit higher tiles than just level 10/15. 

Another thing you should consider: Damage Dealer (commanders where the damage comes from the commander itself and not from the troops) do not need a specific amount of troops to deal their damage. It does not scale on the amount of troops. This allows you to load up these commanders with just a single troop and reducing your losses quite significantly.

Again: test a bit and play around to see what you can hit comfortably without losing too many troops. Make sure you can sustain your growth.

For a more detailed explanation on all the different options how to level Commanders, please read the guide "Basics: How to Gain Commander Experience". 

Resources

Resources of course are a basic need. You need them to build and upgrade your buildings as well to conscript and hire troops. You will need Wood, Stone, Ore for buildings and Wood, Ore, Grain for troops. If you are a spender, you can level up your market very quickly and allow for better barter options. When going for tiles, make sure to get a healthy balance on your resources especially in early game. In the screenshot you see that most resources are balanced, but Ore is very low. If you find yourself to be short on one specific resource (in most cases it will be Stone), then try to alleviate this problem by focusing a bit more on those tiles instead. You can always rebalance later on.

I would recommend to use barter (see more on the topic Market further down towards the end of the article) only very scarcely in the beginning as you need every resource you can get and you put in more rss than you gain. If in desperate need, of course it's a solution, but try to do it as a last resort only.

Expansion

In general, expansion is largely dictated by your fellowship or warband. However, you also need to consider your individual expansion for resources. If you ended up in a poor spawn location with a lot of competition, you might want to work with forts to get to more remote areas that are not quite as busy.

When you farm tiles from a fort further away from your base, you will have longer reinforcement times, but you can compensate for that by circling around the gear as mentioned in the paragraph under "Commander Levels" and using all your commanders - maybe on some lower level tiles around your base that you had dropped already or haven't taken yet. With your main commanders you can sweep mobs close to your base while you wait for the reinforcements to arrive.

In general it is a good practice to expand with forts in all major directions right at the start - or rather as soon as your resources allow for forts. This will give you an advantage over people who sleep on that and you can move further on farming further away early on.

What you should not do in most of the cases is to relocate into a different area. Depending on your server and your team's/faction's expansion planning you might be asked to resettle very early on either to expand further or to join the first skirmishes and battles at the front lines. Only relocate early on if you are absolutely sure that you won't have to move again within the next three days.

Troops

You want to unlock t2 and t3 asap. Another focus will be to get to the troop types that you will be using mostly as quickly as you can too. 

Keep in mind: you should always try to use troops that you can sustain conscripting and healing in reasonable amounts based on your resource income. Sometimes this will mean you have to stick to t2 troops rather than t3. 

Often medium sized troops will be superior against tiles as there are a lot of small troops on defenders and if there are medium troops, at least you will not have a direct counter against you. But at times you might not be able to sustain medium troops for early game. In that case it is better to use small troops or a tier lower than you would usually use, which will still allow for taking tiles and sweeping mobs and have a steady progress going for yourself - maybe at tiles one level lower than you might hit with other troops.

Ring Abilities

The ring varies from campaign to campaign slightly as well as from faction to faction. Every faction has a unique ring ability that can be unlocked. All the other abilities are the same as the rest of the server.

There are different approaches on how to set up your ring skills in early game. The main point is that you want to level it up as soon as you can and especially unlock the milestones like level 10 for resources, level 30 for EXP-based and PvE-based skills and lastly for level 50. Don't forget to put always points into "Dominance" (top left tree) whenever you can to open up more tile space. 

Beyond that, I advise against using some of the available skills 

• "Abundant Wisdom" and "Abundant Might" in early game.
  You will need those in PvP however. 
• Skills I generally don't use as they are a waste of points in my opinion are "Clairvoyance" (spy - or scout - up to two armies on neutral tiles and structures, not keeps), 
• "Invigoration" which I usually do not skill at all since it would cost so many AP and get you in the danger of accidentally using it when instead you wanted to use Stamina Potions. 
• I also do not use "Time out of Time" and 
• "Extract" if I can help it (opinions on this differ).
  

"Extract" is a more expensive way to "Gather" resources from a tile you own. In my opinion, the price in AP for Extract is just too high compared to Gather. If you are desperate for resources, you might reconsider that of course You should gather as soon as you can, but don't start on tiles lower than 130/h as it would be a waste of AP.If you decide to Extract, you should do so sparingly as it costs a lot of AP and gains you little. The only thing would be to do it on 90/h Stone tiles if really needed.

Important to keep in mind is that you can reset the ring points. However, this works only for some of the skills. Those that are unlocking a specific skill with just one point as well as the basic tree skills that unlock the dependent skills will remain as is when you reset. You can do the reset once every 24 hours.

Fellowship/Warband (FS/WB)

You want to join a team as soon as possible. Once you built your Fellowship Hall you can help and get help for your buildings to speed things up. 
Note: If you use speed-ups to finish buildings faster, you should wait until you received all available help and only then use the boosts. This way you can save a bit. 

Very important for your team to grow is that you Boost at all times when you have boosters. It costs you only a little bit of Grain, but it will give you contribution points and Coins for the FS/WB Store, which you can use as soon as it unlocks. 

These Boosts will unlock certain very important milestones for your team, like more resource production or unlocking of buildings like Fortress (essential for map movement and structures), Altar (mind sharpen), Well (gather) or Employment Hall (neutral troops). Always make sure to use up all your daily attempts to boost. They refill at one attempt per 30 Minutes.

Make sure to always check the pins and announcements and follow the requested movements in order to be able to keep up with your team and help where help is required.

Market

If you are a spender and can afford it, try to level up your market as soon as possible by as much as possible. You can trade your blue and green gear for Silver and Gold Ingots as well as purple gear for Gold Ingots and Equipment vouchers per item. Make sure not to trade items that you need. You should first lock the ones you want to keep in your inventory (by clicking on the lock on the items you want to keep).

The higher your market the better the daily offers you get and also the better the Barter deal you get (starting from level 8 for 42% up to level 30 for 80%). Levels 31 - 40 will increase the resources obtained from the Merit Store that will open with server progress.

The Silver Ingots are seasonal items, which means they get lost if not used by the end of season. Make sure not to waste any of them.

There are many different play styles and certainly other approaches. For me, keeping the above points in mind, is what worked well so far. The main point is that you have a good plan and understanding on what you want to do in which order and at what time. Then follow up on it and - good luck on your spawn spot!

Basics: How to Gain Commander Experience

Every season the race starts: to level the commanders as fast as possible to allow for best possible growth and battle readiness in case there are early skirmishes - no one wants to get caught with their pants down.

Over time there have been some changes on how best to obtain experience as well as requirements per Level and how to level.

You can level up to 40 with PvE and after that you have to find PvP to level your commanders - aside from a small change that was made recently, .... , but keep reading - you will find out!

Ring Abilities

Before we talk about the different options to gain EXP in order to level up your commanders, we should have a look at what help the game gives you with the Ring Abilities.

You will not be able to use them right away, but it is good to keep this in mind and then make use of this as quickly as you can.

Please mind, the ring trees are set up slightly different between the different campaigns and factions/races you chose. So you should first familiarize yourself with what options you have and from what ring level they are available to you. Here you see the current bottom right section of your ring tree in Season 1. 

There are two skills on the ring tree that affect your EXP gain. "Considerable EXP", which gives 1% EXP per ring point to your commanders for everything that gives EXP, and "Combat Master", which will give you 2% extra per ring point for EXP you gain from sweeping Mobs. 

In both cases you need ring level 30 first in order to be able to unlock it. 

Taking Tiles

The most common way to gain EXP especially in those early hours/days of a server is taking tiles. You need to farm anyway to get a steady inflow of resources and for that you want to be able to hit higher tile levels. To get there you hit - you know it - tiles.

• Make sure to take only tiles that you can take comfortably. This retains your troops better and you don't have to wait for new troops to be produced 
  If you lose half your march on a single tile, this is clearly too much to keep you going.
  During early days for a first tile of level "so-and-so" it is maybe acceptable, but not beyond that
• Your spawn area is dried up? Farm from a fort. Reinforcement takes a bit longer (new options with forts now, an article on that will come soon), but it's doable.
  Do NOT relocate for a handful of tiles to farm. You will need the relo for when you go to war.
  If you are certain there won't be a front too soon, you might consider relocating to a better farm spot with less traffic and competition to the tiles
  
• If there are no tiles and you have exhausted other methods, you could always drop and retake a tile close to your base.
  We did that in early seasons when servers were extremely overcrowded, but it shouldn't be necessary with majority of the servers these days.
  If it is crowded and things are too soon to move other places, this is a work around solution if need be.

Sweeping Mobs

Mobs have easier defenders than tiles with the same level. They also give now decent EXP too and you need only 10 Stamina to take a mob.

Not much to explain - kill these mobs. You get even extra stuff - like bait for bosses (see below) - and very rarely also an EXP tip in your tavern. These tips however are lower in EXP than they used to be. I have seen as high as 60k EXP while there used to be 120k on tips from level 40 mobs previously.

Same rule as for tiles applies to mobs as well: don't bite off a bigger piece than you can chew. Hit them at a level where you don't lose too many troops.

For mobs try to keep walking distance as short as you can. They respawn fairly quickly and are around plenty usually.

If you do not seem to find mobs of a certain level, try to search for them. Sometimes this might trigger one to spawn relatively close to your base. It does not work consistently, but there is a good chance it does. Especially in early game this can help you a lot with leveling. 

For DD there is also a bit of a "cheat code". The commander damage does not scale on number of troops, so you can just go ahead and put 1 single troop on each. Play around a bit with how high levels you can beat. Commanders heal back quickly and losing 4 troops on a whole army is really not even worth mentioning.

Camps, Altars, Springs, Crossings

• Camps: Some camps are easy and give good Exp. Other camps can be tricky, watch out not to waste too many troops for too little exp. 
  The defenders vary from 2x level 15 (Hobbit Camp, 500 health) to 2x level 50
• Ruins: 2x level 25 defender (2x 18k EXP)
• 
  Altars: 2x level 20 defender
• Springs: 3x level 30 - careful here though, make sure that you don't occupy all Springs around a structure and leave the other teams in your faction out cold. They are needed to build fortresses to occupy structures
  
• Neutral or (unguarded) enemy crossings/tunnels (2x level 20 / 2x ~9,500) are fairly easy and depending your level worth it to hit - careful here that you don't hit accidentally a pass, which is much stronger.
• Defensive Camps: Now, these you can hit only later in game once they have been taken. They do however give you EXP also beyond the confinements of other PVE, which means you can get EXP beyond level 40.

Rally Bosses

If you get bait for a boss, team up with others close to rally. You get exp from them too. However, they are not very popular anymore and you might end up struggling to find rally buddies. Try to make sure that people are available to join before you start rallies and allow for enough time for them to join.

Rewards from bosses are meagre, but the smaller ones especially are super easy to kill and give a fair amount of EXP if you kill off their lives.

Tavern Tips

So, you used to be able to get EXP from Tavern Tips. 

If you were on a break from the game for a bit, you will be displeased to hear that this is not the case anymore:  

Tavern Tips do NOT give exp anymore. However, there are random mobs that still throw exp tips every once in a while. Make sure to use those if you get lucky enough to receive one.

 

EXP Scrolls

1. Map Tips

Starting with server progress after finishing chapter 3 in the season the mob tips appear in the tavern.

You get six designated mobs every day. Three on your tiles near your base (could be faction or neutral tile too if not enough of yours are around) that are tied to one map tip each. 

These are one Conflict tip each with up to 5x 30k EXP + 6x 10k EXP each by end of season if you unlocked the highest reward by taking a 260 or 300 tile at anytime in the season. 

    

Then there are three mobs that also only you can see for the fourth map tip, but they do not have any indicator to point them out. You have to find them sitting on tiles owned by you, your team mates or faction mates. If you cannot find them, you can also choose to take random mobs on the map instead that have the minimum level required.

 

For the fifth map tip you just have to find three regular mobs to kill at a certain level or above

Killing the first 6 mobs gives exp, but I suggest you do that with your second or third army instead of your main as they are typically easier than what your main can manage. Don't waste your main formation's stamina on this. However, regular mobs while still levelling in early game you can (and should) do with your main.

2. Market & Merit Store

You can buy the scrolls also in your market. They refresh daily. The quality and quantity of scrolls available will upgrade based on your market level and seasonal progress

Purple scrolls give exp beyond level 40 and up to level 45. Make sure to save them up and don't spend on commanders below level 40. The game will have you confirm the use of purple scrolls if you try to use them on lower level commanders.

Once the Merit Store is available (server progress), you can exchange up to 3x for a purple EXP Scroll for your higher level commanders.

3. Summary

Daily/Weekly EXP Scrolls*:

• Tavern maximum:
  3x (5) 30k + (6) 10k = 210k
  1x (1) 100k + (9) 30k = 370k 
  1x (8) 30k = 240k
• Daily Market maximum:
  1x 100k for 100 gold ingot
  4x 10k for 20 silver ingot (40 k / 80 S-ingot)
  2x 30k for 60 silver ingot (60 k / 120 S-ingot)
  2x 100k for 200 silver ingot (200 k / 400 S-ingot)
• Weekly Merit Store maximum:
  3x 100k for 40k Merit (300 k / 120k Merit)

That adds up to: 3,100,000* EXP from purple scrolls for levels 40-45 and 5,740,000* EXP from blue/green scrolls for up to level 40 per week.

*Please keep in mind that these maximum numbers are calculated on the highest server and market development and assume you took at least one 260 tile at some point in the season.

Mind Sharpener

It is not as effective anymore. However, before you let your commanders sitting and do nothing because you are busy in real life, might as well send them to mind sharpen.

You don't have a 200+? No problem. Send your march to the FS altar. It will give the same amount of EXP as you get from a 200/h tile.

For mind sharpen send one commander at a time, the exp it shows in the preview gets spread across all commanders in one army, e.g. it says you get 100k and you send 4 armies = every commander gets 25k geowth. It is better to send them all separately to different tiles instead or one after another, to not deplete your AP too quickly for other purposes. 

Mind Sharpener on tiles below 200/h is not really worth it. Even then the gain is not that high anymore, which is why this should only really be used for times when you otherwise cannot be active. It is, frankly speaking, a waste of AP and Stamina if you could use these for other things instead.

If you know you will be unavailable for the day, respec your ring abilites so you can get the most out of it at least. And if able to, try to use the boost items to optimize the gain.

However, as I said a couple times, you should not do it at all, nor should you need this. The other options to gain EXP are way more effective and sustainable. This is really only a thing to do if you have super busy RL days and need to catch up while you are not really able to play. It's, so to say, an "emergency" workaround for desperate times when otherwise you couldn't play enough to level up

PVP

Once you reached level 40 with your commanders, none of the above will give you EXP anymore aside from the purple scrolls. The only way to level up to 50, which should be your goal, is to battle. 

In battles you will get decent amounts of EXP for player armies you wound or kill. Here you get points according to the opponent's level. If the opponent is higher or equal level, you get more EXP than if they are (much) lower level than yours.

Your aim should be to avoid giving the opponent "free prestige and EXP" while you just lose troops and barely gain anything. This means you should choose wisely which armies you hit - at least as far as you can steer it. It is not always in your hands of course. 

Sidenote:
If you're wondering why your commanders level at different speed, this might be because they do different damage. Those that do more damage will gain a few more EXP than the others. Often it is not significantly noticable, sometimes you see rather big discrepancies, but either way, you are levelling them and that is what counts. 

Try to play smart, but don't shy away from fights with even results. You gain EXP with them (yes, the opponent will do so too) and you cannot avoid fighting completely since you need to level as quickly as possible. If you wait too long with it, you will end up under-levelled compared to others and then it will be even harder to level your commanders. 

So, the sweet point is to find equal levels, which will give decent results in order for you to level quickly.

Conclusion

While it might seem daunting at first to level up your commanders - and four of them - it is really not too hard to get to level 40. Even catching up if you started a bit later is not really too hard.

After that you do have to work for it to stay on top of things and not fall behind. Beyond Level 40 there is not quick and easy fix anymore. It is a war game and war you have to do in order to progress. 

Keep in mind: the main point is to enjoy your time. Try to enjoy the way to the goal as much as accomplishing it.