Build for a purpose before you spend a point

Eight skills, three readable groups

Each Hero level after Level 1 awards one skill point. Every skill level costs one point, including the final levels. Swordmastery, Field Medics and Guild Charters grant 2% per point; Shieldwall Discipline, Stoneworks, Tax Stewardship and Royal Granaries grant 3%; March Orders grants 5%. Swordmastery, Shieldwall Discipline, Stoneworks, Tax Stewardship, Royal Granaries and March Orders each cap at 100%; Field Medics and Guild Charters cap at 50%. The final point in a 3%-per-point skill raises 99% to exactly 100%. Maxing all eight skills costs 256 points, available at Hero Level 257. Crownlands displays those points in Attack, Defense, and Utility groups so the effect of each choice is easy to locate. The groups do not restrict mixed builds, and a saved preset can contain any legal combination of all eight skills.

The useful distinction is not “offense versus economy” in the abstract. Ask where the bonus resolves. Swordmastery is locked into an outgoing army. Shieldwall is read from the live defender. Stoneworks affects a holding's one physical wall. Production skills increase the underlying economy rather than troop power in a battle report.

Attack skills shape a campaign beyond one number

Swordmastery

Every attacking soldier begins with 1.25 power. Swordmastery adds two percent per level, up to 100% at 50 points, raising the skill-only maximum to 2.50 per troop. The value is captured when an army launches, so applying an attack preset after departure does not change that march.

March Orders

March Orders adds five percent speed per point, up to 100% at 20 points. Faster travel reduces the defender's reaction window and helps a kingdom move between regional opportunities. Speed is valuable only when the route and destination still make sense; arriving quickly with too little capture power is still a loss.

Field Medics

Field Medics returns a share of eligible attacker losses after battle. Returned troops are shown separately in reports because they were lost during resolution and recovered afterward. This skill improves the sustainability of repeated operations, not the power that strikes the wall.

Do not combine soldier defense and wall strength

Shieldwall Discipline

Each defender begins with 1.30 soldier defense. Shieldwall adds three percent per point, up to 100% at 34 points. Eligible personal and shared objective support adds against the same base. City level does not increase soldier defense.

Stoneworks

Stoneworks is the only skill that increases wall power. A Stronghold, Citadel, allied reinforcement, or higher troop total cannot duplicate it. That separation makes defensive planning clear: Shieldwall protects the soldiers behind the breach point; Stoneworks increases the power an attacker must spend before reaching them.

Utility skills compound across a connected realm

Tax Stewardship and Royal Granaries

These skills improve passive gold and troop production. Their value grows with the number and quality of cities a ruler can hold. A pure production allocation can accelerate upgrades and replace losses, but it also leaves fewer points available for the battles that protect those producers.

Guild Charters

Upgrade efficiency matters when a kingdom is converting a large gold reserve into city levels. It is most useful when there is a deliberate upgrade plan rather than when points are moved simply because gold is temporarily low.

Utility strength is visible over hours and days instead of one report. Compare production before and after an allocation, then evaluate whether the additional income offsets the combat or defensive power that was not selected.

Presets store drafts; applying one is a real decision

The Skills screen opens on Current Build, where point spending affects live skills immediately. Four private preset slots unlock at Hero Levels 25, 50, 75, and 100. Selecting an unlocked tab opens an isolated draft instead: an empty slot begins with every skill at zero, while a saved slot reopens its stored allocation. Use the minus and plus controls to plan within the ruler's earned-point budget without changing the live build.

Give the draft a custom name or keep its default, then choose Save Preset. Saving is free and preserves live skills, gold, and active-preset identity. Apply remains unavailable until the draft is saved and you have enough gold to pay the displayed price. Leaving a dirty draft offers Save, Discard, or Cancel, and saving changes to the active preset marks those changes as still needing Apply.

Every confirmed Apply costs one hour of base gold production, including an active preset or a saved allocation identical to the current build. Apply is the only preset action that changes live skills or moves the active marker. A preset saved before later hero levels does not invent an allocation for newly earned points; those points remain unspent when the older preset is applied. Current Build spending or Reset Skills clears the active marker without overwriting saved tabs, and Shieldwall rollout reset credits remain exclusive to Reset Skills.

1. Use Current Build for immediate live point spending, or select an unlocked preset to plan safely.
2. Name the preset and assign its points with the draft's minus and plus controls.
3. Choose Save Preset to store the exact eight-skill allocation without activating it.
4. Confirm the one hour of base gold production Apply cost only when that saved build should become live.

Three planning examples

These are decision patterns, not mandatory builds. The correct allocation depends on the cities, travel distances, clan coverage, and objectives that exist in the live realm.