The War Academy is a separate research building that appears around kingdom day ~220. It uses a new resource, Truegold Dust, and eventually allows you to research and unlock T11 / XI Truegold troops. But before T11, the research tree gives some very worthwhile permanent combat bonuses: deployment capacity, troop Health/Lethality, Attack/Defense, and rally capacity.
There are separate Infantry, Cavalry and Archer trees. Each starts with Truegold Battalion, which increases squad deployment capacity by +200 per level, up to +1,000. There are three of these nodes, so maxing the first row gives +3,000 deployment capacity total. That’s one of the best early returns in the whole system.
After that you start getting troop-specific stats. For example, the trees eventually provide roughly:
| Research | Maximum benefit |
|---|---|
| Deployment Capacity | +3,000 total |
| Lethality | +25% per troop type |
| Health | +25% per troop type |
| Attack | +40% per troop type |
| Defense | +40% per troop type |
| Rally Capacity | +33,500 per tree |
| Final goal | T11 troop unlock |
The catch is that moving deeper requires increasingly higher War Academy TG levels, meaning you start spending ordinary Truegold on the building itself.
The giant trap: converting Truegold into Dust
Inside the War Academy you can convert both Gold coins and Truegold into Truegold Dust. The current published exchange is 5,000 Gold → 1 Dust, while Truegold can also be exchanged for Dust. For a low spender/F2P, treat the Truegold conversion button as if it does not exist.
DO NOT convert Truegold → Dust.
Use Truegold for progressing your Town Center, troop buildings, Embassy, and later TG6–TG8 progression. Collect Dust slowly from Gold, War Academy missions/commissions and sources like the Trial Shop, while preserving Truegold.
Gold → Dust is different. do that routinely as long as you maintain a healthy Gold reserve for regular research. Some players use roughly 5M Gold as a floor rather than blindly converting everything. You can convert 100.000 gold to 20 Dust daily. So do this daily, assuming you are stocked up on gold.
Low-spender War Academy plan
Phase 1 — Cheap goodies
Get the three Truegold Battalion research progressing. Your eventual goal is: Infantry, Archer and Cavalry Battalion 5
That’s only 258 Dust per branch, so 774 Dust altogether, and gets you the full +3,000 deployment capacity. That affects essentially everything you do: PvP marches, Bear Trap, events, rallies, etc.
Phase 2 — specialize instead of spreading
After the deployment-capacity nodes, don’t try to finish everything equally.
For a typical account I’d prioritize: Infantry Health → Archer Lethality → Infantry Lethality → Archer Health
The exact order depends on the player’s role, leader / joiner / BT etc.
For Bear Trap, Archer Lethality is particularly attractive because it directly contributes to the damage side of the formation. Players following Bear-focused paths are specifically prioritizing Archer Lethality.
For KvK/PvP, Infantry Health is extremely valuable because Infantry are taking the beating up front.
Cavalry last for most low-spend accounts.
Something roughly like: Deployment Capacity -> Infantry Health -> Archer Lethality -> Infantry Lethality -> Archer Health -> Cavalry Stats -> T11 Chase
And here is why you should NOT chase T11
To unlock just ONE T11 troop type through the minimum research path currently requires approximately:
- 13,421 Truegold Dust
- 3.99M Gold
- 246.2M Bread 246.2M Wood 49.1M Stone 12.2M Iron
- 271 DAYS of base research time
And that’s just one troop type. You also need Town Center TG5 + War Academy TG5.
And that’s just the unlock path — it does not include all the training/healing/aid research afterward. A complete tree is roughly twice as expensive in time and Dust. That’s why T11 should be on a low spender’s radar initially.
Do and Don’t for a low spender
- DO -> Early War Academy stats: 9/10
- DONT – > T11 pursuit immediately: 2/10
- DO -> Collecting Dust now for eventual T11: 10/10
In other words: use and don’t chase the War Academy.
And I think the first-row deployment bonuses + targeted Infantry/Archer stats are going to be quite worthwhile for low spenders without changing the bigger strategy of preserving Truegold for normal TG progression.
War Academy Path
- War Academy – Level 1
- TG Battalion, to Level 1 ( all 3, 16/48 Dust total )
- TG Battalion, to Level 2 ( all 3, 25/75 Dust total)
- TG Battalion, to Level 3 ( all 3, 41/123) Dust total )
- TG Bows, to Level 1, 40 Dust
- TG Blades, to Level 1, 40 Dust
- TG Shields, to Level 1, 40 Dust
- TG Charge, to Level 1, 40 Dust
- TG Bracers, to Level 1, 40 Dust
- TG Farriery, to Level 1, 40 Dust
- TG Battalion, to Level 4 ( all 3, 68/204 Dust total )
- TG Battalion, to Level 5 ( all 3, 108/324 Dust total )
- War Academy – Level 2
- TG Blades, to Level 2, 56 Dust
- TG Shields, to Level 2, 56 Dust
- TG Bows, to Level 2, 56 Dust
- TG Charge, to Level 2, 56 Dust
- TG Blades, to Level 3, 74 Dust
- TG Shields, to Level 3, 74 Dust
- TG Bows, to Level 3, 74 Dust
- TG Charge, to Level 3, 74 Dust
- TG Blades, to Level 4, 102 Dust
- TG Shields, to Level 4, 102 Dust
- TG Bows, to Level 4, 102 Dust
- TG Charge, to Level 4, 102 Dust
- War Academy – Level 3
- TG Blades, to Level 5, 136 Dust
- TG Shields, to Level 5, 136 Dust
- TG Bows, to Level 5, 136 Dust
- TG Charge, to Level 5, 136 Dust
- TG Blades, to Level 6, 184 Dust
- TG Shields, to Level 6, 184 Dust
- TG Bows, to Level 6, 184 Dust
- TG Charge, to Level 6, 184 Dust
- TG Plating, to Level 1, 54 Dust
- TG Mauls, to Level 1, 54 Dust
- TG Arrows, to Level 1, 54 Dust
- TG Lances, to Level 1, 54 Dust
- TG Plating, to Level 2, 66 Dust
- TG Mauls, to Level 2, 66 Dust
- TG Arrows, to Level 2, 66 Dust
- TG Lances, to Level 2, 66 Dust
- TG Bracers, to Level 2, 56 Dust
- TG Farriery, to Level 2, 56 Dust
- TG Bracers, to Level 3, 74 Dust
- TG Farriery, to Level 3, 74 Dust
- TG Bracers, to Level 4, 102 Dust
- TG Farriery, to Level 4, 102 Dust
- TG Bracers, to Level 5, 136 Dust
- TG Farriery, to Level 5, 136 Dust
- TG Bracers, to Level 6, 184 Dust
- TG Farriery, to Level 6, 184 Dust
- TG Vests, to Level 1, 54 Dust
- TG Platecraft, to Level 1, 54 Dust
- TG Vests, to Level 2, 66 Dust
- TG Platecraft, to Level 2, 66 Dust
- War Academy – Level 4