How to get greater benefits from subordinate cities, setting guides and how to increase the number of such.
- Requirements for Unlock
- Basic Benefits
- Enlisted Troops
- Gold Production
- Material Production
- Important Benefits
- Setting
- What should be the setting of a subordinate city?
- What should be the policy of the subordinate cities?
- Rarity (Quality)
- What happens when I upgrade the rarity of a subordinate city?
- How to Upgrade a Subordinate City
- Upgrade Requirements
- How Many to Have
- How many subordinate cities can I have?
- How to increase the Number of Slots?
- How to Get
- A) Attacking NPC Subordinate City
- B) Robbing Another Player’s Subordinate City
- C) “Historic City Search” Event
- Culture
- Which culture to choose?
- Mayor
- Which general should be the mayor of a subordinate city?
- FYI: Test results: whether the mayor’s buff changes the attack strength of troops in the subordinate city.
- Related: Subordinate City Generals (Mayor) Debuff Comparison Tool
- Historic generals better?
- Do mayors need to be leveled, enhanced, and cultivated?
- What should the mayor be Equipped with?
- Should I add Skills to the mayor?
- Building
- What happens if you raise the level of the subordinate city (building level)?
- How to increase the speed of construction?
- Troops
- How to raise the tier of troops that can be created?
- How to increase the training speed of troops?
- How to increase the number of troops that can be held in a subordinate city?
- Gold Production
- How to increase the gold production speed?
- Abandonment and reoccupation
- What happens when I abandon a subordinate city?
- What happens when I take over again?
- Miscellaneous
- Can subordinate cities be moved?
Requirements for Unlock
When the keep level reaches 11, the first subordinate city is unlocked within the city and can also occupy the outer subordinate cities. (Initially, up to two.)
Basic Benefits
The basics are as follows. The effect obtained depends on the rarity (quality) and level of the subordinate city, the mayor, etc.
Enlisted Troops
Subordinate cities can have a separate army from the main city’s, and can be sent into battle when attacking monsters or enemy cities, or when defending against an attack. (The number of troops they may be called upon to fight does not depend on the main city’s march size (the number of troops on the march).
However, if a subordinate city’s level is not as high as the main city’s Keep level, its troops will be low tier and will be not much of a force. Also, if you want to hurry up and increase the number of troops in a battle, you will need a good amount of gems. Therefore, it will not be practical for many people.
Additionally, a subordinate city’s troops who is killed in battle is not considered wounded, but dead. They will not be sent to the hospital. If you want to improve the situation, there are some researches that can increase the survival rate from death, so you can increase it.
Note – You cannot take a subordinate city in the following cases:
- No mayor
- The number of troops in the subordinate cities is “zero”
- Rally
- Attack on the Temple
- Attack on Buildings in the Battlefield
- Attacks on NPC Subordinate City
Gold Production
Over time, gold is produced automatically. Depending on the keep level of the subordinate cities, it gets faster.
Base speed (example)
- Subordinate city keep level 17 -> 760/h
- Subordinate city keep level 18 -> 820/h
- Subordinate city keep level 19 -> 900/h
- Subordinate city keep level 20 -> 980/h
Production speed can be increased by general skills and the like, but the production rate is still slow. Therefore, this will also not be practical for many people.
Material Production
Materials, refining stones, and research stones are produced automatically over time.

The amount of materials that can be held is fixed (depending on the rarity of the subordinate city (7 for uncommon, 9 for excellent…), and production stops when the maximum is reached. If you acquire them, production will start again.
Which materials can be made depends on the culture of the subordinate city.
Example: America
- Dragon Scale Lv1-3
- Refining Stone
- Research Stone
- Animal Bone Lv1-3
- Leather Lv1-3
- Purple Crystal Lv1-3
- Blue Stone Lv1-3
- Red Agate Lv1-3
- Silver Pearl Lv1-3
Also, research can increase the speed of production and rate of gain of materials.
*Policy, mayor, monarch talent does not matter.
Important Benefits
The above seems to be the main thing in the game, but their greater benefits are the following
- Buff
- Debuff
- General EXP earning
The details are summarized in the following article, so take a look.
Important Usage of Subordinate City
Setting
What should be the setting of a subordinate city?
Subordinate cities’ screens have “Automatic fight for other Cities” and “Accept Reinforcements” settings, but these are for defensive battles if they are attacked.

If you want to invite a subordinate city to join the attack (when attacking a monster or enemy city), you must select the subordinate city you want to invite to join the attack on the troop selection screen before the march. Therefore, in this case, the “Automatic fight for other Cities” and “Accept Reinforcements” settings are not relevant.
- Automatic fight for other Cities – If it is turned on, when the main city or other subordinate cities are attacked, this subordinate city will automatically join the fight. Therefore, only turn it on if you think you can win a defensive battle. If you turn it on and lose, the subordinate city will be heavily damaged, so turn it off if you are not confident that you will win the defense battle. Also, if you want to ghost, make sure to turn it off, as troops will die for nothing if it is on.
- Accept Reinforcements – If it is turned on, if this subordinate city is attacked, other subordinate cities and main cities will automatically join the fight. As with the above, if you are not confident of winning a defensive battle, it is best to turn it off if you are not confident that you will win.
As for the subordinate city buffs, they are in effect no matter what the setting is. (e.g., a Japanese subordinate city’s buff to increase Marching Attack, or a Russian subordinate city’s buff to increase In-City Attack etc.)
What should be the policy of the subordinate cities?
I recommend making it “war-oriented” and speeding up the training of troops. If all the troops of a subordinate city are wiped out in battle, the mayor will die, so the more troops you have, the better, even if they don’t become a major force.
Rarity (Quality)
What happens when I upgrade the rarity of a subordinate city?
Subordinate cities have five different rarity levels.
- Common (White)
- Uncommon (Green)
- Excellent (Blue)
- Legendary (Purple)
- Epic (Gold)
And the higher the rarity level, the more of the following benefits you get.
- The effectiveness of the subordinate city buffs increases.
- The training speed of troops in the subordinate cities increases.
- The number of troops you can hold in subordinate cities will increase.
- The speed of gold production in subordinate cities will increase.
Of particular importance are the subordinate city buffs.
For more information on how strong the buffs become as the rarity increases, please refer to this article. ( List of Subordinate City Buff )
In addition, only subordinate cities within the main city can be upgraded. Subordinate cities on the world map cannot be upgraded.
How to Upgrade a Subordinate City
Open the screen of a subordinate city of the main city and press the arrow to the right of the subordinate city name to display the upgrade screen. In addition, to upgrade, you need to reach a certain level of keep in the subordinate city and pay gems.
Upgrade Requirements
- Uncommon -> Subordinate City’s Keep Lv10 + 5,000 gems
- Excellent -> Subordinate City’s Keep Lv15 + 50,000 gems
- Legendary -> Subordinate City’s keep Lv 20 + 500,000 gems
- Epic -> Subordinate City’s keep Lv 25 + 2,500,000 gems
How Many to Have
How many subordinate cities can I have?
At the keep level 11 you can have 3, and up to 9.

How to increase the Number of Slots?
By increasing your rank, you can increase the maximum number of subordinate cities (e.g. +1 for a knight, +6 for an archduke). In order to increase your rank, you must earn prestige and increase your rank ranking.
Reference: How to raise Rank quickly (how to get Prestige efficiently)
How to Get
There are three major ways to occupy a Subordinate City.
A) Attacking NPC Subordinate City
*NPC – Non Player Character
Attack an NPC subordinate city located somewhere on the map and win. (Unlike (B) below, you only need to do this once.

Attacking NPC subordinate cities is only possible solo. Rally attacks are not possible.
Also, when attacking a subordinate city solo, you cannot bring in a subordinate city that you already own.
The strength of the NPC subordinate cities is as follows. (Slightly different for each culture)
- White (Common)
- about 21.6K power
- Troops 10,000 (t1: around 2,000 x 4 types / t2: around 400 x 4 types)
- Green (Uncommon)
- about 175.4K power
- Troops 40,000 (t3: around 3,000 x 4 types / t4: around 7,000 x 4 types)
- Blue (Excellent)
- about 478.6K power
- Troops 57,556 (t5: around 4,000 x4 types / t6: around 11,000 x4 types)
- Purple (Legendary)
- about 1.4M power
- Troops 93,910 (t7: around 5,000 x 4 types / t8: around 18,000 x 4 types)
- Gold (Epic)
- about 9.1M power
- Troops 318,570 (t9: around 14,000 x 4 types / t10: around 60,000 x 4 types)
Note that attacking NPC subordinate cities will result in deaths rather than wounds.
For more information on how to reduce the number of dead, please refer to the following article.
B) Robbing Another Player’s Subordinate City
To occupy the city, it is necessary to attack the subordinate cities to reduce the HP of the walls to 0 and to attack 10 times.
As with attacks on NPC subordinate cities, attacks can only be made solo. Rally attacks are not possible.
However, unlike attacking NPC subordinate cities, it is possible to bring in subordinate cities that you already own when attacking solo.
A note on attacking – scouting before attacking does not tell you if the enemy’s main city will come in as reinforcements. It is better to attack with a small number of weak troops first and see the reports before making a decision.
C) “Historic City Search” Event
If you are lucky, you can get a subordinate city at the “Historic City Search” event held irregularly.
During the event period, you can get “Subordinate City Clue” by defeating monsters or buying certain packs.
If you have the “Subordinate City Clue”, you can place a bet on the city you want in the “Historic City Search” event screen (Event Center > Historic City Searching > Subordinate City Searching).
You will be competing against other players, so your chances of winning will depend on their bets. (Japan, Russia, and highly ranked cities are very competitive.)
The more bets you place, the better off you are, but whether you win or not is completely up to your luck.
If you want to greatly increase your chances of winning, you have to pay. (You can get far more than you can collect by killing monsters.)
At the end of the application period, if you are lucky enough to win, you will get the key to the city of your province.
When you use the key, you will get the coordinates of the winning subordinate city, so all you have to do is attack and occupy that NPC subordinate city.
Note – When you use the key, your name and the fact that you used the key will be announced to the entire server and you will not be able to bubble for 10 minutes from the moment you occupy a subordinate city. Therefore, you need to be careful about intercepting other players.
A good countermeasure is to change your name before you use the key, and then change your name again when you go to occupy it, and so on. (e.g., use the same name as another winner or a member in the alliance. As a countermeasure against arrest warrants and searches from the alliance member screen.)
Culture
Which culture to choose?
Depending on the culture, the subordinate city buffs vary.
- If the emphasis is on fighting, Japan and Russia.
- If the emphasis is on city development, Korea, Europe, America, China.
*For more information, see below.
- Important Usage of Subordinate City
- List of Subordinate City Buff
Mayor
Which general should be the mayor of a subordinate city?
Basically, a historic general with a debuff should be the mayor. (Skills, equipment, Specialty)
To find out which generals have debuffs, see this article.
List of Best Generals
A general who has a buff in skill & specialty better?
The buff that the mayor has does not apply to the troops of the main city. (This can be seen in the PvP battle report.)
The buff that the mayor has applies to troops of the subordinate city.
Also, as mentioned earlier, troops from subordinate cities are not a force to be reckoned with.
Therefore, the skills and specialty of combat buffs (attack, defense, HP, etc.) are unimportant.
FYI: Test results: whether the mayor’s buff changes the attack strength of troops in the subordinate city.
- Solo attack on World Boss
- Behemoth King (effective debuff: ground attack & defense)
- Only the mayor’s buff is changed
Test 1 | Test 2 | |
---|---|---|
Subordinate city | x1 | x1 |
Mayor | Cixi x1 | Cixi x1 |
Mayor’s Equipment | None | Ares Spear Courageous Ares Armor Fearless Ares Boots Han Dynasty Leg Armor (None of Ground Debuff) |
Number of Troops in Sub-City (all the same) | t5 Gound 763 t5 Ranged 626 t5 Mounted 484 | t5 Gound 763 t5 Ranged 626 t5 Mounted 484 |
Number of Troops in Main City (t1 ground only) | 1 | 1 |
Damage | 1 | 2 |
-> Damage changed. It shows that the mayor’s buffs are working on troops in the subordinate city.
Related: Subordinate City Generals (Mayor) Debuff Comparison Tool

Subordinate City Generals (Mayor) Debuff Comparison Tool
Red Star & Specialty can be specified.
Historic generals better?
If you choose a historic general as your mayor, that alone will provide a buff to speed up training in the subordinate cities. Try to avoid choosing non-historic generals. (See this article for more information on who is a historical general.)
Do mayors need to be leveled, enhanced, and cultivated?
For keep level 32 and below
Of course, the higher the better, but if you only want a debuff in combat, you don’t need to level up, enhance, or cultivate the Mayor General. (Exception – if you want to activate the debuff specialty, you need to raise it to level 25.)
If you want non-combat buffs, such as speeding up construction of subordinate cities, speeding up training, or increasing gold production, all you need is high “Leadership” and “Politics”.
In particular, when those two become 900, the “Death into Survival Rate in this Subordinate City” buff becomes effective. Since the mayor will die if the troops are annihilated, it should be enabled if possible. Therefore, you may want to cultivate the mayor after you have fully cultivated the main general.
“Attack” and “Defense” does not affect the troops in the main city. Also, as mentioned earlier, the troops in the subordinate cities are of low level and do not become an asset. Therefore, they are of little importance.
For keep level 33 and above
At keep level 33, it becomes a major debuff battle with the mayor’s Achaemenidae equipment. In this case, the ability of just one subordinate city to enter the fray makes a big difference.
Also, if you fight a series of battles in a short period of time, the number of troops in the subordinate cities will decrease rapidly, and sooner or later, they will reach zero.
If the troops of a subordinate city are wiped out, even if the mayor is present, that subordinate city cannot enter the battle and cannot use debuffs.
Therefore, you want to make sure that the “Death into Survival Rate in this Subordinate City” buff is effective. For this reason, it is recommended that the mayor’s generals be leveled, enhanced, and cultivated and that their “Leadership” and “Politics” be at least 900.
Leadership, in particular, should always be maxed out, as it increases the speed of training for sub-city.
What should the mayor be Equipped with?
Except for equipment with debuff performance, it does not matter.
As mentioned above, the attack and defense increase by equipment does not apply to troops in the main city.
Also, if the mayor equips a ring with a “Killing Monster EXP”, the amount of EXP the general receives will not change. (Both the amount of EXP received by the main general and the mayor will remain the same.)
However, if the equipment has a debuff, it takes effect in combat.
Should I add Skills to the mayor?
On the skills screen, the granting of skills in the “Military” category is unnecessary (buffs for mounted, ranged, ground and siege). The reason for this is that, as in the previous story, there is little benefit from having a buff. It would be different if the skill book could give you a debuff skill, but so far, there is no such skill book.
However, it is better to add skills in the ” Subordinate City” category of the skill screen. The recommended priorities are as follows. If all the troops in a subordinate city are wiped out, the mayor will die, so you’ll want to add at least “Rebirth”, if possible.
- Rebirth
- Training Speed
- Training Capacity
Related : Skillbook List (+ Buffs by Level)
Building
What happens if you raise the level of the subordinate city (building level)?
- High tier troops will be able to make. (Barracks, Stables, Archer Camp)
- Training speed of troops in the subordinate cities will increase. (Army Camp)
- The number of troops that can be held in a subordinate city increases. (Keep)
- The speed of gold production in subordinate cities increases. (Keep)
How to increase the speed of construction?
The speed of construction within a subordinate city can be increased by
- Mayor (Politics, Skills, Equipment)
- Research
- Speed-Up Items
*Policies, Subordinate city Rarity, Subordinate city Buffs, and Monarch Talent are irrelevant.
Troops
How to raise the tier of troops that can be created?
The tier of troops to be created depends on the level of buildings (barracks, stables, archer camps) in the subordinate cities.
How to increase the training speed of troops?
Possible to speed up the training of troops by
- Policy
- Mayor (Leadership, Skill, Equipment)
- Research
- Army Camp Level within a subordinate city
- Rarity of Subordinate city
- Subordinate city Buffs (enabled by setting a historic general as mayor)
- Talent of the Monarch
Note that there is a “Training Speed” in the Chinese subordinate city buff, but this only covers the training speed of the main city.
If you pay gems, it is also possible to complete training immediately (up to the maximum number you can hold in the subordinate cities) .
How to increase the number of troops that can be held in a subordinate city?
- Keep Level within a subordinate city
- Rarity of Subordinate city
- Research
*Policy, Mayor, Monarch Talent does not matter.
Gold Production
How to increase the gold production speed?
Gold production speed can be increased by
- Keep level of a subordinate city
- Policy
- Mayor (Politics, Skills, Equipment)
- Research
- Rarity of Subordinate cities
- Subordinate citiy Buff (only in America)
*The Monarch Talent does not matter.
Abandonment and reoccupation
What happens when I abandon a subordinate city?
Become a level 1 NPC subordinate city.
What happens when I take over again?
Return to the level before abandonment.
Miscellaneous
Can subordinate cities be moved?
No, they cannot be moved.
NPC subordinate cities on the world map have fixed locations.