Tiger Knight: Empire War is a third person tactical, hack and slash game, that has a very heavy focus on teamwork and soldier management. However, for most beginner players, they don’t exactly understand how the tier system works or how to unlock new troops, so let’s get to it.

The Factions

This guide is for the new 0.1.73 update, since there were some major changes to the way soldiers are unlocked and how the EXP system works, so I decided to write a guide to explain it in detail. Tiger Knight: Empire War has four main factions now, they are as follows:

1. Wei – They specialize in spear weapons and pikes, and now they have Archer/Crossbow Calvery that can also use one-handed swords and shields for melee combat. Wei armor is heavy and durable, which is great for absorbing damage while on the frontlines. They are a great all-rounder faction.

2. Shu – Most players consider Shu to be the tanks of Tiger Knight because of their heavy leather armor and shield combination. They also have a lot of skills for shield wall formations, making them the perfect unit when you need to hold the line and slowly push forward. Shu weapons consist of Battle Axes, Throwing Hammers, and Crossbows, but their rangers can also equip one-handed curved blades and shields.

3. Wu – My personal favorite of the four factions, but quite difficult to use. Wu focuses on Two handed heavy swords, Two-handed blunt weapons, Bow And Arrow archery with light daggers, as well as a spear and Pike unit. I know, quite diverse. I would consider Wu’s main infantry to be Berserkers — heavy damage dealers that charge into battle, but their low-level armor isn’t very good in my opinion so if you’re not careful they can all die quickly. Their Brutal Swing chopping skill can wreak havoc on the battlefield, killing dozens of enemy soldiers in a matter of seconds. However, their pike units and archers feel both underwhelming and underpowered when starting out.

4. Rome – Just arrived with the new content update. They are the new Tanks of the game and made for long prolonged battles to hold their position while chipping away at the enemy to gain an advantage. They have special formations to create shield walls and turtle formations to block archer fire or stop horse calvary. Furthermore, they have the ability to hurl their spears, giving them a basic long range attack. I haven’t personally used the Roman faction yet, but most players have given them very positive feedback.

How Tiers Work And Unlocking New Units

DON’T USE YOUR PRESTIGE! Here is where most beginners mess up, Prestige and EXP are NOT the same thing. Treat it like precious money you only want to use on special occasions, don’t go and blow it all at once. Prestige is used to level your soldiers up without having to take them into battle or train them. Consider it as Bonus EXP. You earn Prestige by completing Missions or Fighting Battles; the better you do, the more you earn. If you have more Prestige than EXP, then you can use it to force level up your soldiers to unlock higher tiers faster, or if you are short by a few EXP, you can combine it with Prestige to give you that extra boost to unlock the next tier.

EXP is Experience, you earn it the same way as Prestige, but you get a whole lot more of it and you earn it a lot faster, as a result, you gain EXP in abundance. Furthermore, your soldier units are divided into three EXP pools – Basic for troops between tiers 1-4, Intermediate for tiers 5-7,  and Advanced for tiers 8-10. If you bring a Basic troop into battle, you will earn EXP for ALL Basic troops within tiers 1-4, and can distribute the EXP to unlock any units you want for that faction, the same goes for the other two EXP pools. As you can see from the above picture, I have 32,000 EXP to give to any of my unlocked Intermediate Wu units.

You unlock troops by taking them into battle and earning EXP, performance determines how much EXP you earn. I highly recommend you read my How To Earn Fast EXP Guide for details about leveling your troops up quickly to get the biggest rewards.

After you have enough EXP, you must then purchase the required weapons and upgrades from the UPGRADE menu and work your way across the skill tree. You don’t need to buy all the upgrades, only the ones you want that leads to the new troops, however, if you DO buy all the upgrades your soldiers will turn into GOLD units. A Gold unit can convert any of their stored EXP into Prestige, but you must use Cash shop Gold to do so.

This system is beneficial if you have already leveled up Basic and Intermediate troops, but you now want to use all their EXP for the Advanced EXP Pool. The best way to do this is to use Prestige.

After you purchase the new troops and earn the required amount of EXP, you will then be able to unlock the new unit and their gear. Your character can ONLY use gear that you have unlocked, so it is important to train as many troops as possible to get the best gear for your character. Rinse and repeat for all the other tiers and factions until you unlock everything.

Which Faction Should You Start With?

Personally, I don’t think it matters which faction you start with, they all have their pros and cons. However, I highly recommend that you don’t start off with Archers. Please read my Archer Guide for details, but the short answer is that the bow isn’t very strong and the accuracy is very poor, this makes getting kills very difficult at low levels. I recommend starting with Wei or Rome infantry first and getting a good melee weapon, then follow my  How To Earn Fast EXP Guide to level up all additional troops.

If you have any questions or further beginners advice, please comment and share it with us below.