Craft Warriors Beginner’s Guide: Play Without Paying!

Hot off the press from Translimit Inc., the brains behind mobile brain teaser Brain Dots, comes a brand-new strategy game on both Google Play and the Apple App Store: Craft Warriors.

If Clash of Clans had a one-night stand with Minecraft, this is probably what that baby would look like. Build your town the way you want it, defend it from all attackers, and conduct looting missions on other towns for riches, plunder, and precious resources … all in a cutesy, isometric-view universe of cubes.

Strategy games on mobile all share fairly similar elements to each other in that “build ’em up, break other people’s stuff down” method of madness, and Craft Warriors is no exception. Gameplay aside, Craft Warriors also gives you the power to create your own unique units yourself, block by block, and even share those designs with other players as well.

(Look familiar?)

The game is already a hit on the mobile marketplace — but who really wants the same “hit” on their wallet? Check below for some tips on getting started that won’t break the bank!

1. Constant Vigilance! (And Improvement)

The big boss baddie of this game is everyone else, and to keep playing, you’re going to have to plan for the eventuality that someone is going to try and pillage you for all you’re worth.

So keep this in mind when you’re setting your small staff in motion. 

After you finish the tutorial, you will have a basic town set up, and what you have you’ll want to make the strongest you can make ’em — dedicate your builders to this task (you’ll start with one, but you’ll get another one fairly quickly). If you get caught in a Battle, the destruction of your castle means an insta-win for your enemy. Keep it upgraded! Doing so will also allow other upgrades for more buildings around your base.

Meanwhile, blacksmiths tend to and upgrade your fighting units — which you’ll also want to keep in business when your units aren’t busy in battle. This is how you make sure you win the battles you pit your units against.

Similarly, you’ll also want to keep your airship upgraded to increase attack slots, increase how much loot you can carry off, etc.

(Note: The airship is off to the right of your base, and not always easily visible.) 

Always queue these guys up to work when you’re not actively playing. Since most of the stuff in the game is level-locked, you will need to up your EXP in order to unlock most of it. Upgrades are the key to doing just that! For efficiency’s sake, I find it good practice to start them on the longest upgrades possible during your downtime.

Use the game recommendations! Since the entire game focuses around upgrading everything, let the game take out some of the guesswork of which to focus on first. 

Lastly, constantly fine-tune your defenses. Add traps, rearrange defense units, and plan out your town layout in new ways to keep the other player scrambling. 

2. Manage Your Resources

While some of the most rewarding ways you get your hands on loot is through the Battle system, you may not want to get started in this way, particularly if you’ve only just begun to build up your (very basic) army. 

This means a bit of unit and facility management. 

Waiting to build and upgrade storage units like the Mythril Tank and Gold Storage is not nearly as exciting as storming the gates of an enemy town, but it will mean that you won’t be wasting the resources that you mine out of your own property using the Mythril Pump, Gold Mine, and Gem Mine (this last one is important because these are super valuable in your upgrading efforts; plus, there is no separate storage building for them). 

Note: If you want to avoid spending money, you’re going to invest a lot of empty time — which is usually fine, who doesn’t have other things to do in-between mobile games? — but this means saving your resources and gems for the stuff that matters. Use your gems to buy more builders and blacksmiths, which will continually benefit your productivity.

These are also especially important with regard to how you design your town defense in case of invasion. While the destruction of your castle means a win for the enemy team, most people are far more interested in your loot — and that’s what’s sitting in your storage reserves waiting to be used. Keep these behind your walls.

I also like to scatter them around a bit throughout the layout so enemies don’t just find a motherlode of resources all at once, but others may prefer a more straightforward, single defense-point strategy. 

3. Duke It Out in Battles!

When you feel ready to take on your fellow man, it’s time to explore the Battle system. Craft Warriors uses an energy system (i.e., running a battle mission uses up a certain amount of energy that regenerates over time), so you’ll want to choose those battles wisely. 

In this game, pick on the lowest denominator for the best rewards (yes, prey on the weak) and the highest chance of success — check out the mission’s battle stats before you choose which one to attack. Do some recon — check out the loot (gold, mythril, etc.) and also the layout of the town to plan your opening move.

Use this to choose what units you will bring to the battlefield in order to counter what you can see. You’ll have more and more new types of units open to you as you level up — use them to your advantage, and always try to have a mix of different unit types to deal with coming conflicts! 

4. Collect Your Bonuses

Particularly important for those of us who really don’t enjoy the nickel-and-diming experience of microtransactions, the game offers a number of different bonus rewards.

• Daily login rewards are a must as these will drop extra gold and mythril for almost zero effort, and you’ll get more if you have multiple daily logins in a row. A separate login bonus will also net you between 3-7 red gems. Keep that streak going!
• Daily missions are great once you get your army up and running because these usually involve initiating and completing a certain number of battles a day. But not always! So even right from the get-go, check out what missions are available — they could relate to stuff that you’re doing already, like building/upgrading certain facilities. Chest rewards make this a tidy way to earn something extra for regular gameplay.
• Other actions, such as watching an ad video whenever the option pops up, can get you some more gems, too. Tutorial-like, the game also offers one-time gem rewards for changing your emblem and making a profile icon. 

Other Things to Know:

• Pages promising cheats and hacks exist (e.g., unlimited gems, ridiculous combat incentives, etc.) — don’t trust them. They’re bad for you.
• Your customized units are cosmetic skins. You can either make them yourself or download them from the marketplace.
• Join a clan! Get together with your friends and join forces against the other clans. You can use this to ask for reinforcements.
• Take advantage of other players’ oversights in your defense makeup. Place stuff like Ballistas up high so they can provide high support defense but punish any invading army that hasn’t got enough ranged attackers.

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That’s all for now! Stay tuned to GameSkinny for any new tips, tricks, and ways to win in Craft Warriors.