How to play Liberty Hold

Getting Started

Your first hour: the screen, the tutorial and the quests that show you the way.

Welcome to the frontier, Marshal. Liberty Hold is a Western strategy game: you build one town, raise an army with heroes of the Old West, and ride out onto a map you share with every other player. A season lasts 42 days.

Finding your way around

Along the top are your resources, Bullets and Silver Dollars; tap a + to open the store. The bar along the bottom switches between your Town, the World map, Heroes, Clan and the Saloon. The big round button takes you between town and map.

The menu above the bar holds Settings, Appearance, Ranking, What's New and this Handbook. The round icons under your portrait are the things that run against the clock: Events, Quests, Offers, Passes and the Season.

The tutorial

Deputy Hale walks you through the basics in about 10 minutes. You can skip it, and replay it any time from Settings. It pays a free 5-minute speed-up on the way and a small resource crate at the end.

Quests

Main quests give you a clear next step every day, and daily quests (6 a day, reset at midnight UTC) pay for the things you do anyway. The tracker on the left shows them; every unfinished quest has a GO button that takes you to the right place.

Tip. Keep a builder busy at all times. Start a long upgrade before you put the phone down: timers run while the game is closed.

Your Town and Buildings

The Town Hall, the buildings round it and what each one is for.

Your town is where everything starts. The Town Hall is its heart: its level caps every other building, opens new plots and sets how many armies you can field. Buildings go up to level 30.

To raise the Town Hall you also need your Stockade and Warehouse at the Town Hall's current level, so keep them in step.

What the buildings do

• Farm, Lumber Mill, Iron Mine, Coal Mine, Gold Mine: your five resources.
• Warehouse: keeps part of every resource safe from raiders.
• Rifle Range, Barracks, Stables, Archery Camp, Foundry: train the five troop classes.
• War College: research for the whole town. Command Post: the size of your armies.
• Hospital: treats the wounded. Stockade, Town Gate, Watchtower: walls, gate and early warning.
• Builder's Yard: your build queues. General Store: the store.
• Later plots: the Horse Yard (Town Hall 10), the Cattle Ranch and the Chapel (Town Hall 18) and the Bank (Town Hall 20).

Tap any building to see its level, what it does now and what the next level brings. The (i) button on its screen opens the full table of every level.

Tip. Armies you can field: 1 at Town Hall 1, 2 at Town Hall 6, 3 at Town Hall 12, 4 at Town Hall 20, 5 at Town Hall 28.

Upgrading and Upgrade Now

Builders, timers, speed-ups and the gold Upgrade Now bar.

Tap a building and press the blue Upgrade bar. The cost is paid in full when the work starts and the timer keeps running while the game is closed. You start with 1 builder; a second joins when your Builder's Yard reaches level 5, and the Builder's Contract adds a permanent extra one (4 at most).

Speeding things up

Tap a running timer and choose Speed Up to use speed-up items on it; the game uses the biggest that fit first. Speed-ups work on buildings, research and training alike.

Upgrade Now

From Town Hall 5, the building screen also shows a gold Upgrade Now bar: it finishes the upgrade at once for 1 Silver Dollar a build minute (the minutes left, rounded up). Below Town Hall 5 buildings finish on their timers and speed-ups.

Tip. Your Town Hall's level is the ceiling for everything else: when a building says it needs a higher Town Hall, that is your next upgrade.

Resources and Collect All

Food, Wood, Iron, Coal and Gold: where they come from and how to collect them.

Five resources run your town: Food, Wood, Iron, Coal and Gold. Each comes from its own building and keeps flowing while you are offline.

Collecting

Production piles up in each building until you collect it. When a building has some ready, a bubble shows over it: tap any bubble and every building of that resource empties at once (three Farms, one tap). The amounts fly up to the counter at the top.

Keeping it safe

Resources in your stockpile can be raided. The Warehouse protects a share of each one: only what is above its protection can be carried off. Spend before a long break, and keep the Warehouse level up.

Tip. Resource crates in your Items bag hold hours of your own town's income: open them when you are just short of an upgrade.

Food: Wheat, Fish and Beef

Three kinds of food, what each is worth and how your town pays with them.

Food comes in three kinds. Wheat grows on your Farms. Fish come from ponds on the map (each Bait brings home a bag). Beef comes from cattle you rope and raise at the Cattle Ranch.

They are not worth the same: one fish feeds like 1.5 wheat and one beef like 3 wheat. The food number at the top of the screen is the total food value of all three.

Paying with food

Tap the food counter to open the food drop-down: it shows each store and lets you choose what your town pays with first: Auto (wheat first, then fish, then beef), or wheat, fish or beef first.

Troops eat food every hour, at home or marching; higher tiers eat more. If food runs out, their morale falls. Raiders take from the three stores in proportion to what is unprotected.

Heroes

Tiers, stars, skills, captains, levels and the story caps.

50 heroes of the Old West lead your armies: 10 Gold, 16 Silver and 24 Bronze. Gold heroes are the strongest and the rarest.

Seats and skills

Every army has three hero seats. The Captain leads the march and uses their signature skill and their combat skill; the Support adds a combat skill; the Tactician uses their tactician skill. Any hero can sit in any seat.

Skills fire by themselves in battle: you never press a skill button. The captain's Leadership sets the army's starting morale and adds to how many troops it can carry. Each hero prefers one troop class; lead that class and their bonus applies.

Stars

Stars come from hero cards at the Saloon: each card raises a hero one star, up to 5. A hero's four skills are at the level of their stars, so every star makes every skill stronger.

Levels and the story caps

Heroes gain XP in battle and from XP books: Dime Novel (100 XP), Drill Manual (1,000 XP), Campaign Journal (10,000 XP) and Frontier Almanac (50,000 XP). Levels go to 100, but the story caps hold them: 40 until the frontier gates open on day 15, 80 until the capital's gates open on day 30, then 100. XP over the cap is not taken, so save your books.

Tip. Put your strongest hero in the Captain's seat: the captain's skills and Leadership shape the whole army.

Troops and Training

Five classes, three tiers, counters and training batches.

Your army has five troop classes, each trained in its own building: Riflemen (Rifle Range), Bayonet Infantry (Barracks), Cavalry (Stables), Bowmen (Archery Camp) and Siege (Foundry).

Counters

Each class beats another and fears one. Riflemen beat Bayonet Infantry, Bayonet Infantry beat Cavalry, Cavalry beat Riflemen, and Bowmen beat Bayonet Infantry. Siege guns hit walls and gates hard. A class does 30% more damage against the class it counters.

Tiers

Every class has three tiers. Tier II and Tier III open by research in the War College; after that every training building of the class can train them. Higher tiers hit harder, last longer and cost more.

Training

Open a training building and press Train. A batch is up to 100 troops at level 1 and 970 at level 30. You pay when it starts and get it all back if you cancel. Speed-ups work on training too.

Tip. A mixed army is safer than one that is all one kind: scout first and bring the class that counters the enemy's main class.

Marches and Formations

Building an army, sending it out and how fast it rides.

An army is a march: up to three heroes and the troops they lead. Open Marches on the bar (Edit Troops) to fill each army: pick the heroes for the three seats and the troops. Quick Formation fills an army for you with your best.

Sending a march

On the map, tap one of your armies (or select several), then tap where it should go: a camp, a town, a herd, a pond or a city. The route bends round lakes and goes through open gates by itself. While it marches you can redirect it, tell it to hold, or recall it.

Speed

An army moves at the speed of its slowest class. Research makes marches faster, and a horse makes them faster still: a Gold horse at its top level gives the biggest boost. Sand, rock and forest slow a march; lakes cannot be crossed.

When a railway station is on the way, a march rides the public shuttle by itself if that makes the whole journey faster.

Tip. Armies hidden in a forest cannot be seen by other players unless one of their towns or armies is close by.

Battles, Healing and the Chapel

How a fight is decided, the wounded, the radius heal, the Hospital and the Chapel.

When armies meet, the server fights the battle in rounds and your phone shows it. Each round every troop group deals damage by its attack, the target's defence and health decide how many fall, counters add their bonus and heroes' skills fire. The side with troops left wins.

Wounded and dead

Troops that fall are wounded while your Hospital has room; the rest are dead. Wounded troops are healed back into your army. Raise the Hospital to keep more of them.

Radius heal

A hero with an all-allies heal does more than heal their own march: they also bring back 20% to 40% (by their stars) of the dead of your other marches that fought within 30 seconds and stand close by. Up to 3 marches are helped, 4 when they stand tightly together. Only your own marches, never clanmates or enemies.

Boot Hill and the Chapel

Every battle's dead go to Boot Hill. From Town Hall 18 the Chapel can raise part of them: a revival costs 60% of their training cost and takes 60% of their training time. Fallen not raised within 48 hours are lost, and at least 35% of every battle's casualties always stay dead.

Tip. Every report under REPORTS lists both sides' losses, the loot and every hero skill that fired: read them to learn what worked.

Research

The War College's three branches and how research runs.

The War College researches upgrades for your whole town in three branches: Military, Economy and Rail.

Pick a topic and it runs on a timer like an upgrade. You can run 1 research at a time; the Scholar's Contract adds a permanent second slot. Most topics have several levels, and each row of a branch opens at a War College level.

• Military: attack, defence and health for each class, the Tier II and Tier III unlocks, march speed, the Hospital and rallies.
• Economy: production, gathering, and building and research speed.
• Rail: your marches and cargo on the railway: faster rides, bigger shipments, less coal, fewer losses when a train is robbed.

Tip. Research the Tier II unlock of your main troop class early: tier for tier, it is the biggest jump in an army's strength.

The Story

Seven chapters of the season's story, its stages and what they pay.

The season has a story, told in 7 chapters: Ashes at Dawn, The Coyote Hunt, Siege at the Gates, The Land War, Iron Road, A Star That Lies and The Seat. 34 stages in all.

Open the Story tab to see the chapter you are in. Each stage asks for something real (build, train, beat a camp, win a fight, take part in a rally); when it is done, claim its reward. Some stages are personal battles you fight against the story's outlaws.

Cut scenes open each chapter, and some stages bring a hero to your side for free.

The story and the map

The story follows the season: the frontier gates open on day 15, the capital's gates on day 30, and the corner walls come down on day 35. Hero levels are capped by the same story line (see Heroes).

Tip. When you are not sure what to do next, the story and the main quest always have an answer.

The Saloon and Duels

Recruiting heroes with Bullets, the odds, and duels at high noon.

Heroes are recruited at The Golden Spur's shooting gallery. One Bullet is one shot at a target; a hit turns a hero card. The first card of a hero recruits them; later cards add stars. A shot that turns no card still pays a small prize.

You start with 10 Bullets and your first shot is free. Bullets are earned in play. Silver Bullets shoot straighter; a Gold card is guaranteed by your 60th Silver Bullet shot without one. The odds are shown in the Saloon.

Cards past five stars turn into badges, which you can exchange for Bronze and Silver cards.

Duels at high noon

From Town Hall 6 you can challenge another player to a quick-draw duel on their Main Street, from a player's profile, from their town on the world map or from the Duels board at the Golden Spur. After a random wait the server calls DRAW: the first to press SHOOT wins. Jump the gun and you lose. Duels are fought for Gold and move your Reputation.

Practice rounds with Deputy Hale are always open on the Duels board: no Gold and no Reputation at stake.

Horses and the Horse Yard

Taming, stabling, feeding, breeding and riding horses.

The Horse Yard opens at Town Hall 10. It stables your horses: 6 at level 1, up to 30.

Horses come in three tiers: Bronze (to level 20), Silver (to level 30) and Gold (to level 40). Each has a temperament (Bold, Steady, Hardy, Sure-footed or Gentle) that adds its own small bonus.

Getting horses

Wild horse herds roam the map. Send a march with Rope in your Items bag: it beats the herd's cowboy guard, then tames one horse a Rope, 5 minutes each. The further out the herd, the better the odds of Silver and Gold.

Feeding, riding, breeding

Feed a horse food to level it up. Assign a horse to an army and the whole army marches faster: at the top level Bronze +10%, Silver +20% and Gold +33.3%. In Breed, pick two horses for a foal; a higher Horse Yard breeds faster.

Horses add to your Power and cannot be traded. The Horse Yard is also where you claim your daily Rope and Bait.

Tip. Give your best horse to the army you send furthest: a fast march wastes less of the day on the trail.

Herds, Fishing and the Cattle Ranch

Rope and Bait, shared herds and their guards, fishing ponds and beef.

Two items do the catching, and they stay in your Items bag (a march carries none): one Rope brings home one horse or one head of cattle, one Bait lands one bag of fish. You get 2 Ropes and 5 Bait free every day; more come from the Saloon's prizes. Each catch uses one item when it happens.

Shared herds

Cattle herds and wild horse herds are the same for every player. Each is guarded by a cowboy: the first march to beat him downs him for everyone, and after that anyone with Rope just captures. The herd shrinks with every head taken; once it is roped out a fresh herd turns up about 3 hours later. Other players can attack a march while it works.

Fishing

Send a march to a pond with Bait in your bag: each Bait is a bag of 1,000 fish, worth 1,500 food, up to 20 bags a march.

The Cattle Ranch

Cattle go home to the Cattle Ranch (Town Hall 18). Start a batch and each head becomes 2,000 beef over about 4 hours; every Ranch level makes it quicker and adds a little beef. Collect the beef like any resource.

The Bank

Putting Silver Dollars away for a term and collecting the interest.

The Bank opens at Town Hall 20. Deposit Silver Dollars for a term of 1 day, 3 days or 7 days and collect them back with interest when the term ends.

• One deposit per term at a time, so up to three can run together.
• No early withdrawal: the money is locked until the term ends.
• At least 100 Silver Dollars a deposit.
• The interest is set by the Bank's level when you deposit: the higher the Bank, the better the rate.
• Tap the Bank to collect a finished deposit.

Tip. A 7-day term pays the best rate. Deposit what you will not need this week.

The Map, Zooms and Gates

Three zones, the gates and their days, fog and the zoom levels.

The map is one shared frontier with three zones, walled apart: Zone 1, the four home corners where everyone starts; Zone 2, the frontier ring with its cities and stations; and Zone 3, the capital, round Liberty Hold itself.

Gates

Gates in the walls open for everyone at once on set days: the frontier gates on day 15, the capital's gates on day 30, and the corner walls come down on day 35. Until a gate opens nobody marches through it.

Zooming

Pinch to zoom through the map's views: Legend map, Overview, Close-up and Town. Close in you see armies, herds and camps; further out the cities, the railway and every clan's territory; the legend map shows the whole season at a glance.

Fog

The map starts in fog. You see round your town and round your armies and scouts; ground you uncover stays discovered for the season, and your clan shares everything its members discover.

Tip. Outlaw camps are everywhere on the map: they pay resources, speed-ups and hero XP, and every quest line uses them.

The Railway

Public shuttles, clan trains, tolls, hold-ups, raiders, escorts and freight.

Players have no trains of their own. Public shuttles run between the stations of every railway section to a timetable, from day 15. Your marches ride them by themselves whenever that makes the whole journey faster. One timetable for everyone: shuttles are never stopped or robbed.

Clan trains

Only a clan that holds a Railhead runs trains, once it has the first Rail research. A clan train runs on a schedule (every 2 h, 4 h, 6 h, 12 h or 24 h) or on command and carries resources members load at a station to a clanmate's town: up to 50,000 a train, 10,000 a member.

Tolls, hold-ups and raiders

• Toll: if the cargo passes any station its clan does not hold, the line takes one 10% share.
• Hold-ups: a clan holding a station on the route can stop the train, but only with its own garrison there and its robberies switched on. A win takes 30% of the cargo; a train is held up at most 2 times.
• Raiders may strike at a stop (8%, 12% and 15% by zone) and take 15% if nobody comes to help.
• Escorts: up to 2 armies can escort a train and fight in every hold-up. Escorts on a real run are paid.

Freight

NPC freight trains run round the frontier ring. Any player can put resources from their own town aboard and take them off further along (up to 30,000 a day). Clans that hold stations on the line tax and can hold up the freight.

Tip. A safe route (the default) never passes a rival's station. Pick risky only when the toll and the hold-ups are worth the time saved.

Clans

Joining, donations, clan coins, research and changing the clan's colour or name.

Open the Clan tab to join an open clan, ask to join a closed one, or found your own (it is free). A clan has a leader and up to 4 officers, and holds 30 members to begin with (50 with research).

Donations and clan coins

Donate Food, Wood, Iron or Coal from your town. Donations fill the clan treasury (outposts and clan research are paid from it), raise the clan's level, and pay you clan coins: a full day's donation pays 150 coins. Spend them in the clan shop on speed-ups, resource crates, coal and Wagon Trains.

Clan research

The clan tree has five branches: Rail, Warfare, Territory, Clan growth and Economy. Rows open as the clan's donations grow; only a clan with a Railhead can research.

The clan's identity

The founder picks the clan's territory colour with its name and tag. Later the leader can change the colour for 750 clan coins or 250 Silver Dollars, and the name for 1,500 clan coins or 500 Silver Dollars, each once every 7 days. Banner shape, flag and emblem are free to change.

Tip. Donate every day up to your cap: it is the cheapest way to earn clan coins and it makes the whole clan stronger.

Railheads, Territory and Outposts

Winning a Railhead, planting outposts and holding cities.

Every clan needs a Railhead: its home on the railway. There are 20, 5 in each home corner. A clan without one is an outlaw clan that can only chat.

Taking a Railhead

An empty Railhead is held by the Rail Gang: a clan of 5 or more members wins it by beating that garrison, alone or by rally. To take a Railhead another clan holds, the leader or an officer declares first; the attack window opens 60 minutes later and lasts 60 minutes. A clan holds one Railhead at most.

Losing a Railhead costs only the Railhead: the clan keeps its cities, treasury and research, but its trains stop and its territory is cut off until it wins one back.

Outposts

Outposts are clan flags. Each claims a 5 by 5 tile square, and flags join edge to edge, growing the clan's land out from its Railhead. The leader or an officer places them; they are paid from the treasury and take about an hour to build (garrisons speed them up). A clan starts with 5 flags; Frontier research raises that.

Cities

Cities, stations and gates are taken in capture windows by a clan whose land touches them, and held with garrisons. Each pays its holders a bonus. Beside the railway stand 24 smaller cities with smaller bonuses.

Liberty Hold and the Sheriff's Seat

The capital, the Sheriff and the Final Showdown.

At the centre of the map stands Liberty Hold, a three-tier star fort with the Territorial Capitol on its top terrace. Whoever holds it holds the Sheriff's seat.

From day 34, Liberty Hold opens to attack in a 3-hour window every 7 days. It is taken by rally, by a clan whose land reaches it.

The Sheriff

The holding clan's leader is the Sheriff. The Sheriff names up to 4 deputies, posts Wanted players, picks a weekly bonus for the whole server and may call one Law of the Land a week: a Peace Day with no raids on towns, or Open Season with bigger raid loot.

The Final Showdown

On day 41 the Final Showdown decides the season: whoever holds Liberty Hold when it ends is the season's Sheriff.

Power

What your Power number counts.

Power is the one number that sums up how strong you are. It is shown on your portrait, on the Ranking and on every town card.

• Buildings: every level of every building, and more for each Town Hall level.
• Troops: every trained troop, at home or away, by its strength.
• Heroes: every hero's level, more for Gold than Silver or Bronze, and more for every star.
• Research: every War College level done.
• Horses: every stabled horse's level, more for Gold.

Power also keeps raids fair: raid a town with under 50% of your Power and you carry off far less loot and gain more notoriety.

Tip. Troops lost in battle take their Power with them; buildings, research and heroes never lose theirs.

The Store and Passes

Silver Dollars, speed-ups, crates, passes and contracts.

The store lives in your town's General Store; the + beside a counter and the Offers icon open it too. Silver Dollars are the premium currency: buy them in the store, earn them from the season pass's free track, the Saloon's prizes, and once for every sign-in you link.

What you can get

• Speed-ups of every size, for buildings, research and training.
• Resource crates: hours of your own town's income.
• Shields that keep raiders and scouts away.
• A free gift every day.
• Contracts, bought once and kept: Builder's Contract (permanent 3rd build queue) and Scholar's Contract (permanent 2nd research slot).

Passes

The Frontier Monthly Pass runs 30 days and pays every day you claim it. The Frontier Trail (season pass) has 40 tiers over the 42-day season, climbed by playing; its free track pays everyone.

Some things are never for sale: troops, territory, gates, cities and whole Gold heroes. Everything that decides a war can be earned.

Events and Rankings

The weekly events, the season's milestones and the leaderboards.

Something is always running. The Events icon shows what is on now, what is next today and the coming week: 37 kinds of event, from Gold Rush and Builder's Boom to Outlaw Hunt and the Clan Showdown.

Each event page shows its tasks, your points and the reward tiers. Points come from the real thing (build, train, fight, ship), and times show in your own time zone.

The season

The Season icon shows the season's phases: Homestead (day 0-14), The Gates Open (day 15-29), Liberty Hold Opens (day 30-33), The Sheriff's Seat (day 34-40) and The Final Showdown (day 41), with season points and the end-of-season rewards.

Rankings

Ranking in the menu lists the leaderboards: Power, kills, Reputation, clan Power and bounties. Settler towns are on no board.

Mail, Chat and Reports

The Telegraph Office, chat and your battle reports.

The Telegraph Office (Mail on the bar) holds your letters: system mail with rewards to claim, letters from other players and clan letters. Claim All collects every reward at once; save the letters you want to keep.

Every raid, attack, camp fight and duel leaves a report (the scroll at the bottom left, or the Reports tab in the Telegraph): who fought, losses on both sides, loot and every hero skill that fired.

Chat

Open Chat from the strip at the bottom of the screen; swipe it to switch between World and Clan, and tap a name to send a direct message. You can mute, block and report anyone; a person reads every report.

Settings and Your Account

Settings, linking a sign-in, other devices and deleting your account.

Settings (in the menu) sets the rotation (Landscape, Auto or Portrait), the frame rate (30 or 60), music, sound and the battery saver. It also has What's in This Build, Replay Tutorial, Report a Problem, the Terms, Privacy and Help.

Keep your town safe

The first time you play, the game makes a guest account on your device. Link a sign-in (Google, Apple or Facebook) from your Profile > Names and Account so you can get your town back on a new phone; each sign-in you link pays Silver Dollars once.

To play the same town on another device, use Link Another Device: you get a code that works once, for 10 minutes.

Deleting your account

Delete Account on the same page opens the website's delete page. Your account and its data are deleted within 30 days of a confirmed request. Items you bought cannot be restored afterwards.

Tip. Link a sign-in before you change phones: a guest account lost with its device cannot always be recovered.

The entry screen

When the game has loaded you land on the entry screen: tap LOG IN to ride into your town. The chip above it shows the server you play on. The round buttons down each side are: Website, Discord (our community), Help, Repair (clears the game's cache and reloads; your town and progress are kept on the server), User (your account: Play as Guest and the sign-ins), and on the right Announcement, Settings, Language and Guide, which opens this page.

You start as a guest: the game makes an account tied to your device (a phone or a PC). Link a sign-in as soon as it is offered so you can get your town back on a new phone (see Account and profile).

Playing on a PC

Liberty Hold is coming to Android first; iPhone, iPad and PC (Steam) are planned to follow. There is no public PC download yet. On a PC you drag with the mouse to move the map, use the scroll wheel to zoom and click to select.

If you are sent a Windows test build, it is not code-signed yet, so Windows may show a "Windows protected your PC" box the first time: choose More info, then Run anyway. Only run a build you were given on the official Discord.

A guest account belongs to the device, so a phone town and a PC town are separate until sign-in linking opens. The same game, server and rules apply on every device.

The tutorial

Deputy Hale walks you through the basics in about 10 minutes: 11 short steps after the story opens. You can skip at any time, and replay it later from Settings > Replay tutorial (a replay pays no new rewards). You get a free 5-minute speed-up during the lesson and a resource crate worth 15 min of income when you finish.

Your first days

Main quests give you a clear next step every day; the quest tracker on the left of the screen shows the current one, and every unfinished quest has a GO button that takes you to the right place. The first days ask for:

• Day 1: Raise the Town Hall to level 4
• Day 1: Clear an outlaw camp of level 1
• Day 2: Raise the Town Hall to level 5
• Day 2: Clear an outlaw camp of level 2
• Day 2: Grow your army to 300 troops
• Day 3: Raise the Town Hall to level 7
• Day 3: Clear an outlaw camp of level 3

Tip. Keep a builder busy at all times, even overnight: start a long upgrade before you put the phone down.

Finding your way around

The bar along the bottom switches between your Town, the World map, your Heroes, your Clan and the Saloon. The big round button in the corner takes you between town and map. Along the top are your resources, Bullets and Silver Dollars; the + beside a counter opens the Shop. The menu has the Items bag, Quests, Events, Reports, Ranking, Chat and Settings.

Pinch to zoom the map through its views: Legend map, Overview, Close-up and Town. Tap an army to select it, then tap where it should go.

The Town Hall

The Town Hall is the heart of your town. Its level caps every other building (nothing can be upgraded above the Town Hall's level), it unlocks new buildings, and it sets how many armies you can field at once.

To upgrade the Town Hall you also need your Stockade and Warehouse at the Town Hall's current level.

Armies you can field: 1 at Town Hall 1, 2 at Town Hall 6, 3 at Town Hall 12, 4 at Town Hall 20, 5 at Town Hall 28.

Duels open at Town Hall 6, the same level that ends the beginner shield.

Builders and timers

You start with 1 builder. A second one joins when your Builder's Yard reaches level 5. The Builder's Contract adds a permanent extra builder. At most 4 upgrades run at once.

Every upgrade is a real wait that keeps running while the game is closed. Tap a timer to use speed-ups on it (see Speed-ups). Upgrades are paid in full when they start.

Every building

Each building appears on its own plot once your Town Hall is high enough. Tap a building to see what the next level costs and gives.

Resources and production

Five resources run your town: Food, Wood, Iron, Coal and Gold. Each comes from its own building and keeps flowing while you are offline. Food also feeds your troops, and if it runs out their morale falls (10 points an hour).

Your Warehouse keeps part of your stock safe from raids: 5,000 of each resource at level 1, 32,000 at level 10, 62,000 at level 20 and 92,000 at level 30. Only what is above that can be taken (see Raids).

Tip. Spend resources before a long break: anything above your Warehouse protection is what raiders can carry off.

The General Store

The Shop lives in your town's General Store. The higher its level, the more it stocks. Packs bought with real money, Silver Dollar amounts, passes and contracts are never held back by the store's level; the Silver Dollar items are.

Walls, gate and lookouts

Stockade: the wall round your town; each level adds to your defence. Town Gate: attackers must break it before they reach your troops, and its guards fight too. Watchtower: warns you of incoming raids and scouts; the higher it is, the earlier the warning and the more it tells you, and it widens how far your town sees on the map. Hospital: treats your wounded so fewer troops die (see Losses).

The five classes

Every class beats one other and fears another, so a mixed army is safer than one that is all one kind.

A class does 30% more damage against the class it counters. Siege guns hit walls and gates hard; keep cavalry away from them. An army moves at the speed of its slowest class. Carries is how much loot each soldier brings home from a raid.

Tiers and how to unlock them

Each class has three tiers. Higher tiers hit harder, last longer and cost more.

• Tier I: from the start.
• Tier II: research Tier II {class} in the War College.
• Tier III: research Tier III {class} in the War College.

Once a tier is researched, every training building of that class can train it at any level, and you can still pick a lower tier. You can also promote troops you already have to the next tier for a smaller cost than training new ones.

Training

Each training building trains one batch at a time. A batch is up to 100 troops at level 1, 370 at level 10, 670 at level 20 and 970 at level 30. You pay the whole batch when it starts and get it all back if you cancel. Training speed rises with the building's level and with War College research; speed-ups work on training timers too.

March size. One army carries up to 1,000 troops with a level 1 Command Post, plus 400 for each level above 1, plus 10 for each point of the captain hero's Leadership.

Troops eat Food every hour, at home or marching: higher tiers eat more.

How research works

Pick a topic in the War College; it runs on a timer like a building upgrade. You can run 1 research at a time; the Scholar's Contract adds a permanent second slot. Most topics have several levels.

Each row of a branch opens at a War College level: row 1 at level 5, row 2 at level 6, row 3 at level 8, row 4 at level 10, row 5 at level 12, row 6 at level 14, row 7 at level 16, row 8 at level 19.

Research bonuses have ceilings, for example attack, defence and health 25% each, production 30% and march speed 25%.

The Rail branch boosts your marches and your cargo when they ride trains (you have no train of your own): faster rides, bigger shipments, less coal, fewer losses when a train is robbed.

Military branch

81 topics.

Economy branch

23 topics.

Rail branch

9 topics.

Heroes in your army

Heroes come in three tiers: 10 Gold, 16 Silver and 24 Bronze. Every army has three hero seats: Captain, Support and Tactician. The Captain leads the march and uses both their own signature skill and their combat skill; Support adds a combat skill; the Tactician uses their tactician skill. Any hero can sit in any seat, and Quick Formation fills an army for you.

The captain's Leadership sets the army's starting morale (higher morale, more damage) and adds to its march size. Each hero also prefers one troop class: lead that class and the hero's bonus applies.

Skills fire on their own in battle (from Rage or a set round); you never press a skill button. Battle reports list every skill that fired.

Some pairs of heroes share a hidden bond with history behind it: field them together to discover it. There are 12 to find.

Levels and stars

Heroes gain XP from battles (outlaw camps pay XP only while they still pay loot that day) and from XP books: Dime Novel (100 XP), Drill Manual (1,000 XP), Campaign Journal (10,000 XP) and Frontier Almanac (50,000 XP). Tap LEVEL UP on a hero's card. The highest level is 100.

Stars come from hero cards at the Saloon: 1 card raises a hero 1 star; the first card recruits the hero, up to 5 stars. A hero's skills grow stronger with every star.

Cards past 5 stars turn into badges (50 for Gold, 15 for Silver, 5 for Bronze), which you can exchange for Bronze and Silver cards (never Gold).

The Saloon: The Golden Spur

Heroes are recruited in the Saloon's shooting gallery: one Bullet is one shot at a target. A hit turns a hero card (the first card of a hero recruits them; later cards add stars). A shot that turns no card still pays a small prize.

You start with 10 Bullets and your first shot is free. Bullets are earned in play (quests, events, camps, passes). Silver Bullets shoot straighter (better odds); they cost 100 Silver Dollars each or 900 for ten, and some are earned in play.

Guarantee: a Gold card is guaranteed by your 60th Silver Bullet shot without one.

Featured hero events run for 7 days every 14 days: half of all Gold hits are the featured hero, and event tasks give free Bullets and one featured card. The featured line-up: Wyatt Earp, Bass Reeves, Billy the Kid, Jesse James and Dolly Hart.

Where paid loot boxes are not allowed (BE), Silver Bullets cannot be bought: Silver Bullets earned in play still work; Bronze and Silver cards can be bought directly; Gold cards only from play (never sold).

Every hero

How a duel works

Duels happen on the challenged player's Main Street, always under the noon sky. You can challenge from a player's profile, from their town on the world map or from the Duels board at the Golden Spur. Both players need Town Hall 6.

1. Both players get ready (3 s), hand over the holster.
2. After a random wait of 2 to 7 seconds the server calls DRAW. Nobody knows the moment in advance.
3. The first to press SHOOT after DRAW wins.

• Jumping the gun (pressing before DRAW, or under 0.1 s after it, faster than a person can react) loses the duel.
• If both jump the gun, or both press within 5 ms of each other, the duel is void and stakes go back.
• Not pressing within 3 s of DRAW loses; leaving after the stakes are locked loses.

Fair play: before the duel your phone and the server measure the connection, and the server judges every press. Players whose reactions are faster than humanly possible over many duels are reviewed.

Stakes

Duels are fought for Gold. The challenger picks one of three stakes and the other player sees it before accepting; both put up the same. The winner takes the pot minus 10%. Stakes are capped by the lower Town Hall of the two and by what each holds. Never at stake: Silver Dollars, items, troops and anything bought for money.

Reputation, limits and practice

Duels also move your Reputation: 10 for a win, -5 for a loss, -8 for jumping the gun, and 5 extra for beating a player with at least 100 more Reputation. It never drops below 0. Reputation is shown on the player's profile, town sign and the weekly duel leaderboard.

Limits: 5 duels and 5 challenges a day, the same opponent at most 1 a day and 3 a week, and a 2-minute breather after a loss. You can decline any challenge or let it expire, with no penalty. No duels while under a beginner shield or while one of your marches is in battle, and accounts younger than 3 days cannot duel.

Practice rounds with Deputy Hale are always on the Duels board: no Gold, no Reputation, and open before your Town Hall reaches level 6.

Zones and gates

The map has three zones, walled apart:

• Zone 1, the home corners: Cedar Hollow, Sunrise Flats, Mesquite Basin and Sundown Ridge. Everyone starts here.
• Zone 2, the frontier ring: Thunder Mesa, Silver Plains, Rattler Flats and Bitter Wash, with the frontier cities and junction stations.
• Zone 3, the capital: Capitol Reach, round Liberty Hold itself: a three-tier star fort with the Territorial Capitol on its top terrace.

Gates in the walls open for everyone at once on fixed days of the season: day 15, 30 and 35 (the frontier gates on day 15, the capital's gates and frontier links on day 30, the corner walls on day 35). Until a gate opens, nobody can march through it.

The season lasts 42 days.

Fog of war

The map starts covered in fog. You see round your town and round your armies and scouts as they move; the ground they uncover stays discovered for the season, and your clan shares everything its members discover.

Your town sees 1,920 units, plus 25.6 for each Watchtower level; an army sees 768 and a scout 512. Sight from inside a forest is halved.

Always shown: regions, walls, gates, stations, railway lines and your own armies. Only on discovered ground: other towns, outlaw camps, trains and other players' armies. Discovered ground away from your armies shows towns as you last saw them.

Marches

Tap one of your armies (or select several), then tap where it should go: a place, an outlaw camp, a town or another army. The route bends round lakes and goes through open gates on its own. While it marches you can tap a new target to redirect it, tell it to hold, or retreat (it breaks off a fight after a short disengage and marches home).

An army in a forest is hidden from players outside your clan unless one of their towns or armies is close by.

What you can do on the map

Scouting costs Gold (5 at Town Hall 1, 90 at Town Hall 15, 1,140 at Town Hall 30). The report shows troops by class (to the nearest 10%), resources in stock and how much a raid could take, Warehouse and Watchtower levels and heroes in town. The target is warned that it was scouted, and by whom.

Tip. Scout late and march at once if you mean to raid: the warning gives the target time to react.

Outlaw camps and bosses

Outlaw camps are spread over the map for everyone to attack. They pay resources, speed-ups and hero XP, and count for quests.

• A player may attack a camp only up to the highest level they have unlocked; level 1 is open and beating level N unlocks N+1 Each player unlocks their own levels.
• A beaten camp comes back after 4 hours.
• Camps pay loot for your first 10 wins each day.
• Camp levels by zone: Z1: levels 1-15 (from day 0); Z2: levels 16-25 (from day 15); Z3: levels 26-30 (from day 30).

Bosses ride in on set days and need a clan rally: Black Hat Mulligan (day 5, rally of 4); The Coyote Kid's Gang (day 10, rally of 5); Iron Horse Regulators (gatekeepers) (day 15, rally of 10); The Bandit Queen of Dry Gulch (day 20, rally of 6); The Rattlesnake Rail Gang (day 25, rally of 7); Liberty Hold Guard (gatekeepers) (day 30, rally of 15).

Moving your town (Wagon Trains)

Your town can move with a Wagon Train, used from the Items bag or from your own town's card on the map (RELOCATE):

• Wagon Train (random): moves your town to a random free place in your current region. From the clan shop (120 clan coins), event rewards and the Saloon's prizes.
• Wagon Train (chosen spot): Moves your town to a free place you pick on the map, inside your current region. Refused on water or off the map. 1,000 Silver Dollars, in the Shop.

A move is refused while any of your armies is away from home or a raid is on its way to you. Armies at home move with the town.

Day, night and weather

The sky runs a full day and night every 120 real minutes, lit for about 60% of it: dawn, day, dusk and a moonlit night with lanterns and lit windows.

Night is only a look. Nothing in the rules changes at night: production, marches, battles and shields work the same.

Weather rolls across each region (clear, overcast, rain, thunder, dust, fog, haze and snow), matched to the ground: dust over sand, snow on high rock. Weather is also only a look.

A duel is always fought under the noon sky, whatever the time.

The railway

A railway ring links the stations of the map. Players have no trains of their own. Instead, public shuttle trains run back and forth between the two stations of every railway section, to a timetable, from the day the section opens (sections through a gate open with the gate). A shuttle leaves each end every 3 min 51 s to 7 min 51 s or so and waits 1 min at each station.

Your marches ride the shuttles by themselves, and any player can. When a station is on the way, the march planner uses the railway only if that makes the whole journey faster: your army walks to the station, waits for the next departure, rides, changes trains at stations if it must, and walks on. If walking is quicker, it walks. Recalling an army that is waiting at a station turns it round at once; one on a train carries on to the next station first. The railway opens to marches on day 15.

One timetable for everyone. A march rides at the shuttle's own speed, so nobody's research makes a shared train arrive earlier. Shuttles are never stopped or robbed: plan round the timetable. Rail research speeds clan trains, and makes the cargo you ship carry more, lose less when a train is robbed and burn less coal. Nothing in your town is a railway: the old rail strip is now a wagon road.

NPC freight. Freight trains run fixed routes round the frontier ring from day 15. Any player, with or without a clan, can put resources from their own town aboard at a station and take them off further along the line (up to 30,000 a day); a wagon brings them home. A delivery pays the shipment's coal and, if it passes any station, the 10% toll. Every clan that holds a station the freight reaches takes 10% of the freight's own cargo as tax, and a clan with a garrison there and its robberies switched on can hold the freight up and fight its guards for a share of what is left. Player deliveries aboard are not taxed.

Clans run their own trains: see Clan trains. You can also scout a gate from a station.

Rope and Bait

Two items do the catching, and they stay in your Items bag (a march carries none): one Rope brings home one wild horse or one head of cattle, and one Bait lands one bag of fish. Each catch uses one item when it happens; send a march with none and it is refused.

• Free every day: 2 Ropes and 5 Bait.
• More come from the Saloon's prizes.
• Old Lariats and Lassos have become Ropes.

Herds and their guards

Cattle herds and wild horse herds roam the map, and every player sees the same herd. Each is guarded by a cowboy: the first march to beat him downs him for everyone until the herd comes back, and after that the herd is defenceless, so a march with Rope just captures. A lost fight leaves the guard standing. The herd gets smaller with every head taken; once it is roped out a fresh herd, with a new guard, turns up about 3 hours later. Other players can still attack a march while it is roping.

Cattle go home to your Cattle Ranch (from Town Hall 18), which turns each head into 2,000 beef over time. Beef, fish and wheat all feed your town as food.

Wild horses take 5 minutes a horse to tame at the herd; the further out the herd, the better the odds of a Silver or Gold horse.

Fishing

Send a march to a fishing pond with Bait in your bag: each Bait is one bag of 1,000 fish, worth 1,500 food, and a march fishes up to 20 bags. Ponds are open to everyone, and a fishing march can be attacked like any other.

Horses and the Horse Yard

The Horse Yard opens at Town Hall 10 and stables up to 30 horses. Horses come in Bronze (to level 20), Silver (to level 30) and Gold (to level 40). Feed them food to level them up; each army rides with one horse, which makes it march faster (at the top level: Bronze +10%, Silver +20% and Gold +33%). Horses add to your Power and cannot be traded.

How a battle is fought

When armies meet, the server fights the battle in rounds; your phone only shows it. Each round every troop group deals damage by its attack, the target's defence and health decide how many fall, counters add their bonus, and heroes' skills fire. Morale (from the captain's Leadership) raises or lowers damage. The side with troops left at the end wins.

Tip. Scout first, bring the class that counters the enemy's main class, and put a strong captain in front.

Losses: wounded and dead

Troops that fall in battle are wounded up to your Hospital's capacity; the rest are dead and gone for good. Wounded attackers march home with the army and rejoin your troops; wounded defenders are treated in town. A Hospital holds 1,000 + 600 per level above 1 wounded, and the Field Medicine research raises it.

Raids

A raid attacks another player's town. Your army fights the defenders and the Town Gate; if you win, it carries off 30% of the resources above the town's Warehouse protection, up to what your troops can carry, then marches home.

Towns under a shield cannot be raided or scouted. Clan-mates cannot raid each other.

Being raided costs you the loot and the defenders who die; your buildings are never destroyed.

Battle reports and warnings

Every raid, attack, camp fight and duel leaves a report under REPORTS (bottom left of the screen): who fought, troops lost on both sides, loot, and every hero skill that fired. Your Watchtower warns you when a raid or a scout is on its way.

How shields work

Beginner shield: new towns are protected until your Town Hall reaches level 6 or day 4 of the season begins (launch day is day 0), whichever comes first.

Shields from the Shop: 2-hour shield for 110 Silver Dollars (General Store level 1), 8-hour shield for 300 Silver Dollars (General Store level 1), 24-hour shield for 800 Silver Dollars (General Store level 10). Use them from the Items bag.

Earned shields: events pay 3 8-hour shields a week, and the Saloon's prizes include 1-hour shields.

While your shield is up nobody can raid or scout your town, and other players cannot see how long it has left. Attacking or raiding another player ends your shield; fighting outlaw camps does not.

Joining or founding a clan

Open the Clan tab. Join an open clan straight away, ask to join a closed one, or accept an invite.

• A clan has a leader and up to 4 officers.
• It holds 30 members to begin with; clan research can raise that to 50.
• Invites last 3 days and join requests 7 days; you can have 3 requests out at once.
• Founding a clan is free: a name of 3-16 characters and a tag of 2-4.
• A new clan has no Railhead, so it is an outlaw clan (chat only) until it wins one: see Railheads.

The founder picks the clan's territory colour with its name and tag; the map paints the clan's land, outposts and flags in it. The leader draws the clan's banner (shape, flag and emblem are free to change) and can link the clan's own Discord channel.

Changing the colour or the name. The leader can change the territory colour for 750 clan coins or 250 Silver Dollars, and the clan name for 1,500 clan coins or 500 Silver Dollars, paid by the leader; each once every 7 days. A new name passes the same checks as a new clan's. The clan tag cannot be changed yet.

Donations, clan coins and the clan shop

Donate Food, Wood, Iron or Coal from your town (the DONATE tab). Donations fill the clan treasury (outposts and Frontier research are paid from it), raise the clan level, which opens clan research rows, and they pay you clan coins: a full day's donation cap pays 150 coins.

Your daily cap depends on your Town Hall: 3,596 at Town Hall 1, 16,023 at Town Hall 10, 132,339 at Town Hall 20 and 613,125 at Town Hall 30 (it resets at midnight UTC).

Clan research

The clan tree has 5 branches: Rail, Warfare, Territory, Clan growth and Economy. Rows open as the clan's total donations grow; the leader and officers can mark a recommended topic. Research is paid from the clan treasury, and only a clan with a Railhead can run it.

The Frontier branch sets how many outposts the clan may have (see below). Some other clan research is still being finished; the Clan sheet marks those as coming soon.

Outposts: clan flags

Outposts are clan flags. Each claims one 5x5-tile square of the map, and flags connect edge to edge (touching only at a corner does not connect). The clan's land grows out from its Railhead through connected flags, only where an army could march today. The leader or an officer places a flag; cancelling one under construction refunds nothing.

The clan treasury. Everything members donate is also banked in the clan treasury (Food, Wood, Iron, Coal). Flags and Frontier research are paid from it, not from anyone's town.

Building. A flag takes 1 h to build; up to 5 garrison marches from clan members speed it up (a full team of best troops with Gold captains finishes in about 15 minutes), and the garrisons stay on to defend the finished flag. A flag costs more further in (Z1: 28,435 Food, 28,435 Wood, 15,795 Iron, 7,110 Coal; Z2: 42,650 Food, 42,650 Wood, 23,690 Iron, 10,665 Coal; Z3: 71,090 Food, 71,090 Wood, 39,490 Iron, 17,775 Coal).

Attacking a flag. Only a clan whose connected land touches it can attack it, alone or by rally. A win destroys it (a flag still being built is cancelled).

How many flags. A clan may have 5 flags with no research. The Frontier research branch raises that, tier by tier, up to 150. Only the leader or an officer starts it, one topic at a time, and each tier needs the clan level and a minimum number of members when it starts. Levels are kept if members leave.

Railheads and outlaw clans

Every clan needs a Railhead: its home base on the railway. There are 20 Railheads, 5 beside the rail in each home corner, each on its own short spur of track. Your clan's land grows out from its Railhead, not from members' towns.

• Taking an empty Railhead. An empty Railhead is held by the Rail Gang, an outlaw garrison. A clan with 5 or more members wins it by beating that garrison, alone or by rally. No gold is paid. The garrison is tuned so that a rally of 5 full marches wins and fewer lose, and it grows stronger through the season.
• Taking a held Railhead. Any clan with 5 or more members can attack, but the leader or an officer must declare it first. Both clans get a notification and a timer; the attack window opens 60 minutes later and lasts 60 minutes, and only the declaring clan fights. A clan can have one open declaration, a Railhead can be declared on once at a time, and a captured Railhead is protected for 24 hours. The defence is the Rail Gang's garrison at half strength plus up to 10 garrison marches from the holder's members.
• The winner takes the Railhead only. The losing clan keeps its cities, gates, Liberty Hold, the Sheriff's seat, treasury, research and outposts (each of those is won only in its own battle). It is not an outlaw clan: it keeps its rallies, research, treasury, clan shop and quests, and every bonus it holds still works.
• Until it wins a Railhead back, a clan that lost its Railhead runs no clan trains, and its outposts are cut off: they stay the clan's, but with no Railhead to grow from nothing is connected, so it cannot build new outposts or take places through its land. On the map its territory is drawn faint at the closer zooms and hidden on the full-map view. Winning a Railhead again reconnects it.
• One per clan. A clan holds at most one Railhead, and a clan that holds one cannot declare on (or attack) another.

Outlaw clans. A new clan that has never held a Railhead can still be founded and can chat only: no outposts, no territory, no clan research, no treasury, no clan trains, and no rallies on places or Red Hand bosses. It can attack a Railhead to win out of that state.

Clan war: rallies, bosses and sieges

Rallies carry troops. The rally leader's army waits at home; the leader picks a wait of 5 min, 10 min or 30 min. Clanmates send armies (each must reach the rally point before launch), and at launch everyone at the point marches as one force, at the slowest member's speed, led by the leader's heroes. Up to 15 marches can join, more with Rally Command research (up to +20%). Every member's own Hospital treats their wounded, loot is shared by what each army carried, and everyone gets the report. A rally can hit a boss, a gate, a city, a station, Liberty Hold or an enemy outpost.

Red Hand bosses stand near their story place in each home corner: Black Hat Mulligan (day 5, rally of 4); The Coyote Kid's Gang (day 10, rally of 5); The Bandit Queen of Dry Gulch (day 20, rally of 6); The Rattlesnake Rail Gang (day 25, rally of 7). Only a rally can beat one; each clan beats each boss once, and every member of the winning rally gets the boss's reward once.

Gatekeepers guard the gates and never return once beaten: Iron Horse Regulators (gatekeepers) (day 15, rally of 10); Liberty Hold Guard (gatekeepers) (day 30, rally of 15). A gate can be taken only after its gatekeepers fall.

Capture windows. Cities, stations, gates and Liberty Hold can only be taken inside a window, and only by a clan whose connected outpost touches the place.

• Corner cities: every 1 day(s) from day 2, for 1 h.
• Frontier cities: on days 16, 19, 22, 25 and 28, for 2 h.
• Liberty Hold: days 34 and 41, for 3 h; the Final Showdown on day 41 lasts 6 h.

Small and medium cities. Beside the railway in every home corner and every frontier there are 2 small cities and 1 medium city, 24 in all: Daybreak, Goldenrod, Meadowlark, Hemlock Rest, Juniper Falls, Tamarack, Ocotillo, Agave Springs, Yucca Flat, Amber Ridge, Vesper Bluff, Gloaming, Sidewinder, Diamondback, Horned Toad, Wormwood, Alkali Springs, Parched Gulch, Quicksilver, Sterling Wells, Tinsel Creek, Thunderhead, Anvil Rock and Eagle Roost. They are taken, held and garrisoned like the region's main city and follow its capture windows. Their bonus is smaller: a quarter of the main city's for a small city, half for a medium city, and bonuses from places never add up past +30% on one stat. The bonus goes to every member of the holding clan and is the main city's kind: a corner city +5% gathering, the Top frontier city +10% coal, Right +10% train speed, Bottom +10% march speed, Left +10% troop training speed.

The Sheriff of Liberty Hold

From day 34, Liberty Hold opens to attack in a 3-hour window every 7 days. The holding clan's leader is the Sheriff, who names up to 4 deputies (+3% march speed), posts Wanted players, picks a weekly server-wide bonus and may call one Law of the Land a week: a Peace Day with no raids on towns, or Open Season with bigger raid loot. The Final Showdown on day 41 decides the Sheriff of the season.

Some of the Sheriff's bonuses (gathering and healing speed) have nothing to act on yet; building, research and training speed work. Capture bonuses for stations and gates are off for now; cities carry theirs.

Clan trains

Only clans have trains, and only a clan that holds a Railhead can run them, from day 15, once it has the first Rail research. A clan train leaves the clan's Railhead depot, runs down its spur onto the main line and goes to any station or city depot on open track. The leader or an officer sets it to run on a schedule (every 2 h, 4 h, 6 h, 12 h or 24 h, up to 3 schedules) or on command (up to 4 runs at once).

Cargo. Members put resources on a clan train at a station their clan's connected land touches. The cargo is taken to a clanmate's town by wagon from the destination: a way to help a clanmate with resources. The receiver needs room for it in the Warehouse, kept for it when it ships; anything that still does not fit on arrival goes back to the shipper. A train carries up to 50,000 in all and one member can ship up to 10,000 at a time. Trains burn coal, paid from the treasury; the shipper pays a little coal for the cargo too.

The route and the 10% toll. A safe route (the default) never passes a station a rival clan holds; a leader or officer can pick a risky one, the shortest open track. If the cargo passes any station or depot its clan does not hold (nobody's or a rival's), the line takes one 10% toll of it. A safe train whose way on turns hostile reroutes at its next station; with no safe way left it waits there up to 10 minutes for a leader or officer to send it on (risky) or back, and with no answer it returns and the cargo goes back to the shippers.

Hold-ups. A clan that holds a station on the route can stop a passing train only if it has its own garrison there and its robberies switched on (switching on takes 10 minutes to bite). The train is held, both clans are alerted, and the holders' armies fight the train's own guard and its escorts; a win takes 30% of each shipment aboard into the holders' treasury. A train is held up at most 2 times, once per clan, never by clanmates. Public shuttles are never stopped.

Escorts. Up to 2 armies can escort a clan train; they ride it to the end and defend it in every hold-up. Escorts that see a real run through (at least two stations and 3,000 units of track) are paid; escorts keep their casualties. Rail research makes escorts fight harder and cargo lose less when it is robbed. Robbing a train that carries nothing earns no quest or story credit.

Talking to other players

Open Chat from the strip at the bottom of the screen (swipe it to switch between World and Clan). Messages are up to 300 characters, one every 2 seconds, and each room keeps its latest 100 messages. Tap a name to send a direct message.

Chat is public. Never share personal details (real name, address, phone, school). Report or block anyone who makes you uncomfortable.

A filter masks bad words. You can mute or block anyone (up to 50 blocks) and report any message: add a reason of up to 120 characters; a moderator sees the message with a few lines round it. You can send 5 reports an hour. You can also hide World chat on your device.

The weekly schedule

Times are Irish time (Europe/Dublin); the game shows them in your own time. At least one event runs at every minute of the season and up to 4 at once. The Events sheet shows what is on now, what is next today and the coming week.

Headline events land in the evening peak: Mon-Fri 19:00-23:00; Sat-Sun 12:00-23:00.

Event rewards are small: resource crates, speed-ups, the 3 earned shields a week, Reputation and cosmetic titles; no Silver Dollars; Bullets only in the Saloon's featured event.

Season milestones

These land on fixed days of the season (day 0 is launch day):

What each gives

Frontier Monthly Pass (30 days): 600 Silver Dollars at once, then every day 3.2 h of resource crates, 30 min of speed-ups and 1 Silver Bullet. Claim it each day you log in.

Frontier Trail (season pass): 40 tiers over 42 days, climbed with season pass XP (daily quests, camps, battles, events), awarded by the server. The free track pays everyone 300 Silver Dollars, 4 h of speed-ups, 20 h of resource crates, 200 Bullets and 5 Silver Bullets; the paid track adds 1,500 Silver Dollars, 8 h of speed-ups, 40 h of resource crates, 300 Bullets, 25 Silver Bullets, the Trail Rider (Cavalry) skin and the premium Legendary Iron Cavalry (Cavalry) skin at tier 40.

Contracts (bought once, kept for good): Builder's Contract: permanent 3rd build queue; Scholar's Contract: permanent 2nd research slot.

The details on sale are always the ones shown in the Shop's Passes tab.

Getting Silver Dollars

• Buy them in the Shop (Silver Dollars tab) or in packs.
• First purchase: the first time a player buys each Silver Dollar amount, they get double (once per amount per season).
• Weekends: +20% on Silver Dollar amounts bought on Sat and Sun.
• Free in play: the season pass's free track (300), the Saloon's prizes, and a one-off 200 for each sign-in you link to your account.
• Events pay in crates, speed-ups, shields and titles, not Silver Dollars.

Speed-ups

Speed-ups cut a timer (building, research, training) by their minutes. Tap a running timer and choose SPEED UP to use them; the game uses the biggest that fit first.

Sizes: 1 min speed-up, 5 min speed-up, 15 min speed-up, 1 h speed-up, 3 h speed-up, 8 h speed-up and 24 h speed-up. They come from quests, events, the Saloon's prizes, the clan shop, passes and packs; the General Store sells them for 1 Silver Dollar a minute.

You can also finish a timer at once for 1 Silver Dollar per minute left (rounded up to the minute).

For buildings, that is the gold Upgrade Now button on the building screen (1 Silver Dollar a build minute). It opens at Town Hall 5; before that, buildings finish on their timers and speed-ups.

Resource crates hold hours of your own town's income (40 Silver Dollars an hour in the Store).

A free gift waits in the Shop every day (15 min of resources).

Skins and premium skins

Skins change how your town or a troop class looks, and add a small bonus. Premium skins add visual effects (an aura, banners, lantern glow, a gilded nameplate) and a bigger bonus; some come from limited events and the season pass's top tier.

Caps: a standard skin adds at most 3% to one stat, a premium one 5%, and all your skins together at most 5% to any stat.

What money can never buy

Never for sale: troops, territory, gate openings, cities and whole Gold heroes. Gold heroes come only from play at the Saloon. The game is free to play; everything that decides a war can be earned.

While the game is in testing, Shop packs are free test grants and real payments are not open yet.

Guest accounts and linking

The first time you play, the game makes a guest account tied to your device. To keep your town if you change or lose your phone, link a sign-in: Google, Apple or Facebook, from the User button on the entry screen or your Profile. Each sign-in you link pays 200 Silver Dollars once.

Sign-in linking is being switched on with the store release; until then the buttons say Coming soon. Keep the game installed until you have linked a sign-in: a guest account lost with its device cannot always be recovered.

New phone: install the game, open User on the entry screen and sign in with the account you linked.

Your profile

Tap your portrait (top left) to open your Profile: your avatar, player name and town name, Power, Town Hall, season stats, rankings, linked accounts and settings. Other players' town cards have a PROFILE button too.

You can change your player name and your town name, each once every 24 hours.

Deleting your account

You can ask for your account and its data to be deleted at any time: see Delete your account. It is deleted within 30 days of your confirmed request; items you bought cannot be restored afterwards.

What you can change

• Rotation: Landscape (turns between both landscapes), Auto (also turns upright) or Portrait. The game is designed landscape first and works upright.
• Frame rate: 30 fps keeps the phone cool and saves battery; 60 fps is smoother.
• Music and Sound on or off, separately.
• Battery saver: 20 fps and the lightest detail, for long sessions or a hot phone. The Performance row shows the current frame rate and temperature state.
• What's in this build: the features in the current version and where to report a bug.
• Replay tutorial.
• Language: English for now; more languages come with translation, and the game will pick your phone's language.
• Repair (entry screen): clears the game's cache and downloaded data, then reloads. Your town, progress and settings are kept.

Fair play

Play the game as it is meant to be played: no cheats, bots, scripts, modified apps or exploits, no buying or selling accounts, and no harassment or hateful names. One person, one account. Report bugs instead of using them. Breaking the rules can lead to a mute, a suspension or a ban; a person, never a filter or an AI, makes that decision. The full rules are in the Terms of Service.

Some towns belong to computer-run settlers that keep a young world lively. They follow the same rules and never buy anything.

Bugs, help and contact

Bug reports: post in the #bug-reports channel on the Liberty Hold Discord. Say what you did, what happened, and your game version (top left of the entry screen, and in Settings). A screenshot helps.

Help: ask in the Discord, or email [email protected]. A person reads every email.

Reporting a player: use the report button on their chat message (see Chat), or email us.

Payments and refunds are handled by the store you bought from (Google Play, the App Store or Steam) under its own rules; your rights as a consumer are not affected. See the Terms.

Privacy: what we keep and why.

Discord

The Liberty Hold Discord is the place for news, build notes, events, bug reports, help and finding a clan. Clans can have their own channels, and you can link your game account to it.

What's in the test build

The game is in closed testing: Tester build 5.1, 25 Oct 2026. This guide describes the game as designed; anything not in the build yet is marked here.

Tips from the trail

• Scout a target before you attack it: the report lists its troops, stock and heroes.
• A scouted player is warned, with the time. Scout late and march at once if you mean to raid.
• Everywhere your scouts and armies go is discovered for your whole clan, for the rest of the season.
• Every Watchtower level widens your town's sight: a level-30 tower sees 40% further.
• Forest halves the sight of anyone standing in it, and hides marches passing through it.
• Your beginner shield lasts until Town Hall 6 or the end of day 3. Grow fast while nobody can raid you.
• A shielded town cannot be raided or scouted. Put one up before you sleep.
• Using a shield while one is running extends it. The General Store sells 8-hour and 24-hour ones.
• The Warehouse keeps part of each resource safe from raids: 5,000 at level 1, more every level.
• A winning raid carries off 30% of what lies above the Warehouse's protection, up to the army's load.
• A level-1 training building trains 100 troops a batch; each level adds 30 more.
• Tier II and III troops open with War College research, in every training building. You may still train a lower tier.
• Riflemen beat Bayonet Infantry, who beat Cavalry. Mix your army to cover the counters.
• Keep Food above zero: a starving army loses 10 morale every hour.
• The Command Post sets your march size: 1,000 troops at level 1, +400 a level, more with hero leadership.
• Town Hall 6 gives you a second army; Town Hall 12 a third.
• Wounded troops come home to the Hospital. Keep it levelled so a lost fight is not a lost army.
• A second builder is earned at Builder's Yard level 5: two upgrades at once (at most 4).
• No building can outgrow your Town Hall. Upgrade the Town Hall when everything else has caught up.
• Farms, mills and mines fill up while you are away. Tap the floating icon over a producer to collect.
• The War College runs 1 research at a time: keep it busy, even overnight.
• Research has 3 branches: Military, Economy, Rail. Finish a topic in full to open the next.
• Every troop type has its own research line: Tier II Cavalry needs only the Cavalry topics, no other line.
• Your first shot at the Golden Spur is free, and it always brings home a hero.
• You start with 10 Bullets. Each one is a shot at the Saloon's hero cards.
• An army takes three heroes: captain, support, tactician. A native hero's skill only fires as captain.
• Some heroes rode together in life. Field the right pair in one army and a hidden bond wakes (12 to find).
• A hero's leadership sets the army's morale and adds to how many troops it can take.
• Join a clan: up to 50 members share discoveries, research, rallies and the cities they hold.
• Donating to clan research pays Clan Coins, up to 150 a day; the recommended topic pays 50% more.
• Frontier cities can be taken in a 2-hour window every 3 days from day 16. The holder keeps them between windows.
• A clan needs a Railhead: without one it is an outlaw clan and can only chat. 5 members can take an empty one.
• The eight home gates open on day 15; the frontier and capital links on day 30; every wall on day 35.
• A gate must be captured before it is used, and the capturing clan needs an unbroken chain of territory to it.
• Whoever holds a gate sets the rule: allies only, a Gold toll, or closed. Trains need gate access too.
• From day 34 Liberty Hold itself can be taken, every 7 days. Its holder's leader is the Sheriff.
• The season ends on day 42, the day after the final showdown. Hold what you can until then.
• Outlaw camps respawn every 4 hours and pay daily quest progress. Clear the nearest one each day.
• Duels are fought on Main Street at high noon, 5 a day at most, from Town Hall 6. Any challenge can be declined.