Base building runs on three standard resources — food, metal, and oil — plus speedups, with oil becoming relevant partway through progression rather than from the very start. Costs for any given building upgrade climb steeply with level: what costs a small amount early on can cost orders of magnitude more by the higher levels, and the same applies to the time required if you’re not using speedups.
Don’t upgrade everything at once
A common early mistake is trying to keep every building at your base’s maximum allowed level simultaneously. In practice, only a subset of buildings actually gates your next base-level upgrade, and the rest can lag behind. If you have multiples of the same building (several Drill Grounds, for example), it’s generally more efficient to keep one upgraded to the level you need and leave the others behind until your resource income can support catching them up, rather than spreading upgrades evenly across all of them.
Check what your base upgrade actually requires before committing resources, and prioritize those specific prerequisite buildings rather than upgrading by feel.
Compare resource offers before spending diamonds
Not all resource purchases are equal, even when they look similar at a glance. Compare the actual rate, not just the sticker price:
- Standard offer: 10,000 food for 10 diamonds = 1,000 food per diamond.
- Limited offer: 126,100 food for 40 diamonds = 3,152.5 food per diamond.
The limited offer was over 3× better value in that comparison. Always check for a high-efficiency limited deal and max it out before falling back to the standard rate.
The same logic applies to Alliance Coins: before spending them on plain food or metal, check whether the Alliance Shop also has rare shards, premium hero materials, or other hard-to-farm items in stock. Buy the scarce items first, and use any leftover coins on resources.