Kingshot’s Academy holds more than 190 research projects, and clearing all of them takes years of real time. Your queue order decides what your account actually becomes. This Kingshot progression guide breaks down the Growth, Economy, and Battle trees. You will learn what to rush and what to ignore. Priorities also shift between free-to-play governors and heavy spenders. One timing trick turns cheap research into millions of event points.
How Kingshot Academy Research Operates?
The Academy appears once your Town Center hits Level 9, arriving alongside the Stable in that unlock batch. Every completed project gives a permanent bonus that stays active forever, with no upkeep and no expiry. That makes research the most durable investment in the game.
The building itself also matters. Each Academy level adds 0.1% research speed, climbing from 0.1% at Level 1 to a flat 3.0% at Level 30. It sounds small, but it applies to every project you queue afterwards. Upgrading the Academy alongside your research pays for itself.
Three categories open up as the Academy levels toward 9: Growth, Economy, and Battle. Each tree unlocks from the top down, so you cannot cherry-pick a deep node without clearing its prerequisites first. Early tiers finish in minutes, while the deepest Battle projects run for months at base speed.
All Kingshot Research Trees – Growth, Economy, and Battle
| Tree | Project Count | What It Covers | Headline Projects |
| Growth | 45 | Construction speed, research speed, march queues, training, healing | Tooling Up, Tool Enhancement, Command Tactics, Trainer Tools, Bandaging |
| Economy | 44 | Resource building output and map gathering speed | Gathering projects, output skills |
| Battle | 102 | Attack, defense, health, lethality, deployment capacity | Regimental Expansion, Assault Techniques, Survival Techniques |
The split tells you something useful straight away. Battle is more than half the tree, and it is also where the longest projects live. That is exactly why so many players stall out there early and wonder why their account feels slow.
Growth Tree Priority in Kingshot
Growth is the least exciting tree and the correct place to start. It does not add a single point of combat power, yet it speeds up everything else you will ever do.
- Tool Enhancement comes first for every account type, no exceptions. It increases research speed, which compounds across hundreds of future projects. Shaving a few percent off a 14-day project looks trivial alone. Stack that saving across the whole tree and it becomes weeks of recovered time.
- Tooling Up is next. It raises construction speed, and since you are almost always upgrading something, the bonus rarely sits idle. Faster builds push your Town Center higher, which unlocks better troop tiers sooner. Maxing Tooling Up and Tool Enhancement together delivers roughly +27.80% to each speed.
- Command Tactics unlocks three extra march queues, and it is arguably the single best quality-of-life research in Kingshot. More queues mean more gathering marches, faster intel missions, and more rallies joined during Bear events. You can max it by around Town Center 18, so it is reachable early.
- Trainer Tools and Bandaging round out the tree. Trainer Tools speeds up troop training, while Bandaging cuts healing time, which matters enormously for batch healing during Castle Battle.
- Ward Expansion raises infirmary capacity and acts as insurance. Troops beyond that cap die permanently instead of reaching the infirmary.
Kingshot Economy Tree: Gathering Beats Output
The Economy tree splits into two project types, and the difference decides where your resources go.
- Output skills boost production from your in-city resource buildings. That output is protected from raids, but it is also capped by your building levels, so it scales badly.
- Gathering skills speed up how quickly your marches collect from map tiles. Gathering scales with your account, and once higher-level gathering items enter the picture, the gap widens sharply.
Prioritise gathering and treat output as optional. Most players should push gathering research around Town Center 20. That is when wilderness tiles overtake city production as the main resource driver. Farm accounts are the one exception, since their entire purpose is generating protected resources for a main account.
Battle Tree Priority in Kingshot
The Battle tree is where most players waste the most time, and the reason is subtle. Your personal combat stats do not apply to rallies you join. Only the rally leader’s stats count. So if you spend three weeks on Infantry Attack while mostly joining other people’s rallies, you gained almost nothing.
That flips the moment you start leading rallies or fighting solo content. Until then, treat Battle research as a lower priority than Growth.
Which Battle Stats Matter Most?
When you do commit, start with the all-troop projects before anything class-specific. Assault Techniques boosts lethality for every troop type, and Survival Techniques does the same for health. Their per-tier percentages look smaller than class-locked nodes, but they apply across your entire army.
Regimental Expansion deserves a special mention. It sits in the Battle tree, yet every account benefits. It raises troop deployment capacity for rallies and gathering marches alike.
After that, the stat hierarchy is consistent: lethality over attack, and health over defense. Lethality and health are harder to source from gear and heroes, so research is where you make up the difference.
| Battle Project | Stat Boosted | Tier I Buff | Tier IV Buff |
| Assault Techniques | All troops lethality | +1.50% | +10.00% |
| Survival Techniques | All troops health | +1.50% | +10.00% |
| Targeted Sniping | Archer lethality | +4.00% | +22.50% |
| Lance Upgrade | Cavalry lethality | +4.00% | +22.50% |
| Shield Upgrade | Infantry health | +4.00% | +22.50% |
| Regimental Expansion | Deployment capacity | +1,000 | +5,600 |
Work through Archer Lethality and Infantry Health first, then Cavalry Lethality, then the attack and defense nodes. Cavalry Attack sits at the bottom of the list for most rosters.
Kingshot Research Priority by Player Type
A free-to-play governor and a heavy spender should not be running the same queue. Here is how the priority shifts depending on your spending level:
| Project | F2P | Low / Mid Spender | High Spender |
| Tool Enhancement | First | First | First |
| Tooling Up | Early | Early | Early tiers only |
| Command Tactics | Early | Early | Early |
| Regimental Expansion | Early | Early | Early |
| Gathering research | Around TC20 | Mid game | KvK prep only |
| Output skills | Low priority | Skip | Skip |
| Trainer Tools | Mid game | Mid game | Early |
| Bandaging / Ward Expansion | Mid game | Earlier than F2P | Early |
| Battle combat stats | Hold for events | Start earlier | Immediately |
| Camp Expansion | First tiers only | First tiers only | First tiers only |
Free-to-Play Governors
Build the Growth tree properly before touching anything else. You will mostly join rallies rather than lead them, so combat research delivers a weak return early. Move into gathering research around Town Center 20, then start feeding Battle projects into events rather than completing them casually.
Low and Mid Spenders
Most of the free-to-play logic still holds here. You will occasionally lead a rally, so your combat stats start mattering. Do not hold the Battle tree as long. Push Bandaging and infirmary capacity earlier too. You are spending real money on troops, and you need the capacity to protect them.
High Spenders and Rally Leaders
Your priorities are close to the inverse. Packs cover your resource needs, so the Economy tree can wait until KvK preparation. Battle becomes the main focus from the start, with the same stat order applied months ahead of everyone else. Tool Enhancement still comes first, because thousands of research days remain no matter how much you spend.
The Event Timing Trick Most Kingshot Players Miss
This is the part that separates efficient accounts from busy ones.
Early Battle projects finish fast, sometimes in under two hours, and each one grants a chunk of power. That power converts directly into event points on research scoring days. Knocking them out casually on a Tuesday afternoon wastes them completely.
Instead, bank a batch of short Battle projects and queue them during the relevant scoring window. On younger servers, that window is the Hall of Governors research day. Once your kingdom reaches later generations, Strongest Governor takes over. Its City Construction stage rewards power gained from research. Either way, the principle holds: hold the cheap projects, then dump them all at once.
One more timing detail. Research speed bonuses only apply at the moment a project starts, not while it is already running. Activate your boosts first, then queue the project, then request Alliance Help to shave time off immediately.
How to Speed Up Kingshot Research?
Tool Enhancement is only one lever. Several sources stack on top of it, and most players leave at least a few unused:
- Academy level bonus, worth up to 3.0% at Level 30.
- Alliance Help, which cuts real time from an active project the moment members respond.
- Oasis Island tech decorations, which grant passive research speed once the island is available.
- Scholar’s Tower control, a shared bonus your alliance can hold during long projects.
- Chief Minister appointment in the King’s Castle, plus the King’s Fresh Ideas skill.
None of these replace a sensible queue order, but together they meaningfully shorten the longest projects in the tree.
Kingshot Research Projects Worth Skipping
Not every node deserves your speedups.
- Camp Expansion increases training batch size rather than training speed. Grab the first tiers to unlock what sits below it, then leave it alone. Later levels cost weeks for a benefit you will barely notice.
- Late Tooling Up tiers lose value once your buildings are mostly maxed and your build queue starts idling. Unfinished construction can also be saved as event scoring fuel.
- Most output skills, unless you are running a dedicated farm account.
- Deep class-specific attack and defense nodes, at least until lethality and health are handled across your main troop types.
Final Takeaway
Kingshot research rewards patience far more than speed. The Growth tree comes first because Tool Enhancement and Tooling Up compound across your entire account lifespan. Economy follows with gathering over output, and Battle comes last for anyone who mostly joins rallies rather than leading them.
Start today by checking your Academy level against your Town Center, since a lagging Academy quietly slows everything. Queue Tool Enhancement if you have not already, then Command Tactics for the march queues. After that, hold your cheap Battle projects for the next research scoring event instead of burning them for nothing. Those three habits alone will pull you ahead of players who simply research whatever the game highlights next.
Want more such helpful tips for your favourite games? Read our latest tips and guides to elevate your gameplay to the next level!
