Rise of Tyrants is an online strategy game created by Dennis Field.

You build a virtual army of soldiers and compete with other players in a race to become the strongest. The currency is gold. The idea is to never have any for others to steal, and have enough power to steal everyone else's. Above all, have fun.

To create an army, you are either invited by one of your friends, family members, or complete strangers to join the game, or you might just stumble onto the site by chance yourself. If someone else told you about this game by giving you their recruit link, you will see a CAPTCHA image which you must decipher in order to continue. [show me] This is to prevent programs from being used to automatically place clicks. If you came in through a referral page, you will be given a link to sign up from there once you complete the quick test. Like in the example, click the matching number (4) that is displayed in the picture. You will come to a page that invites you to become an officer of the person who referred you. [show me]

If you stumbled onto the site by chance, you won't have to bother with an image verification in order to register. You simply click the Register link in the upper right hand corner. [show me]

There are four races to choose from:

• Humans: 25% turn-based gold (income) bonus. Each of their recruited or produced soldiers make more gold than the soldiers in the other races.
• Terrans: 25% security effectiveness bonus. Each of their security guards is more effective than the other races. Terrans have a 25% better chance of recovering gold that would otherwise be stolen if they failed to defend an attack, and will recover 25% more gold.
• Minotaurs: 25% attack strength bonus. Their strike action is 25% more powerful than any of the other races given the same soldiers, weapons, and upgrades.
• Drones: 25% defense strength bonus. Their defense action is 25% more powerful than any of the other races given the same soldiers, weapons, and upgrades.

This is one of the most vital choices you have to make. The race you pick is the one you stay with until you reset your account or the age ends. Each one has a particular bonus that can boost or hinder your strategy. Thus, you must choose wisely or face the consequences of starting over later.

Once you've gotten to the registration page, you will need to read the disclaimer and then click the link below it to continue. You then see a few fields to fill out. Fill them out, following the instructions across from each input box. [show me] If you don't fill in one of the fields correctly, such as entering an insecure password, you will see a big error screen and will need to follow the direction it gives you and try again. [show me] When you complete the registration page, you will see a Thank You notice and will then be able to login. [show me]

Return to the login box and enter the username and password you signed up with. [show me] You are now logged in to Rise of Tyrants. Go take a break, you earned it.

You are given a certain amount of gold, attack turns, and soldiers to start with. The strategy you employ during your gameplay is up to you; there are many different strategies that can excel. The most common start is by upgrading your unit production with some of your gold to gain more income (TBG), or buying attack weapons and beginning to use your attack turns.

Part of the object of this game is to battle other players and take their gold. You attack other players using attack turns which are given to you every minute. Since you only have a finite amount, you should use them wisely and only attack the people with the most tempting stashes of gold. In order to take their gold, your strike damage must be greater than their counterstrike damage. Your strike damage is based upon your attack force, but the outcome may be greater or lesser than your attack force by a random amount. Increase your chances of winning by increasing your attack force. Buying weapons and upgrading siege bonus are the two most effective ways of increasing your attack force. Be aware that people can also take your gold, so plan to increase your defense force accordingly. To see if anyone has taken any of your gold, see the Defenses section of the mission logs.

Training your soldiers allows you to enhance your army's effectiveness in that particular area. A standard issue soldier can operate one attack weapon, one defense weapon, one spy tool, and one security tool. Attack specialists, defense specialists, spies, and security guards can only operate their specific type of weapon, but they battle with much more strength than that of a standard soldier. So if you have more weapons or tools than you have specialists or covert troops, you should reassign any specialists and covert troops that you have as standard soldiers in order to hold as many of your equipment as possible. On the other hand, if you have plenty of soldiers to spare, train enough specialists to hold each of your weapons and enough covert troops to hold each of your tools to get the best effectiveness. Soldiers trained as spies and security guards do not contribute to your income, but you may reassign them as soldiers to regain this.

Attacking others and being attacked causes casualties and weapon damage. Repair your weapons in the armory. If you have damage that needs to be repaired, the repair area will be shown above the purchase area. Keeping your weapons in top shape will ensure your army fights at full effectiveness. [more about repairs]

Your troops will begin to die in battle when you build up enough of them. Losing your real soldiers will decrease the amount of gold that you make each turn (TBG). You can curb this by hiring mercenaries at the training page, as mercenaries will die before your other troops. However, your army can only be comprised of as many mercenaries as you have normal soldiers. This means if you have 1,000 non-mercenaries, the maximum amount of mercenaries you can have is 1,000 - your total army size would be 2,000. Mercenaries are as strong as attack specialists, defense specialists, spies, and security guards, and like standard soldiers, can hold one attack weapon, one defense weapon, one spy tool, and one security tool. There is a certain amount of them made available each turn. All players buy mercenaries from the same "pool", so if you are not fast enough to get any before they are bought out, you must wait until the next turn.

Your covert force can be used to spy on other players to find out information about their upgrades and weapons. You may be able to predict the outcome of an attack battle based on this. This information can be seen directly after the mission, or by going to the logs page and finding that particular person in your mission logs. If your recon mission is a failure, your spies are all killed and the enemy is notified of your attempt. You may still attack without gathering intelligence, but you will not be certain to defeat them.

Battle and intelligence logs are summarized in the Logs page. From here, you have a brief overview of attacks made on you, attacks you have made on others, intelligence missions that you have intercepted, and intelligence files that you have collected (by reconnaisance or kamikaze). If you notice your gold suddenly disappearing, review this page and you will find that someone has attacked your army and stolen your gold. Attack logs, defense logs, and intelligence files you have collected all contain details. The details for attack logs and defense logs are accessible by clicking on the status of the attack - "Attack defended" or "You won x gold" or "You lost x gold". Details for intelligence files are available by clicking on the "details" link. All logs are kept on the server until they are over 1 week old, at which point they are removed.

There is a point at which upgrading your technology benefits you more in strength and effectiveness than training and buying weaponry. Visit the Upgrades page to view your current upgrade status and purchase more upgrades. There are seven upgrades available and each enhances a specific part of your army. [more about upgrading]

If you find that you have been playing the wrong strategy, you have the option to reset your account to the same status as when you first signed up for your account. When logged in, click the Account Center link and you will be given a list of links: click the Reset Account link. You have the ability to change your username and pick a new race. Enter your password and click the button.

Resetting your account will remove all of your existing upgrades, troops, weaponry, and covert tools. Your officers and commander, your mission logs, your buddy/ignore lists, and your messages will remain in place. If you are a donator, your donator status will also remain. You may reset once every 12 hours.

If you want to start a NEW account instead of resetting your current account, you will lose your officers, your commander, mission logs, buddy/ignore lists, and messages. Your donator status cannot be transferred over to your new account automatically, you will need to contact fury.

The game utilizes some elements of turn-based strategy games and some elements of real-time strategy games. Game turns happen every minute of every day and give you one round of unit production (more soldiers), one round of turn-based gold (income), and some attack turns.

You are at the command of an army of soldiers. You can receive more soldiers through one of three options: recruiting, unit production, or through your officers recruiting soldiers for themselves.

With the recruit link in your command center, you may 1) give yourself soldiers (as many as you wish, as fast as you can recognize the numbers), or 2) copy the link and refer another player to join the game. If they open the link and click the correct number, they are given a registration link. Upon completing the process, they are made your officer. Officers can also join you after they have started the game by visiting your stats page and clicking "Make this person my commander." Once under you, officers can be moved (to beneath other officers, or up one level to your commander) or removed (in case you do not wish to have them as an officer) at your own discretion in the Manage Officers page. By default, someone who clicks on "Make this person my commander" from your stats page must have your approval before they can be recognized as your officer. This is to prevent unwanted officers. Edit your options to change between this, or automatically denying, or automatically accepting requests to join you. You may accept officers through the officer queue, or by accessing your Account Center and viewing requests to join you.

Officers give you, the commander, the bonus of 1 soldier for every 2 clicks they get (through recruiting). You may decide to become your own commander. Upon doing this, you will lose the ability to receive the bonus from your other officers, but will receive 2 soldiers for every click you receive directly. You will not lose your officers, so you may decide to "leave" yourself and receive the bonus from other officers again. But you cannot do both at the same time.

In addition to the soldier bonus from officers, for every new unique officer that you refer to the game by the recruit link that stays active, you will gain an additional 300 attack turns. This bonus will still be applicable even if you disable the recruit link in the options page.

If you have 20 officers or less, each officer will receive a 10% bonus toward their attack and defense force. Likewise, if you have a commander (not yourself) that has less than 20 officers, you will receive a 10% bonus toward your own attack and defense force. This bonus does not go into effect immediately upon joining a new commander or receiving a new officer - making a purchase or participating in an attack will update your statistics and reflect the newly added bonus. If the commander has more than 20 officers, each officer will receive less of a bonus. Note that the bonus on stats is derived from the user's own force, NOT the commander's. In other words, if the commander has 100,000,000 attack force and 20 officers each with a base of 10,000,000 attack force, each officer will receive 1,000,000 more, not 10,000,000 more.

As an alternative to using the recruit link to give yourself soldiers, you can use unit production. Unit production upgrades give you soldiers every turn. If your unit production level is 5, you gain 5 more soldiers every turn.

Each soldier received through recruiting, unit production, or officer bonus soldiers increases your turn-based gold. This is the gold you make every minute. Additional gold can also be stored in your bank, depending on your bank level.

Your turn-based gold is usually not enough to support your army, so to increase the amount of gold you make, you may attack people at any time you wish. During an attack, your soldiers can pillage a certain amount of gold from the opponent if they overcome the defense forces. The more attack turns you use, the more gold you steal if you win; but also the more casualties and weapon damage you cause.

Spending your gold can be done in many ways:

• Armory
• Upgrades
• Training
• Mercenaries

In the armory, you can buy, repair, and sell weaponry, and buy covert tools. Each weapon adds to either your attack force or your defense force, each tool adds to either your covert force or your security force.

Standard Weaponry

Standard weaponry requires a soldier, mercenary, or specialist in order to be assigned and make a change in attack or defense force. The cost of these weapons does not vary based on your size, but you need to have enough troops to hold all the weapons you have in order for them to count toward your statistics. For example, you need 1,000 troops to hold 1,000 gauntlets. If you only have 100 troops, you may as well only have 100 gauntlets since only 100 of them will be used in battle. You may sell these weapons at 75% of the original cost, minus any damage to the weaponry. (A weapon at 50% strength will sell for 37.5% of the original cost.)

Special Weaponry

These weapons are much more cost-effective than standard weaponry when you start. Special weapons are as effective as equal strength standard weapons being used by trained specialists. Unlike standard weapons, you do not need to have any soldiers in order to be able to use them. In other words, you can have the 50 soldiers you started out with and 5,000 of the special weapons, and they will all be used in battle.

Repairs

During battle, weapons will get damaged and decrease in effectiveness. Repair your weapons by going to the armory and filling in the proper repair values. The more weapons you have, the more expensive your repairs will be. Your repairs can be decreased in cost by upgrading your blacksmith level.

Covert Tools

Covert tools enhance your covert or security force. A spy tool can be held by a standard soldier, mercenary, or spy, and a security tool can be held by a standard soldier, mercenary, or security guard. Thus, for the tools to be effective, you need to have at least as many soldiers, mercs, spies, or security guards as you have tools. Tools cannot be damaged or sold.

All upgrades are available on the Upgrades page.

Strength upgrades

You can strengthen your siege level or fortification level for better attack or defense strength.

Training upgrades

You can increase your spy level to increase covert force, increase your security level to increase security force, or increase your unit production for more soldiers per turn. Unit production soldiers do not contribute as officer bonus soldiers, so you will not get 1 soldier for every 2 an officer gets through unit production. Your security force can recover gold that would otherwise be lost during a failed defense. By upgrading your security level, you increase your chances of recovering gold. [more about recovering gold]

Ability upgrades

Upgrade your blacksmith for cheaper weapon repairs, or upgrade your bank to store more gold per turn.

You can train and untrain your soldiers to and from any one of four fields: attack specialists, defense specialists, spies, and security guards. Training a soldier into a specialist costs 20 gold and untraining (turning a specialist back into a soldier) costs 5 gold. Standard soldiers can hold one attack weapon, one defense weapon, one spy tool, and one security tool. Specialists and covert troops can hold one of only the type of weapon or tool that they specialize in. Specialists and covert troops use their weapons with 25% more effectiveness compared to soldiers, so if you have more troops than you have weapons, the best idea statistics-wise is to have all of your weapons and tools held by attack/defense specialists and covert troops. Soldiers can be trained as covert troops for 30 gold or untrained as soldiers for 30 gold. Covert troops do not contribute to your turn-based gold, so train them wisely. Your security force can recover gold that would otherwise be lost during a failed defense. [more about recovering gold]

Mercenaries can be hired to hold your weapons and die before your real soldiers. They also do not contribute to your turn-based gold. Your army can have as many mercenaries as soldiers at any given time, so if you have 1,000 non-mercenaries, you can train 1,000 mercenaries. Mercenaries each hold one attack weapon, one defense weapon, one spy tool, and one security tool with 25% more effectiveness than a standard soldier. [see table of soldier strengths on the training page]

Gold recovery

Your security force has the ability to recover gold during a battle in which you lose to the attacker. The chance that your force will recover it is based on your security level. The gold recovered will be stored in your bank, so the amount recovered is based on your bank level. Terrans will have a 25% greater chance of recovering and will recover 25% more gold than other races.

Bank

You may upgrade your bank to get additional gold, based on a percentage of your turn-based gold, deposited into your bank. The bank will also recover more of your gold during an attack if your security force is able to. Players cannot steal from your bank, but they can steal your gold after you withdraw from it. There is no manual deposit function for the bank, your only deposit is the percentage of your turn-based gold, or when gold is recovered by your security force.

Hot potato

The hot potato increases the turn rate to 10x. When a person receives a hot potato, they are given essentially 10 game turns (50 attack turns, 10 rounds of unit production, and 10x turn-based gold), and an additional unit production level. For every game turn that passes while they have the hot potato, they will receive 10 game turns and one additional unit production upgrade. However, if they are attacked even once (even if they defend the attack) they will lose the hot potato and a random player will be selected from the battlefield to be given the hot potato. The hot potato cannot be "taken" by attacking and winning - the only prize you get for attacking the hot potato is their gold. You can only attack a hot potato every 5 minutes unless the Unlimited Potatoes event is on. However, if the person then loses the hot potato but has defended the attack, you are free to attack them and rid them of their gold.

Self-command

You can be your own commander/officer and receive 2 soldiers for every click you receive on your recruit link. However, with this in place, you will not receive any bonus from your other officers.

Less limits

A game with less limits means you always have something to accomplish. Rise of Tyrants has no limit on clicks, upgrades, amount of weapons, or on who you can attack. You can click yourself as much as you want. You can have your friends click on you as much as they want. You always have an upgrade that you can aim for, and you can always reach the next level if you play hard enough.

Please review the rules page, as the rules it contains apply to this site as well as all parts of the community. Your account may be banned and your IP address may be blocked from accessing the site if any rule is violated.

Rise of Tyrants is free to play and ad-supported (most of the time). There is an option, once logged in, to donate to remove advertisements from your view. You may donate at any time regardless of your desire to remove any advertisements. All donations are non-refundable in most cases. If you are logged in when you make a donation, the amount donated is credited to your account so that I know who has donated.

There are certain terms used throughout this game that may seem confusing if you have not played a game like this before. Refer back to this list if you find a term that you don't understand.

• Attack damage or Defense damage: See Strike damage or Counterstrike damage
• Attack turns: You need to use these in order to attack other players. One attack can be used to determine a player's defense (at the expense of losing soldiers and damaging weapons). The more attack turns you use, the more you will earn in gold, but the more weapon damage and casualties you will cause. [more about attacking]
• Bank: The bank is where gold is stored when you earn TBG or have recovered some of your lost gold. It cannot be stolen from by other players while in the bank, but it can be stolen from you when you withdraw. [more about the bank]
• CAPTCHA: An image test used to distinguish humans from computers. CAPTCHA images are used in certain parts of the site to prevent automated processes from playing the game. The definition of the acronym is "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart".
• Clicks: Soldiers gained through the clicking of the CAPTCHA image on the recruit page.
• Covert operative: A soldier which has been trained to excel in either covert or security. Covert operatives cannot hold the opposite type of covert tool, but with their own tool, they are 25% more effective than a general soldier. They can be reassigned back to soldiers for 30 gold. [more about covert missions]
• Force: This is a primary statistic with which your overall standing and strength is based. Your battle strengths are determined by Attack and Defense Force, and your intelligence efficiency is determined by Covert and Security Force. You are ranked individually by these four statistics, and then your overall rank is determined by the sum of the four ranks.
• Gold: The currency in Rise of Tyrants. You can use this to buy weapons, upgrades, training, or mercs. We're not too sure how you buy the pizza and beer that feeds your mercs, though.
• How to keep an idiot busy for an hour: Read the next line.
• How to keep an idiot busy for an hour: Read the previous line.
• Mercenary: A hired soldier. Mercenaries do not contribute to your TBG, and are available on a limited basis. [more about mercenaries]
• Officer: A player which you have referred to join the game becomes your officer. A player may also choose to become your officer. You can move or kick officers in the Change or Delete Account area. You may become your own officer/commander, at the expense of losing the bonus from your other officers.
• Officer Bonus: When your officers gain 2 clicks, you gain one soldier, except when you are your own officer.
• Race: There are four different types of characters you can play in the game, called "Races". Each one has its own particular advantage.
• Real-time: A type of game where things occur without waiting for turns; this game's attacking, recruiting, and spending operations are done in real-time.
• Really time to take a break from reading, don't you think?
• Redundance: See Redundant.
• Redundant: See Redundance. (how to keep an idiot busy, part two?)
• Referral/Recruit Link: A unique link that a registered player can pass on to friends and family to recruit them into his/her army as an officer. Referral/Recruit Links can also be used to give clicks to other friends that play the game. [more about recruiting]
• Security guard: See Covert operative
• Soldier: An all-purpose troop acquired through unit production, recruited by a click, or by untraining a specialist or covert troop. A soldier may hold an attack weapon, a defense weapon, a spy tool, and a security tool, but with less efficiency than specialists, covert troops, and mercenaries. "Soldier" and "Soldiers" may also be used by other players to refer to all types of troops in general.
• Specialist: A soldier which has been trained to excel in either attack or defense. Specialists cannot hold the opposite type of weapon, but with their own weapon, they are 25% more effective than a general soldier. They can be reassigned back to soldiers for 5 gold.
• Spy: See Covert operative
• Strike damage or Counterstrike damage: This is the strength with which you fight an opponent on the battlefield. It is based on your force (Attack Force -> Strike Damage, Defense Force -> Counterstrike Damage). However, the value is raised or lowered randomly so that it is not always certain that you will defeat an opponent. [more about attacking]
• Turn-based: A type of game where things occur in set intervals; this game's turn length is 1 minute, at which point you are given 5 attack turns, 1 TBG (see below), and one round of unit production.
• Turn-based gold, or TBG (also turn-based income, or simply income): The amount of gold you make at the start of each turn. This is determined by real soldiers from clicks and unit production only, mercenaries and spies do not contribute to TBG.
• Unit production, or UP: The amount of soldiers you produce at the start of each turn. It can be upgraded in the training section, and gives you free "real" soldiers - soldiers which you may train to attack or defend or spy. Unit production soldiers do not contribute to the officer bonus.
• Whew, that was a mouthful...er...handful?