Empires & Puzzles Codes (May 2026) – Free Rewards

In the early game, your first goal should be the Starter Quest, not rushing deep into the campaign with weak heroes.

The reason is simple: the modern new-player path gives you a guided start, and the Starter Quest is designed to be easier because it uses pre-leveled guest heroes. The World Map becomes harder much faster when your own roster is still underleveled.

This helps you avoid wasting battle items and energy on stages you are not ready to farm efficiently. Clear the early starter rewards first, then use those resources to build a real core team.

For many new players, a leveled rainbow team of 3-star heroes is more useful than a bench full of half-built 4-star and 5-star heroes.

Rainbow means one hero of each color. In early PvE, this gives you a better chance to use every tile color on the board. It also spreads your feeders and ascension pressure across different elements instead of forcing several heroes to fight for the same resources.

Reddit players regularly give this advice to beginners: level a rainbow 3-star team first and do not dump your early resources into big heroes you cannot finish yet.

The mistake this avoids is very common: a new player pulls a shiny 5-star, starts feeding it, then gets stuck because the final ascension materials are rare. A maxed or near-maxed 3-star team can clear content, help in tournaments, and carry your account while your stronger heroes wait their turn.

The biggest wall in Empires & Puzzles is not usually hero XP. It is ascension materials.

The wiki describes this as the “Mat Wall”: rare materials for higher ascensions come from limited sources like Titans, Wars, Chests, Rare Quests, and Atlantis Summons. This is especially painful for 4-star and 5-star heroes.

Before using rare materials, ask one question: “Will this hero help me in several modes?” Good early investments are usually healers, defense-down heroes, cleansers, dispellers, and heroes that help with Titans or War depth.

Do not ascend a hero just because it has more stars. A 5-star stuck at low ascension can be less useful than a fully leveled 4-star. This mistake slows accounts for weeks or months.

Do not use a 5-star hero as food, even if it looks bad today.

Old Cynic’s beginner guide makes the same point: unwanted legendary heroes can later be useful for systems like Soul Exchange or Hero Academy 10, and important heroes should be locked so they are not fed by accident.

This matters because Empires & Puzzles changes over time. Balance updates, costumes, family bonuses, and new modes can make old heroes more useful than they looked at first.

The mistake this avoids is permanent. Feeders are easy to replace. A legendary hero is not.

Training Camp is one of the most important F2P buildings because it creates heroes from food and recruits. The wiki describes it as the primary free-to-play method of gaining heroes.

Early on, unlock low-cost training as soon as possible. Old Cynic points to Training Camp level 4 as an early key level because it gives cheap 1-star and 2-star feeder heroes. Later, Training Camp 11 is valuable for extra low-cost feeders, and Training Camp 20 can eventually produce free legendary heroes.

The mistake this avoids is relying only on summons or random rewards to level your roster. You need a constant feeder pipeline, especially once you start building several teams for Wars and tournaments.

Attack and defense are not the same thing in Empires & Puzzles.

On attack, color stacking is powerful. Bringing three, four, or sometimes five heroes of the strong color makes your tiles hit much harder. This is especially important because tile damage is a major part of combat, not just special skills.

On defense, a rainbow team is usually safer for newer players because it is harder for attackers to counter-stack one color against you. Old Cynic recommends rainbow defense for beginners and stacked teams for raiding.

The mistake this avoids is copying your attack team into defense. A stacked defense can work at high levels with specific heroes, but for many early and mid-game players it simply gives the attacker an obvious color to punish.

For Titans, your goal is not simply to bring your five “strongest” heroes. Your goal is to make the tiles hurt.

Community advice is consistent here: stack four or five heroes of the strong color, use heroes with high attack stats, and combine defense down, elemental defense down, attack up, critical chance, or tile-damage boosters like Wu Kong-style effects.

The wiki also highlights Titan-focused heroes such as Wu Kong/Tarlak for tile damage and Wilbur for defense reduction, plus common Titan items like mana potions, tornadoes, antidotes, arrows, and axes.

The mistake this avoids is treating Titans like normal campaign stages. A balanced rainbow team may survive, but it often scores badly. Higher Titan scores mean better loot chances, and Titans are one of the important sources of progression materials.

Mana troops are valuable because they can reduce the number of tiles needed to fire a special skill.

The key detail is breakpoints. Standard 4-star mana troops improve at levels such as 5, 11, 17, 23, and 29. Some of these levels are especially impactful because they reduce the actual tile count needed to charge a hero. For example, level 23 can bring average-speed heroes from 10 tiles to 9 tiles, while level 29 can bring fast heroes from 8 tiles to 7 tiles.

This means you should not level troops randomly just because their power number goes up. Focus on the troop and hero combinations that change how fast your key specials fire.

The mistake this avoids is spending troop feeders across too many troops and ending up with no meaningful breakpoint anywhere.

“Join an alliance” sounds generic, but in Empires & Puzzles it has a very specific reason: Titans and Wars are tied to important loot and long-term account growth.

Old Cynic’s 2025 beginner guide recommends joining a busy, active alliance because it unlocks Titan attacks and gives access to better rewards and advice. Reddit players say the same: join early, hit Titans, and use the alliance as a learning source.

The mistake this avoids is playing the game like a solo campaign. You miss Titan loot, War experience, and practical roster advice from players who can look at your actual heroes.

Alliance War is not just another button to press. If you opt in, your alliance expects you to participate.

The wiki notes that Wars have preparation and battle phases, and your defense team must be set before the war begins. Once the war starts, you cannot change that defense team.

For early and mid-game players, the best habit is simple: opt in only when you can use your war flags, and prepare several attack teams instead of spending everything on one strong lineup.

The mistake this avoids is hurting your alliance by joining a war and leaving attacks unused. It also prevents you from being surprised by a locked defense team you forgot to update.

If you are F2P or low-spend, gems should not disappear into random single pulls every time a portal looks exciting.

Reddit beginner advice often points players toward roster space, saving for better summon opportunities, and avoiding “onesies and twosies” summons. One player specifically mentions using gems for roster space, good summon events, and later troop summons.

Roster space is boring, but it solves a real Empires & Puzzles problem: you need room for feeders, duplicates, tournament heroes, War depth, costumes, and heroes you are not ready to level yet.

The mistake this avoids is being forced to feed useful heroes because your roster is full. A lucky summon is nice. Having enough space to keep and develop your roster is what lets that luck matter.