Experience and promotion in Total War: Arena Total War Arena Guide & Walkthrough

In this chapter, you will find information about types of experience points and how to get them. Additionally, the chapter features information about promotion to higher tiers of your commanders and squads. Tier 5 is the turning point of the game. From this tier the game becomes less varied and almost half of the special units become locked. At this point, the experience influx becomes strongly reduced and units gain access to much more upgrades.

• Types of experience points and how to get them
• Tiers
• Players experience
• Gold and premium accounts

Types of experience points and how to get them

Each played battle is rewarded with silver, unit experience points and player's experience points. Experience bonuses:

1. If the battle is won, the reward is 20% higher (at first the value might be 100%).
2. If you're playing in a Party with friends, you receive additional +10% (in case of events the value might be 50%).
3. Premium account provides additional +50%.
4. Premium units receive +50% experience and war loot.
5. Each day each general with one won battle receives 200% experience and rewards.

Many factors can impact the base value of experience obtained:

1. Value of damage dealt to enemy in combat.
2. Assisting allied units (assist skills, flanking).
3. Key actions on the battlefield (taking over observation points, placing obstacles like palisades).
4. Taking over enemy base.

After the battle is over you can check a detailed summary of your achievements.

You can usually get the most experience points for the first and last point, depending on which units you use and how you play them. There are two types of experience in the game: unit experience and free experience.

Unit experience is used for:

1. Buying upgrades for units.
2. Unlocking new units.

Each unit type from a faction receives its own experience points that can be spent only on those units (and on unlocking the units that replace them). These points, just like units, are available for the same unit at each general of a faction.

You can buy new upgrades for each unit type for unit EXP.

Free experience can be used for:

1. Unlocking new commanders.
2. Upgrading commanders' skills.
3. Speeding up commanders' promotion to a higher tier.
4. Instead of unit experience points.

The last point is the most important one. When it comes to high values (like a few thousand EXP points), you shouldn't buy upgrades for free experience as they can be used for too many other things. But, if for example your units have 900 EXP, and an upgrade costs 1000 EXP, then it is a good idea to spend 100 EXP to upgrade/promote unit faster.

Tiers

Commander's promotion to a higher tier happens once he gathers enough experience points for winning and losing battles. You can speed up the promotion at any time by using free experience. Promotion gives you:

1. It unlocks new units.
2. It provides access to new skill upgrades in the technology tree.
3. On tiers 3/5 it unlocks new commander skills.
4. New maps where the battles are fought are unlocked.

With a new tier you unlock new units and upgrades in the technology tree.

Most important information related to promotion:

1. Skills in technology trees are independent for each commander.
2. To take advantage of profits of a higher tier (for example tier 5 skills) the units must be also upgraded to that tier.
3. Unlocked units can be used (with their upgrades) by each general from the faction if he has high enough tier (the same or higher than the squad).
4. Commander's tier never drops down.

Players experience

In the upper right corner of the starting screen you can see your character level. It represents your general progress in the game. By clicking on this button you can precisely check your player statistics, obtained achievements and titles. Player's experience rises with each battle and obtained the achievement. The latter are of a various kind, such as spilling the first blood, killing specific number of units during the battle, gathering the most points from specific category.

As player's profile gains new levels, you can receive interesting rewards.

Player's level isn't very important - it's only a general representation of your progress in the game. The only thing worth attention is rewards that you receive every 5 or 10 levels. They include gold or free premium account for a limited time.

Gold and premium accounts

Premium accounts and gold are items that can be bought for real money. Premium account provides 50% more rewards for completing battles (winning or losing it).

Gold can be used for various things - you can change it to experience points. This enables you to promote your units and unlock tiers faster. You can buy for gold:

1. Premium account (250 gold per day, if you buy more days at once the price drops),

You can modify the look of squads and distinguish yourself on the battlefield.

1. Skins for squads - after clicking a squad and going to the tab on the right side you will find an option to buy a special look for your squad.
2. You can buy silver (highly not recommended! ;) ).

1. Experience conversion - with gold you can change unit experience into free experience. You can do it by pressing the free experience icon in the upper right bar on the right side. Select a squad which experience you want to convert and move the indicator to the selected value. It costs 1 gold per each 5 experience points converted. Use it only for units that you no longer want to upgrade.
2. Gold can be obtained from and spent on some events organized by the developers.
3. Unique units - in each faction you can find a few unique units that can be unlocked for gold. Frequently these units lack unique parameters, but sometimes you might find among then a squad type that normally isn't available in that faction. It is worth mentioning that unique squads receive +50% more experience and loot for battles.