Is Iron Realms free to play?

Yes. Iron Realms is free to play in any browser with no download and no account required. Every building, troop tier and Seat of Power is reachable without spending money — purchases buy speed and cosmetics, never a higher ceiling.

Does spending money make you stronger in Iron Realms?

No. Nothing purchasable raises your power ceiling. A charter audit runs on every build and fails it if any offer would sell power. During the pre-alpha nothing is for sale at all — better than that, the store gives its goods away: everything in it is free to take, once a day per item, while the realm is being built. When payments do open, spending will compress time only: it clears timers, it never raises the summit.

How long does it take to max a keep in Iron Realms?

Keeps cap at level 45 and troops at tier 13 — the same summit for everyone, and it is a campaign: about seven months of steady play at half an hour a day, counting keep 45 and the nineteen plots that gate it. The Fair Play ledger inside the game reads that figure straight out of the shipped constants, so it is never a month behind the build.

Commanders & Loadouts

Quick answers

Is Iron Realms free to play?: Yes. Iron Realms is free to play in any browser with no download and no account required. Every building, troop tier and Seat of Power is reachable without spending money — purchases buy speed and cosmetics, never a higher ceiling.
Does spending money make you stronger in Iron Realms?: No. Nothing purchasable raises your power ceiling. A charter audit runs on every build and fails it if any offer would sell power. During the pre-alpha nothing is for sale at all — better than that, the store gives its goods away: everything in it is free to take, once a day per item, while the realm is being built. When payments do open, spending will compress time only: it clears timers, it never raises the summit.
How long does it take to max a keep in Iron Realms?: Keeps cap at level 45 and troops at tier 13 — the same summit for everyone, and it is a campaign: about seven months of steady play at half an hour a day, counting keep 45 and the nineteen plots that gate it. The Fair Play ledger inside the game reads that figure straight out of the shipped constants, so it is never a month behind the build.

Commanders & Loadouts — Iron Realms — Commanders & Loadouts in Iron Realms.

📌 Kept current by design. This guide teaches the mechanics, not the exact figures — the game shows live numbers in every panel, and they are tuned over time. The relationships below hold even when a value changes.

Troops win battles, but commanders decide them. The right commander with the right skills and the right seat on your council multiplies an army far beyond its raw numbers.

Recruiting commanders

Commanders are recruited at the 🎖️ Hall of Heroes with renown, and earned through play. The price is set by rarity: 400 renown for a rare, 900 for an epic, 1,800 for a legendary. Your starter is free. Renown itself is never bought — it comes from your Keep's own standing (every level draws sworn swords to your gate), from trials by combat, musters, seat captures, the beasts you fell at camps, the High Heart, and your Founding milestones.

Rarer commanders carry more star skills — the higher the rarity, the more skill slots — so a rare commander is worth investing your experience into rather than spreading it thin.

Drills are the scarce thing

This is the mechanic that enforces the whole "invest in few, not many" thesis, so it is worth stating plainly: your roster may take twelve drills per day, total, and each drill costs 500 × (1 + level/4) food and 300 × (1 + level/4) iron — it gets dearer as the commander climbs. Training is no longer something you click until the bar fills. A starter reaches about level 12 around day three and level 30 somewhere in week four. Choose who gets the twelve.

An expedition rider earns 400 XP for seeing the road out, which is worth several drills and does not count against the daily cap — the best way to grow a commander you are not actively marching.

Star skills

Each commander's stars unlock skills that shape a march: bonus attack, defence, march speed, capacity, or a special ability. Level the skills that suit the commander's job — an offence commander wants attack and speed; a garrison commander wants defence and health.

The War Council

Seating commanders on your War Council (its own chamber, distinct from the Court of Notables and from the King's Court of player titles) grants realm-wide passive perks, and certain commanders have synergy — pairing the right two amplifies both. Your council is a second, always-on army buff.

"Fill it" is not a day-one action, though. You hold one office from the start; the second, third and fourth open at Keep 6, 14 and 22. The four offices are Lord Marshal (warlord), Castellan of the Keep (castellan), Master of the Hunt (ranger) and Grand Maester (maester), and seating a commander in the office matching their role pays a +15% well-suited bonus.

You do not have to work the seating out on paper. The panel reads your buildings — where your time has actually gone — names the two stats your keep leans on hardest, and marks the best occupant of each chair with a gold star. One button seats the whole recommended council, and says how many chairs would change before you press it. Two things make the advice worth taking: it runs the same arithmetic the seats pay out, so the star and the buff can never disagree; and it weighs every possible assignment rather than filling chairs one at a time, because who takes which chair interacts — the second-best warlord in the Lord Marshal's office can free the best one to carry a bigger stat elsewhere. Commanders away on an expedition are left out of it. It is counsel, not an override: the line above the grid tells you what it saw, so a gold star is something you can argue with.

Combined loadout presets

The power move: combined presets save your gear, your march commanders, and your council in one bundle — so you can flip your whole lord from “gathering” to “all-out war” with a single tap. Set one up for each thing you do.

Lending a commander

A commander can be seconded to a bannermate for an hour. One at a time, and while they are away you cannot field them yourself — a loan is a real cost, not a duplicate. They fight for the borrower at 80% of their strength, which is what stops a banner passing one great commander round the hall all day.

There is no recall: the hour runs out on its own. You cannot second to yourself, and you cannot second to a Resident. See Alliances & Seats of Power for the Hall's side of it.

The commander rule

Invest in few, not many; match skills to the job; and let the council and synergies do the quiet work.