Tourneys
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. Spending compresses time: the summit takes about 24 months free, or 18 months with the $9.99 monthly Charter held throughout.
- How long does it take to max a keep in Iron Realms?
- About 24 months of free play at roughly half an hour a day, or 18 months with the $9.99 Warden's Charter. Keeps cap at level 45 and troops at tier 13 — the same summit for everyone.
Between the wars, the realm keeps its pastimes — the lists, the hunt, the Citadel's riddles, and trial by combat. They are a change of pace from the map and a steady source of earned spoils. Every reward listed on this page comes from play. None of it is for sale.
The Hand's Tourney — riding the lists
A jousting bracket of eight tilters, so three rounds stand between you and the champion's purse. Win a tilt and you advance; lose one and your run ends there. Your prowess is set by your realm's power, capped so a maxed lord is favoured but never certain.
- Entry fee — 3,000 food and 1,500 iron, paid from your own stores.
- Cooldown — the lists re-open every 3 hours.
- Per tilt won — 8 gems, 30 iron, 10 renown.
- Champion (all three tilts) — a bonus 40 gems and 50 renown on top, for 64 gems and 80 renown from a clean run.
- Finalist (two of three) — a bonus 15 renown.
The fee and the cooldown exist for one reason: they are what stop the champion's purse being farmed into infinite gems. Ride the lists eight times a day and the gems are real but bounded — which is why the tourney can pay in a hard currency at all.
The Hunt — ride out for meat and hides
Send a hunting party into the wild. Bigger parties bring back more, and the quarry depends on where you ride: elk, snow bears and boar in the North; stags and pheasant in the Reach; sand foxes and desert hares in Dorne. Roughly 8–20 food and 2–6 wood per hunter, plus renown.
Two things are worth knowing. About one hunt in eight goes wrong — a gored hunter, a sudden storm, quarry that slips the nets — and halves the take. And hunting in the North is the only place the party brings back iron, because that is where hides are traded for goods.
The Citadel's Riddle — lore for research
A maester sets you three riddles drawn from a pool of fourteen, with the answers shuffled each time so the run cannot be memorised. Payment is per correct answer and scales with difficulty:
| Difficulty | Research | Gems |
|---|---|---|
| Squire | 40 | 5 |
| Knight | 90 | 12 |
| Maester | 180 | 25 |
Plus 2 renown per correct answer. A perfect run of maester-grade riddles is the single best research payout available outside the study itself — which makes the riddles quietly one of the highest-value pastimes in the game for anyone pushing a long research track.
Trial by Combat — let the gods decide
Name a champion and stake the outcome on his sword. Champions range from a hedge knight — unheralded but game — through a sworn sword and a household knight to the realm's finest, with prowess rising at each step. The gods will not be summoned again for an hour after a trial.
Making the most of them
- The tourney is on a 3-hour clock and the trial on a 1-hour clock. Both tick whether or not you ride, so a lord who opens the panel at each login collects far more over a week than one who binges them on a Sunday.
- Come to the lists with power, not hope — prowess tracks your realm's strength, so pastimes reward the same building you were doing anyway.
- Hunt in the North if you want iron out of it. Hunt anywhere else if you want food.
- Watch the calendar: event windows layer on top of pastimes rather than replacing them.