Necropolis in Olden Era at first glance looks like a classic necromancy town, but in practice it plays quite differently. The main mistake most players make is trying to unlock expensive creatures as quickly as possible. This is logical for Haven or Dungeon, but it works poorly for an army whose strength grows not from the quality of individual units, but from the total number of troops. The developers directly describe the faction's philosophy as “quantity dominates quality” — quantity beats quality. The base skeleton growth is 30 per week compared to about 12 for similar first-level creatures in Grove, and all of Necropolis's mechanics are built around constantly increasing this mass of army.

That is why the correct build order starts not with trying to get vampires or dragons by the end of the first week, but with maximizing the pace of development. Every day you delay building economy or structures that increase creature flow effectively reduces the strength of your army for the rest of the game. Necropolis does not win individual battles. It wins the long game.

If we also consider one of the most important skills for any castle hero — diplomacy — then we need a lot of gold at every stage of the game. And one of the main heroes starts with diplomacy, while for the others I would highly recommend leveling it. At first we build a lot, then we join creatures — this is quite expensive.

More details on choosing and leveling castle heroes. It's better to consider the build order in the context of the chosen hero and resource availability on the map.

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Best Necropolis Hero

Almost all guides point to Pogrebella as the main hero, but I would recommend her only as a secondary hero, when you already have a large army and a built mage guild.

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Week One. Only Economy

The first day almost always starts the same — you need to upgrade skeletons to archers. After that, only economy. If there is an opportunity to build a town hall or a building that unlocks further economic development, that becomes the best investment of gold.

The reason is simple. After just a few days, the player starts to experience not a shortage of wood or ore, but a shortage of gold. Necropolis is especially expensive to maintain because its army grows quickly. Even if you manage to build creature dwellings, you won't be able to buy all units without a strong economy. Therefore, an additional few hundred gold per day starts to pay off within the first week.

If the map gives a huge amount of treasure chests and gold, then you can speed up military development a bit. But in most ranked games, the economy proves stronger.

For a quality build, if possible, take a second hero — a gold hero (Milosa the Golden) or a mercury hero (Zam).

Week Two to Three. Build All Creatures, But Without Upgrades.

We need to grow and accumulate an army. Moreover, for the main hero we no longer need more army; the first hire plus an additional hero is usually enough to quickly gather an army of skeleton archers and confidently clear all neutrals around, increasing our army. So by the end of the first month, even without additional hiring from the castle, you can get 600-900 skeleton archers on the main hero and confidently clear most neutral structures.

While other factions try to get quality creatures, Necropolis already starts building a snowball. Each won battle increases the army size thanks to Necromancy. At the base skill level, the equivalent of about 4% of the destroyed enemy army's health is resurrected, then the figure increases to 6% and 8% as the skill develops. This means that the earlier you start actively fighting, the more creatures you get for free.

At best, it's worth hiring liches to increase the power of the archer army and take all large neutral armies without losses, and they will already level up the army.

When to Upgrade Creatures?

Only under two triggers:

1. You have built all creature buildings, including the seventh level, as well as the alchemical dust storage. Then you can start upgrading. The exception here is "Tombs and Crypts II" — they should be upgraded at the start. Without archers, the castle is not viable in the early stages.

2. You cannot defeat neutrals without losses. There are maps where neutral creatures are not level 1-2, but either come in large stacks or are high-level, then it's worth upgrading some creatures to reduce losses in battles.

Conclusion

If we try to describe the correct Necropolis build order in one phrase, it would be: build not the strongest creatures, but the maximum creature flow.

Necropolis wins games not because it gets vampires or dragons first. It wins because by the third week its army becomes one and a half to two times larger than the opponent's army. Each battle brings new fighters through Necromancy, the undead converter increases army size almost for free, and the high base skeleton growth constantly amplifies this effect. That is why experienced players almost always first invest in economy and mass troop growth, leaving expensive high-level buildings for the moment when the city can already afford their construction without pain.