Ironbarrow beginner’s guide: how to spend your first day

Ironbarrow is a free strategy game that runs in your browser, and your city keeps working while you are away. That makes the first day easy to plan. This guide walks you through it from the first minute to the first night.

Found your city

Pick one of four regions: North, East, South or West. Each is rich in different resources, so choose what you want to be strong in. You can trade for the rest on the market later. The game then finds a free spot for you. Press Try another spot until you like it, or tap any tile on the map yourself.

Finally, name your city. Where you found it cannot be changed, but you can found more cities later once your Town Hall is strong enough.

Choose a class

Kingdom, Northmen, Sand Sultanate and Forest Wardens are free. The class decides your troops and your bonuses. If you are unsure, read our class guide. Kingdom is the balanced, forgiving choice.

Learn the top bar

The bar at the top shows your five resources: wood, stone, iron, food and gold. The small number under each one is how much it grows every tick, and a tick is 5 seconds. The thin bar underneath shows how full your storage is.

• Wood and stone build things.
• Iron makes troops and gear stronger.
• Food feeds citizens and soldiers.
• Gold buys almost everything.

Line up upgrades

Open the Production or Buildings page and press a building to upgrade it. Upgrades take time and cost resources, and the cost goes up with every level. You can line up 3 upgrades at once (6 with Premium). The first one builds while the rest wait, so queue a few before you leave.

The Town Hall is the heart of your city. Its level unlocks other buildings and raises how high they can go. When something is locked, its card tells you what is missing.

Do the quests

Quests give free resources for doing things the game wants you to learn, and the first ones teach you the basics. A number on the Quests button shows how many rewards are waiting. Claim your daily reward when it is ready.

Keep an eye on food and housing

Citizens live in Houses and pay taxes in gold. Citizens and soldiers eat food every tick, and if your food runs out, soldiers desert. Upgrade your Farms before you train a big army, and upgrade the Warehouse before your storage fills, because production of a resource stops when its storage is full.

Add workers and a few soldiers

Build the Workers' Lodge. It trains workers on its own and sends them to resource sites on the world map. Then train a few soldiers at the Barracks so your city is not empty when a barbarian warband walks by. Our guide to barbarian camps and raids explains what to expect.

Before you close the tab

Queue your longest upgrades and train a batch of troops. Your city keeps producing while you are away, for up to 12 hours (Premium has no limit). Read more in how Ironbarrow works while you are away.

When you come back, you get a summary of what you earned, and then you plan the next round. That is the whole loop: upgrade, spend, check back later.

Play free at ironbarrow.com and found your city in about a minute.

#beginners #getting-started #city