Seasons & Reigns

Choosing your faction isn't guaranteed. The game's first goal is to balance the 3 sides, so even if you state a preference, you can be placed in another faction to avoid creating an imbalance.

What you need to understand:

• Balancing comes before individual preference (otherwise everyone would pick the same side).
• Your faction changes every season: don't get attached to one side.
• If you want to play with your friends, the right lever is not the faction but the Alliance — that's what keeps you grouped reign after reign.

There is one option for placement: the Mercenary, which assigns you a random faction in exchange for gold. It's not a way to pick your side (quite the opposite, it's random), it's a way to get placed while earning a reward. To stay with your group, bet on the alliance, not the faction.

A faction is one of the 3 camps players are split into on a Reign's map (for example North / Central / South). It's your side in the season's war for territory.

What a faction is for:

• It defines who you fight over Seats of Power, capitals and King's Landing
• Some campaign objectives are Faction objectives (control seats in your camp's name)
• Faction leaderboards reward the camp that controls the most territory

Not to be confused with:

• Faction ≠ your Alliance (your real group — see the dedicated article)
• Faction ≠ your Great House (purely cosmetic)
• The Mercenary option is not a 4th faction (see the dedicated article)

A faction is a seasonal frame: it changes every Reign and isn't necessarily a guaranteed choice.

There are 3 factions per Reign. On Adel's map they're called, for instance, North, Central and South — three camps sharing control of the territory.

Key points:

• The number is 3; that's the basic structure of a Reign.
• The names and the split can change from one season to the next (the game reshuffles).
• The Mercenary option doesn't add a 4th faction: it's a particular placement mode (random plus a gold reward), not an extra camp.

So when you plan a Reign, think in 3 camps contesting the Seats of Power and the capitals. Your goal: push yours up the faction leaderboard while advancing your personal and alliance objectives. And remember that your real playgroup stays your alliance, not the faction — which gets reshuffled every season.

Yes, factions are reshuffled every Reign. Since the map merges and repopulates between seasons, the game redistributes players across the 3 camps to keep the balance.

So:

• You might be North this Reign, South the next — that's normal.
• You don't "own" a faction; it's a temporary role tied to the current season.
• The game balances the headcount of the 3 camps at every fresh start.

The strategic consequence is simple: never base your long-term plan on your faction. The only group that follows you faithfully from Reign to Reign is your Alliance. The faction serves the objectives and leaderboards of the season, then disappears. Think "faction = this Reign's stake" and "alliance = your permanent home".

It's a common mix-up, but the two have nothing to do with each other:

Alliance = your chosen group of players (your guild).

• Persists across reigns and world merges
• You pick it / join it / build it
• Used to coordinate, climb the alliance ranking, earn Heirloom currencies

Faction = the side you're assigned out of 3 on the map (North / Center / South).

• Reshuffled every season, balanced by the game, not guaranteed
• Defines who you fight for territory during that reign
• Disappears at the end of the reign

In short: the faction is temporary and imposed (the season's framework), the alliance is lasting and chosen (your real group). If you want to play with friends over time, put everything into the alliance — you'll stay together even if you end up in different factions next reign.

An Alliance is your group of players — the guild of this game. It's the only group that survives from one reign to the next, so it's your real home here.

What it brings you:

• Alliance objectives in the campaign (a group effort at every stage)
• An alliance leaderboard (eliminating enemies, for instance)
• Coordination to take Seats of Power, capitals and King's Landing
• A Heirloom currency (Valyrian Tablets) through alliance and event activity

The key distinction: your faction changes every season and isn't guaranteed, but your alliance stays. So it's through the alliance, not the faction, that you keep playing with the same people. Invest in a good one: it's your real social and strategic lever over the long run.

Yes. The alliance is the game's persistent group — it survives reigns and World transitions.

That's what sets it apart from the rest of the social structure:

• The faction is reshuffled every season (you're placed among 3 camps, balanced, never guaranteed).
• The Great House is purely cosmetic.
• The alliance stays: these are the players you carry on with, reign after reign.

Concretely, when a new reign starts — often after a server merge — you find your alliance and its members again, even though the map, your faction and your territory have changed. So that's where to invest socially: pick or build a solid alliance, because it's the one thing that follows you and coordinates your conquests season after season. The alliance is the real group; the faction is just the stake of the moment.

A world transition is the phase where the game merges servers between two reigns. Instead of leaving you on a map emptied of its active players, Dragonfire groups several worlds together to repopulate the new season.

In practice, at the end of a reign:

• The old map closes (territory, tiles and influence are wiped)
• Players from several worlds are brought together on a new map for the next reign
• So you start on fresh ground, potentially with new neighbors and new opponents

It's one of the key moments of the game: your alliance follows you through the transition (it's the only group that persists), but the environment changes. Get ready to run into new forces and to redefine your territory goals on the new map.

Servers merge to keep every map alive and competitive. Over an 8-week reign, players quit or regroup; without a merge, a new season would start on a half-empty map with nothing at stake.

The world merge before a new reign makes it possible to:

• Repopulate the map with enough active players for the territory war to mean something
• Rebalance the difficulty (new opponents at your level)
• Restart the competition for the Seats of Power, the capitals and King's Landing

For you, it means a fresh start on equal footing on the ground (everyone re-grinds their empire), but with your permanent capital (dragons, stars, gold) and your alliance intact. The merge never touches your permanent progression: it only redraws the map and the neighborhood.

Yes, all your permanent capital follows you through the transition. A world merge changes the map and your neighbors, not your underlying progression.

You keep:

• Your dragons, their Star Rank and their Habits
• Your Gold, your relics, Breedmarks, Cores, keys
• Your unlocked Heirlooms and their Mastery bonus
• Your alliance (it persists from one reign to the next)

You start from scratch on:

• Territory and tile ownership (new map)
• Your buildings, research and the level of your dragons (as at every reign reset)
• Your House Level (to push back up to switch the Heirlooms back on)

So: no panic when the transition comes. It's the same reign reset, simply combined with a map change caused by the server merge.

A Reign is Dragonfire's season. Each Reign lasts about 8 weeks and forms a complete campaign with a beginning, a build-up and an end.

Concretely, a Reign is:

• A map (or world) where your alliance fights for territory
• A narrative campaign ("Heirs of the Dragon", 11 chapters plus an epilogue, ~40 days)
• A race: you must reach Stronghold Tier 10 before the end to claim the campaign rewards
• A reset of a large part of your progress when the Reign ends

The game's idea: you rebuild your empire every season, but you keep your permanent capital (dragons, stars, gold, Relics). That mix of reset plus permanent sets the rhythm of the whole game.

A Reign lasts about 8 weeks. That's the length of a full season: you start a new map, redevelop your stronghold, and chase the campaign objectives before time runs out.

Inside those 8 weeks, the "Heirs of the Dragon" campaign spans ~40 days (11 chapters plus an epilogue). It sets one hard objective: reach Stronghold Tier 10 before the Reign ends to be able to claim the rewards.

A note on pacing: don't dawdle early in the season. Since everything is re-grinded, the faster you raise your stronghold and your House Level, the sooner you reactivate your permanent bonuses (Heirlooms) and the longer you enjoy your full strength.

The central goal of a Reign is to advance through the campaign and reach Stronghold Tier 10 before the end to unlock the season rewards.

Alongside that, each campaign chapter gives you three kinds of objective:

• Faction objectives (conquer castles, capitals, King's Landing, deal siege damage)
• Personal objectives (your own progression)
• Alliance objectives (group effort)

Seats of Power pay points by level: Lv.1 +100, Lv.2 +125, Lv.3 +250, capitals (Lv.4) +1,250, and King's Landing +20,000 (the jackpot).

Keep in mind that everything you build this Reign will reset: aim at the permanent rewards first.

At the end of each Reign, all your "disposable" development goes back to zero. What resets:

• Your dragons' level (Reign Level)
• All stronghold buildings and their levels
• All research (Infrastructure, War Tactics, Dragon Care)
• Your base resources: Wood, Stone, Iron, Food, Meat, Resolve
• Tile ownership and Territory Influence
• Your House Level (which decides which Heirloom bonuses are active)

In short: your physical empire (territory, buildings, army levels) is wiped every season. That's by design — each Reign is a new race on a new map. Don't stress about "losing" those things: everyone restarts equal, and your real capital (see the article on what stays) is preserved.

Not everything resets, thankfully. Your permanent capital crosses Reigns and is your real long-term progression:

• Your dragons and their eggs
• Each dragon's Star Rank
• Your dragons' Habits
• Gold (the premium currency, which never resets)
• Dragon Relics, relic fragments, Breedmarks, rarity Cores
• Keys (Dragonbone / Dragonglass / Dragonfire)
• Unlocked Heirloom upgrades plus the Mastery bonus (always active)
• The Lifetime Third Builder, Dragon Strike progress, store bonuses

Golden rule: every bit of Gold, every key, Relic, Breedmark, Core or Heirloom you invest is won forever. Put your effort there first.

The rule is simple: favor the permanent, never over-invest in the disposable.

To favor (permanent, kept forever):

• Raising your key dragons' Star Rank (Relics)
• Upgrading Habits (Breedmarks + Cores)
• Buying Heirlooms and their Mastery bonus
• Keeping your Gold for genuinely permanent levers

To treat as disposable (re-grinded every season):

• Building levels and research
• Your dragons' Reign Level
• Your stock of base resources

That doesn't mean ignoring the disposable: you need it during the Reign to fight. But don't bankrupt yourself on it at the end of a season. And early in a Reign, re-grind your House Level fast to reactivate the Heirloom bonuses you've already paid for.

Because they're two different systems — one disposable, one permanent. It's the number one trap for new players.

• Reign Level (the dragon's level) rises through combat (XP from enemy troops killed) or by feeding it Meat. It sets the max army size and the 4 stats. It resets every season, because it's tied to that season's stronghold.
• Star Rank (stars) rises only by accumulating that dragon's Relics (at the Hatchery). It raises stats, unlocks Habits and ability tiers. It never resets.

So at the start of a Reign, a 10★ dragon goes back to level 1 but keeps its 10 stars, its Habits and its unlocked abilities. You only re-grind its level. Invest in stars: that's the effort that follows you Reign after Reign.

Yes, House Level resets with each new Reign. And it matters, because it decides which Heirloom bonuses are active.

How it works:

• Your Heirloom upgrades stay unlocked forever (permanent).
• But their effect is only active if your House Level is high enough — and that starts from zero each season.
• House XP rises through chapter quests, events and daily login.

The practical consequence: early in a Reign, re-grind your House Level first to reactivate the Heirloom buffs you've already paid for. Otherwise you're fighting with dragons stripped of bonuses that already belong to you. Note: each Heirloom rank's Mastery bonus stays active at all times, independent of House Level.

It depends on the resource:

• The 4 base resources (Wood, Stone, Iron, Food), plus Meat and Resolve, reset. No point hoarding them late in a season: spend them before the end on useful research or troops, or they're gone.
• Gold, on the other hand, is permanent: it never resets and carries into the next Reign. That's your real store of value.

A good end-of-Reign reflex: empty your base resources into whatever still serves you (combat, campaign objectives) rather than letting them vanish at the reset. But guard your Gold: you'll be able to invest it next Reign in permanent purchases (Relics, Cores, keys at the Market, the third builder…). Don't burn it catching up on disposable resources.

Mercenary is a placement option at the start of a Reign: you accept being assigned to a random faction, and in exchange you receive a gold reward.

What to remember:

• Random placement: you don't pick your camp, the game puts you where it suits (usually to balance the 3 factions).
• A gold reward: that's the payoff for your flexibility.
• It helps the game fill under-populated camps.

Very important: Mercenary is NOT a 4th faction. You don't join a separate "mercenary" camp — you're simply placed in one of the 3 existing factions, at random. It's an assignment mode, not a new side. If the gold interests you more than your specific camp, Mercenary is a pragmatic choice. Otherwise, know that you give up the (slim) chance to influence your faction.

No. Mercenary is not a 4th faction. That's the classic mistake to avoid.

The game always has 3 factions (for example North / Central / South). Mercenary is only a way of being placed into one of those 3:

• You accept a random placement among the 3 existing camps
• You get a gold reward for that flexibility
• You do end up in a normal faction (North, Central or South), not in a separate camp

So don't reason "3 factions + Mercenary = 4 camps". The correct reading is: 3 factions, and Mercenary is just a random-placement-plus-gold button that sends you into one of them. Useful for the game (it fills weak camps) and for you (the gold), but it stays an assignment option, never an extra faction.

It depends what you want from the season. Mercenary trades a bit of control for gold:

Take Mercenary if:

• Gold (a permanent currency, never reset) interests you more than your specific camp
• You don't care which faction you play (it changes every Reign anyway)
• You just want to start fast without thinking about placement

Avoid Mercenary if:

• You care about coordinating your placement with your alliance (even though the faction choice is never fully guaranteed)
• You'd rather try to aim for a specific camp

Key reminder: whatever you choose, your alliance follows you and remains your real group. The faction is temporary. So Mercenary is rarely a bad calculation: you gain permanent gold for accepting a placement that's temporary anyway. For many players, it's a small free bonus.

A Great House is a cosmetic allegiance: it ties you to one of the great families of the Game of Thrones world (style, banner, visual identity). It has no mechanical impact on your fights or your progression.

What to understand:

• It's purely aesthetic / flavor — not a gameplay bonus.
• A Great House is NOT a faction: it doesn't decide who you fight or your side in the territory war.
• It's not your alliance either (your actual group of players).

So don't mix up the three layers:

• Great House = cosmetic (who you "play as")
• Faction = your assigned camp among 3, reshuffled every season
• Alliance = your persistent group of players

A Great House is nice for roleplay and style, but it changes nothing about your strategy. Don't base any progression decision on it.

They get confused because both evoke a "side", but they play completely different roles:

Great House:

• Cosmetic only — visual identity, banner, Game of Thrones flavor
• No effect on combat, territory or objectives
• Doesn't decide who you fight

Faction:

• One of the 3 real camps (North / Central / South) on the Reign's map
• Drives the territory war: your opponents, your Faction objectives, your faction leaderboard
• Changes every season and isn't a guaranteed choice (balancing)

In short: your Great House is your look, your faction is your battlefield side for the season. Picking a Targaryen or Stark Great House puts you in no particular faction and gives you no bonus. For strategy, what counts is your faction (this Reign's stake) and above all your alliance (your permanent group) — not your Great House.