Experience

Units and Heroes can gain experience, or XP, which in turn causes them to gain levels. Each level increases a unit or hero's attributes, and additionally allows a hero to unlock a new skill.

Mechanics

The amount of XP required to reach the next level depends on the unit or hero's current level as well as the Game Speed.

Game Speed	XP Required
Fast	30 × current level
Normal	40 × current level
Slow	50 × current level
Endless	60 × current level

For example, on normal speed a unit requires 40 XP to reach level 2, another 80 XP to reach level 3, another 120 XP to reach level 4, and so on.

Each level on a unit increases their base attributes ( / / / / ) by +20%. Each level also increases their upkeep by 1 dust.

Each level on a hero increases their base attributes by +10% and also grants them a skill point to unlock a new skill. Hero upkeep increases roughly quadratically with level: see Dust#Upkeep for more details.

Units stop gaining levels once they reach level 10. However, heroes can gain levels indefinitely, even after they have unlocked the highest levels of all their skills.

Gaining Experience

Common Sources

One of the primary sources of XP in the game is participating in combat. Upon defeating a unit, all surviving units will gain XP equal to 0.1 * cost of defeated unit * (1 + 0.2 * level). Additionally, all units and heroes gain 1 XP per turn by default.

Fast Learner

The capacities Fast Learner 1, 2, and 3 increase a unit's or hero's XP gains by 25%, 50%, and 75% respectively.

• Adamantian Bracelets grant the Fast Learner capacities.
• Drakken units and heroes, Sable Deceiver Bayari Kulaa, Ziema Adya, Cetassa, and Difore all have Fast Learner 1.
• Haukea Wai has Fast Learner 2.
• The Pedagogitor naval accessory grants the Fast Learner 3 capacity.

Luxury Resource Boosters

Main article: Luxury Resources

Quicksilver and Redsang luxury boosters increase unit and hero XP gains by 100% each, respectively.

Units

Aside from combat, units also gain a significant amount of XP when they are first trained.

Technological Era

Newly trained units are given enough XP so that their starting level is equal to the current technological era. For example, in Era III, new units will start at level 3. This starting XP is considered regular XP and is modified by multipliers like Quicksilver and Fast Learner. And because of how cumulative XP per level increases quadratically with level, these multipliers can be very significant for newly trained units in later eras.

Note that in addition to starting at a higher level, units trained in later eras also have a much higher industry cost. See Industry#Unit Cost Increases for more information.

City Improvements and Technology

A number of City Improvements provide either an experience bonus to newly recruited units, or additional experience per turn to garrisoned units (including Militia):

Name	Restriction	Effect
Stronghold Architecture	Era I	+1 XP per turn to garrisoned units
Conscription Center	Era II	+40 XP when recruiting a unit
Imperial Kennels	Era III	+2 XP per turn to garrisoned units
Army Manual	Era IV	+100 XP when recruiting a unit
Inoculation Station	Era V	+120 XP when recruiting a unit
Givers of Remembrance	Necrophages	+100 XP when recruiting a unit
Oologic Nursery	Drakken	+25 XP when recruiting a unit
Main Maritime Academy	Morgawr	+80 XP when recruiting a naval unit
Koni School of Elite Riders	Kapaku	+100 XP when recruiting a unit

Additionally, Cultists have two technologies that function similarly, but are active as soon as they are researched. We Are Legion grants +40 XP to units recruited on converted villages, while All Beings Are Siblings provides +100 XP to all newly-recruited units.

Hero Skills

The hero skill No Idle Hands grants an additional 1 XP per turn on units for each level of the skill. This applies to units in an army led by a hero with this skill, as well as units (including militia) garrisoned in a city governed by a hero with this skill.

Accessories

A few accessories (mostly tomes) grant bonus XP to newly trained units, or rarely, units in the same army or garrison.

Heroes

Heroes have a number of ways they can gain experience depending on how they are assigned. However, the Forgotten also have access to the Learn from Others technology, which provides a bonus 3 XP per turn on all heroes, as well as another 3 XP per turn for every hero that is assigned as a Spy.

Generals

In addition to engaging in combat, heroes assigned to lead an army have a number of opportunities to gain experience. To begin with, generals gain an additional 1 XP per turn for each unit in the army they lead, but they also gain experience whenever an army they lead performs the following actions:

Action	XP
Bribing a village	4
Parleying with a village	4
Converting a village	6
Searching a ruin	8
Sieging a city (per turn)	4
Completing a quest or part of a quest	10
Collecting pearl cluster having the Auriga Affinity 1/2/3 capacities	1/2/3

As an example of completing part of the quest can be searching a ruin during Wild Walkers faction quest Chapter 1 which require searching 4 ruins. In this case, for each of the four visits to the ruins, the general will receive 18 XP. Of these, 8 XP for searching a ruins and 10 XP for completing part of the quest.

Governors

Governors primarily gain their XP when a construction is completed in the city they are governing, granting XP equal to 0.0824 * cost of construction + 1 (at normal game speed). They also gain 1 XP per turn for each non-Militia unit garrisoned on the city.

The unique city improvement, The Octagon, grants +20 XP per turn to the Governor of the city where it is built.

Spies

Heroes that are infiltrated on cities gain an additional 4 XP per turn from the Spying capacity.

They also gain an XP reward for performing infiltration actions, the amount being equal to 3 * the level of the action they performed. The only exception to this is the Forgotten's Dust Opportunists infiltration action - only available during Dust Eclipses - which provides 5, 7, and 10 XP for levels 2, 3, and 4 of the action.