How Not to Waste Rubies
I'm writing this guide mainly because I never had one to read myself back in the day. Rubies are the hard currency of Goodgame Empire, and the game is built so that you spend them faster than you can think – almost every button has a little ruby "do it now" option glowing next to it, and a newbie presses it out of habit. That's how my first few hundred rubies vanished on complete nonsense, and then I found I couldn't afford the things that actually matter. So go through this before your first bigger stack lands, so you don't blow it in an hour on resources and five saved minutes.
What rubies are actually for
Rubies buy you almost anything: instantly finishing a building, topping up wood, stone and food, coins (careful, that's a currency, not a resource – keep it separate in your head), premium units, decorations, a second builder, speeding up research and caravans, slots and expansions. The list is long, and that's exactly the problem.
I split it simply: what stays with me, and what burns up in a second. The second builder is forever. A pile of resources bought with rubies is gone the moment you build with it – or someone plunders it before you even get to use it, which has happened to me too and still annoys me to this day. And above all, carve this in stone: you don't strictly need any of it. The whole empire can be built for free; rubies only shorten the waiting. Once that clicks, you stop feeling like you have to buy something and start holding them for the moments when they really save you hours or grab a reward you couldn't reach otherwise.
When NOT to spend rubies
Don't buy resources with rubies. Ever. Wood, stone and food will flow in on their own; just build more production and storage and hold out for a while. Same with coins – you mine them from outposts, taxes and plundering. Trading premium currency for something you produce for free is the worst exchange rate you'll find in the game.
Short builds and research, no as well; that's what time skips are for (see below). A few minutes bought with rubies is pure loss. Leave premium units and expensive decorations alone until you've sorted the basics and the walls, which is where things are creaking. Personally I'd leave the decorations sitting much longer than that, but that's a matter of taste.
One thing people trip over again and again: expensive troops won't win anything by themselves if you can't put an attack together. Against walls you need siege tools and more swords (melee units); against a strong gate it's more like mantlets and bows. A pile of elite ranged units dumped blindly against the wrong defense burns just the same as the cheap ones. I've seen it happen to me and to my alliance mates.
And never, really never, spend in a rage – after a lost battle or when a robber baron is sitting at your castle. Angry clicking is exactly what the game is waiting for. What's worked for me is simply closing the game at that point and coming back to it once I've cooled off.
Time skips and speed-ups are your currency instead of rubies
This is the thing newbies miss and veterans build on. Shortening items – time skips and similar skips for construction, research, tool production and healing – drop from events, the campaign and daily rewards completely free. They pile up on their own; you just mustn't burn them the moment they land in your inventory. Collect them deliberately and keep a stockpile.
I honestly had to train myself to do this: before I hit "finish for rubies," I open the inventory and check whether I have a speed-up for it. I almost always do. Keep a stock of skips for endless construction queues and for healing troops after a battle, and reach for rubies only when the skips run out and time really matters.
A ruby spent on something you can cover with an item from rewards is, in my opinion, the dumbest-spent ruby in the game. And yes, I've spent a few that way too.
When rubies are actually worth it
The best ratio goes to what stays with you or earns back more than it cost. Number one is the second builder. If you play actively and want to grow, it doubles your building pace for as long as you stick with the game. No one-off speed-up comes close, and I wouldn't recommend anything else as a first purchase.
Next, targeted use in events and ranking tournaments makes sense. In the Colosseum and similar competitions for veteran points and rewards, the last few places are often decided by a small amount of rubies on the finish, when you catch up with an opponent just before the end. There, a few hundred rubies grab you a reward that's worth many times more on its own. Those are exactly the moments I save for.
And then the occasional click-through of a really long build – on the order of more than a day – when it's holding up your whole progress and you're out of skips. The rule is simple: spend where it saves you hours or earns more than it cost, and where you can't catch up for free. If you can't answer what you'll get out of a purchase a week from now, better not make it.
How to get rubies for free
The steady source is daily quests and login bonuses. Log in every day, complete the daily goals and collect the login rewards – over time a decent stash trickles in, plus a few rubies on top. Don't skip it even if it looks like small change.
The campaign and story quests hand out more rubies: work your way across the map, beat robber barons, complete the set goals; a lot of them have rubies in the reward. I'm not one hundred percent sure they haven't reshuffled the exact campaign rewards since I ran through it, but rubies were always there.
Most of them, though, are hidden in events and seasonal promotions, in the Colosseum and tournaments, and on the Storm Islands, so play these modes even if only for the rewards and skips. And don't underestimate the alliance. An active alliance opens up shared goals and alliance events with rewards you can't reach on your own. Being in a good alliance is often a bigger supply of rubies and support than anything you click through yourself – and I'd say it's the most underrated piece of advice in this whole article.
A question I get a lot
"Is it even worth hoarding those few rubies from the daily rewards? That's nothing." It is. It's exactly that small change it ends up being made of. My second builder was largely pieced together precisely from daily rewards and the campaign; there was no big stack behind it – it took a while, but it worked. The real question is whether you can stand to leave that small change lying there and not click it away on a stone top-up when you're just short for one build. That's the whole trick. How are you doing with it?
Builder first, the rest into reserve
The procedure is simple. Everything you collect for free, keep aside until you have enough for the second builder. That's your first big purchase and it changes your pace for the whole time you play. Until then, don't spend rubies at all. Not a single one.
After the builder, go back into saving mode and keep a reserve for two things: for the finish of events and tournaments, where a small amount decides a big reward, and for a crisis.
One more note on the crisis, because there's a lot of nonsense going around about it. In the middle of an attack you can't "repair the walls" with rubies – it simply isn't possible, and whoever tells you that hasn't played the game. You handle defense in advance: move troops and defensive tools in time, activate defense boosters and call your alliance for support. In a crisis, save your rubies at most for quickly healing up and rebuilding your defense, not for an eleventh-hour miracle.
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