When to burn Time Skips and when to save them
Time Skips cut time off buildings under construction, research in the Tech Lab, troop recruitment, NPC camp cooldowns, and troop or resource transfers between kingdoms. They were added to the game on February 18, 2015, and ever since then they've been the only rubies-for-time equivalent you can actually earn just by playing. There are seven sizes, from one minute up to 24 hours, and their value is calculated internally in minutes — and that's the key to how you should be using them.
Seven sizes and their stockpile caps
In the game's data, skips are tracked as seven separate currencies with IDs 1001 through 1007. Each has a fixed value in minutes and its own cap on how many your stockpile can hold:
| Skip | Value in minutes | Displayed limit | Hard cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 minute | 1 | 32 767 | 32 767 |
| 5 minutes | 5 | 32 767 | 32 767 |
| 10 minutes | 10 | 999 | 32 767 |
| 30 minutes | 30 | 999 | 32 767 |
| 1 hour | 60 | 999 | 32 767 |
| 5 hours | 300 | 999 | 32 767 |
| 24 hours | 1 440 | 999 | 32 767 |
The 999 limit has only been in effect since August 1, 2023. Before that it was much lower — just 100 at launch in 2015, 127 from September 14, 2015, 180 from December 20, 2016, and 320 from October 25, 2017. The two smallest skips, the 1-minute and 5-minute ones, have no practical cap at all — their limit is 32 767 outright.
Some rewards and packs also carry a flag in the data that bypasses the 999 limit, so after a big event your stockpile can briefly climb higher. You can never exceed the hard cap, though, and anything above it is lost with nothing back.
Where to get your skips
Time Skips aren't rare, you just collect them in small amounts. They drop from ruby offers, daily quests, Robber Baron Castles, Barbarian Towers, Desert Towers, Cultist Towers, the Blacksmith, Nomad and Samurai Camps, the Wheel of Fortune, the Khan Medal trader, the General's Tavern, and the Fortune Teller.
The most reliable source is your daily routine. Daily quests hand out skips every single day, and they're things you'd be doing anyway:
| Daily quest | Reward in skips |
|---|---|
| Log in once a day | 2x 1-minute skip, 1x 5-minute skip |
| Spend at least 1 ruby | 2x 10-minute skip, 1x 30-minute skip |
| Defeat a Robber Baron Castle | 2x 5-minute skip, 1x 10-minute skip |
| Craft a piece of gear or a gem at the Alliance Forge | 2x 1-minute skip, 1x 5-minute skip |
| Ask your alliance for help | 2x 1-minute skip, 1x 5-minute skip |
| Complete one mission at the Mission Post | 4x 1-minute skip, 1x 5-minute skip |
The second pillar is the coin shop at the Blacksmith, available from castle level 20. Skips are sold there exclusively in packs of ten, and every event comes with a limited stock:
| Item | Pieces per pack | Price in coins | Stock per event | Total minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30-minute skip | 10 | 50 | 35 | 10 500 |
| 1-hour skip | 10 | 100 | 25 | 15 000 |
| 5-hour skip | 10 | 500 | 2 | 6 000 |
| 24-hour skip | 10 | 2 400 | 2 | 28 800 |
The exchange rate is exactly the same across all four items — 1 coin = 6 minutes of skip. So you're not buying a better deal, you're buying a format. Clearing out the entire stock costs 10 050 coins and nets you 60 300 minutes, or 1 005 hours of time.
Where long skips actually pay off
Skips give the best return where the queue is longest — in the Tech Lab. The game's data lists 1 040 research items, with a median length of 72 hours, meaning three days for a single piece of research. A full 974 of the 1 040 research items take longer than 24 hours, so the vast majority of them eat up at least one full-day skip. The longest is Healing Speed level 8, which runs for 425.7 hours — nearly 18 days — so covering it completely means burning 18 separate 24-hour skips.
The second worthwhile target is kingdom-to-kingdom transfers. Moving troops or resources into a neighboring kingdom always takes 7 200 seconds, exactly 2 hours, and the game charges 240 rubies to skip it — separately for troops and separately for resources. Two 1-hour skips do exactly the same job for free. The one exception is the Fraction Kingdom, where skipping a resource transfer costs nothing.
According to the data, the Fusion Forge only accepts two types of skips — the 5-hour and the 24-hour. Short skips are completely useless there, so if you fuse gear, keep a separate watch on your stock of just those two.
And then there are things a skip can't touch even in theory. Slum expansions in both the Ice and Desert kingdoms carry a flag in the data that blocks any speed-up at all. There, you simply wait, no matter how many skips you're sitting on.
What a minute actually costs
Think in minutes across the board, because that's exactly how the game itself handles it — the 24-hour skip is internally worth 1 440, the 5-hour skip 300, the 1-hour skip 60.
| Method | What you pay | How many minutes you get | Price per minute |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blacksmith, any skip pack | 1 coin | 6 | 0.17 coin |
| Skipping a kingdom transfer with rubies | 240 rubies | 120 | 2 rubies |
That leads to a simple rule — only spend rubies on speeding up time as a last resort. Two rubies per minute is the worst time-for-currency rate you'll find anywhere in the game, and yet two 1-hour skips, which you get free from daily quests, do exactly the same job.
You can also exchange skips for each other at the Royal Market, but there's always a cut taken in both directions. Merging 25 one-hour skips into a single 24-hour skip costs you 60 minutes, and trading two 24-hour skips for nine 5-hour skips costs a straight 180 minutes. Only exchange when you genuinely need a specific length, not just to tidy up your inventory.
One last thing people often forget — a skip doesn't cut a percentage, it removes a fixed number of minutes, and the surplus is never refunded. Use a 24-hour skip on a build with five hours left, and 19 hours of it just vanish into nothing.