One of the most easy ways to obtain epic commanders and legendary commanders is through the Golden Keys in your tavern. If you are a Free-to-Play (F2P) player like me, the golden keys is your ultimate freeway to obtain legendary commanders and max them out through opening the legendary chests.
Though, getting these golden keys isn’t quite easy as you thought it would be. In fact, you will need a ton of golden keys to collect legendary commanders and sculptures as much as you can. Which is why we created the best Rise of Kingdoms guide on how to get golden keys for free.
Why Golden Keys are so Important?
Whenever you start playing in Rise of Kingdoms, you will realize that in order to unlock future commanders and continue improving your nation. You will need to unlock the chests in your Tavern through the means of Silver Keys and Golden Keys.
Though, the latter is more effective thanks to its improved drop rate that it is just a matter of luck. We have assembled a spreadsheet to show you the drop rate comparison between the Silver keys and Golden keys.
Rise of Kingdoms Silver & Golden Keys Drop Rate
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Reward | Probability | Reward | Probability |
Elite Commander | 0.707% | Legendary Commander | 0.586% |
Advanced Commander | 2.112% | Epic Commander | 1.994% |
Epic Commander Sculpture | 1.009% | Elite Commander | 3.988% |
Elite Commander Sculpture | 4.035% | Legendary Commander Sculpture | 3.023% |
Advanced Commander Sculpture | 8.456% | Epic Commander Sculpture | 7.983% |
Brand-new Starlight Sculpture | 3.364% | Elite Commander Sculpture | 15.967% |
Ordinary Starlight Sculpture | 6.727% | Dazzling Starlight Sculpture | 4.923% |
Obsolete Starlight Sculpture | 16.818% | Brand-new Starlight Sculpture | 9.846% |
Resource Item | 21.023% | Resource Item | 17.229% |
Speedup | 12.614% | Speedup | 12.923% |
Tome of Knowledge | 23.125% | Tome of Knowledge | 21.538% |
Important Note: The drop rate of these items might vary from time to time as Rise of Kingdoms gets new game updates.
As you can see, there is a major difference between the drop rate for the silver keys and golden keys. The chance that they have to drop depends on quality and rarity. But the most important of the variation is the Golden Sculptures as Silver keys do not drop them.
From this point, we will only refer to the Golden Keys because they are very important in the Rise of Kingdoms.
Ways to Get Golden Keys for Free
If you are playing Rise of Kingdoms as a F2P player, there’s several ways you can get 50 golden keys per week for free and fast:
- Daily Mission Chest
- Reaching to VIP 10
- Participating in Events
- Barbarian Forts
- Barbarian Camps
- Mysterious Merchant
- Expedition Mode
- Mysterious Caves
- Free Golden Keys in the Tavern
- The Monument
Daily Mission Chest
One of the easiest ways to get a golden key is to do the daily quests. There is no power requirement and anyone can get it. You will need to complete the daily quests and collect 100 points to unlock the final daily chest that rewards you a golden key.

Upgrade to VIP 10
As a F2P player, you should upgrade your VIP level to 10 as quickly as possible. At that level, you will get 1 golden sculpture and 1 golden key every day. This is an awesome way to boost your progression even further.
It is also the main reason why we highly recommend Rise of Kingdoms players to spend their gems on VIP points during the More Than Gems event. If you have a City Hall level 16 and Jewelry researched, you can start farming gems to accelerate your progression. Learn how to farm 1,000 gems a day.

Participating in Events
Another quick and easy way to get free Golden Keys is to participate in Rise of Kingdoms events. There’s so many events to participate in and some of them will reward you with at least a golden key.
Thus, it is important that you complete these objectives to claim rewards and accumulate even more golden keys for free.
Barbarian Forts
Raiding the Barbarian forts is another method that has a chance to give you golden keys. The drop rate is a bite lower than you think but anyone can be lucky. By destroying some barbarian forts on a daily basis, you will get a few golden keys on the same day.
Mysterious Merchant
From time to time, Mysterious Merchants will show up to your city. You will have two possibilities to scoop up some golden keys for a certain amount of gems. Sometimes these golden keys will have a steep discounted price, sometimes not depending on quantity.
These golden key offers from the Mysterious Merchant can be good if you are looking to increase the amount of golden keys that you get on a weekly basis.
Barbarian Camps
On the map, there’s several barbarian encampments. From small camps to large camps, you will want to farm them because the barbarian chief, “Ironhand Baulur” has a very high probability to drop a golden key along with several must-have rewards.

Sunset Canyon
Did you know that you can get free golden keys by doing Sunset Canyon? If you manage to stay in top 100 ranking in the Sunset Canyon, you will get at least one golden key. So get started with fighting and reign the arena.
Expedition Mode
Another way to get a free golden key in Rise of Kingdoms is to complete the Expedition Mode. The more levels you complete, the more Treasure of the Warrior Queen chests you will obtain.
This means you will have more chances to get free golden sculptures and golden keys. Though, it is all based on luck and probability that increases the more chests you have available to unlock.

Explore Mysterious Caves
If you start playing or migrate to any kingdom, it is important that you explore all the existing caves on the current map. These mysterious caves offer some of the most amazing rewards and of course that would be the golden keys. Do not miss out on this at all!
Free Golden Chest from the Tavern
From time to time, you will get a free golden chest from the Tavern in your city. You can unlock the golden chest for free every said time in addition to the golden keys. Always make sure you unlock the free golden chests to maximize your chance of getting legendary sculptures and commanders.
The Monument
Lastly, you can get free golden keys by completing quests and objectives from the Monument. It comes with several stages which reward specific governors, alliances and sometimes the entire kingdom. Be sure to win and claim these rewards as they offer tons of golden keys and even gems.
Free Golden Keys Tips for Players
All of these ways to get free golden keys are easy and simple for any players to achieve. Therefore it is important that you keep the fight on to get at least a minimum golden key. Do not give up with any events that require ranking for its rewards.
For instance, if you do Ceroli Crisis and Ian’s Ballads where you get to kill barbarians until the timer runs out using your action points. You will take home some of these extra keys.
So we want to emphasize the importance of farming these golden keys for free in Rise of Kingdoms. These free golden keys will provide you tons of rewards and improves your gaming experience in a big way.
Golden Key Probability and Drop Algorithm
Ever since the release of Rise of Kingdoms, there has been a lot of speculation about how to improve the drop rate of the golden keys in the Tavern. Some people say it is better to open key 1 by 1. The other group says it is better to open all golden chests at once.
But neither is true, it is just all pure speculation. The only proof of getting legendary sculptures and commanders is based on probability and luck. Of course, all of us would love to unlock some of the best legendary commanders like Mehmed II, Cao Cao, William I, Theodora, Chandragupta and to name a few.
Speaking of this case, we want to show you the difference in the number of golden keys used to open the golden chests. Scroll down to see examples of golden keys opening chests all at once:
Unlocking Golden Chests with 668 Golden Keys:

Unlocking Golden Chests with 1073 Keys:

If we were to make a comparison between both openings in summary mode, we can conclude that despite the difference between these golden keys, the most rarest legendary commanders with the least probability of getting them are already low.
Sometimes bad luck kicks in and we get legendary commanders like El Cid, Cleopatra and Seondeok. As it seems the weak and gathering commanders have more probability of being dropped while strongest commanders are exclusive and harder to obtain.
Regardless, these rewards that you get through unlocking the golden chests with your golden keys will always come in handy and help you as a F2P player advance quickly in Rise of Kingdoms. P2W players also will benefit from this.
Conclusion

How you will get from using these free Golden Keys depends on the probability system that Rise of Kingdoms uses and the luck you have. It’s impossible to predict how many golden keys you will need to max out your legendary commanders, but for sure you will need a ton.
To clarify this, we only wanted to demonstrate the difference of methods with a single-use golden key and doing the quick way without any kind of deception. However, how you want to use your golden keys the slow way or fast way is really up to you.
Lastly, if you want to have a smooth and optimal gaming experience. I recommend you to play Rise of Kingdoms on PC. It’s faster, smoother and gives you more flexibility to play your favorite game. You also can read my top reasons why I recommend players to play Rise of Kingdoms on PC.
Until then, happy ruling Governors and stay tuned for more Rise of Kingdoms news and updates at House of Kingdoms!