Campaign and PvE
The 100-stage Campaign — stars, rewards, what it costs — and how PvE differs from raiding other players.
PvE in Pixel Kingdom Wars is the CAMPAIGN: a fixed ladder of 100 authored bases that never touch another player. There is nothing to fight on the world map except other players' bases — the globe is for players only.
Quick facts
- PvE is free: no raid energy, no Shard ante, no trophies won or lost, and your shield stays up.
- The CAMPAIGN has 100 stages in 10 acts; a stage opens once the previous one has at least 1 star. Stages can be replayed without limit.
- Your best star count on each stage is kept, and the first time you 3-star a stage you get a one-time Shard reward (400 to 10,000 Shards by difficulty).
- The Campaign is open to everyone, including players who have not bought land yet.
- Troops you deploy are spent in PvE just like in PvP, and heroes that fall still enter recovery.
PvE versus PvP at a glance
| PvP raid | Campaign stage | |
|---|---|---|
| Raid energy | 1 per raid | None |
| Shard ante | 100 × your Keep level | None |
| Trophies | Yes (+8/+12/+16, −10 on 0★) | None |
| Breaks your shield | Yes | No |
| Reward | Shards looted from the defender | One-time Shards on first 3★ |
| Daily limit | None beyond energy | None |
Why: the server treats PvE as a "separate path entirely" from PvP. The Campaign teaches the fight without draining the energy and ante throttle that keeps PvP honest.
The Campaign
Where to find it
Tap RAID and pick CAMPAIGN, or switch the map's top bar from WORLD to CAMPAIGN. The board header reads CAMPAIGN · n/100 CLEARED, shows your total stars out of 300, and carries the promise FREE · YOUR BASE IS NEVER AT RISK.
If you do not own land yet, CAMPAIGN is the gold (primary) row in the raid chooser, because it is the one fight the server can always run for you.
Structure: 10 acts, 100 stages
The Campaign is 100 stages grouped into 10 acts of 10. Every 5 stages the defending base steps up one Keep level, so each act spans two Keep bands. Acts 1 to 5 are the launch themes; acts 6 to 10 revisit the same five themes at higher difficulty.
| Act | Name | Stages | Defender Keep band | First-3★ reward (Shards) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | THE BANDIT COAST | 1–10 | 1–2 | 400 |
| 2 | THE DROWNED WOOD | 11–20 | 3–4 | 1,200 |
| 3 | THE ASHLANDS | 21–30 | 5–6 | 3,000 |
| 4 | THE GLOAM MARCH | 31–40 | 7–8 | 3,500 |
| 5 | THE SHARD WASTES | 41–50 | 9–10 | 4,500 |
| Act | Name | Stages | Defender Keep band | First-3★ reward (Shards) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | THE WRECKING TIDE | 51–60 | 11–12 | 5,500 |
| 7 | THE BLACK FEN | 61–70 | 13–14 | 6,500 |
| 8 | THE BURNING REACH | 71–80 | 15–16 | 7,500 |
| 9 | THE HOLLOW NIGHT | 81–90 | 17–18 | 8,500 |
| 10 | THE LAST SHARD | 91–100 | 19–20 | 10,000 |
Within each five-stage band the shape is always OUTPOST, OUTPOST, BREACH, BREACH, FORTRESS. Each act has a MINI-BOSS BASE at its midpoint and a BOSS BASE finale guarded by a defending hero; the stage sheet shows which one with a line like VEX GARRISONED. Stage 10 (THE TIDE FORT) fields a level-1 Vex; stage 100, THE SHARD TYRANT, fields Theodor at level 18. From act 6 the mini-boss bases are hero-garrisoned too, so late acts put a hero in your way twice.
Defenses grow with the band: no walls at Keep 1, one wall ring from Keep 2, two rings from Keep 9, three from Keep 17, and Air Mines from Keep 7 onward. Stage 1, DRIFTWOOD CAMP, is deliberately a single-cannon lane so a fresh starter army can 3-star it.
Unlocking, stars and replay
- Stage 1 is always open. Every other stage opens once the stage before it has at least 1 star. A locked stage sheet says STAGE n · LOCKED and offers GO TO STAGE n−1.
- Stars work exactly as in PvP: 1 star for destroying 50% of the base (walls and traps do not count), 1 for destroying the Keep, and 1 for 100% destruction. Any star is a win.
- Your best star count on each stage is kept; replaying can only improve it. A cleared stage's button reads REPLAY instead of ATTACK.
- There is no daily cap on Campaign attempts. Retries are free.
Tip: you only need 1 star to move on. If a stage is stopping you, push through for the unlock and come back for the full 3 stars later, when your troops are leveled.
Rewards
The first time you reach 3 stars on a stage, the stage pays a one-time Shard reward set by its Keep band (see the tables above). The stage sheet shows it as FIRST 3★ REWARD and marks it CLAIMED once paid. Rewards land in your base's Shard balance, so they are building money, not withdrawable tokens. Added up across all 100 stages the Campaign pays 506,000 Shards.
Progress and rewards are tracked per base: the stars you earn belong to the base (the Land Deed) you were playing from.
Reading the stage sheet
Expanding a stage shows DIFFICULTY as skulls, the defender's KEEP level, a REC. n PTS chip, the tactic in one line (for example GAP IN THE PILINGS), and the reward. REC. PTS is the recommended army size in army-capacity points for that band:
| Defender Keep | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recommended pts | 20 | 35 | 50 | 54 | 58 | 63 |
| Defender Keep | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recommended pts | 68 | 73 | 79 | 85 | 91 | 99 |
| Defender Keep | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recommended pts | 106 | 115 | 123 | 133 | 144 | 155 | 167 | 180 |
These are guidance, not a lock: they line up with what one Camp at the matching Keep level can hold, so a player whose own base is at that level should have about the right army.
Raid energy, and why PvE ignores it
Raid energy is the PvP throttle. Each PvP raid spends 1 energy; you get 6 free per UTC day, spent before any purchased energy. Extra energy costs 0.03 SOL per unit or 0.09 SOL for a pack of 6 (devnet SOL), and purchased energy stockpiles. The Campaign never consumes energy or the Shard ante, so you can run them on a day when your energy is gone. Full details are on Raids and Loot.
What PvE still costs you
PvE is free to enter, but it is a real fight:
- Troops are consumed. Every unit you deploy is spent when the raid settles, in PvE exactly as in PvP. Undeployed troops stay in your Camps.
- Heroes can fall. A hero knocked out in a Campaign stage enters the usual recovery timer and cannot be deployed again until it ends. See Troops and Heroes.
- Same clock. You have a 30-second deploy window before the client auto-commits, and the battle runs 90 seconds from the first accepted deploy. You may keep dropping reserves during the fight.
Tip: the Campaign is the cheapest place to learn a new troop or hero skill. Nothing is at stake but the troops you send, and the base you attack is the same authored layout every time, so you can compare approaches stage by stage.