Are you planning to or already running Cao Cao in Rise of Kingdoms in one of your marches and want to see how you should invest the talent points, what equipment works best and what other commanders you should pair with? Well, then you’re in the right place, below you will find answer to each one of those questions and this will help you make your Cao Cao perfrom as strong as possible in all situations.
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Skill Order
Skill 1
Skill 2
Skill 3
Skill 4
ExpertiseLevel 5
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Best Troops
Cao Cao is all about cavalry, no doubt about that. If you’re early and you only hunt barbarians you might think about using a mixed army, but also with his march speed for cavalry it doesn’t make much sense using any other troops in his marches.
Best Commander Pairing for Cao Cao
Minamoto with Cao Cao and you have one of the best possible pairs to hunt barbarians in Rise of Kingdoms. If you’re going for forts use Minamoto as primary commander (See full build here).
Saladin is a super solid pair for the open field and Cao Cao primary for march speed (See full build here).
Genghis Khan is a pairing for insane damage that you should consider. Pairing with Takeda is possible but also with low synergy (See full build here).
Pelagius is pretty much an epic mini-Minamoto and with Boudica you can also have a nice streak against barbarians (See full build here).
Sun Tzu can also be an amazing pairing overall with the extra rage you will be nuking a lot (See full build here).
Find out more about the most useful commander pairings here.
Best Equipment Forge Order
In terms of equipment, here’s what I recommend to use as the route for Cao Cao. There are different builds for wherever you are right now, from beginner to veteran:
Start
Advanced
Progressed
FinalStarter Build
Advanced Build
Progressed Build
Maximum Possible Build
Best Talent Tree Builds For Cao Cao
Below you will find the talent tree builds for Cao Cao that make sense when running as the primary commander in any march in Rise of Kingdoms. Please also refer to the description below each talent tree as I explain a general route on how you should spend your talents there + some additional background for each talent build that I very likely will appreciate.
This is literally the fastest build in Rise of Kingdoms and will get you wherever you want as fast as possible. You can perfectly use it for the Ark of Osiris to capture structures or if you are into killing farmers this build will also work great. I know that not all of you will have Cao Cao maxed out so I not only want to show the build as such, I also want to give you some additional steps to give you the best order to spend the points in the talent tree. Firstly, I’d go down the Peacekeeping tree first to get the Hasty Departure skill unlocked that will boost the movement speed by 60% in the first 10 seconds after leaving a structure and Lightning Charge as well and get the additional general movement speed. After that Thoroughbreds is also nice and gives also additional movement speed. After that you should take a look at the Cavalry tree and spend the next points there to get the Charge, this will give you a nice and huge buff on movement speed when you are on your way back after a fight. Now from here you can focus completely on the Mobility tree until you have maxed Cao Cao out. I’d focus on getting Time Management unlocked as fast as possible because it will give you a great boost to hunt down enemies. You’re building a fast traveling army here so don’t let the debuff when in a fight scare you off, it’s a powerful way to use him.
This is another great build for Cao Cao if you want to hunt down those Barbarians. This build primarily focus on killing barbarians on the map, if you want a build that also works for rallies please check out the next one below. When looking at this build you can see that some Mobility is sacrificed in order to get the best out of hunting those barbarians on the map. Let’s have a look at the best order… You should start here and make your way to get Trophy Hunter for sure, that’s some nice bunch of extra free resource Packs you will get form every group of Barbarians you take out and worth the sacrifice in raw movement speed. Now let’s start putting the next points into the Cavalry tree and make your way to the top there, depending at what level you have Cao Cao. There’s enough movement speed buffs there to not have to waste more than the single point in the Mobility tree.
If you want to use Cao Cao to lead Rallies you want to use this hybrid build here. The reason why here some movement speed buffs are included as well is that you have travel times of 5-7 minutes to Barbarian Forts and this extra movement speed comes in really handy when you can knock off 1-2 minutes of that time. Yes, I know, Cao Cao is not the best commander if you actually want to lead rallies but the extra movement speed makes this build quite decent. It’s not that different from the build above to kill barbarians on the map but it will focus more on leading a rally.The first step you want to take with this build is going down the Mobility tree with the first points. Now it’s time to get to the Peacekeeping tree and focus on getting Mighty Force as quick as possible because this will give you also a nice damage buff when in a rally. After that spend the next points in Peacekeeping as shown above. Now it’s time to attack the Cavalry tree and get to the top there. I’d focus on getting Charge here first before spending in the other branches in Cavalry but you can alternate here as you feel
Best Formation + Armaments
Formation and Armaments are supposed to work perfectly with your commanders kit or you will find yourself very quickly in a disadvantage on the battlefield – and with so many variations it can be tough to stay on top. Here is what the works best in today’s meta:
Conclusion
I hope this guide for building Cao Cao helped you investing without wasting much time and resources. If you liked it or you further questions (or maybe also annnotations that you believe should be added here in this guide), please don’t hesitate to post them below in the commen section. Thanks for reading and have a great day and see you out in the kingdoms.
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Hey, can you please edit or fix the builds for Cao Cao? The PvE one is incomplete and the one with the speed I think is bad written, thanks!