Charles Martel is a legendary commander in Rise of Kingdoms. He is one of the best infantry commander with an incredible formidable defense advantages. When it comes to large battles, Charles Martel is your best offense to countering the attackers. He specializes in infantry, garrison and defense.
| Charles Martel |
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| Title: The Immortal Hammer |
| Civilization: France |
| Base Power: 1,000 |
| Rarity: Legendary |
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Charles Martel Summary:
- Absorbs 1,200 damage with shield.
- Increases troops damage by 30% while shield is active.
- Increases infantry attack and defense by 15%.
- Increases watchtower defense and garrison attack by 10%.
- Increases counterattack damage by 30%.
- Increases infantry health, defense and march speed by 20%.
Why Charles Martel is the Best Commander?
- Can easily soak ton of damage.
- Deals high damage while shield is active.
- Massive permanent bonuses to infantry’s defense, attack, health and march speed.
- Awesome commander for holding the front line.
- Watchtower and garrison troops gets extra love.
Background Information
Charles Martel was a Frankish statesman and military leader who as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was the facto ruler of Francia from 718 until his death.
In 732, the army of the Umayyad Caliphate led by Al Ghhafiqiii met Frankish and Burgundian forces under Charles in an area between the cities of Tours and Poitiers, leading to a decisive, historically important Frankish victory known as the Battle of Tours, ending the “last of the great Arab invasion of France”, a military victory termed “brilliant” on the part of Charles.
Charles is also considered to be a founding figure of the European Middle Ages. Skilled as an administrator as well as a warrior, he is credited with a seminal role in the emerging responsibilities of the knights of courts, and so in the development of the Frankish system of feudalism.
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Introduction
Welcome to our in-depth Rise of Kingdoms guide for Charles Martel. This informative guide was created to help provide an overview of Charles Martel skills, talent trees, gameplay, strategies, and guides in Rise of Kingdoms. The purpose of this overview guide is to help new and experienced players understand how to play Charles Martel right and maximize strategic advantages.
Charles Martel is a legendary commander with the nationality of France. Unlike Joan of Arc who is primarily a gathering commander, Charles Martel excels at defense roles which plays similar to Alexander the Great and to a certain extent, offensive side depending on the talent builds and strategy you are using. He is a nice addition to your evergrowing commander roster for those who want to be able to protect their resources, cities and alliance members.
To unlock Charles Martel, you will need to gather 10 Charles Martel sculptures. Once you have the required materials, you can summon him via Commander selection tab. He comes with Infantry Specialization, Garrison and Defense skills. Further in our best Charles Martel commander guide for beginners, we will talk about his skills, talent builds and recommended pairs.
Best Charles Martel Skills
In this part of our commander guide for Charles Martel, we will talk about his skills. While I want to emphasize that he is one of the best defenders in Rise of Kingdoms. There’s not a lot of things you can do with him as a primary offensive commander due to lack of damage dealing abilities, in the other words, he makes a great secondary commander when pairing with powerful nukers and debuffers. Stick around with us to learn more about how you can use Charles Martel skills to your advantage:
| Shield of Francia |
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Rage Requirement: 1000 Charles activates a shield that can absorb massive damage for the next 4 seconds. Also increases troops’ damage while the shield is active. Upgrade Preview: Direct Damage Factor: 600 / 700 / 800 / 1000 / 1200 |
This active skill grants a shield that absorbs massive amounts of damage for 4 seconds, which is a really nice perk when you are playing Charles Martel as a primary garrison commander. In addition to that, his troops deal 30% more damage while the shield is activated — a double-edge sword against the enemy players who try to attack you.
| Heavy Infantry |
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Increases infantry units’ defense and health. Upgrade Preview: Infantry Defense Bonus: 5% / 7% / 9% / 12% / 15% |
Grants a simple, flat bonus to the infantry under Charles Martel’s leadership. The 15% bonus in attack and defense towards infantry isn’t that much but a nice bonus. Not to forget to mention that infantry deals additional damage towards cavalry which makes this passive skill highly desirable.
| The Uncrowned King |
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Increases watchtower defense and garrison damage when this commander is serving as a garrison commander. Upgrade Preview: Watchtower Defense Bonus: 2% / 4% / 6% / 8% / 10% |
The defense and attack bonus that Charles Martel gives to your city is definitely helpful. This passive skill will ward off attackers who attempt to attack you. In addition to that, the legendary commander’s shield will be able to benefit from the defense bonus which reduces the amount of damage taken, allowing him to stagnate the duration of shield much longer.
| Martel’s Counterattack |
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Increases troops’ counterattack damage. Upgrade Preview: Counterattack Damage Bonus: 10% / 15% / 20% / 25% / 30% |
This passive skill increases the counterattack damage of your troops by 30%. It is a moderate bonus which really helps out a lot when you are under attack. The added counterattack damage bonus means the troops will be able to dish back at significant blows.
| Rise from the Ashes |
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Increases infantry units’ defense by 20%, health by 20%, and march speed by 20%. |
Charles Martel will greatly benefit from this enhanced skill which improves upon Heavy Infantry. This skill increases your infantry’s defense and health by 20%. Furthermore, infantry march 20% faster which helps out a lot with moving around on the battle. Allowing you to be strategic with Charles Martel to maximize your enemy attackers’ casualties.
Best Charles Martel Talent Trees
As I mentioned previously, Charles Martel is one of the best defenders in Rise of Kingdoms. But that doesn’t mean you should stick him as the garrison commander exclusively. In fact, you can play this legendary commander on the offensive, given the fact that he should stick to the secondary role due to the nature of his skills. Below is a list of our top 3 best talent builds for Charles Martel.
Garrison Talent Build
By default, this is a solid garrison talent build for Charles Martel. It focuses on accelerating the speed of rage generation. Which means this legendary commander can maintain high uptime on the shield and keep on dishing out 30% damage bonus towards the attackers. Furthermore, this garrison talent build reduces the amount of damage that the troops take while serving as primary garrison commander. Which really helps out with stagnating the damage on the shield, allowing it to remain active to its full duration.
PvP Talent Build
Charles Martel is also pretty good at PvP battle with this talent build. Basically, it increases infantry’s attack, defense and health — making them even more tanky to absorb the damage. Plus, whenever this legendary commander uses a skill, his troops get healed slightly which helps out with mitigating the damage. In a nutshell, he is great for absorbing all the damage while your high damage dealer commanders do all the heavy lifting.
Support Talent Build
This talent build focuses on providing support out in the field on the map and greatly improves the march speed of troops. One of the main advantages this talent build has over the other two talent builds is the ability to generate rage fast enough to maintain high uptime on the shield. Which means when the army strength falls below 30%, Charles Martel will generate 25 rage per attack that translates into higher defense output. This talent build is great for redirecting damage towards this legendary commander.
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Star Level & Talent Point Upgrade Priority
In the next part of our Best Charles Martel commander guide, I am going to talk about star level & talent point upgrade priority to maximize your commander’s combat potential. Here’s how to prioritize your Charles Martel effectively:
Garrison Talent Build:
- Keep Charles Martel at 1 ⭐ until you max out his first skill.
- Level Charles Martel to 2 ⭐ and max out his second skill.
- Level Charles Martel to 3 ⭐ and max out his third skill.
- Level Charles Martel to 4 ⭐ and max out all of his skills.
PvP Talent Build:
- Keep Charles Martel at 1 ⭐ until you max out his first skill.
- Level Charles Martel to 2 ⭐ and max out his second skill.
- Level Charles Martel to 4 ⭐ and max out all of his skills.
Support Talent Build:
- Keep Charles Martel at 1 ⭐ until you max out his first skill.
- Level Charles Martel to 2 ⭐ and max out his second skill.
- Level Charles Martel to 4 ⭐ and max out all of his skills.
Best Commander Pairs
There are several good commanders to pair with Charles Martel, from nukers to defenders to gatherers. This part of our best Charles Martel commander guide for beginners, we will share the best commander to pair for primary and secondary roles. Without further ado, here’s our recommended list:
Richard I
One of the best commanders to pair with is Richard I. For starters, he comes with incredible self-healing capabilities. When you pair him with Charles Martel, both are able to mitigate tons of attacks with ease which will render some of the toughest attackers useless. In addition to that, Richard I can reduce up to 5 targets’ damage by 30%.
Richard provides an additional damage reduction by 15% and increases both infantry defense + attack by 15%. If you want nothing else than being a pain in the ass, do Richard I and Charles Martel combo. You will be surprised to learn how to make it extremely frustrating for your enemies to destroy your city.
Yi Seong-Gye
Another stellar commander that you should consider pairing with Charles Martel is Yi Seong-Gye. He is not an infantry commander, but archer commander and why we recommend him is for a good reason. He comes with a passive skill which increases the amount of shield points that Charles Martel provides by an additional 50%. Instead of absorbing 1,200 points, he now can absorb up to 2,000 points with talent points and passive skill combined.
This means Charles Martel can hold off even more attacks while Yi Seong-Gye covers weak points by delivering rain of arrows that deals massive damage. This is a perfect storm waiting to protect your exposed base points while crippling your enemies into ashes with powerful attacks.
Mehmed II
By default, Mehmed II will take the role as the primary commander. Mainly because of his skill set that gives advantage of playing strong on the offense side. Charles Martel will take the back seat as secondary commander, providing Mehmed II solid defense capabilities.
One of the advantage for pairing Mehmed II is due to his flexible army structure. Which means he can easily work and maintain Charles Martel’s focus on infantry only army. The passive skills that Mehmed II grants is huge and will greatly benefit the troops’ combat capabilities.
If you don’t have Mehmed II yet, you can roll with Osman I instead since he has similar skill set.
Julius Caesar
If you are looking for a solid debuffer that reduces your enemy’s targets combat effectiveness while improving your troops’ ability to deal more damage. Julius Caesar is the best pick for this role. By default, he fills in the position as primary commander.
This pair excels at expanding the troop capacity which means more infantry, more damage, more health and more defense which is a clear win-win situation. When you max Julius Caesar out, he will be able to deal direct damage factor with his active skill — which is a nice addition.
Although, if you don’t have this legendary commander yet then Scipio Africanus is your best alternative option.
Alexander the Great
To greatly improve your defensive capabilities while serving as garrison commander with Charles Martel, you need to pair him with Alexander the Great. This pair will be able to pull up dual shields that dramatically reduces the amount of damage taken. At the same time, both can deal significant amount of damage.
Personally, I love to call this pair as the Bulwark combo because of their ability to negate a large amount of damage to maximize your enemy’s losses. It is by far one of the solid and deadliest defense combo in Rise of Kingdoms.
However, if you don’t have Alexander the Great yet (mainly due to the fact that he becomes unlockable after your kingdom turns 120 days old) then your best alternative options are Sun Tzu and Eulji Mundeok.
Sun Tzu
Lastly, if you do not have any legendary commanders as stated above. Your next step is to pair Charles Martel with Sun Tzu, which is one of the best epic commanders in Rise of Kingdoms and you can get him for free if you start off with China as your main civilization. Sun Tzu comes with a passive skill which increases active skill damage by 20%. This benefits both Sun Tzu and Charles Martel.
In addition to that, Sun Tzu can hit up to 5 targets which deals 1,200 damage (including the 20% active skill damage bonus) each. This easily makes him one of the best garrison commanders in Rise of Kingdoms. Not to forget to mention that he is quite super easy to level up as epic-rarity commander don’t require that much experience or sculptures to upgrade.
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Best Charles Martel Equipment Set
| Equipment | Name | Stats |
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 | Gatekeeper’s Shield |
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 | Windswept War Helm |
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 | Windswept Breastplate |
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 | Calvin’s Hand |
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 | Sentry’s Breeches |
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 | The Scarlet Hounds |
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| Total | Set Bonus:
| Overall Stats:
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| Equipment | Name | Stats |
|---|---|---|
 | Sakura Fubuki |
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 | Witch’s Lineage |
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 | Quinn’s Soul |
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 | Seth’s Brutality |
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 | Sentry’s Breeches |
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| The Scarlet Hounds |
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| Total | Set Bonus:
| Overall Stats:
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| Equipment | Name | Stats |
|---|---|---|
 | Shield of Eternal Empire |
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 | Gold Helm of the Eternal Empire |
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 | Plate of the Eternal Empire |
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 | Vambrace of the Eternal Empire |
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 | Greaves of the Eternal Empire |
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 | Sturdy Boots of the Eternal Empire |
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| Total | Set Bonus:
| Overall Stats:
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