Rewards

Although of course the developers would prefer it if you spend money on the game to acquire gold and units, there are quite a few ways to get free things, which will help keep moving your empire along even if you don't want to spend money. Here's a quick rundown:

* Login bonus: Every day that you log in, you will receive a reward, which increases over 14 consecutive days. See the picture for the table of rewards. If you miss a day (or complete all 14), it resets back to day 1.
* Military bonds (skulls in the top center of your main screen): Each day, you get a free draw on the military bonds, which gives you one of nine random rewards. You can buy other rewards, but be aware that the first attempt costs 5 gold and the costs increase after that, so chasing gold rewards isn't worth it after the first try or so.

* Monthly rewards (calendar in top right): Each day, you can visit the calendar and click on the current day to receive a special reward for that day. If you collect all days in a month, you can receive special rewards for the whole month (shown at the bottom). You can go back and open missed days in the current month (or even the two previous months) for 10 gold, which if the monthly rewards are good may be worth it.
* Friendly assistance (handshake in top right): Once you reach a certain level, you can send and receive assistance here. Choose the signals to send (the best signal at your level) and "send" to send points to all your friends, and use the "accept" button to accept incoming signals from your friends. Accumulating 300 points allows you to collect a special air drop chest.
* Taxes: By adding friends to your command center, you can collect taxes every day, which gives you additional resources. See the command center page for a full list.

* Storyline tasks (banner in top left): Every mission that you complete in campaigns will give you a reward that you can claim from here. Note that the task window will show you some "suggested" missions, but even if you complete a mission not on the current list, you will still get the reward.
* Other tasks (skull in top left): As the name suggests, these are other tasks that you can complete to get rewards. Most of these run in cycles: for example, there is a task to capture a certain number of sectors; when you complete it, you will get a task to obtain a certain amount of influence; when you finish that, you'll get another task to capture sectors, and so forth. Ardheim has its own separate list of tasks as well. Eventually, it is possible to complete all of these tasks, at which point the icon will disappear from your screen.
* Daily tasks (loudspeaker in top left): Each day, you will be given three daily tasks, each with its own reward. If you complete all three of these, then you get a bonus reward. This bonus reward operates on a 7-day cycle much like the login bonus -- you move along the possible rewards for each consecutive day, and reset to day 1 if you fail to complete all three daily tasks (or finish all 7 days).
* Community gifts: If you follow the official Discord, special reward links are posted to the #community-gifts channel. Just follow the link to claim the reward. In the earlier days of IR, these were approximately daily, but the frequency has decreased greatly in recent times.
* Level bonus: Every 5 levels, you are given a special chest with a variety of useful rewards.
* PvP rewards: You can claim a daily reward from your PvP league using the "Rating" tab at the bottom. Furthermore, every 10 wins, you can use rating keys to unlock a Rating Chest, which contains additional rewards. During world rating events, you can also get daily rewards from your world rating in PvP.
* Faction rewards: If you're a member of a faction, you can also do tasks for your faction when a PvP season is active. These require you to donate resources, troops, or research points to your faction, but you get various rewards (both general rewards and faction-specific rewards) in return. These rewards work on a 7-day cycle, like the daily tasks.
* Special events: Special events run quite frequently in Iron Rage, and have a variety of rewards, either from special event chests, buyable items in the event shop, or from rewards for reaching various ranks at the end of the event. These often give unique rewards that can't be obtained anywhere else.
* Clans: Being a member of a clan offers you a variety of additional rewards. You can complete clan tasks by donating troops, resources, or research points, or completing various goals in PvP, to get rewards directly. Clan members can also donate the stars that they get for completing clan tasks to open a clan chest, which unlocks additional rewards for all clan members. Finally, clan members can receive rewards for the clan's performance in PvP and clan superiority seasons.
* Chests: Chests are the final way to gain rewards. They are frequently obtained as rewards from the other sources above, and can also be purchased in the store with gold. Chests can contain units (either units you can produce yourself, or some premium units), resources, pieces of collections (which you can trade in for resources in your journal), manuals for training units, equipment components, research items, or keys. Higher level chests may also contain gold, city plans, or items used to obtain new heroes. For more details, see the Chests page.