Before you move to sands make sure that you have access to wolfhounds to race to RVs. RVs are extremely scare in Sands. More so than in ice. They come as player's arrive and since less players are up there less arrive. The barracks 1 and 2 troops move just as fast as wolfhounds but you should have researched vets prior to coming to sands and if you have some saved up they will eventually be used up.
Ideally, you should have enough rubies for a bakery, level 1.
Choose South, when you are given the choice of what direction to travel.
Just like in Everwinter, you will build up another castle that is supported by resource villages. Sands is even more challenging that Ice because your resources that are at 100% are reduced even more so.
You will have:
2 farms that can produce 100% of resources
1 plant of wood at 100%
1 plant of stone at 100%
Transporting resources from other kingdoms will be reduced by 50%. Transferring from Green is 2/3rds taxed. So a built of Ice kingdom can become a great outpost for Sands.
What is good about the Desert, you might be wondering.
In Sands, you have a real significant opportunity to earn wealth through rubies and coins. The Towers themselves provide you with coins and rubies and the Fortress will pay out 280 rubies and 20,000 coins per hit.
Early on before having food rvs, I hit these fortresses by sending up troops from another kingdom, when I knew I had a decent amount of time to be online and play. Then attacking fortresses for the loot and rubies then sending then back to where they came from, when my time was limited and I would run out of food. Eventually earned enough rubies to spend to get to the RVs, increase stables and bakery level.
Attacking the Fortress
There really is only one way to do this and I will give you the formula.
The first 3 waves are suicide waves
4th wave:
Lt: MR (max ranged) + MM (maxed Mantlets)
FT: MR + 25M + 3 L (ladders) + 2 rams
RT: MR + MM
Use a 50+ ranged commander
For the front wall you can vary your ladders and rams depending on your equipment bonus. Do an initial spy report. I have found that this gives me the least amount of losses.
Approximately 55 loses using Vets soldiers with normal tools. (With a 70+ ranged commander)
The castellan has ranged bonus of 125%, meaning to have their ranged defenders reduced to Zero, you need to have 125% decrease using mantlets. I have gotten my loses down to 39 using 5 iron mantlets or mock peasants and 15 wooden ones on both left and right flanks. That is a decision based on what you value more the rubies or the troops.
Kingsguards or Traveling troops would produce less losses than the vets.
Capturing Resource Villages
You will need to use wolfhounds to capture RVs. Most people when entering sands, have already researched vet troops and no longer have the fast level 1 and 2s. Even researched Vet soldiers are not fast enough. Ship your wolfhounds over from ICE and put them to work. There is no way you will reach an RV first if it takes you more than 1 hour to reach. High level players use wolfhounds and ruby horses, so unless it's a odd time of the night and you think you've spotted them first, don't waste your time going 3 hours away.
RVs are manned with
Lt: 50 farmers
Ft: 100 farmers
Rt: 50 farmers
I've sent 30-0-30 of wolfhounds and had no problem defeating the farmers.
If you've arrived at the edge of the map you will be lucky as rv's will start to pop up. If you replace ruins in the middle you are going to have a hard time getting to rvs first, racing against players closer to them. A percentage appears depending on how many new castles arrive in the kingdom.
