Bear Hunt is the name Century Games uses in its English help centre, and it is the single most important recurring event for a free-to-play account, because it is where Hero Gear materials come from.
1. Nobody schedules it for you
This is the part most guides get wrong by omission. Bear Hunt is not on a server timer — alliance members above R4 start it. The publisher gives two numbers for the gap between runs: the cooldown is 48 hours, and there must be a minimum interval of at least 46 hours measured from the tally of the previous session. Both are official and they do not quite agree, so treat 48 hours as the planning figure and 46 as the earliest possible. Either way the consequence is the same: if your R4s are asleep, your alliance simply gets fewer runs than the alliance next door, and no amount of personal optimisation makes that back. If you are shopping for an alliance, ask how promptly they open it.
2. The score is damage, and damage is tier
Two Governors with the same troop count score very differently. Someone running 70% tiers 1–7 and 30% tier 8 will land a bracket or two below someone running 100% tier 8 with the same numbers. Converting troops upward beats training more of them. This is the most reliable way to move up a bracket.
3. Join the strongest captain, not the first rally open
The publisher answers this one directly. Asked why an opposing rally with stronger stats deals less damage, the help centre says the damage a rally team deals mainly depends on the captain's heroes and the chance of triggering their skills. That is the official version of advice you will see stated as folklore everywhere: load your four marches to full strength into the rallies opened by your best-geared members, and if one fills before you get in, wait for the next strong captain rather than taking whatever is open.
4. Always bring heroes
Troops sent without heroes lose both the skill contribution and march capacity. In a damage-scored event that is a straight subtraction from your bracket.
5. Do not switch alliances mid-season
Official and unforgiving: your ranking points are cleared when you leave your alliance, and rejoining the same alliance inside the season does not bring them back. If you are planning a move, make it after a season tally, never during one.
6. The Alliance Trap
Two rules worth knowing before your alliance rearranges its territory. You may keep contributing Hunting Arrows to a max-level trap, but the level will not rise any further — so past cap those arrows are wasted. And a trap cannot be moved, only removed: rebuilding resets its level to zero and every arrow has to be contributed again from scratch. Moving the trap for convenience is one of the more expensive mistakes an alliance can make.
7. Do not expect Viking Vengeance to behave the same way
Bear Hunt is winnable for a free-to-play account. Viking Vengeance is structurally harder: top scorers receive reinforcements filling six marches while you have four. That is a ceiling, not a skill gap, and it is worth knowing before you spend a month chasing a number you cannot reach.
8. What the brackets pay
Rewards are paid in three items — a crafting hammer, a hero gear chest and an enhancement component — plus alliance coins. We describe them rather than name them because we have not confirmed the English client's names. Per run, by personal damage points:
| Personal damage points | Crafting hammers | Gear chests | Enhancement parts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 175M – 330M | 10 | 2 | 11 |
| 330M – 635M | 11 | 2 | 11 |
| 635M – 1.2B | 12 | 2 | 12 |
| 1.2B – 2.4B | 13 | 3 | 12 |
| 2.4B – 4.8B | 14 | 3 | 13 |
| 4.8B – 9.6B | 15 | 3 | 13 |
| 9.6B – 19.2B | 16 | 3 | 14 |
| 19.2B – 38.4B | 17 | 3 | 14 |
| 38.4B and above | 18 | 3 | 15 |
Across roughly 15 runs a month, sitting in the bottom bracket the whole time still accumulates about 150 hammers, 30 chests and 165 components. The gap between the bottom bracket and the top one is under 2×. Attendance is worth more than optimisation here.
Sources: Century Games official English help centre — When does Bear Hunt start?, What should I do if I miss Bear Hunt?, Minimum interval between sessions, Why are my ranking points cleared?, Why does a stronger-looking rally deal less damage?, Contributing to a max-level trap, Rebuilding a removed Alliance Trap. The bracket figures in section 8 are cross-checked from independent reference tables and are not published by Century Games; the alliance coin column is missing from that data and we have left it out rather than estimate it. Values shift between versions.