Command An Army Gems Guide: Free Gems, Spending and the 30% Cut

What do Gems buy in Command An Army?

Gems are the game’s main spendable currency, and the official experience only says broadly that players recruit, collect and upgrade troops. Three spend sinks have documented numbers, and each carries a source label:

The summon prices predate Update 3, so treat them as snapshots rather than live prices, and read the unit acquisition overview before spending. The class-switch figure matters more than its size suggests: at 50 Gems, every switch costs the same as a summon, which is why the one source that documents it advises trying a class in a match before paying to change again. A CLASSES code appeared in mid-October 2026 (see the codes page), but no source documents what it commemorates. One more number frames the risk side: during the Update 2 window, one testing session spent more than 6,000 Gems chasing the Rapier Knight without a single pull — banner spending is a long tail, not a price list.

Every verified way to get free Gems

One source is fully documented: redeem codes. The active code list, checked October 24, 2026, lists nine working codes, and their Gem payouts are the hard numbers of this page. Code redemption is free and takes seconds — the redemption walkthrough covers the steps.

Added up on the primary trackers’ numbers, those listed Gem rewards total 13,400 — 15,900 if Beebom’s 5,000-Gem reading of COSMETIC is the right one. Redeem promptly: no active code has a published expiry date, and “not announced” is not a promise of permanence — the seven September codes that were active at the previous check were all marked expired by Radio Times on October 12. Codes are also the only income source with per-unit amounts attached; the one other reported line, deleting unwanted duplicates for a small Gem refund, has no published amount and is covered below.

What the earning side has actually reported

No official source publishes Gem income, and this page does not invent numbers — but one dedicated fan wiki’s check, built on early-September creator sessions, recorded concrete examples worth having with the right label attached:

Three cautions before planning around any of it. The figures are September snapshots that predate Update 3, and no post-Update-3 source has re-measured them. The win/loss pair shows payouts vary, so neither number is a rate. And the deletion refund is a trap for ascension planners — duplicates are the only documented ascension material, so the ascension guide and two community guides converge on the same rule: hold duplicates until a unit reaches Ascension 3 before deleting anything.

Why the 30% cut changed the math

Update 2, live since September 19, 2026, reduced Gem earnings by 30% — the change most likely to affect day-to-day progression, per the Update 2 patch page. The four 300-Gem codes that shipped with it were effectively a compensation package: 1,200 free Gems against a reduced income stream. All four have since expired, which sharpens the lesson rather than ending it — code income is front-loaded and temporary, while the cut is permanent. The practical order of operations has not changed: redeem every active code first, then plan banner spending around what is left, because the gap between code income and match income only widened after the cut.

Gems versus Skill Crystals: the two-currency picture

Since Update 3 went live on October 3, 2026, progression spending splits in two. Gems fund the banner, the class switch and the guild; Skill Crystals fund the Skill Tree, sourced from quests, daily rewards, ranked wins and the codes that pay them alongside Gems. The Update 3 overview reports that split, and the daily loop now funds both currencies at once — a missed day costs progression twice. The evolution side does not take Gems directly either: evolution runs on Mastery time at level 20, per the evolution guide, which is why evolved carries stretch a Gem budget further than banner pulls.

What is not verified about Gem income

The earning side still has the largest gaps. No source has published fixed match rewards, quest payout amounts, daily reward values, level-up grants, or any daily cap — every income figure on this page is a dated example, not a rate. The AFK Server added in Update 3 has no reported reward rates at all, and nothing published since the October 3 patch — including the mid-October client updates — documents one. The 15,000-Guild figure, the 50-Gem class switch and the 50/500 summon prices are the numbers most likely to move in a client check. Until those are verified in-game, the codes table above is the only Gem math on this site that is safe to plan around.