Conan Exiles Tips 2026: Base Building, Thralls and Mistakes to Avoid
These Conan Exiles tips are for players whose first base already stands: a well-planned foundation, disciplined thralls and a clear grasp of the server rules get you further than any new weapon upgrade. Below you learn how to build more stable, how to actually use thralls instead of hoarding them, and how PvE, PvP and PvE-Conflict differ so you don't walk into a trap.
โก Quick check
- Decay timer: up to 10 days on the official setting, and it only counts down while the owner isn't nearby.
- Stability: building pieces at 20 stability or less can't be extended any further.
- Follower limit: according to Funcom's 2021 blog post, a base limit of 50, +15 per clan member, plus a hard cap of 100 extra followers above that (official servers).
- Thrall XP: only thralls that actively follow you gain experience. Guards standing at their post don't level.
โ๏ธ Better base building: foundations, stability and the decay timer
Every building piece in Conan Exiles has a stability value. Foundations are the starting point of almost every structure, and they also stop resources and creatures from respawning under your base. Without an unbroken connection to a foundation or a pillar, a piece loses stability, and once it drops to 20 or less you can't build anything more from that spot. The repair hammer shows the current stability of every piece. Use it while you plan, not after something collapses.
| Tier | Material | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | Sandstone / thatch | A temporary shelter for the start, not an endgame base |
| Tier 2 | Stonebrick / insulated wood | Solid mid-game, much tougher than tier 1 |
| Tier 3 | Reinforced stone / Black Ice | Raid-proof endgame base, the standard on PvP servers |
The second big lever is the decay timer. It exists so abandoned bases don't clutter the map forever. The more pieces are connected and the better the material, the longer the maximum timer gets, up to 10 days on the official server setting (private servers can change that). A single, isolated sandstone platform gets only a very short timer. While you or a clanmate are near the base, the timer refills to its maximum. Once you leave or log out, it starts dropping again.
When the timer hits 0:00, the base switches to "abandoned". From that moment a 24-hour grace period runs: during that time any player can tear the structure down with "Demolish". Only after those 24 hours does it vanish on its own. In practice, being offline longer than your timer doesn't cost you the base instantly. Don't take endless breaks, though, especially on PvP servers, where an abandoned base is a visible target.
๐ก Practical tip: altars noticeably raise the decay timer of smaller buildings. If you plan an outpost you rarely visit, an altar there is worth more than extra sandstone walls.
๐ฉธ Thrall management: follower limit, leveling, guard vs. follow
On official servers thralls are a limited resource. Crafting thralls at stations don't count, but every placed combat thrall and animal does. The limit scales with clan size. The numbers come from Funcom's blog post that introduced the limits in June 2021. We have no record of later changes:
| Clan situation | Follower limit (soft cap) |
|---|---|
| Base limit | 50 |
| Per clan member | +15 |
| Solo player (counts as a one-person clan) | 65, hard cap 165 |
| Clan with 5 members | 125, hard cap 225 |
| Full clan (10 members) | 200, hard cap 300 |
This only applies to placed combat thralls and animals. According to Funcom, crafting thralls have no limit. Above the soft cap you can't place any more followers. Only above the hard cap (100 over the soft cap) does the system start removing followers one by one, the weakest first (level times tier). If you keep hitting the limit, invest in fewer, better-leveled guards instead of an army of mediocre NPCs.
One thing many players miss: thralls only gain experience while they actively follow you and fight. An NPC parked on guard duty practically never levels, because XP only comes from kills the thrall took part in as a companion. To level a freshly broken thrall (the cap is level 20), take it along on your runs instead of posting it at the base right away. Capturing and breaking thralls is covered in detail in our Conan Exiles thralls guide.
For guard thralls, check the three behavior sliders Follow, Attack and Chase. Follow sets how far a thrall trails you outside of combat, Attack the radius in which it engages enemies on its own, and Chase how far it pursues a fleeing enemy. Set correctly, this prevents two classic annoyances: guards that run off and leave you alone, and guards that attack everything walking past and pull aggro for no reason.
If a thrall leaves its post for one of three reasons (you die, you log out, you move too far away), it switches to "scouting" mode and walks back to its last guard post after about 15 minutes of inactivity.
About feeding: thralls can't starve and don't lose health from a lack of food. Food in the box next to the thrall still matters, because it affects extra effects and attribute gains on level-up, so it's more than a cosmetic feature. What really sets thralls apart are their base attributes, which depend on faction and type. How to spend attribute points on your own character is in our Conan Exiles attributes guide.
๐ PvE, PvP and PvE-Conflict: the basics
Before you settle on a server, know what the three standard modes actually mean:
- PvE: players can't damage each other or each other's bases. The only danger comes from the environment: NPCs, animals, corruption and the Purge.
- PvP: player-versus-player damage is always on. Bases can be attacked while you're offline. Conflicts are clan-based, and alliances and feuds between clans are the norm here.
- PvE-Conflict: a hybrid mode built on the same PvP settings that limits player damage to set times (for example certain weekdays or fixed time windows). There's no dedicated switch for it. Server admins put it together from the PvP options with a time-window restriction. According to common hosting templates, building damage by players is turned off.
That has direct consequences for your base and your thralls. On PvP you plan in tier 3 from the start, keep an eye on your decay timer and use guard thralls with deliberate Follow and Attack distances instead of putting every NPC by the door. On PvE you can build more relaxed and care more about function and layout than raid safety. The Purge remains a PvE threat on every mode, and the same material rules apply against it. How Purge waves work is explained in our Conan Exiles Purge guide.
๐ก Common mistakes to avoid
These Conan Exiles tips also help you sidestep the usual traps:
- Living in tier 1 for good: sandstone and thatch are meant for the start, not the endgame. Staying in tier 1 on a PvP server throws away security for nothing.
- Placing pieces without a foundation connection: without continuous stability back to a foundation, whole sections can collapse later. Always check with the repair hammer before you extend.
- Using guard thralls for XP farming: a posted guard doesn't level. If you want to raise a thrall, take it into fights with you.
- Never touching the Follow, Attack and Chase distances: default values often leave guards either too passive or pulling aggro they don't need. A few minutes of tuning pays off for good.
- Ignoring the follower limit and capturing more and more: above the soft cap nothing more can be placed, and above the hard cap the system removes the weakest followers one by one, according to Funcom. Keep a few well-leveled NPCs instead.
- Underestimating the timer on outposts: small, rarely visited bases without an altar or enough foundations can turn "abandoned" faster than you think. That matters even more once you use Enhanced features like craft from storage and spend less time standing at each bench in person.
- Misjudging the server mode: if you treat a PvE-Conflict server like pure PvE, the active time windows will catch you cold. Read the server rules before you plan your base.
โ FAQ: Conan Exiles tips
How long is the maximum decay timer?
Up to 10 days on the official server setting, depending on how many connected pieces you have and what they're made of. When the timer hits 0:00, a 24-hour grace period follows in which any player can demolish the abandoned base.
How high is the follower limit?
According to Funcom's 2021 blog post, the base limit is 50 placed combat thralls and animals, plus 15 per clan member (soft cap). A solo player counts as a one-person clan and gets 65, a full clan of 10 gets 200. On top of that there's a hard cap of 100 extra followers. Crafting thralls have no limit.
Do guard thralls level on their own?
No. Thralls only gain experience while they actively follow you and fight. A posted guard practically never levels. To raise one (max level 20), take it with you on your runs.
What's the difference between PvE, PvP and PvE-Conflict?
PvE has no player or base damage, PvP has it all the time (offline too), and PvE-Conflict limits player damage to fixed time windows. According to common hosting templates, building damage is off there.
โจ Bottom line
All of these Conan Exiles tips come down to three areas working together: base building, thrall management and the server rules. A stable tier 3 base doesn't help much if the decay timer collapses because you rarely visit, and the best guard thrall is useless with the wrong Attack distance. Set these three up properly once and you save yourself a lot of frustration, whether you play PvE, PvP or PvE-Conflict.
Checked against established community databases and Funcom's official blog post on follower limits (June 2021), as of October 2026 (Conan Exiles Enhanced). The Conan Exiles wiki on Fandom calls itself the "Official Conan Exiles Wiki" and is linked from Funcom's site conanexiles.com, but by its own description it is written by players.
