Start with where you are
Start with the Castle, buildings and research you have finished. Add those levels to My plan, then choose your next target. Leave an upgrade out of your completed progress while it is still running.
Enter the resources you have available now. Upgrade tables show base costs before account bonuses; the planner applies your inputs and subtracts your inventory once from the combined bill.
Pick one useful destination
A Castle milestone, a hero level cap or a specific technology makes a clearer goal than upgrading everything equally. Open the relevant planner, choose the target and inspect the full prerequisite chain. Shared prerequisites should appear once, even when several branches need them.
Use the upgrade order as a checklist for dependencies. It is not a promise of a completion date: your resources, active queues, help responses and bonuses affect how quickly you can finish.
Keep the next milestone affordable
Hero EXP and hero shards fund different upgrades. EXP advances a hero’s level within the Castle cap; shards advance star substeps. Recruitment and future promotion unlocks are separate costs.
When a tool reports incomplete coverage, inspect the reason before treating its known subtotal as your full budget. An undocumented placement cost or missing building level is not a free upgrade.