Kingdoms and Castles News

Hi Everyone!

We wanted to give a quick report on our progress with the new Merchants and Ports update. This update is big in scope, with new buildings and some big new systems. We're in the process of finishing some things up and testing internally in preparation for a beta branch release. When the beta branch is ready you'll get a chance to try it out and we'll incorporate feedback.

Chat with us on discord or follow on twitter for more frequent updates.

Here's a quick look at our current progress - keep in mind this is work-in-progress and will likely change a bit before releasing:


These are screenshots from our dev build. We're adding deep water where nothing can be built. Only ships will be able to cross it. This creates distinct islands on larger maps that you'll get to settle using a new building called the Outpost. You can then use the transport ships and docks we're adding to link your settlements together to ship resources where they are needed in your kingdom.


We're adding the much requested larger map size. You'll be able to play on the old size still if you want, but the larger size has roughly 2x the number of tiles.

And there's a bunch more good stuff coming as well!

Right now we're getting some of the last big features ready (job prioritization, AI merchant ships that arrive from across the sea to buy and sell resources and special upgrades).

We're not sure yet when the update will be ready but it's getting close.

Keep a look out for another announcement when the beta branch is ready!

-Pete & MIchael

Hello Kings and Queens, we’ve been reading the forums, chatting with you on discord, and checking out all the suggestions on our community feedback page. We’re happy to announce our first free content update.

This was originally going to be part of our upcoming Merchants and Ports update, but there was enough here we thought we’d release it early. We also want to demonstrate our commitment to updating and improving the game.

Huge thanks to all the people who tested it in the beta branch last week!

Let’s get to the changes:


You can now build wooden walls. They have a height limit of 3 and cost 7 wood a piece. They can help keep vikings out early, but they are vulnerable to fire and ogres.


Stone roads are now available to build and can also be placed over the top of existing roads. They increase peasant movement speed 50% over normal roads.


A new statue is available to impress your peasants. We also added a happiness bonus to both statues.


You can now irrigate the land (soil enrichment)! Build a noria near fresh water to pull water up. Use aqueducts to transport it to your fields, and reservoirs to provide irrigation. An irrigated tile allows you to farm it regardless of underlying soil type and provides a bonus crop yield to tiles that are already fertile. You can chain norias together in the same aqueduct system to push water further across the map.

We've also added the concept of 'salt water' vs 'fresh water' and you'll need place your norias in fresh water.


Now only buildings with fireplaces can spontaneously catch fire, and if you have good well coverage you can reduce the risk of fires spreading to zero.


We’ve increased the length of an in-game year by 50%. We’ve also re-tuned food production and consumption rates. This has the effect of allowing people more time to transport food, which should reduce the cases where heads of household can’t get food back to the houses in time.


The building information UI is now docked at the left corner of the screen (speed controls are in the top left now) and has received an overhaul. You can now see how much a building is at risk of catching fire if a something is burning nearby. We also added a list of everyone living and working in the building as well.

There’s also a new highlight effect on building selection!

• Z now pans camera down as well as s, so wazd works now too.
  
• Added more names to the villager pool
  
• Town squares count as roads for house happiness bonus
  
• Pressing Escape closes any visible UI
  
• You can now see and edit your map generator seeds
  
• Added expanded tooltip info for all resources
  
• Added hotkeys (delete for demolish, and c for chop)
  
• Houses now count neighbors across the street
  
• Generals can regen while out of battle
  
• Fix issue where viking raid would always happen shortly after loading a save
  
• Fixed bugs where vikings could kidnap people on the other side of walls
  
• Ogres can now disembark their ships and attack even if your land is completely walled off
  
• Viking ships now have catapults
  
• Fix bug where generals could die before the rest of their army
  
• Running multiple festivals at once yield diminishing returns with each stacked festival
  
• Fixed bug where demolishing an in progress wall section would cause walls below to have strange life values
  

If you find any bugs or issues you can email [email protected]. You can also chat with us on discord, and check out our community feedback site (https://community.kingdomsandcastles.com/), where many of the changes in this update came from.

-Pete & Michael