King of the Dwarves News

[h2]Greetings, Dwarven Lords![/h2]

Dwarves are known for their craftsmanship, endurance, and strong will. Some are even willing to call them stubborn. But the truth is - it's just a fierce passion that is driving the dwarves to reach their goals, whatever they are. Still, there are limits to what can be achieved when the times get tough. To surpass those limits, the dwarves have invented the War Horns.

[h2]"Blow the War Horn!"[/h2]


To unlock the War Horn for your settlement, a corresponding Research has to be discovered first. Afterward, you can build a War Horn the same way you place all other structures. This specific creation unlocks a new settlement-wide action that can be cast for all the dwarves under your command. "Blow the War Horn!" has a long cooldown, but allows you to increase the effectiveness of all your units.

At its core, the "Blow the Horn!" functionality will prevent your Dwarves from having to rest for a set amount of time. Normally, the dwarves spend around 30% of their time resting, so this action provides a substantial difference.

On top of it, we are also exploring the following bonuses:

• Workers get a temporary bonus to their work speed.
  
• Warriors receive a temporary strength bonus, making them significantly better in battle.
  
• Warriors receive a temporary range bonus, becoming better at spotting nearby danger in the settlement.
  

While those additional bonuses are unconfirmed, we are looking into what is going to work best. If you have any ideas regarding how this mechanic should work in your opinion, please share them in the comments!

[h2]War Horn usage examples[/h2]

You can expect to use the War Horn in the following situations:

• Your Dwarves are starving and you need to significantly increase the amounts of Food and Beverages in your Settlement,
  
• You have been attacked by a huge wave of enemies and you need this additional boost to win the battle,
  
• Everything is under control, but you want to increase the efficiency of your Units to ensure that everything is going according to the plan.
  

Mind you, the excessive usage of the War Horn might result in a negative Mood among your Dwarves. Use this action wisely and ensure that your Citizens are satisfied with their living conditions. Dwarves are loyal, but their true respect still has to be earned.

Best regards,
King of the Dwarves Team

[h2]Greetings, Dwarven Lords![/h2]

Today we’re happy to reveal some basic information about the Research System in King of the Dwarves! This crucial feature will allow you to unlock powerful technologies, and enhance your kingdom's abilities. Whether you're focusing on military dominance or boosting your economy, the Research System will give you the edge to forge a legendary dwarven empire.

[h2]Research Process[/h2]

To unlock a new research, the Player will have to go through the following steps:

• The player builds the research building (simpler starting one is Study; later unlocked is Library).
  
• The player assigns dwarves to the Researcher profession.
  
• Researchers go to Study and do research. In each cycle, researchers generate a certain amount of research points.
  
• Every new research requires research points. The more researchers, the more available research points.
  

To make research more interesting, we want King of the Dwarves to follow a 4X approach to this subject. Rather than paying with research points and after some time (when all the things are unlocked) collecting research points for no specific goal, the player must maintain a steady income of research points. An upkeep cost for research. Additionally, the player would lose upgrades if the research upkeep income fell under the required amount for the unlocked upgrade/researched technology.

This approach would not only be different from the common approach in other games but also incentivize keeping dwarves in research. Let us know what you think about this idea in the comments!

[h2]Results of Research[/h2]

Some things that could be researched:

• Pickaxe upgrades (can mine iron, gold, etc).
  
• Vertical mining and Ladders.
  
• Steel production (from Iron and Coal) and various tool upgrades.
  
• Warriors with Garrison and Training Grounds.
  
• Various other useful structures. For example, Horn (we'll describe it more in another post!).
  

We hope that you find this concept for the Research System interesting! Let us know what you think about it and share all the ideas for researchable items that come to your mind. Thank you for following King of the Dwarves!

Best regards,
King of the Dwarves Team

[h2]Greetings, Dwarven Lords![/h2]

Today we would like to talk about the Event System. While the player has full control over many in-game aspects, some situations will unveil over time, along with the decisions the player makes. Some events will work to the player's advantage. Others will force him to revise his current strategy.

[h2]Dwarf Migration[/h2]

Good rulership results in the growth of our colony. The following factors affect the number of dwarves joining our settlement:

• Building enough housing,
  
• Storing a sufficient amount of food and ale,
  
• Ensuring high morale within the settlement,
  
• Opening the Main Gates.
  

Beware! While the opened Main Gates will result in new dwarves over time, this action can also result in having other unwanted guests. Prepare the axes and shields for your warriors, because the trolls will surely come. They always do.

[h2]Room Collapse[/h2]

It's relatively easy to dig narrow tunnels through the mountain. But wide rooms and halls require additional stabilization. Building columns will be mandatory if the player wants to avoid collapses. Collapse results in the destruction of all buildings and the death of all dwarves in the area. It's no secret that this is one of every dwarven engineer's worst nightmares.

While this mechanic seems interesting to us and forces the player to plan better, we are also worried that it might prove too punishing. We review these events internally and try to decide whether they will positively diversify the gameplay. What do you think about it?



Best regards,
King of the Dwarves Team

[h2]Greetings, Dwarven Lords![/h2]

Today we would like to briefly discuss the food and beverage production in our dwarven settlements. Every dwarf, regardless of their profession, will need to consume a certain number of resources per day. To ensure that our dwarves won't die, we have to provide them with something to eat and something to drink.
[h2]Storage[/h2]

First of all, the maximum number of resources that we can acquire will depend on our storage capacity. We have to place all the barrels and crates somewhere if we want to avoid the possibility of our food getting spoiled. Such storage is rather easy to set up and requires a small amount of wood and metal to build.


[h2]Farm[/h2]

The mountain is merciless when it comes to the conditions for obtaining food. The secret to ensuring yourself a stable source of nutritious food lies in... fungi. Humid mountain corridors and no need for light enable stable cultivation of these organisms.

Fungi farm will provide your settlement with a stable source of food, as long as you have enough crates to stock them all.


[h2]Brewery[/h2]

To make sure the dwarves don't die of thirst, we also need to make sure they have access to something to drink. In theory, it could be water obtained from mountain springs, but beer is both safer to store and, in the unanimous opinion of all the dwarves, simply tastier.

Brewery will provide your settlement with a stable source of ale, as long as you have enough barrels to stock it all.


[h2]Pub[/h2]

The pub is a place where every dwarf can sit down after a hard day's work and drink a pint of beer to the king's health. The building is not mandatory but serves many different functions at the same. This one single structure will:

• Increase the food and drink storage space in your settlement,
  
• Increase the prestige of your settlement,
  
• Increase the happiness of the dwarves living in your mountain,
  
• And even though dwarves can get a basic drink and food at the storage, when they eat in the pub, they need less of the raw drink and food resources to be satisfied.
  

To summarize - a well-fed dwarf is a happy dwarf. We hope that you like our concept of basic food production! Let us know what you think about it in the comments. Is a pub really mandatory to have in the mountain settlement? Or not really?

Best regards,
King of the Dwarves Team

[h2]Greetings, Dwarven Lords![/h2]

The development of King of the Dwarves continues. The game is getting shinier every month and we are happy to share the newest changes with you all.

[h2]Development Update[/h2]

Game development is a never-ending cycle of adding new features, and fixing issues that emerge in the process. Other than fixing and optimizing the game, we are currently working on the following core elements of the game:

• Save System. The player can mine tunnels, gather resources, build different structures, and do many other things. To ensure that all those actions are saved on our end, we are working on a save system that can remember all the actions.
  
• Battle mechanics. The player will have to not only take care of the economy but also ensure that the dwarven warriors can defend the settlement against enemies. We are currently implementing the fighting system and the enemies for our proud dwarves to clash against.
  
• Animations. Our game had a lot of placeholder animations that were quickly put together to make the first prototype of the game work. Right now, we are adding and improving all the necessary animations for our dwarven units. You will be able to have hundreds (or even thousands, if you manage to please them!) of dwarves in the game, so adding this amount of animated characters is a technical challenge on its own. So a tidbit for our more technical readers: to achieve it, we are using instanced animation rendering, where we store animations in textures and meshes are transformed on the GPU. Write in the comments if you would like to get more technical details in the future.
  

[h2]New Animations[/h2]

Check the new animations in action!

Miner

Builder

Warrior

Smith

We have also prepared a quick video with the updated mining animations from the actual gameplay. In the video, you can also notice the updated reflective visuals on some materials like steel and gold. We have written more about it in our previous announcement.

[previewyoutube]https://youtu.be/yTgCstgWPP0?si=t3z_4vyhP0_qSzgp[/previewyoutube]

Best regards,
King of the Dwarves Team