City builders have to be my favorite gaming genre as of late, and while the iconic title, Cities Skylines II, is still months away. However, a game you might not have heard of (or maybe just haven’t looked at in a while) is Kingdoms and Castles. This unique city builder simulation is about growing your kingdom from a tiny hamlet into a “sprawling city and imposing castle.” The new update released over the weekend introduces industry and infrastructure, which changes pace from the last update, which focused on combat and interaction with the AI. There’s a lot to like in the recent Kingdoms and Castles update, so head below where we unpack all you can expect here. Plus, the game is even on sale right now.
Kingdoms and Castles infrastructure and industry update provides economic overhaul
Kingdoms and Castles is a game that I hadn’t heard much about until this update, but I am heavily considering picking it up and trying it. The last update focused on combat and interaction, which is a really unique take for a city builder. But, this weekend’s release decided to focus on a lot of things the community had been asking for by focusing on the game’s economy.
This time around, Kingdoms and Castles is getting some new buildings and functions as you work to expand your city’s building and economy. For starters, we have a slew of the aforementioned community suggestions, which include a large treasure room, produce storage, iron mine, quarry, charcoal maker, and much more.
The large treasure room is a 2×1 structure that houses a bit more gold than the two small treasure rooms, giving you more space to keep your gold. Then, the produce storage is another 2×1 structure, which can also store more fruit than two small produce storages, continuing the trend. The large iron mine, however, steps things up to a 3×3 structure and sits completely on top of iron deposits and produces more iron than three small mines but takes up more space and workers. The large quarry goes alongside the large iron mine in being a 3×3 structure that goes on top of a stone deposit instead of next to it. Keeping with the trend, this will take more tools to operate but makes more than three smaller quarries. The large charcoal mine is much the same, too, producing more than four small charcoal makers but taking more workers.
The large reservoir is a 2×2 building with a “much larger radius of effect” compared to the smaller counterpart. While being more expensive, it’ll serve lots of fountains around your city at once and can also be used to irrigate a large area of land for farms. The large tavern (have you noticed a trend with large here?) is also 2×2 and is great for dense cities to make your center and downtown “more lively” and adds another way to meet your peasants’ needs. Closing things out in the community suggestion spotlight, we have the chapel, which will be a building you can fit in smaller places as it’s just 1×2, where the larger 2×3 church just won’t fit.
Finally, we have some more improvements and fixes to the game, including increased text size on the Steam Deck, more damage out of the Greek Fire Tower, issues with AI, and more.
All of this comes as a free update to the game and allows you to enjoy building your city in all-new ways now that there are more buildings to add around. Plus, like we said above, the game is currently on sale. Normally $14.99, you can save 40% through the end of the month and pick up Kingdoms and Castles for $8.99 right now at Steam. It works on Steam Deck, macOS, and Windows.
9to5Toys’ Take
Kingdoms and Castles honestly looks like a blast of a game to me. While it’s not part of my library yet, that won’t be true for long. I love the aesthetic of the game, and it’s great to see that it’s getting lots of updates too. If you’re waiting for Cities Skylines II, like me, then this could be a great game to bide the time until the next city builder launches. And you could even fall in love with the unique aspects of Kingdoms and Castles and have it become your favorite city builder yet.
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