Our first major update is out today! We’re buffing Monarchs, improving 4-6 player games, adding a new save sharing feature, and more.
By listening to your feedback and sifting through our analytics, we’re pleased to say our first update addresses many of the biggest requests we’ve had from our players.
We’re a small team working on a very limited budget, so we’ve had to prioritize some features over others, but we see this as a big step for King of the Castle.
We’d also like to thank players who’ve left us their reviews. We’re at the cusp of hitting Overwhelmingly Positive, which would be - as well as a huge boost to the Steam algorithm - an immense honour for us devs.
If you’d like to help spread the word about King of the Castle, please consider leaving a review!
King of the Castle v1.1 “Good To Be King” includes:
Buffs for the Monarch
All our feedback and analytics showed that the game was too hard for most Monarchs. We’ve made changes to ensure that both Monarchs and Nobles get a chance of winning.
- New Taxation Screen - Reward loyalty, punish errant Regions and control Defiance by setting different taxes or all-new bribes! Choose between Cruel Tax, Common Tax and Bribes for each Region individually.
- Laws of the Land now appear at the end of the first Season, giving Monarchs earlier access to the tools that help them manipulate votes
- We’ve shortened the Ambition by one step, removing the redundant setup event that had no gameplay impact. This makes the overall game quicker and punchier as well as helping Monarchs to the finish line.
- Rebellions are now harder to push over the line, with 70% of active Nobles in a Region required to rebel.
- To help out beginners, we’ve added text that explains the next step for Monarchs in Ambition Events.
- We’ve tweaked 4-6 player games and re-balanced Scheme systems to further give our royalty a helping hand!
Improvements for 4-6 player games
Some of our players liked navigating the uneasy power balance of 4-6 player games in 1.0, but others really didn’t enjoy it. We’ve addressed this with new options and features for smaller Party Games.
- Balance Solo Noble Votes - This optional feature boosts votes from solo Nobles pitted against larger teams, helping games of unequal players feel less imbalanced.
- The Monarch’s Vote - We’ve removed Monarch’s Choice and replaced it with the Monarch’s Vote, which gives the Monarch a single vote. This gives the Monarch a buff in small games, and adds an extra element of strategy.
Save sharing system
Watching you all play KOTC has been a joy, and one thing we love is when players swap their save files at the end of their reigns, so that winning Nobles can take a turn playing the Monarch. We want to encourage this as much as possible, so now we’re making this easier than ever before.
- Export your saves in the Continue Dynasty screen directly to our servers, which hold a copy of your game for 14 days.
- Import anyone’s saves by using the code given on the export screen and start playing their game straight away!
- IMPORTANT NOTE: you cannot import a Twitch Mode game as a Party Game or vice versa.
New Events and content variation
We’re pleased to be adding new stories to the game, as well both shortening and adding random variation to repeated Events.
- Claimants revamp - In response to feedback, Claimants now have introductions and are related to Nobles in content.
- Variations to the Honour Guard event for subsequent playthroughs. Decide your Honour Guard in a battle royale, placate the High Inquisitor, or deal with a palace intruder!
- Certain repetitive events will now be shortened when you’re not playing the game for the first ever time (before, they would only be shortened in Dynasty games).
- New Event Chain - Gambling Tournament.
- New Rebellion Events - Pinch Point & Captured Loyalist.
- New Event - Pillar of the Community.
Scheme and Event Rebalancing
Using our analytics we monitor Schemes and Events, and will be constantly tweaking these in response to how they are being played.
- New weighted Scheme selection system! Blood Ritual, Ragnarok, Monopoly and Witch Hunt appear 40% less often, and Schemes that succeeded on one playthrough now won’t appear in a following Dynasty game.
- Ragnarok nerfed (Trade goal raised)
- Intimidation buffed (first stage is now Raise Stability)
- Conspiracy buffed (timers altered)
- Excommunication buffed (treasury and faith goals reduced)
- Avalanche now has an extra Stability requirement and will appear less
- What Lies Beneath has a lower requirement and will appear more
- New Apprentices has a slightly higher Stability requirement and will appear less
- Changed requirement for Terrible Accident
- Various other minor requirement tweaks
Improvements to Dynasty Games
We’ve had some great feedback about Dynasty Games and how they can feel imbalanced. The below changes, along with the revamped Claimants, will hopefully make your Dynasties even more fun.
- Reign-winning Schemes are no longer generated for that Region in the subsequent Dynasty reign.
- Nerfing winning Region stat gains on new Dynasty games.
- Foreign Mercenaries no longer increase Defiance but cost Authority.
- Dynasty chain generation rebalancing - reign-based Event locking to prevent continuity errors and increase Event variety.
Tooltips for Nobles and Schemes
Observing games showed us that Monarchs often forget what Scheme is at what stage. Not any more! With new tooltips, you can not only view your Region’s Scheme’s progress, but your Nobles themselves.
- Hover over tooltips that show the Region Schemes, progress and aims.
- Hover over tooltips that show information and avatars of your Nobles in the Noble List, Voting screens and Building screens.
30 new hats for Nobles
You asked for hats? We got hats! 30 new available hats for premium players, from ushankas for the Barons to circlets for the Counts. HATS.
Bug Fixes
1.1 has a range of bug fixes, both major and minor.
- Regions will sort Nobles into Regions equally even if players repeatedly leave and enter the game
- Spouse divorce is now reflected in the end-game screen. You can no longer rewrite the past so your ex didn’t leave you.
- Fixed a bug where bidding on buildings doubles the amount bid.
- Scheme-related Buildings weren’t showing in rare cases, which is now resolved.
- Victory Book icon is now clickable (for a long time, players were confused why clicking the big obvious arrow, which practically screamed “click me”, did absolutely nothing).
- Improved retry system for web requests.
- Swing votes no longer break vote buckets UI.
- Building information fixed in kotc.app.
- Animation updates to stop visual errors.
- Improved icon for ambitions page.
- Rebalanced destroyed building stat changes.
- Fixed an issue in Morgana's Justice where you would switch combatants mid-fight if battling another Noble.
- Fixed an issue in Your Heir where adopted cousin Heirs prevent certain dialogue from displaying.
- Fixed an issue where the Honour Guard would incorrectly be referred to as dead, even though they’d merely resigned in disgrace.
- Fixed an issue where your relationship with the Pirate Queen could be discovered by… your ex-spouse, who presumably shouldn’t care at that point.
- Fixed various typos.
Quality of life changes
As well as all this, we’re keen to keep adding to King of the Castle and bring up the quality of the game. Here are some more minor tweaks that we couldn’t fit anywhere above!
- UI change to expand the width of voting buckets in large games
- We’ve made tweaks to the Royal Gamble Law, which felt underpowered. It now adds 600 Treasury when it pays off, and only loses 200 Treasury if it fails.
- The palm trees have migrated to the South/the Coast where they belong. No more can you imagine Northerners in wolf pelts chilling beneath palm fronds.
- Credits update.
- We can’t stress this enough - Monarch’s Choice is dead. Long live Monarch’s Vote!
What’s next for KOTC?
We’re first going to keep an eye on Good To Be King. Our changes are careful but comprehensive, and we’ll track how it’s doing with your feedback and our analytics.
Speaking of which, don’t forget to join our Discord to let us know what you think of it and post any suggestions/feedback!
We’ve already started work on our next update, which will be focused on adding a raft of new content and further quality of life features. We’re aiming to tackle some big requests, so keep them coming.
Thank you all again for playing and, again, if you’re enjoying King of the Castle and want to help us out, please leave a review.
