- Added steam deck support
- Fixed case where AI couldn't pick up an envoy if player island was walled off

Hi Everyone,

We are very excited to announce the AI Kingdoms update is finally here! We've been working on this update for over a year and a half and it represents an huge amount of content. Here's a quick little trailer we whipped up:


We've not only added AI Kingdoms you can chat with, trade with, and fight but we've also improved the game in many other respects. There's so much we've added - this is going to be a long post - let's get to it!


We've added AI Kingdoms that exist on the same map and essentially play by the same rules. You can establish relationships with them, engage in trade, and of course war.

Up to 3 AIs can play on your map at once. AIs are allowed to spawn on island maps with large enough islands.



You'll use diplomats from the hall of diplomacy to interact with the AI. Train a diplomat and use a transport ships to visit AI Kingdoms.



Once there you'll be able to discuss important things, make alliances, declare war, plea for peace, request help, and more. The AIs will also send diplomats of their own to talk with you. Depending on how you respond and interact with the AI their opinion of you will change.



The AIs use an advanced system to build their towns and defenses. They plan areas for residential and agricultural zones. They follow all the normal build rules the player does, construct wooden, then stone walls, and can even use aqueducts and reservoirs.




Alongside the AI Kingdoms we've implemented a visibility system. All units (diplomats, footmen, ships, etc) provide a sight radius. When you become allies with an AI you are granted full visibility into their kingdom.




Now you can have protected harbors. Build a sea gate to block enemy ships from entering.




In case things get a bit unfriendly between you and the AIs, you both will need a way to address those pesky walls. We've added a siege workshop which can create catapults. Load them on your transport ships to siege AI Kingdoms, but watch your gold - their wages are expensive.




You can now build transport carts to transport resources between docks, granaries, butchers, fishmongers, and stockpiles. Now it's possible to solve those pesky transportation issues when you have large farming districts separated from residential zones.




We've also added a jousting arena and theater to entertain your peasants. We've also added a system where idle peasants will actually go and sit in the stands, visit gardens, taverns, and other kingdom attractions.



Over time buildings will start to degrade, you can check you building integrity in the bottom left UI. Clicking on it shows an overlay indicating which structures need repair. Build masons and they'll automatically get to work keeping your buildings safe and structurally sound.




We've added a fully featured minimap that tracks unit positions, vikings, dragons, fires, and plagues. It can be moved and re-sized as you see fit. It also has the option to rotate to match your view, or to stay fixed and only rotate the camera view display.




Very special thanks to Jorge, creator of the the Pretty Roads mod. With his help we've integrated it into the game. Now double wide roads are possible and look great!



This is now how to settle new islands. Once an island is settled and you want to get more people over there quicker, you can make settlers at your keep then load them into a transport ship. Unload them on the new island and click settle.




We've added a new much harder difficulty mode. In this mode, viking and dragon attacks are increased and resources are limited. If you can survive 250 years you'll unlock a new statue to use in any game mode thereafter.



You can now change your kingdom color and banner both before you begin during banner select and at any time during gameplay by clicking on the keep and selecting the banner button.



You can now share your save games with your friends. Upload your save to the cloud using the Kingdom share feature, then send the code to your friend. They can get a copy of your save from the cloud and play with it as they wish. Either click the share button in game up in the top right or click the share button from the main menu to try it out.

We've worked very hard to optimize the game given all the new stuff that's been added. In general, any map you had from before the update should run faster than before. Of course there's always more work to be done here and we'll be optimizing further in future updates.

• Added beefier viking infantry unit
  
• Added ability for units to auto target enemies (change it by selecting a unit)
  
• Added better range indicator for ballista and archer tower
  
• Added ability for ogres to attack units
  
• Greatly improved localization
  
• Reworked ship movement so they don't block each other as much
  
• Improved building selection effect
  
• Increased world size a bit (about 15-20% more buildable tiles)
  
• Job categories can now be limited per category in the Job Priority Menu
  
• Added way to rate limit shipping routes
  
• Towers can be built higher without first removing the defenses on top
  
• Wood walls can be replaced with stone walls without demolishing them first
  
• Reduced costs of witch spells
  
• Double clicking a unit will select all units of that type in the camera view filtered by team
  
• Added a little visual effect on tile actions (chop, chop remove, demolish, rebuild)
  
• Added happiness buffs for defeating enemy troops, and debuffs for combat deaths
  
• Improved blacksmith resource gathering
  
• Added way to remove witch with army (for a cost)
  
• Great halls can be used to throw a public feast
  
• Added grid that appears in build mode
  
• Added options for choosing whether maps generate with rivers
  
• Much better support for ultrawide resolutions
  
• Revamp UI visuals to be more clear and easier to read

• Fixed issue where workers could loop resources between granary, dock, and produce storage
  
• Fixed game speed getting reset on entering certain UIs
  
• Fixed crash on start if you had Citrix Workspace installed
  
• Fixed hazard pay not being reflected in gold info
  
• Fixed rare issue where using the creative mode delete brush could cause a hang
  
• Fixed some resource counting issues in the UI
  
• Tons of other small fixes

Whew! Thank you so much for your patience and we hope you really enjoy this update! We'll be working next to fix any bugs or issue you run into, VR support, Steam Deck support, and to further improve the game.

Until next time,
-Pete, Michael, Sam

Hi Everyone,

Quick but exciting announcement today. We're doing some final bug fixing on the AI Kingdoms update and it will be released on May 23rd! Thanks so much to everyone who has provided feedback and bug reports as we've worked on this behemoth update.

Here's a little teaser trailer:

Of course, you can always try it out early if you just can't wait any longer by switching to the next-version-preview branch on steam.

We're so excited to finally have a release date! Thanks so much for your patience.
-Pete, Michael, & Sam

Hi Everyone!

We are very excited to announce the AI Kingdoms update is now in open beta! The update isn't done yet, but it's a big step forward towards final release. We've been previewing the new features in previous posts and we'll do a bigger post with lots of images for final release, but here's a quick list of the big features to look for in the beta:

• AI Kingdoms you can add when starting a new game
  
• Talk, trade, or fight with these AI kingdoms
  
• Hall of Diplomacy where you can make diplomats used to interact with the AI Kingdoms
  
• Fog of war system
  
• Siege Workshop which builds Catapults
  
• New harder 'Survive 250' game mode
  
• Theater and Jousting Arena
  
• Transport carts
  
• Minimap
  
• Ability to set maximum workers per job category
  
• Lots of other various improvements

Because this is beta there will still be bugs and things to improve and fix. Please send your feedback and bug reports to contact@lionshieldstudios.com, chat with us directly in our discord, or post here in the forums.

You can try it now out by switching to the beta branch. Here's how:

• Right click on the game in the steam library
  
• Click properties, then choose betas
  
• Choose the next-version-preview branch

No code is necessary, your game should automatically update once you switch. Everyone who has been playing on the alpha branch will be kept up to date as well.

Until next time,
-Pete, Michael, & Sam

As the year ends, I thought it'd be fun to take a look back at where we started five years ago. In 2016 Kingdoms and Castles was a little game Michael and I were working on in our spare time (nights and weekends). Back then the game looked like this:



Things were quite rough! As you can see I had no idea how to pick a pleasing color palette and was just learning to made 3D models.

Then came our launch in 2017 and the many updates since. Now we're approaching the beta phase of our biggest update ever. The game has come a long way and there's lots of new mechanics we've added for the upcoming AI Kingdoms update. We've also taken time to improve the visuals. First, here's a city from the current version (117r7):



And here's what the same city it will look like in AI Kingdoms update (we've adjusted the fog, colors, shadows, and lighting):



It's been four years since we launched on Steam and working on the game really has been a labor of love for us. We're so grateful people are still playing and enjoying the game.

This year the AI Kingdoms update has been in alpha and we've been incorporating as much of your feedback as we can (and fixing as many bugs as we can) - thanks so much for that feedback and for your patience.

The update will enter it's beta phase soon, expect another announcement around that sometime in December!

We're very excited to be so close to beta (and then final release) of the AI Kingdoms update. Thanks everyone for all your support over the years. There's lots of deserving games out there (and you've probably decided already), but please consider us when nominating for the Labor of Love award!

-Pete, Michael, and Sam

Hi Everyone,

We are still hard at work on the AI Kingdoms update. We are getting closer and closer to our public beta phase. Huge thanks to everyone playing the alpha and providing feedback and bug reports - it's been very helpful! We wanted to show some of the latest progress.

The city building AI has undergone more improvements and now can build large, sensible cities with better organization and an inner and outer wall. It also can make composed city blocks: you'll notice the well surrounded by parks in the screenshot below. Of course, still lots of issue to work out but it has come a long way. We wanted also to take this opportunity to introduce Sam Cook who joined the team and has been working hard on these improvements.




We've been fleshing out the AI personalities and adding more 3D portraits for the AIs. In the latest alpha build if an AI has an aggressive personality it's more likely to get angry with you and also periodically demands gold as tribute. We'll be adding more diplomatic interactions in the future. Here's the next couple of AIs you'll meet:



On the path toward beta for this update we'll be focusing next on improving the AI's ability to mount invasions and defend against you. We still don't have an exact date for the final release of this update but we're working as hard as we can. If you'd like to try the current alpha version, here's how:

• Right click on the game in the steam library
  
• Click properties, then choose betas
  
• Enter 'alphatester123' without quotes into the box, press enter
  
• Choose the newly available alpha-unstable branch

Until next time,
-Pete, Michael, and Sam

Hi Everyone,

Before we get into the latest news I wanted to mention that we're far enough along that we have opened a public alpha branch. What does this mean?

The update is in 'alpha' and you can play it now (if you dare) and see everything we've been showing in these development update posts, but it'll be rough, a bit buggy, and unfinished. If you want a smoother and more stable experience, you'll want wait for beta or for the update's final release.

Here's how to access the latest alpha version:

• Right click on the game in the steam library
  
• Click properties, then choose betas
  
• Enter 'alphatester123' without quotes into the box, press enter
  
• Choose the newly available alpha-unstable branch

Please send all your bug reports to our email contact@lionshieldstudios.com or post them on our discord. We'll get them addressed as fast as we can. We'll be uploading new alpha builds as we fix and add things.

Now, on to more stuff we'll be still adding!

Since now you'll have the option of playing with other AI kingdoms, we've implemented a system to select a color for your kingdom. This can be changed at any time from your keep (even on old saves) and the original color palette is still available.


We're adding a minimap! It's a nice way to keep track of military units and ships, dragons, envoys, and more. The minimap you'll see in the alpha is a little different from this one but we'll be adding this newer rotating version soon as it helps with navigation.



Until next time,
-Pete & Michael

Hi Everyone,

Got some more news on the AI Kingdoms progress! Again huge thanks for your patience as we work on this big update. We know it's super hard to wait and we are also anxious to get it out there as fast as we can!

You'll be able to talk to the rulers of the AI Kingdoms, having conversations, making requests, forging alliances, and establishing trade relations. Here's a little preview of meeting an AI ruler for the first time and making them grumpy.


We'll also be adding a much requested feature: transport carts! They can transport resources over land from stockpiles, granaries, produce storages, butchers, and more. This should give you a way to make more types of city layouts viable. For example, cities with huge farming areas far from housing can now get the food into the housing districts much faster with transport carts.


You can set up their routes using draggable waypoints. As you add and drag them onto a storage building they will auto populate an entry in the cart UI where you can set desired resource amounts to pick up and drop off. It should be pretty quick and intuitive - it will use the same new system we've been implementing for the cargo ships.


Until next time,
-Pete & Michael

Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to update you all on how the AI Kingdoms work is progressing. We really appreciate everyone's patience while waiting for this update. We're quite a small team and this is the biggest update we have ever released - it's turning into a bit of an expansion pack at this point!

Here's another look at some of what will be coming:

If you choose the path of war with the other kingdoms on your map you'll need some way to get through their walls. We'll be adding a siege workshop which can build catapults.



Catapults can be ordered around and loaded on to ships like any other military unit. They are very effective at attacking walls and buildings. The AI kingdom I'm invading here perhaps should have upgraded their walls to stone...



There's also a new happiness building on the way, the theater! Let your peasants enjoy a fine show, and if you are able to provide the theater with food they'll be extra delighted. The seats are populated with idle peasants.



More to come in the future!

Until next time,
- Pete & Michael

Hi everyone,

We wanted to share some more progress on AI Kingdoms update. There's still much to do but things are starting to come together and each day it gets more exciting. Here's what we've been working on lately:

City Building AI

The city building AI has come a long way - the city on the cover image for this update was built by the AI! It can reach the 1000 peasant mark in about 100-130 years with a happiness of about 75-80. This is a major milestone for the AI. It handles building all the things peasants need including bathhouses connected to aqueducts and noria. The AI also builds defensive walls and spins up archer towers quickly to protect against early attacks. Here's a timelapse of the AI growing its city:

Sea Gates

The AI Kingdoms update will also include new buildings, including the Sea Gate. You can use this to allow your ships and friendly ships to pass freely while blocking hostile ships from entering:



Until next time,
- Pete & Michael