Building a castle

Castles are built and saved before the game begins. Castles must be carefully designed to stop the Invader, or they will be quickly overrun by the Invader's superior forces.

To begin building your castle, choose New from the File menu. Choose 'Standard Castle' as the castle type. A terrain will be generated for you to use. If you don't like the generated terrain you can follow the same steps to create a new one.

Castles can be built anywhere on the terrain within the yellow outline. Buildings and towers can only be constructed on flat ground, but walls can go up and down smooth slopes. You can clear forest or marsh to make buildable space with the Clear tool (for a small cost in gold).

Build your castle by choosing castle elements from the Castle tab and clicking where you want the elements to go on the terrain. Click on the overhead map to move quickly around the terrain. Use Rotate from the Options menu to look your castle from different angles.

You start with a fixed amount of castle elements, and money to buy more. If you want to reposition a castle element you can delete it and place it down somewhere else, without losing any gold. Undo and Redo also preserve your gold supply.

Fortifications

Walls

Walls are the primary obstacles between the enemy and your buildings. Units may walk along the tops of your walls to protect them. Walls can go up and down smoothly sloped hills.

Walls come two varieties:

  • Low walls are cheap and allow access by stairs.
  • High walls are more expensive, but they are stronger and are too tall for enemy siege towers to attack. They are also too tall for stairs to reach directly.

Towers

Towers are bastions for defense and attack. They can withstand many more catapult hits before collapsing than walls can, and make surrounding walls stronger. Towers must guard all turns in walls; otherwise catapult shots quickly bring down exposed wall corners outside your castle. Towers need to have stairs leading into the castle interior.

With extra gold you can buy towers with special features:

  • Large towers are stronger against catapults than small towers and strengthen surrounding walls more.
  • Round towers make catapult shot bounce off them more easily, increasing the amount of damage they can take. Archers on top of a round tower have better lines of sight when aiming, so they fire more accurately from round towers.

Gates

Gates protect the entrance to the castle. Catapults can't bring them down, but a ram that comes close enough can smash through them. Gates connect the castle to the roads.

Arrow loops

Arrow loops protect troops on walls from enemy fire.

 

Buildings

Great Hall

The Great Hall must be protected at all costs. If it is destroyed, the castle is defeated.

Chapel

A Chapel is required in every castle. Without a chapel, no troops will come to the castle's aid during the battle.

Barracks

Castles must have at least four barracks for the Castellan's forces to live in. The more barracks you have the more likely you will be reinforced during the battle.

Stables

Castles must have at least two stables. With extra stables, more mounted troops can reinforce you.

Fletcher

The Fletcher creates arrows for the use of the Castellan's archers. If you have a fletcher in your castle, archers can reinforce you. You also have more archers at the start of the battle. More than one fletcher (or carpenter or blacksmith) will just crowd your castle.

Carpenter

The Carpenter helps outfit the pikemen and the crossbowmen. You will start will more of each if there's a carpenter in your castle, and additional pikemen and crossbowmen can arrive during the castle's defense.

Blacksmith

With both a blacksmith and a carpenter, some mounted reinforcements can be outfitted as knights.

Well

Every castle needs a well for drinking water. Wells are also crucial for putting out fires in the castle. Wells built far away from a water source cost extra gold.

Oil Cauldron

An oil cauldron placed near stairs allows units on nearby walls and towers to pour boiling oil on their enemies. The oil in a cauldron can only be used once.

Buildings packed closely together are in danger of catching fire from sparks from each other's chimneys. Fires can spread between buildings. Buildings near oil cauldrons are especially in danger of catching fire.

Castle Requirements

Historical Castles

When you build a historical castle, you have total control over the terrain around the castle, and no limits on the number of castle elements you use. Historical castles cannot be used in registered games.

To change terrain around the castle, choose a terrain type from the Terrain tab and click where you want it to go. To create a rectangular patch of terrain, use the right mouse button and drag out the area where you want the terrain to go.

Next: Playing the Game