Kingdoms and Castles: Complete Guide

This guide takes you from your first keep to a large, safe, happy kingdom: food, happiness, taxes, castle building, and dealing with vikings, dragons, ogres, fire, and plague. It also covers AI kingdoms and the Dragon Taming update.

Researched September 2026 — current as of the Dragon Taming update (hotpatch 123r6, May 2025), with the Larger Maps update in public beta since April 2026. Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

• Put your Keep near everything. Before you place it, look for a spot with forest, stone, iron, and flat fertile land close by. Your first 20 years all happen within walking distance of the Keep.
• Food before anything else. Winter is where kingdoms die. Get farms working in the first year and keep a stockpile of food big enough to last through the cold.
• Houses bring peasants, and peasants are your workforce. Every job building needs workers. If buildings sit empty, you need more housing (or you have too many jobs open).
• Happiness is mostly about distance. Peasants want food, a church, a tavern, and similar buildings within reach of their homes. Build compact districts with services inside the radius of every house.
• Taxes pay for the castle. Raise tax only when happiness has room. If happiness drops, people leave and your workforce shrinks.
• Start defenses before the first viking raid. A couple of archer towers next to the Keep and your stockpiles will handle the early raids. Walls come after.
• Height is range. Archer towers and ballistas on taller stacks of castle blocks shoot further. Tall towers around the core of the town beat a thin wall around everything.
• Plan against fire. Fires spread between wooden buildings. Leave gaps, build wells, and later add a Fire House.
• Bury your dead. Since the Cemeteries, Witches, and Wolves update (Oct 2018), dead peasants must be carried to a Cemetery, and plague spreads outward from where it starts. Build a Cemetery and a grave keeper's hut (three grave keepers) early in the midgame.
• Pause and plan often. There's no penalty for pausing to lay out roads and districts. Good layouts save you from rebuilding later.

How a Year Works

The game runs in years with a season cycle from summer to winter. The core loop every year:

Season | What happens | Your focus

Spring/Summer | Crops grow, construction is fast | Expand housing, place new job buildings, build defenses

Autumn | Harvests come in | Check food stock against population

Winter | Farms produce nothing, peasants eat stored food | Make sure no one starves; plan next year's layout

Raids and disasters can happen at any time, so defense is a year-round job.

Resources and Production Chains

Resource | Where it comes from | Used for

Wood | Woodcutters in forests | Almost every early building, roads, fuel for charcoal

Stone | Quarry | Castle blocks, stone roads, stone walls, advanced buildings

Iron | Iron Mine (small and large versions) | Tools and weapons for the military and advanced buildings

Charcoal | Charcoal Maker (small and large versions), which burns wood | Needed by metal-working chains

Food: grain/wheat | Farms; turned into bread at a Bakery | Main staple food

Food: apples/fruit | Orchards | Food variety

Food: fish | Fishing Hut (boats go out to fishing grounds) | Food, plus a health benefit

Food: pork | Swineherd and Butcher | Food; also used to feed tamed dragons

Gold | Taxes from housing; trade | Nearly everything later on, including the military

Storage matters. Stockpiles hold building resources, the Granary holds grain, Produce Storage holds fruit (added in the Fish & Pigs update; a large version came with Infrastructure & Industry), and Treasure Rooms hold your gold. If storage is full, workers stop hauling and production stalls.

Forests regrow. Trees grow over time, so you can manage a forest instead of clear-cutting it. Keep your woodcutters in a forest large enough to sustain them.

Fishing grounds deplete. Fish grounds recover, but heavy over-fishing drains them, and storms can interrupt fishing. Spread fishing huts across several grounds rather than stacking them on one.

Housing, Happiness, and Taxes

Housing

Houses produce population. Bigger housing (manor-style upgrades) holds more people but also asks more of its surroundings. Keep housing close to jobs so peasants don't waste the day walking.

Happiness

Peasants judge their homes by what's nearby. The key happiness sources:

Building | What it does

Church | Core happiness requirement for housing in its area

Tavern | Entertainment for nearby homes

Well / Fountain | Water access; fountains give the benefits of a well over a larger radius

Garden | Happiness in a radius

Statues | Decorative happiness buildings

Town Square | Lets you throw festivals

Bath House | Large-radius happiness; needs an aqueduct connection

Cathedral | Very expensive; happiness in a large radius

Great Library | Research building that also helps happiness

Theater | Entertainment building for nearby homes

Jousting Arena | Late-game entertainment; holds jousting matches when supplied with food and armaments

Click a house to see exactly what it's missing. The fastest way to fix a grumpy district is usually a church or tavern placed in the middle of the block rather than on the edge.

Taxes

Taxes come from your housing and are the main source of gold. The rule of thumb:

• Low happiness plus high tax means people leave.
• High happiness gives you headroom to raise taxes.
• When you need a burst of gold (a big castle project, a military push), raise taxes temporarily, then lower them again before happiness collapses.

Layout: Build in Blocks

Community players have converged on grid "blocks" of housing wrapped in roads with service buildings inside. Popular Steam guides use 6x6 and 9x9 layouts. The principles:

• Road loop around a block of houses. Every house touches a road.
• Service buildings inside the block, so their radius covers every home in it.
• Farms and industry outside the housing blocks, but not far away.
• Leave firebreaks. A road or a stone feature between blocks slows a fire.
• Stone roads later. Upgrading main roads to stone speeds up walking.

A tidy block design copied across the map is much easier to manage than organic sprawl.

Castle Building and Defense

How the castle system works

Castles are built from blocks placed anywhere. Towers and walls form automatically based on how you stack them. You put defensive weapons (archers and ballistas) on top of towers, and the higher the tower, the longer the range.

Early defense (first raids)

• Two or three archer towers near the Keep and your stockpiles.
• Your Keep is the heart of the kingdom. Protect it and the Treasure Room first.
• Wooden walls are cheap but weak. Use them to funnel attackers into tower range.

Mid-game defense

• Stone walls and gates around the core of the town.
• Taller towers in a ring so their ranges overlap.
• Moats slow attackers down while towers shoot them.
• A Sea Gate lets your ships and friendly ships through but blocks hostile ships, which is great for harbor towns.
• Build a Fire House for professional firefighters so vikings' torches don't burn the town down.

Threats you'll face

Threat | What it does | Counter

Vikings | Land from ships, burn buildings, kidnap and kill peasants, steal resources | Towers near likely landing beaches, walls, soldiers

Viking thieves | Move faster and go for your Treasure Rooms to steal gold instead of burning | Protect Treasure Rooms inside walls and tower cover

Dragons | Fly in and set things on fire | Ballistas and archers on tall towers; firefighting; later, tamed dragons of your own

Ogres | Strong melee attackers that smash buildings | Enough ranged damage and soldiers to kill them before they reach housing

Wolves | Wilderness threat | Keep peasants' work areas defended

Fire | Spreads between buildings | Wells, gaps between blocks, Fire House

Plague | Can start from bodies left on the ground | Cemetery and grave keepers; clean up after raids

Your military

The Warfare update added controllable units:

• Barracks trains footmen as a single squad unit.
• Archer School trains archers.
• Siege Workshop builds Catapults, which are very good at hitting walls and buildings.
• Chamber of War can activate a "Hazard Pay" bonus that doubles all unit damage in exchange for higher wages.
• The Barracks squad is a full 16-footman unit on one tile (Warfare update, June 2019).
• Units have a General. Drag-select to command groups.

Use soldiers to intercept raiders at the beach instead of letting them walk into town.

AI Kingdoms, Trade, and Diplomacy

The AI Kingdoms update (May 2022) added rival kingdoms on the same map.

• Diplomats are how you talk to AI kingdoms. You can trade, form alliances, go to war, demand or pay tribute, and hold conversations.
• The War and Diplomacy additions let a neutral AI or your ally try to broker peace if a war drags on.
• AIs react if you ignore or dismiss their diplomats, so answer them.
• Fog of war: you see your own landmasses fully; AI land is hidden until explored.
• Merchant ships sell your resources to AI kingdoms. Transport carts move resources over land, and transport ships move them across water.
• Outposts let you start new settlements on other islands.

Tips for AI games:

• Keep one AI friendly early so you aren't fighting on two fronts.
• Build a Sea Gate and harbor towers before you start a war; enemy fleets land troops.
• Catapults are your answer to enemy walls.

Dragon Taming (May 2025 update)

This is the biggest recent update. The full chain:

• Research Dragon Husbandry at the Great Library. This unlocks the dragon buildings.
• Build a Dragon Nest. It houses two dragons and one offspring. Put piles of gold in it; the next time dragons visit, one may decide to settle there.
• Feed them. Nest workers collect pork and fish to feed your dragons, so you need a swineherd/butcher chain and fishing going before you tame.
• Dragon Bath. Dragons need to get clean in their own private pool so they don't cause accidents in the peasants' bath house. It needs an aqueduct connection. Connecting the nest to an aqueduct also improves conditions there.
• Dragon Flight Training. An obstacle course dragons fly through when they get bored.
• Dragon Doctor. Dragon health slowly drops over time; dragons visit the doctor for checkups.

The nest panel shows all your dragons' needs. A well-cared-for dragon defends your kingdom against vikings. Hotpatch 123r5 increased dragon damage against NPC kingdoms, and 123r6 fixed a bad state after evicting a dragon that wasn't at a building.

Order of operations: get pork and fish production stable, build the aqueduct, research Dragon Husbandry, then build the nest, bath, training course, and doctor in one area.

Game Modes and Settings

• Standard mode: the normal game.
• Creative Mode: edit the map before you play and change settings or spawn things during the game.
• Survive 250: a harder survival mode.
• Map options: island-biased or land-biased maps and several map sizes. An Extra Large size is in the next-version-preview beta branch as of April 2026 (right-click the game in Steam, Properties, Game Versions and Betas).
• Steam Deck: Verified since December 2023, with full gamepad controls.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Building houses far from services. Unhappiness from missing churches and taverns is the most common growth stall.
• Running out of food in the first winter. Count mouths, then count food, before autumn ends.
• Letting storage fill up. Full stockpiles quietly stop production.
• Dense wooden sprawl. One viking torch or dragon can burn half the town.
• Short towers. Towers on one or two blocks barely reach anything. Stack them up.
• Leaving bodies after a raid. That's how plagues start.
• Over-taxing when happiness is already marginal.
• Taming dragons before you can feed them. No pork and fish means unhappy dragons.

Advanced Tips

• Tower placement beats wall length. A few tall towers with overlapping range over the core do more than a long, thin wall.
• Guard landing beaches. Vikings come from the sea. Towers covering your coastline near the town stop raids before they reach houses.
• Upgrade key industry to large versions. The Infrastructure & Industry update added large iron mines, charcoal makers, treasure rooms, and produce storage. They save space and walking.
• Use job priorities and max workers per category. When a critical chain stalls (food in autumn, stone for walls), reprioritize instead of building more.
• Fish for health. Fish in the diet improves peasants' health, so a fishing district is worth it.
• Outposts for rich islands. If the best iron or stone is on another island, start an outpost and ship it home.
• Save before big wars. AI wars can turn fast once enemy catapults start working on your walls.

FAQ

How do I stop vikings from burning my town? Tall archer towers with overlapping range near the coast and around the Keep, stone walls to slow them, a Fire House for fires, and soldiers from the Barracks to meet landings.

Why are my peasants leaving? Usually happiness: check houses for missing church, tavern, water, or food, and check your tax rate. Starvation in winter also kills people.

How do I tame a dragon? Research Dragon Husbandry in the Great Library, build a Dragon Nest, put gold in it, and wait for dragons to visit. Keep them fed (pork and fish), clean (Dragon Bath with aqueduct), exercised (Dragon Flight Training), and healthy (Dragon Doctor).

How do I stop plague? Don't leave bodies on the ground. Build a Cemetery and grave keepers to clear them.

Is there multiplayer? There's no human multiplayer, but the AI Kingdoms update added AI rivals you can trade with, ally with, or fight.

How do I try the Extra Large maps? Switch to the next-version-preview beta branch in Steam. The beta is a debug build, so full performance gains arrive with the final release.

Does it work on Steam Deck? Yes, it's been Steam Deck Verified since update 122r1 (December 2023).

Sources

• Kingdoms and Castles on Steam
• Steam News: Dragon Taming Update, hotpatches, and Larger Maps beta (Steam News API)
• Steam News hub for Kingdoms and Castles
• Kingdoms and Castles on Wikipedia
• Kingdoms and Castles Steam community guides (layouts, ogres, dragons)