Kings Under The Hill – Beginners Guide

We all know this feeling – not knowing what to do at the very beginning of this game. So here we go – a guide for beginners.

Basics

Hi there! You see that crowned guy? It’s your King. You have to protect that guy no matter what – and kill the King of your enemy. It’s that simple! You achieve that by sending troops to the far right side of the map – but we will talk about that part later. You have several kinds of resources, which you can spend to train and equip your soldiers. By the way – all the buildings are free, you only have to wait for them. Resources are divided into two categories – raw materials and products. Raw materials are spawning every turn (you see that white line under resources bar?) – or you can get them by capturing mines. You can refine raw materials into products by establishing “factories”. The rule is simple – one of your workers have to occupy the building to operate it. The rest is waiting. Oh, by the way – you can move camera with WASD keys.

First Screen

Let’s go! We start the game with a King’s throne, a workshop and few workers. First thing to know is that you have two kinds of citizens – builders and recruits. You can spawn the latter by building homes – and you build them by sending builders. When you’re done, the recruits will spawn at the end of the turn. Let’s give them some work.

Building Things

First you have to click a pickaxe and hammer button. You’ll see a list of available options and some numbers. The trick is that you can only build so many rooms of specific kind as indicated by that numbers. For example you can only build 15 factories – no mater what specific factory you will order to build. Please remember that you can only build things if you have a solid ground beneath them, so make sure you make some solid support for them. It could be a wall or another building. Also – remember about stairs/ladders. Your builders have to get to the proximity of a construction site to start digging a hole for further use. You have to make at least 1 ladder for them to come to the upper level (so 3 counting from the ground level) and 2 for them to descend one level.

Training Warriors

At this point you should have some glimpse on how to make things work in terms of basic economy. The real and only reason to get resources is to train you troops. Game supports three different loadouts, which you can modify and customize. Let’s start by clicking a button located on the upper-right corner of the screen. Now a window shows up, where you can choose how well trained and equipped your troops will be. Each upgrade costs some cash and/or some amount of resources, so keep that in mind. Also remember to save changes by clicking a tick button.

Game supports two kinds of troops – defenders and attackers. You can build two kinds of barracks, where you can train them. Only attackers can slay the King, while only defenders can be placed on specific places inside your colony. Let’s see how that works.

After you get your barracks done, click one of them. A menu will appear, when you can choose which kind of warriors (which loadout) you will train. As you can see, you can preview what gear each type has designated. After that you have to wait for recruits and workers to supply barracks with specified products. You can preview progress by looking at numbers shown on the wall of barracks. Remember that you need each type of citizens in the process so don’t focus on only one!

Moving Troops

Patience is a virtue, so after some time we should finally be able to make some noise. Click on the barracks you have previously filled with soldiers, and then order them to exit the building by clicking a shield and arrows button. Congratulations! You have an army now. Each barracks can supply you with one team of soldiers – they have those fancy banners with loadout icon and number. There are two ways of commanding your troops – by selecting the banner over each team or by clicking a banner icon next to building icon (bottom left corner of the screen). Once selected, each team can be placed by right-clicking a ground. Also you can send them directly to the enemy King (I encourage you to play around with available buttons).

Some Advanced Things

• So you thirst for more? There are some more things worth mentioning. First of all – your King. You can click him and choose resource you will get in an “emergency mode”. It means you will get it more on the following turns. Make sure to click resource you need the most! 

• Battlefield is filled by strange mines and buildings. You can make use of them – but remember that A) they need an operator, B) they are far from your colony. Simply put – they need to be guarded. Or you will lose a lot of workers… One of the recent patches added mines witch question mark. You should expect heavy resistance when capturing them!

• When someone if fighting and your screen is somewhere else, a skull icon will appear. It’s simple kill indicator – but it will warn you that something is happening between you and your enemy. Be prepared! 

• When you run out of materials, you can trade them by clicking a bag and coins button located on the upper-left side of the screen. Each turn provides new trade opportunities, so make haste and trade things you want before deals end.

• Lastly, you can hire mercenaries. They are well equipped and are very cheap, so hiring them makes sense.