The Kingdom Maker team has been keeping busy since our last major update: today we’re presenting the biggest round of changes yet, in a release we are calling the “Combat Advantage Update”!
The main goal of the Combat Advantage Update is to elevate Kingdom Maker’s battles with strategic options that truly reward those who master them. It’s not just your troops either, this is a MASSIVE update that affects Nobles, Champions, equipment, Banners, NPC camps, how resources are spent, and more.
Most of these changes interact with new combat systems to empower the skilled player to make more strategic choices when facing their enemies.
Let’s get into it!
Combat Advantage
The headline feature that’s lending its name to the entire release is the all-new Combat Advantage system. The goals of this system are:
Make every unit unlock more meaningful by making every unit the best tool to counter another.
Enable more interesting combinations of Troops, Nobles, Champions and equipment,
Add new layers of strategy to combat, allowing optimization for specific NPC targets. Meanwhile, in PvP, the right combination of abilities could even allow players to punch up a Tier!
Troops fall into two broad categories; “Tanks” and “DPS”. And within each category there are three classes (Heavy, Medium and Light for Tanks, Arrow, Bolt and Boulder for DPS). These troop types and weight classes have ‘advantage’ over others in a kind of rock-paper-scissors system.
Here’s how it works:
Heavy Tanks (Cavalry) do bonus damage against Medium Tanks (Swordsmen), who do bonus damage against Light Tanks (Axemen), who complete the circle by doing bonus damage against the Heavy Tanks.
The DPS units are all Ranged, and each DPS unit deals additional damage to one of the weight classes of Tanks.
The damage bonus each Troop scales with tiers, and becomes very significant at T3 and T4, with Boulder DPS (Catapult) doing significantly more damage to Heavy Tanks (Cavalry) than the damage value you see in the Catapult stats would suggest.
 | Keep an eye out for the new “Advantage” button. When inspecting an NPC target you can quickly see the type and class of units it contains, and if your army has any advantages or disadvantages against it. When training new units, inspecting a Troop will reveal which weight class of troop it is and where it sits in the Combat Advantage system. Some troops fall outside of this system and have their own special uses. The Trebuchet has bonus damage vs walls, and the Ram… well more on the Ram later! The other main component to the Combat Advantage system is Elemental combat. |
Elemental combat
The new Elemental system gives bonus damage when troops with specific Elements face other Elements on the battlefield to create more strategic choices when tackling a variety of NPC targets, and to better focus the strategic benefits of equipment, banners, and Champions. We’ve also changed a number of Banners to make them useful in the new system.
Weapon choices are important. The Weapon or Ammo Battalion Equipment assigned to a Battalion decides which Element that Battalion becomes, and thus, how they fit into the Elemental combat system. A Battalion of Swordsmen equipped with a Fire element Sword is now “Fire Swordsmen”. Frost arrows assigned to Archers will make them Frost Archers. Your new Frost Archers can deal bonus damage against any Fire units.
fig1
: Frost troops deal bonus damage against Fire, and Fire troops deal bonus damage against Physical.
Fig2 *which only fully illustrates fire :
Elements also do reduced damage when the target is wearing armor that matches their weapon (Fire armor reduces incoming Fire damage).
Note that Armor does not change a unit’s Elemental type!
Armor simply reduces incoming damage from that element.
Icons on NPC camps will inform you of the Elemental weapons and armor they have, and red or green arrows on your armies and your Battalions will give you at-a-glance information on if that army is going to inflict bonus damage or take bonus damage from the target if they were to engage them.
A new “Quick Fill” button on Armies will let you swap out all of the Battalion equipment (or fill in gaps) with whichever element of weapons and armor you choose to make it fast and easy to adapt your army to a specific NPC target.
New Factions and NPC Improvements
All NPC targets have been updated to interact with the Combat Advantage and the Elemental system to create interesting interplay between these new combat systems and the updates to Battalion Equipment, Banners, Champions, and Noble Equipment:
The realm has been invaded by the Cinderbone, a ferocious new Orc faction that uses the Fire in Elemental combat.
The mysterious and vicious Frostraiders have also entered the field, a new Human faction wielding Frost in Elemental combat.
New artwork for all NPC camps, armies, forts and cities.
A whole new set of Troops for the Orcs.
Updates to how loot is distributed from NPC camps..
And, finally, the North is opening up, with new NPC camps, Cities, Dungeons (with new art and updated loot), and Mines!
We have also added some very challenging (but equally rewarding) NPC targets to the map for those of you who want to test their mettle–or work together with allies to take them down.
The difference between NPC Armies, Camps, Forts and Capitals is more distinct now, with each being more challenging than the last and each one holding different types of loot. Even within each group, and within each Faction, there are different layouts and troops guarding them that will be easier or harder depending on your army composition and Element choices.
The Map
The arrival of the Cinderbone Orcs and Frostraiders has caused chaos in the Realm. The Desert to the west has been abandoned, void of any Camps, Cities, Dungeons or Mines. With new Cinderbone camps in the scorched earth in the northwest, and new Frostraider camps to the east, the map now has three additional Mercury III mines, three additional Steel III mines, and two additional Sapphire III mines. Even with the emptying of 27 Desert Counties, this adds 32 additional mid to high level counties .
The total number of Counties levels 21+ that contain NPCs and Dungeons has increased by over 30%.
There has been no change to any other Mines, the same quantity and levels that were in the Western Desert are now in the Eastern Frozenlands.
The below map shows the type and level of the new and relocated mines. What beings will reveal themselves from the shifting Desert sands? Time will tell.
Improved Champions, Banners and Equipment
Improved the abilities for the majority of existing champions, especially Rare Champions.
Adding additional abilities to higher Tier champions.
New (and additional) stats on Banners and equipment to build on the Elemental system.
Adding three new Champions “Gorza”, “Zeke” and “Alkaz the Red”.
Troop Training: Resource Costs
Troops will no longer cost refined metals to train . Those materials are now used for building upgrades. You will no longer have to choose between improving your city, training more troops, or crafting Battalion Equipment (all of which used Metals).
For Machines, Wood is no longer used in their training or healing.
We have also removed Silver from troop training. Leaving only Population, Food and a new training-only currency: “Honors”.
-
Tier 2, 3 and 4 Troops now use Service Honors, Veteran Honors, and Royal Honors for training. Honors are
not
refined, they are earned (and can be farmed) by:
Participating in combat-themed events
Completing your daily goals
And defeating NPC Armies
Food costs for T2, T3 and T4 troop training are leveled out, to reduce the large steps up in Food cost as you progress through the tiers. Importantly, this arrives with an aggressive increase in the quantity of Food you can earn each day, effectively reducing training as a percentage of your Food income by Tier 4.
The food costs to heal full armies has been reduced.
Troop Unlocks
We have adjusted the levels that T2, T3 and T4 troops unlock to improve the pacing of progress through the tiers. This also has them unlock in an order that makes more sense with the Combat Advantage system, where Swords have a bonus against Axe, Axe against Cavalry and Cavalry against Sword. You will be able to train the counter to the troops the player one level ahead of you has just unlocked.
Tier 2:
- Archers and Swordsmen now unlock at Keep 11.
- Axemen at Keep 12.
- Crossbow and Cavalry at Keep 13
Tier 3:
- Archers and Swordsmen now unlock at Keep 21
- Axemen at Keep 22
- Crossbow and Cavalry at Keep 23
Tier 4:
- Archers and Swordsmen now unlock at Keep 31
- Axemen at Keep 32
- Crossbow and Cavalry at Keep 33
Ballistas & Lancers
Ballistas and Lancers already had a lot of overlap with Catapults and Cavalry. As part of the Combat Advantage Update, Catapults and Cavalry have been given more power (and Cavalry more speed), so there’s no longer a need for Ballistas and Lancers. On the day of the Update the following will happen automatically:
All staged armies and mines will be recalled.
All Ballistas and Lancers in training will be canceled, and fully refunded (see below for details on what this means).
All Ballistas and Lancers in armies, reserves, and garrisons will be removed and fully refunded. It does not matter if they are healed or injured, the refund amount is the same.
All Battalion Equipment and Banners related to these two troops will be removed and fully refunded.
Rams are becoming Rockbreakers
One of the least trained units, Rams were not getting much love. To give this class of machines new utility, Rams have been changed into “Rockbreakers”. The Rockbreakers are the first specialized Mining unit:
Rockbreakers can carry more ore than any other unit.
They have new Battalion Equipment that makes ALL battalions in the same Army mine faster (even the non-Rockbreakers, and it stacks!)
A non-obvious advantage they have as miners is that they’re inexpensive to train and repair relative to the next best mining troop (Cavalry), which makes recovery from being attacked at a Mine significantly less punishing on the miner.
As part of the change from Rams to Rockbreakers, the following will happen automatically on the day of the update:
Any Ram you have in training, armies, or reserves, will be replaced with a Rockbreaker of the same tier, it will continue training, and will remain in your armies.
In addition, as you may decide that you don’t want Rockbreakers at all, we are refunding 100% of the resources and time spent making Rams . All the Food, Wood, Silver, and refined materials, in addition to training speedups.
In further addition, Honors will be granted for each Ram in inventory. These can be used to create more Rockbreakers or can be used to train any other Troop in the same Tier.
All Ram Battalion Equipment will be replaced with Rockbreaker Battalion Equipment that directly benefits mining.
A player who had Rams, will therefore have the same number and Tier of Rockbreakers, PLUS all the resources and speedups for those Rams returned, PLUS the Honors equal to the Tier and quantity of the Rams that can be used to train more troops of any type.
Backup a bit, the Lancers and Ballistas, what does “Fully Refunded” actually mean?
You’ll be given 100% of the resources that were used to train the affected troops, calculated using their base cost . This means that if they were trained at a reduced cost, you will get back more than they spent to train these troops in the first place.
You will receive training speedups that cover 100% of the training time used to acquire affected units. This refund is also calculated from the base training time, so you are likely to receive more speedups than the time training these units originally took.
The Honors needed to replace every refunded Lancer with a Cavalry and every refunded Ballista with a Catapult of the same Tier will also be provided. Naturally, these Honors can also be spent on any other troop or machine you like for that Tier of Honor.
Super Important: As training no longer costs Silver, Wood, or Metals, all of those refunded resources are now left over, in your inventory, as Protected resources. Spend them on whatever you like, as they are not used in troop training any more!
The goal of the refund is to provide everything needed to get Kingdoms back in fighting form as quickly as possible. We’re offering a refund, instead of simply replacing the removed troops with Cavalry and Catapults, to give players choices in terms of how to spend the refunded resources. This also leaves affected players with excess Food, Wood, and Metals to spend on more Troops, Heals, or Upgrading their City or Banners (which use Metals)
Unfortunately, Population cannot be refunded, so that’ll be the one thing slowing down your Troop replacement, though it should not take long and we have a solution below (bubbles) to keep you safe while you do so.
Combat AI Changes
The Catapult no longer targets walls. We frequently observed that Catapults would start attacking walls, and then fail to engage with enemy troops. Catapults will still attack Gates, and they can still fire over walls to hit Troops on the other side (typically more desirable than hitting the wall between them). If taking down walls is the goal, then Trebuchets are the answer.
For all units besides the Catapult, the only change to targeting is that they will have a preference for attacking a target they have a Combat Advantage against. Note that this isn’t a dramatic change in behavior. For example, they won’t disengage from units they’re in battle with, or travel far out of their way to attack a vulnerable target. Overall, this aspect of combat should feel about the same.
Power
Most players will see their Power (and alliance Power) decrease when their Lancers and Ballistas are refunded. But with the Honors and resources awarded by the refund, players should be able to rebound in Power quickly as they replace the refunded troops with new units. Power is recalculated as people play, so the leaderboards will be in flux for a while. Excess refunded materials spent on anything else may take you to new power heights.
Bubbles
As armies and defenses will temporarily have missing troops while you train replacements, we’re going to grant every player a Peace Shield that blocks PvP attacks for 7 days. This should give everyone plenty of time to prepare their Armies and defenses, practice the new Combat Advantage and Elemental system against NPC targets, and discuss the update with Alliance mates.
Taking aggressive action against another player (PvP), or conquering a Capital or Resource city, will pop the Bubble early. Before any action takes place that will result in a bubble popping, you’ll be given a warning that you’ll have to confirm first.
If you are below Keep level 10 this does not overwrite your existing Bubble that prevents PvP and can not be popped as you can not engage in PvP yourselves until Keep level 11.
Those players on Capital or Resource Cities will not be moved. Relocating OFF of a Capital City will
not
pop your bubble. Relocating ONTO a Capital or Resource parcel will! The Capitals or Resource Cities you occupy when the update process starts will be yours for the duration of your bubble.
New Tier 3 Noble Roles and Increased Level Cap
We’ve added three new Tier 3 Combat Roles for your Nobles: Justicar, Sentinel, and Vanquisher.
The level cap has been raised to 120, and Nobles in Tier 3 roles range from level 81 to 120.
Tier 3 Roles continue to improve on the bonuses from their Tier 2 equivalents.
New and Improved Talents.
Promoting from a Tier 2 to a Tier 3 role adds an additional Trait slot and provides additional rerolls (the quantity of rerolls will be based on Noble quality).
Babies can be assigned directly into a Tier 3 role for a ‘Specialized Training’ fee, bypassing 80 levels. It’s a fast way to get a Role you need, but please keep in mind that this sacrifices two opportunities to gain additional Traits and rerolls.
It will be possible to have up to 8 nobles in the same Tier 3 Role in your Family (and marrying-in can still go over this cap).
The 7th Battalion slot and second Banner slot in an Army have been moved to a higher tier. This spreads out the progression in armies to reduce the larger steps-up in power that also occur when you move from T3 to T4 troops, making combat between players only one or two levels apart not so one-sided.
Regarding that last point: T2 Nobles below level 80 will be upgraded to level 80 automatically so the extra banner slot is not lost. And T1 nobles below level 40 are going to be upgraded to level 40 automatically to avoid losing the extra battalion slot. We do not want existing players using combat nobles to command armies to take a step backwards in the capacity of those armies.
Also for your nobles
Nobles will now gain XP for mining.
We’ve shifted some Noble XP from PvE combat to Dungeons and Trading to even it out.
Through additional research, your total family size can be increased to 20!
Simplified Resource Spending
The economy that is being introduced with the Combat Advantage Update greatly reduces the competition for resources from different areas to help players make steady progress in all areas of Kingdom Maker in parallel. How to get each resource should be easier to understand and find. We are also updating all of our Events and packs to reflect these changes.
The biggest and most immediate change you will notice is the removal of Refined materials from Troop Training and the overlap of Gems and Minerals from Research.
The below chart is designed to help you quickly get up to speed with the new Economy. You can see what resources things cost, and where to find those resources.
A note on Rare Materials
Rare Metals are used for some Banners, Rare Gems are used for some Noble Equipment, and Rare Minerals are used for some Battalion Equipment. As Rare Materials are now more central, we’ve increased the flow of them into the economy, mainly through the Events you will play. Rare Material drops from the refinery have been increased to account for this change.
Buildings
Stone cost has increased slightly as there was an abundance of Stone at some levels.
Some building upgrade times have been increased to make them better match other buildings at their level.
Levels 14 to 20 have seen an increase in Metal costs*.
Levels 21 to 30 have seen a reduction in Metal cost*.
Levels 30 to 31 have seen a reduction in Uncommon Metal costs*.
Levels 31 to 40 have seen an increase in Common Metal costs*.
* This is the total cost of all upgrades at a given Keep level. Some buildings that had no Metal cost may have a Metal cost now,
but upgrading all buildings at a given Keep level costs less Metal in total
. This Metal is the same Metal you are not spending when troop training. The combination of reduced metal costs in building with the metal saved from Training should help players make more steady progress through the later levels.
Research
Going from zero to 100% complete:
No longer requires Gems (as with removing Metals from training, we wanted to remove the competition for Gems that existed between Research and Noble Eole progression.
Costs more in Minerals (to compensate for no longer using Gems)
No longer requires Silver (as with training, freeing up more for trade)
Takes less time to complete
Costs more Wood (which is no longer used for training or repairing siege)
We’ve also adjusted the Suspiciously Good PvP to require Sulfur instead of Mercury, reducing the Keep level required to start earning towards unlocking it *
As mentioned earlier, unit unlocks have been moved closer together so everyone can unlock all sides of the new combat system quicker. Regular units at Keeps 11-13, Veteran units at Keeps 21-23 and Royal Units at Keeps 31-33
* If you were saving Mercury for the Sus PvP research, and manage to get enough in the 8 weeks following the update, please contact support and they will grant you the research in exchange for the Mercury.
We don’t want anyone who’s been saving up missing out on the research.
And finally
We’ve updated the Dungeon artwork to make different Dungeons (and thus the loot they award) easier to identify and target.
Dungeons are split into two main types, those that provide the resources needed for Noble Equipment, and those that yield resources for Battalion Equipment. You can send your Nobles to the Dungeons that have what you need.
Battalion Equipment and noble merit chests are going away. The tokens you have for those things are going to get converted to Gems or Minerals based on whatever Keep level you are at. As an example: players level 31+ will have their Noble tokens turned into Common and Uncommon Rubies or Emeralds.
3D peasants wander your city; improved animation quality, variety, and reducing memory usage (crashes and lag on low end devices).
A brighter lava biome to help you see what’s going on there.
Continued performance improvements.
Thanks for Reading
We’d love to hear what you think of the Combat Advantage Update. Please visit us at the official Kingdom Maker Discord to join the conversation with Kingdom Maker developers and your fellow players! We have created a new #combat-advantage channel dedicated to this update.
