Kingdoms and Castles is a city-builder game released by Lion Shield in July 2017. You play as the lord of an ambiguously Swiss settlement that must be built from scratch on a randomly-generated map of the player's choice. The game has no plot, instead focusing on the idyllic experience of growing a quaint town in the countryside; one mode removes the need for an army entirely.
This game includes the following tropes:
- All Myths Are True: And apparently have a grudge against your city. Lone dragons will periodically attack it, as will ogres working with Viking raiders.
- Animal Motifs: Among the banners a player can choose to decorate their castle with is a blue lion and a red bird.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The effects of both types of irrigation stack, so the player can construct both windmills and the more expensive/effective reservoirs without fear of wasting the resources that went into building the former.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Averted. Incoming villagers are strictly limited by the number of beds of all houses. No-one ever thinks of being a beggar on the streets or overstuffing a house.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Just one reservoir can turn an eighth of the map into a fertile paradise, but building them (and the aqueducts they need, and the waterwheels, and so on) requires an insane amount of resources.
- Cosmetic Award: The statue of Barbara and the Grand Hall currently serve no purpose other than to prove you've made it as a lord. (The statues of Fig and Lord Nextrazlus used to be this trope, but after an update became useful for inducing tree growth around itself, and temporarily distracting invading dragons, respectively.)
- Due to the Dead: Dead villagers need a graveyard to be buried in, or the corpses will start a plague.
- Hide Your Children: All villagers are working adults. New villagers only come from abroad.
- Home Guard: With the barracks, you can start recruiting villagers and convert them to militia who fight under a general. They mainly serve as ground defense against raiders.
- Horny Vikings: Barbarian raiders periodically raid you and raze your buildings, sometimes kidnapping villagers. Later, they'll even bring wall-breaking Ogres!
- Land of One City: Averted with the islands update. Now you can make outposts on other islands with different names.
- Not in My Backyard!: Like other sims, industrial buildings placed near houses will cause a reduction in happiness for the occupants of the house.
- Real-Time with Pause
- RPG Elements: Citizens improve their skills over time, giving the building they're working in a bonus to production or happiness.
- Our Dragons Are Different: These dragons seem interested only in burning down your buildings.
- Plague Doctor: The villagers who get assigned to the clinic and hospital will be fashioned after these.
- Smash Mook: The raiding Ogre units target siege towers first.
- Violation of Common Sense: Fresh water tiles can be found next to saltwater ones.
- Witch Classic: Maps always contain a single tile with a hut, where you are given the option to interact with the Witch. Giving her the resources she periodically requests improves your standing with her, and eventually you'll get access to her spells that can destroy dragons and wipe out raiders.
- You Require More Vespene Gas: Your village/city/kingdom will require Wood, Stone, Iron Ore, Food, and Money to survive. Food, wood and stone are early requirements, while iron and money needs come later.
