9 Kings simplifies base-building down to an almost entirely pure form by bringing in auto battler mechanics and silly numbers.
As regular readers of the site will know, we zig-zag the lines between board games and video games on the regular. It makes sense, because there’s an uncanny amount of similarities between the two of them — and no more than when it comes to matters strategic. 9 Kings, which flags itself as a kingdom builder, follows a lot of the conventions of the small-scale engine builder; You make small choices which eventually build up, synergise and balloon into a… well, engine, of high numbers and big consequences.
9 Kings’ schtick is simple. you start with a 3×3 grid (which can grow to a 5×5 grid) where you place cards from your deck. Your deck is comprised of buildings, spells and units, which you drag onto a space (or, in the case of spells, unit) in order to place or use it on the space in the grid. Buildings and units can level up, gain more units and have their stats altered, including through adjacency bonuses, royal decrees and more. At first you’ll only have access to the cards of your chosen king, however when you defeat an enemy you’ll get to pick from a few of their cards, and merchants will pull from every active pool of cards.
Adjacency bonuses are the key to a successful run, with The King of Nothing’s Blacksmiths (+2% Attack per level) and Farms (+1 unit per level) serving as a great introduction to it. Add in the King of Nature’s tile cloning and Forests (+2% HP per level), or things like the King of Blood’s summons and graveyards (which revive dead allies as new units for another run) mean that you can quickly start exponentially improving your unit quantities, strengths and lifespan. Your troops always retrain and return to full-strength between each round, and they’re marked with the amount of damage that they dealt in the previous year (turn) so that you can quickly spot where your weaknesses and strengths are.
This clear labelling, controlled scope and clear UI makes 9 Kings incredibly easy to pick up, and it makes the learning of new combos feel incredibly natural. A popular combination at the moment is to mount the incredibly powerful Ballista (King of Nothing) on Boars (King of Nature) and have the boars near at least one Forest (King of Nature) as the boars give a +1% bonus to their rider for each HP they have, and Forests generate more HP per turn.
In many ways, that’s all that there is to 9 Kings. Extra layers come in that you can choose to declare war, or make peace, with other factions which is a clever way of masking a deck building element (you can’t access their cards if you’re not warring with them), and there’s a solid perk system which adds in a lot of room for chaos when it comes to replaying. But, it doesn’t need to be incredibly in-depth, at the moment it’s an accessible micro-strategy deck-builder (or, indeed, engine builder) built to be played in 20-30minute runs, and it’s perfect how it is.
9 Kings is available now, in Early Access, for PC and Mac.
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