First run in 9 Kings

Every year you play cards from your hand onto plots until two cards remain, then a rival king attacks. Survive 33 years and win the final battle in year 33. Enemies that reach your base cost a life; you have three, and a life lost in the final battle ends the run.

The year loop

1. Play or discard. Drag cards onto plots, or throw them into the pit (the well beside the kingdom) for 9 gold each. When two cards are left, the battle starts. In year 33 you must empty your hand.
2. Battle. Your troops, towers and base fight the attacking army automatically. You can fire the base yourself or leave it on auto (Q toggles auto).
3. Loot. Every battle pays 9 gold. A win offers cards from the king you beat; a loss offers a card from your own king. Re-rolling the offer costs gold and the price rises with each re-roll.
4. Events. Some years add a Royal Council, a merchant, a diplomat, a prophecy or an expansion tower. The run calendar lists them.

The base card must be your first play. The run then opens with three random cards from your king’s deck.

What a card does on a plot

Card type	Played on an empty plot	Played on an occupied plot
Base, troop, tower, building	Places the card at level 1	Same card: levels it up (usually to a cap of 3)
Tome	Not playable	Applies a one-off effect, such as Wildcard’s level-up or Sacrifice’s destruction
Enchantment	Not playable	Adds a stack to a troop; stacks accumulate

A troop, building or tower can only be upgraded by the same card. Wildcard, Overhaul, Concabulator and the Gentrify decree also raise levels. Buildings such as Blacksmith and Farm only affect adjacent plots, so a building in the centre of the 3×3 grid touches four plots and a corner building touches two.

Lives and the base

• Any enemy reaching the base plot costs a life. King of Nomads has no fixed base; enemies must reach its life statues instead.
• Lives return only through the Rebirth decree, which gives lives beyond the maximum since Patch #29, or by starting with the universal perk Resilient.
• Winning year 33 ends the run as a win. You can continue into Endless mode; year 99 is the true end and shows a final results screen.

Before the first run

• Equip perks. The perk screen sits under the king card. The game warns you when you start without perks; the developers added that warning after finding that many players who found the game too hard had never equipped one. See perks and king levels.
• Pick the difficulty under the king card. New saves start with the lowest levels; beating your highest unlocked level opens the next. See difficulty levels.
• Speed settings. 1.0 added a fast UI animation option and an option to disable battle effects for large late-game armies.

Keys

Key	Action
1, 2, 3	Game speed
P	Pause
Q	Auto attack with the base on or off
C	Compendium (every card you have seen, with stats)
R	Quick restart

Where to go next

• Unlock the other eight kings by reaching their counters across runs: unlock goals.
• The card list shows every king’s nine cards; the decree list shows what a Royal Council can offer.