Dice Kingdoms – General Guide

In absence of a manual / rulebook, I’ve decided to compile what information I’ve gathered into this guide for reference.

Guide to Basics

Please note: all credit goes to Ansam!

How to Play

Setup

To start the game with 2-8 players. In Singleplayer you can just add AI and grab them a difficulty. Difficulty modifiers To be determined.

For multiplayer with friends, one can just Custom Game -> Create, and the rest should see a + icon beside their name in the menu’s friends list. Clicking that very simply joins the game. If it doesn’t, I advise someone else host.

Afterwards in the lobby, you can click on your player slot to cycle through the aesthetic options for your empire (Banner / Castle). The host can also change the round timer from Fast(30-60 seconds) to Slow(60-90 seconds) to Unlimited (no timer).

Once the game starts, each player is given a different island, with; a castle, 3 cottages, a farm, and a dock to place. If this castle is destroyed, you are out of the game. The Dock has to be on a coast line, but not a beach.

You then begin the game with 3 food, 3 wood, 2 stone, 4 tools, and 8 culture.

The 4 Turn Phases

Harvest Phase

At the start of each round, you collect the resources of each functional building, and roll their dice. These dice will give you resources, and will vary by building type. You may reroll any amount of non-skull results, twice, or thrice with the University’s upgrade, per turn.

Disaster Phase

Food is consumed for each building that rolls a harvest dice. If you had less food than dice, the difference will cause that amount of random buildings to non-function until after dice are rolled in the next harvest phase.

Then disasters happen, based on how many skulls players have harvested. Odd numbered(right side) apply to other players, even numbered(left side) apply to yourself. Most have an accurate description if you mouse over them.

Tidal Wave consumes a chunk of land off of every other island, usually wiping out a few buildings. And Meteor creates scorched land where it impacts, usually wiping out a few buildings. If you have enough Tools(30?), it is possible to clean it up and actually have more land than you did before the meteor, but you will also have another meteor as each scorch clear gives you a skull.

Building Phase

Spend resources to develop your island. Buildings will add to the population if it has a dice associated.

The pickaxe tool lets you spend Tools to remove debris blocking building, in exchange for resources. Trees = Wood, Rocks = Stone, Scorches = Skulls. You can also remove the remains of burnt buildings, with a specific resource return based on that building.

Buildings automatically regain 10 hit points every build phase. You can spend a Tool on a selected building to repair an extra 60 hit points. You can also burn your own selected building with a Tool, which requires an additional Tool to clear the debris as normal.

Combat Phase

If you have any Soldier resources, you may spend up to 8 for each dock you have to invade other islands. First select the building a boat’s soldiers will target, secondly select where the boat will drop off the soldiers.

The soldiers will try to reach the target building, while destroying any obstacles necessary to reach the target. This will always include enemy villagers and soldiers, but only other buildings if they cannot walk around them. Note: Slain villagers provide resources to the attacker, but automatically respawn every combat phase.

Soldiers disembark from the 1×2 center of the boat, and can get stuck on the boat if placed in front of a structure. Defenders ignore their buildings and can walk through them. Units will not walk through mountains, but will walk through trees, stone, and scorched land.

Once the building is destroyed, any surviving soldiers will fight back to the boat. If all of the soldiers are lost, the boat returns anyways.

Any Soldiers you didn’t send out will spawn at your barracks to defend against invaders. Soldiers lost this way do not return.

Speculations; Combat is weighted RNG, with each unit simply missing or hitting the other unit, possibly based on what type of unit it is, ie Peasant, Soldier, Templar… I have seen 2 soldiers take out 6 peasants and a farm, while being shot at by castle, and make it back to home alive. I have also seen a single peasant(and castle) take no losses against 2 soldiers.

Win Conditions

Culture

You win the game if you maintain for 2 turns, at least twice as much culture as the next highest player. Invaders will gain culture from soldiers slaying your priests, and this can narrowly prevent a culture victory.

Advice; You need Churches and Cathedrals for massive culture income. But you also need barracks and guard towers, as by simply raiding your island and slaying priests, a military focused player can reasonably farm enough culture to prevent you from winning.

Domination

You win the game if all other players have been eliminated. This is typically from invasions, but tidal and meteor disasters can also destroy castles.

Advice; Always use some military, as the income from slaying villagers is significant. Try to poke at outlying farms / cottages safely so that you maintain a higher soldier count, then with a few dozen you can aim for more sensitive buildings, like Markets, Storages, Churches.

Be weary of raiding players with sorcerer towers. Slaying them will gain you disaster skulls.

Wonder

You must have a University, 3 Storages(for wood cap), 60 wood, 10 stone, and 15 gold to place a Wonder. You will win if the Wonder survives the Combat Phase. Anyone who destroys a Wonder will gain 200 Culture.

This typically doesn’t appear until after a stalemate in one of the other two win conditions.

Building Details

Here will be a list of all buildings and as much information about them as I have.

Every building requires one Tool to build, so those have been excluded from the cost listing.

Castle

  • Hitpoints: 200 | Harvest: Dice | Size: 4×4

Dice Results:

  • 2 Food
  • 1 Food, 1 Tool
  • 1 Gold
  • 2 Soldiers
  • 1 Food, 1 Stone
  • 1 Gold, 1 Soldier, 1 Skull
  • Will shoot invaders.
  • Loss of this building loses you the game.
  • Spawns a King in combat. King has no yield when slain.
  • Attackers gain 3 Gold for burning.

Tier I

Wall

  • Cost: 1 Stone | Size: 1×1*
  • Hitpoints: 50* | Harvest: No
  • Placing one Wall allows you to chain an additional 9 wall tiles for free.
  • A click allows you to change direction, and you can go through the placement plan.

Farm

  • Cost: 1 Wood | Size: 2×4
  • Hitpoints: 15 | Harvest: Flat | Size: 2×4
  • Gives 1 Food every harvest phase.

Cottage

  • Cost: 2 Wood | Size: 1×2
  • Hitpoints: 15 | Harvest: Dice | Size: 1×2

Dice Results:

  • 4 Food
  • 3 Wood
  • 1Wood, 1 Stone
  • 1 Food, 2 Tools
  • 1 Food, 1 Stone

WTX

  • Spawns a peasant in combat. Peasant yields 2, Food or Wood, when slain.
  • Attackers gain 2 Food, 1 Wood, and 1 Tool when burnt.

House

  • Cost: 2 Stone | Size: 1×2 +1×1
  • Hitpoints: 20 | Harvest: Dice | Size: 1×2 + 1×1

Dice Results:

  • 3 Stone
  • 3 Tools
  • 1 Stone, 1 Gold
  • 1 Wood, 1 Gold
  • 1 Gold, 1 Culture
  • 1 Stone, 1 Tool, 1 Skull
  • Spawns a bourgeois in combat. Bourgeois yields 2, Stone or Tool, when slain.
  • Attackers gain 2 Gold, 2 Tools when burnt.

Church

  • Cost: 1 Wood, Stone, and Gold | Size: 1×3
  • Hitpoints: 20 | Harvest: Dice

Dice Results:

  • 2 Food
  • 1 Wood, 1 Stone
  • 1 Food, 2 Culture
  • 1 Wood, 2 Culture
  • 1 Stone, 2 Culture
  • 3 Culture, 1 Skull
  • Spawns a priest in combat. Priest yields 2 Culture when slain.
  • Attackers gain 2 Gold, 2 Culture when burnt.

Barracks

  • Cost: 2 Wood, 6 Stone, 3 Gold | Size: 2×2 + 1×2 off a corner
  • Hitpoints: 60 | Harvest: Dice

Dice Results:

  • 1 Wood, 1 Soldier
  • 2 Soldiers
  • 3 Soldiers
  • 4 Soldiers
  • 1 Gold, 1 Soldier
  • 2 Soldiers, 1 Skull
  • Spawns a general in combat. General yields 2, Gold or Soldiers, when slain.
  • Attacker gains 2 Stone and 4 Gold when burnt.

Dock

  • Cost: 6 Wood, 2 Stone | Size: 1×1.5*
  • Hitpoints: 50 | Harvest: No
  • Allows up to 8 Soldiers to invade during the combat phase.
  • Effective size is 1×1 on the island edge, actual size is 1×4 +1×6 +1×2
  • Attacker gains 1 Wood, Stone, and Gold when burnt.

University

  • Cost: 2 Wood, 2 Stone, 1 Gold | Size: 3×3, – 1×2 center U
  • Hitpoints: 50 | Harvest: No
  • Allows Tier II buildings to be built.
  • Has 5 research options costing Culture.
  • 15C: Add another Reroll for the harvest phase.
  • 30C: Cleaning a tile also cleans an adjacent tile for free.
  • 60C: Guard Towers shoot 50% further, and 25% faster.
  • 50C: Replaces Soldiers with Templars. (Higher dodge chance?)
  • 200C: Replaces Soldiers with Sorcerers. (5x damage to buildings, gives 1 Skull to slayer.)

Attacker gains 3 Gold and 2 Culture when burnt.

Tier II

Storage

  • Cost: 6 Wood, 3 Stone | Size: 2×3
  • Hitpoints: 20 | Harvest: No
  • Increases resource storage by 10 Food, 20 Wood, 20 Stone.
  • Attacker gains 4 Food, 4 Wood, 4 Stone, and 3 Gold when burnt.

Guard Tower

  • Cost: 8 Wood, 5 Stone | Size: 2×2
  • Hitpoints: 40 | Harvest: No

Attackers gain 6 Wood and 2 Stone when burnt.

Hospital

  • Cost: 3 Wood, 2 Stone | Size: 3×3, no corners +
  • Hitpoints: 40 | Harvest: No
  • Prevents adjacent buildings, and buildings adjacent to those buildings from disabling due to Disease or Plague disasters.
  • Attackers gain 2 Wood and Gold when burnt.

Market

  • Cost: 3 Wood, 1 Gold | Size: 2×2
  • Hitpoints: 10 | Harvest: No
  • Able to exchange 1 Gold for 1 Food, Wood, Stone, Soldier, or Tool.
  • Attackers gain 3 Food, 3 Wood, 3 Stone, 3 Gold, 3 Tools when burnt.

Cathedral

  • Cost: 6 Wood, 6 Stone, 5 Gold | Size: 1×4 with a perpendicular 1×3 center
  • Hitpoints: 50 | Harvest: Multiplier
  • Gives 2 Culture for every Church. And an additional 3 Culture for every adjacent church.
  • Attacker gains 2 Wood, 2 Stone, 8 Gold, 20 Culture when burnt.

Windmill

  • Cost: 5 Wood, 2 Stone | Size: 2×2
  • Hitpoints: 50 | Harvest: Multiplier
  • Provides 1 Food for every Farm. Provides an additional 1 Food for every adjacent farm.
  • Attacker gains 5 Food, 3 Wood, 3 Stone when burnt.

Sorcerer Tower

  • Cost: 1 Wood, Stone, and Gold | Size: 1×2 + 1×1
  • Hitpoints: 10 | Harvest: Dice

Dice Results:

  • 1 Food
  • 1 Stone
  • 4 Gold
  • 5 Culture
  • 3 Skulls
  • 4 Skulls
  • Spawns a sorcerer in combat. Sorcerer yields 1 Skull when slain.
  • Attackers gain 4 Gold and 3 Skulls when burnt.

Wonder

  • Cost: 60 Wood, 10 Stone, 15 Gold | Size: 3×4
  • Hitpoints: 100 | Harvest: No
  • Attackers gain 200 Culture when burnt.
  • Win the game if still standing at the end of the turn.
Egor Opleuha
About Egor Opleuha 8075 Articles
Egor Opleuha, also known as Juzzzie, is the Editor-in-Chief of Gameplay Tips. He is a writer with more than 12 years of experience in writing and editing online content. His favorite game was and still is the third part of the legendary Heroes of Might and Magic saga. He prefers to spend all his free time playing retro games and new indie games.

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