This is a moment we're all waiting for. It's our biggest patch yet, our shift to 0.8, and most importantly: it's time to introduce you to the King of Nomads.

Who is the King of Nomads?

Taking over the barren snowy fields of the north, the reptilian nomad army belongs to nobody and no land. Their fierce warriors will pillage the other kingdoms while their steed tramples their armies. TL;DR: Get ready for a ruthless winter, lizards, dragons, and a bit of good old Khan destructive energy.

A deck of movement

With the King of Nomads, we're adding an important layer of movement to the game. It's a deck that enables you to reshuffle your board, rewards placement & displacement of plots, and encourages you to experiment more with the dynamic nature of the game. We've been tracking everything that's missing from the current core gameplay so that we can address them at every new card added, The King of Nomads is coming in to fill some of these core spaces.

The nomadic spells

You've asked for it: Migration is a powerful card that will finally allow you to move your plots. This mechanic adds dozens of new possibilities to the game - including moving your base around! Of course, in a challenging way. Swords and Shields are simple yet key cards we've been missing for a very long time, and that will encourage new strategies both in early and late game plays. Plus you can also freeze your opponents now with the Frost enchantment.

The troops

We're introducing a solid mix of new troops to synergize with everything else that's already on the table. Raptor is the first card that actually changes other troop's combat behavior, while Mob introduces a very ambitions playstyle. Last but not least: yes, the Nomads base card, Warlord, is also a troop. We hope you have some fun with it.

No buildings?

King of Nomads has a troop-focused deck. However, the deck does have two building cards that create synergies with the movement-focused mechanics. Camp card is an incredibly powerful building that encourages you to place new cards in your kingdom. Dragon's Den is an epic summoning building that thrives on destruction. Occupy new plots, let go of old ones: this is the king of ephemeral.

Perks and decrees

The King of Nomads introduces, initially, 5 new decrees and 9 unique perks. They bring new mechanics to the table, which will result in new ways to break the game... which will result in some more healthy headaches for us devs.

The design behind the king

The King of Nomads, much like the King of Time, is coming to the game to fill a few spaces we've always planned to fill. Allowing you to move your plots around changes the game completely. You can alternate buffs across a single run, change your strategy in the middle of the game, and make powerful new combos. Even Blessings become more relevant and viable with that card on the table.

Design wise, we want you to feel like you can create a massive domino effect by synergizing all your right choices in a run. In that sense, a card that rewards destroying plots was also long due. Dragon's Den helps us start making sure that destroying plots unfolds in multiple new strats beyond the effect of a destruction card itself.

Simple cards like Swords and Shields were also very necessary additions to the mix: the intentional simplicity behind them is key to open new fun strategies and complex ones alike.

Last but not least... a base that's a troop is something we wanted in the game from day 1. And depending on how this goes, it might open new routes of experimentation for our current base cards as well. We're stoked that Warlord is finally here!

Anyway, we're already giving a lot of spoilers here. We can't wait for you to try the king out yourself and see everything else you can do with his deck, decrees, and perks.

Patch summary:

• NEW KING: King of Nomads

• NEW CARDS (9): Warlord, Mob, Raptor, Dragon's Den, Camp, Frost, Swords, Shields, Migration

• NEW PERKS (9): Immigrant, Reptilian, Jurassic, Leader, Aggressive, Defensive, Khan, Cold, Rebellious

• NEW DECREES (5): Pillage, Smithy, Frostbite, Cryoflame, Settlement

• NEW ACHIEVEMENTS (3): Double Double Double Dragon, Mass Migration, Mountception

• New battlefield

• Custom king background visuals

Several other improvements:

Our core focus in July was the King of Nomads. But, as always, we're also addressing your feedback in this patch. Here are the other 0.8.0 updates:

• Overhauled audio system to prevent volume bursts and SFX distortion.

• All kings got custom background visuals!

• Base cards can now be moved.

• King Selection will now always start on your latest played king.

• Crownmaxxing achievement is now triggered when you breeze through level 9 straight to level 10.

• Midas Touch now works with Bomber and all other explosive attacks.

• Compendium screen now has UI animations and can be navigated with controller/keyboard.

• Converter plot damage now also displays the damage caused by its insta-kills.

• Mycelium created from Pollinator perk can now start on level 4.

• Fixed a bug that caused loaded games to restart on year 1 with a random card. Shout out to our Discord community for figuring this one out (the culprit was Cloned cards)

• Fixed a bug that randomly caused "ghost Boars" to get stuck on their plots.

• Fixed a bug where Summoner perk and Warhorns decree were giving 100% critical chance to target troops.

• Fixed a bug that caused Warden perk to give your Stronghold +1 level every time you loaded a game.

• Fixed an exploit that allowed players to gain XP multiple times in year 99.

• Fixed a lingering blurred screen when quitting the game in year 99.

• Fixed cursor attack preview area size. It's now properly synced with the actual effect area.

• New audio effects implemented.

• Battle pop-ups now fade faster to improve combat visibility.

• VSync preferences are now stored in between game sessions.

• Fixed the scrolling of the language selection dropdown in the options screen

• Fixed soundtrack issues after "Chaos Up" screens in Endless Mode

• Animation-related performance improvements.

• Localization fixes

You can expect a follow-up patch addressing your feedback very soon. Not to mention the new content that's already in the oven.

Hotfixes (0.8.04):

• Demon's Altar no longer has its stats erased when Migrated.

• Swords no longer cause Defenders damage to go NaN.

• Overwork now properly works with Camp.

• Camp now works with Migration, Echoform, and Slime.

• Pop-ups now properly display Smithy stat bonus.

• Warlord is no longer destroyed by Unify.

• Fixed immortal frozen Raptors.

• Mothership now properly moves with Migration (shoutout to anyone who saw our infamous vending machine placeholder asset)

• Critical buff is now properly applied by Camp.

• Dragons now properly apply poison.

• Eyeglass now properly applies critical effect.

• Dragons with Cryoflame will only fly around during battle.

• Quarry now works with Warlord.

• Fixed a glitch with Pagoda's Imps targeting behavior.

• Fixed a bug that caused units to stand still when you only have a Demon's Altar on the field.

Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters

We've been reading through all your Steam reviews, and we appreciate the feedback we've been receiving. It's really important to us! Please continue sharing your thoughts, so we can know to focus on for each upcoming patch and make 9 Kings the best game it can be.

After downloading the patch, please start a new run, as your previous run won’t have the updates stored and they may cause conflicts. If you experience any issues, please email us at report@sadsocket.com.

Please join us on Discord and Reddit. You can also find the 9 Kings wiki page here for information on the game! Love, Sad Socket team

Love,
Sad Socket team