Dragon Kingdoms is a strategy game which focuses on province development. You start off by occupying one of the settlements in 16 different zones with varying terrains. Once you've occupied a settlement, you have the task of managing its development from cradle to grave. Starting off as a humble locale, your goal is to develop a mighty settlement and command respect using politics, military might, trade & commerce or dragons.
Dragons are the most valued possessions in the game. As you control more dragons, your military power will grow but so will your reputation. Your ultimate goal, nevertheless, will be to control the 5 dragon wonders which are scattered around the 16 sectors of Telemnar, and become the Dragon Emperor. The dragon emperor has the ability to tame any dragon, and thus command an ultimate dragon army.
The beauty of Dragon Kingdoms is that it never resets, so you don't have to fear spending hours on your provinces and have them disappear in Round 2.
There are 16 chartered sectors in Telemnar, each with approximately 60 settlements. In the beginning, you will be located in one of the central grassy terrain sectors. These sectors offer the greatest range of buildings and plans and are much easier to develop on than one of the other 3 terrain sectors. You must then search for an empty settlement and occupy it. To view the kingdom map and start searching for an empty settlement, click on Start Adventure! from the top navigation bar.
You should now be able to create a province. Give your province a name, and click on Occupy Settlement. Remember that you can control multiple settlements.
To develop your settlement, you need to perform a variety of actions simultaneously. Below is a list of the most fundamental actions you can make while developing your province.
Research plans. There are 3 types of plans in Zhentor: (a) Structure Plans which unlock bonus structures for your to build, (b) Technology Research which grant your province special bonuses, and (c) Special Research which allow you to choose a variety of race-specific bonuses for your province. Researching plans requires the employment of Scholars, which produce plan points as they study a plan. Each plan has a set amount of plan points which must be generated by scholars through study before it can be brought to completion. The plan points produced by Scholars are evaluated at each End Turn phase (see below).
Build structures. There are 4 categories of structures you can build in Zhentor. (a) Public Buildings which allow your province to develop, (b) Resource Buildings which are used to produce or harvest resources such as food, wood, stone and metals, (c) Government Buildings which are used for warring as well as for province defence, and (d) Utility Buildings which protect your province from internal events such as fires, crimes and plagues. To build structures, you must employ Builders and generate the appropriate amount of build points to bring the build to completion. The builds points produced by builders are evaluated at each End Turn phase (see below).
Employ workers. Workers are normally associated with a particular building. The maximum amount of a worker you can employ depends on the respective amount of structures built. E.g. At the beginning you start with x Builders. As you construct more Construction Sites, the maximum amount of builders you can employ will increase proportionally. Workers produce resources and other essentials for your province. Remember that buildings don't actually produce the resources themselves, but instead allow you to employ appropriate workers which produce the required resources.
End Turn. You start off with 100 turns when you first create your province. Every hour, you generate 1 (one) additional turn. However, the number of turns will not exceed the maximum limit (usually 100), so you will effectively be loosing turns if you don't use them. At each End Turn phase, all the events in your province are evaluated. If you have any builders employed, they will produce build points. Woodworkers will cut timber, Taxmen will collect taxes and so on. Think of it like this: When you end a turn, your province comes alive! A good strategist manages his/her turns well, and always saves some up just in case.
On each province development page, you will see various stats at the top of the screen (screen dump below). These stats are described below for your reference.
Hover your mouse over the stats to view more detailed information in the form of a drop down menu, as illustrated below:
On-screen: Settlement name.
Type: The type of settlement, e.g. Locale, Village, Castle etc.
Networth: Networth is a rating of your settlement, and is calculated using built structures, completed research, and province resources.
On-screen: Total land available in your settlement. You can explore more land by clicking on Settlement -> Land Management from the side menu.
Land remaining: Shows how much of each type of land is free in your settlement.
Settlement Land: Indicates the total land in your settlement.
On-screen: Total population in your settlement. This does not include members of your settlement which are outside your province, e.g. campaigning armies, dragon hunters etc.
Employed: Shows how much peasants are employed.
Unemployed: Indicates how much peasants are seeking employment. High unemployment can force peasants to leave your settlement.
Moral: Shows the moral of your population. Low moral can lead to riots.
On-screen: Fruit available in your granaries.
Fruit: Shows how much food is available in your granaries. Fruit is the most basic type of food available.
Bread: 1 loaf of bread is equivalent to 2 fruit. Bread is produced by Bakers providing there is sufficient wheat available in your settlement.
Meat: 1 Kas (a unit of weight) is equivalent to 3 fruit. Meat can be obtained from animal farms.
Wine: Wine is the most exquisite type of food available in your settlement. Wine is not used to meet the food demand of your settlement, rather offered to special personnel for their services to the kingdom (e.g. special military units that require wine). However, as your population increases, there may be a demand for wine from the higher class citizens in your settlement.
On-screen: Denars available in your province treasuries. Denars allow you to fund your armies, infiltrators, military campaigns and research. Denars are primarily obtained through taxes.
Wood: Wood is used in construction and certain research plans. Wood is produced by Woodworkers and the production rate can be increased through plans.
Stone: Stone is also used heavily in builds and plans. Stone is mined by miners.
Iron: Iron is the most commonly used metal in your province. To obtain Iron, you must first mine for Lunasite, the iron ore. Once the ore has been obtained by your miners, your Metal Extractors will then produce iron through a process of smelting.
Mithril, Tinium: Mithril and Tinium are rare metals which can only be mined after through research. These metals are used in some of the more advanced structures.
You receive 1 turn every hour. You do not have to be connected to Dragon Kingdoms to receive your turn or to be up-to-date with the progress of your province. Turns will accumulate to a maximum of 100.
At every End Turn phase, you will see a screen listing a variety of statistics regarding your province (example screen dump can be seen below). These statistics must closely be monitored as they display events, both good and bad, related to your province.
Direction: Side Menu -> End Turn
It is generally a good idea to save some turns just in case your province gets invaded. In such circumstances, the extra turns will help you defend and recover.
Look at the numbers in the print screen, and then read the appropriate numbered bullet point.
Population Statistics table: This table shows you immigration into your lands, as well as loss of population through deaths and other events. This table also shows you the occurences of events such as fires, crimes and illnesses. To reduce these occurences, you must build the respective buildings and hire the appropriate workers to tackle the disasters.
Food Production table: Here you will see your food production, the demand needed to be met, and the overall gain for each food. Keep a keen eye on your food reserves, for hunger can spell disaster for your settlement, leading to huge population losses and crippling your development schedule.
Province Moral table: This table shows you the moral change in your settlement. Events can have different impact on the moral of your peasants. Low moral can lead to riots and revolts, and disorder in your province.
Resource Production table: This table lists your province's resource production such as wood, stone, and metals. One of these resources, namely wood, decays with time.
Finance table: This table lists the economy adjustment of your province. The column on the left shows money coming in to your province, while the column on the right shows money going out, i.e. expenditure of your settlement.
Note: Special membership plans can increase the maximum turn limit up to 150 turns.
To develop your province you must construct buildings which will define your strategy and approach to Dragon Kingdoms . Certain buildings allow the production of raw materials such as wood, stone, metal and food. Others are used to defend your province and keep it under control. In effect, buildings allow you to employ workers that produce the required resources for your province.
To unlock new buildings for construction and extra bonuses for your province, you need to carry out research. There are 3 different categories of research, and together they help to develop and fortify your province. Research is carried out by Scholars. The more scholars you employ to a plan, the faster it will be brought to completion. Decisively, it is important for any developing province to carry out research, as this helps unlock new buildings for construction, and grants the user's province with special and worthwhile bonuses to help and maintain the growth of the province.
For any progress to be made, one must end turns. At every end turn phase, the province leader will be told of the progress being made with the construction and research, as well as any plans or build projects that have been brought to completion. For more information, follow the links below.
You start with a small amount of peasants for your province. In time, the number of peasants in your province will increase as you explore for more land, construct new buildings and plan for special technologies. However, you must always keep an eye on your population and tackle any problems as soon as possible.
Peasants are distributed at each end turn to your province. The distribution mainly depends on various controllable factors to determine how much peasants you receive. It is possible that you receive negative peasants (i.e. you loose more peasants than you gain), and in this case, your population will decrease, bringing your networth down.
Population gain is controlled by the following factors:
Food Production - Unless your race does not require food to survive (e.g. Undead race), you need to optimise your food production rate. If you produce less food than your population needs to survive (check your food production and demands in the End Turn sheet under the Food Production table), you will loose peasants.
Vacancies - Peasants will immigrate to your settlement if there is promise for employment and new opportunities.
Residential Land - If you province has lot of free residential land where new peasants can settle and start work, you will see healthy immigration rates.
Limiting Deaths - This includes incidents caused by fires, crimes and illnesses and can be reduced by building the necessary utility buildings and hiring the required workers from the Population tab from the Side Menu.
Effectively, you can give specific tasks to your peasants, i.e. employ them for various activities. In addition, the more peasants you have in your province, the higher the taxes generated by your taxmen.
At each end turn, your province may be subject to one or more of the following events. However, the damage caused by these events can be reduced by building the appropriate utility buildings and hiring the corresponding workers to look after your province.
Fires: Your province will be subject to daily fire reports, of which will include damage to property, and death of peasants. Money will also need to be invested to repair the damage caused by fires. The number of fires increase as your province land increases, but you can usually keep these incidences down to a fair number by building Fire Stations and employing Firemen. There is also a chance that your province catches a Great Fire, which can last anywhere from 1 to 15 turns. In the event of a great fire, your losses will double and the moral of your peasants will also drop significantly. Great fires can cause damage to property, but a minimum of 1% Firemen coverage will nullify this damage and also put you in a better position to stop the catastrophe.
Crimes: Your province will also experience law outbreaks and criminal activities. These will also reduce your income, increase deaths and decrease province moral. Sufficient Crime Stations and employed Law Enforcers will provide good law coverage for your province and decrease the amount of crime. 1% law coverage will also nullify any damage to property in the case of Riots which can take place in extreme circumstances.
Illnesses: The health of your peasants depends on the health services provided by your province. Sufficient Health Clinics and quantity of employed Doctors will decrease the amount of illnesses in your province as well as reduce the chance of a Plague spreading throughout your province.
All events decrease population moral, lead to death of civilians, and decrease your income. However, all occurrences of these events cannot be eliminated since there will always be some anomalies, so it would be unwise to believe that high coverage of Utility buildings will nullify these events.
Serious Events
Event
Affect on productions
Revolt
A revolt is caused when your province moral drops too low. Revolts must be brought under control immediately or you risk loosing control of your settlement. The best and recommended method of tackling revolts is enforcing Emergency Rule.
No tax is collected.
Merchant trade is affected heavily.
Workers cease productions. This includes entertainers, bakers, woodcutters, vintners, metal extractors, builders and scholars.
Farmers output decreases heavily.
Immigration to your province stops.
Immigration out of your lands increases by 10%.
A dramatic increase in crime rates.
Riot
Riots are caused when the crime rates in your settlement rise to very high levels. Riots can lead to serious money loss and population moral losses, as well as damage to buildings & property.
Immigration into your province is affected.
Riots increase moral loss.
Structures can be razed by angry protesters.
Great Fire
Great fires can arise if there are a large number of fires in your settlement. Great fires can cause serious damage to buildings & property.
Great fires increase moral loss.
Structures are more likely to be burnt and destroyed as a result of uncontrolled fires.
Plague
Your citizens can catch a plague if the health services are operating insufficiently. Plagues can kill lots of peasants very quickly, leaving your settlement bare & empty.
Plagues increase moral loss.
Plagues also increase death tolls.
Emergency Rule (self-enforced)
Emergency rule can be enforced over your settlement if you cannot control your province by any other means.
Crime rates are reduced.
Riots and Revolts are immediately brought under control.
Merchant trade income is reduced slightly.
Production in industries like bread making, wine production, metal extraction, woodcutting, entertainment, construction and research heavily affected.
No peasants allowed to leave or enter your settlement.
Walls provide an extra defence to that given by a standing defensive army. These buildings are being discussed in the starter section as they have great importance in the game and allow you to defend your province from invaders.
Walls prevent the attacker from gaining loot or causing damage to your province so long as you have full wall coverage. You can view your wall coverage from your Settlement Overview page (Settlement -> Overview). In such a case, even if the attacker manages to steal a victory, he/she will not be able to enter your province and hence be unable to gain plunders, or cause damage to your province. As you complete the necessary research, your walls can also be used offensively to cause damage to the invaders by posting sentries on your walls. In effect, walls are a key component in the defence of your settlement.
So a Province with very strong walls and a small defensive army could still cause extensive damage to a much more powerful attacking army.
On the other hand, Watchtowers are much more passive. The function of Watchtowers is to monitor the surroundings around your settlement, and alert your armies of sudden invasions. Watchtowers are still in development and more information will be posted in the future.
Kingdom Forums allow province leaders from all nations to gather together, and discuss and argue about various topics, of which include politics, alliances, retaliations, protection notices and a lot more. It is highly recommended for new and existing province leaders to visit and participate in the Kingdom Forums. It is here that you can announce your presence to the community, role-play, and make yourself known. We think the Kingdom Forums are the first step to developing a well respected province, formidable alliances and having the ear of the mighty! It is here you can make friends, and portray your talents as a mighty province leader!
As of this, we strongly encourage all Zhentonian province leaders to visit and participate in the Kingdom Forums on a regularly basis, to develop a bond with the community and enjoy province development as it should be enjoyed, to the highest degree of satisfaction!
Anyone can play a game, but to enjoy what you are playing and making most of it is the true art. Dragon Kingdoms is not just about conquering the nations and making everyone bow down to your feet, but about having fun! You choose your play-style, you define your character, you are free to do everything how you want to do it! There is no right or wrong, only what pleases you. But more important than all of that is to make good friends for life and portray a well defined character through active and enchanting role-playing.
Have fun playing the game, and do provide some feedback on what you think about the game and what can be improved. We can only make it better through your suggestions!
