Tag archives for castleville

CastleVille Royal Buildings Guide

By | Published December 19, 2011

Royal buildings are the key to expanding your kingdom in Castleville. If you are familiar with Zynga’s similar titles Cityville and Farmville, you know that there is always a certain breed of building that requires occupants, generates revenue, and allows you to expand your borders and conquer new land. In Castleville, they are royal buildings, and understanding them is paramount to your success.

Castle Ponts

The real value of royal buildings lies in castle points. The overall wealth and prestige of your kingdom is derived from your score in castle points, it is a measurement of your kingdoms power and the only way to increase it is by constructing (and occupying) royal buildings.

The exploration system is at the heart of why castle points are one of your main concerns. There is an expanse of gloomed-out tiles surrounding your functioning kingdom that you cannot venture into, certain requirements must be met first, one of which is always a certain amount of castle points- the more royal buildings you have completed, the more land you have to work with and tame.

Here is a list of royal buildings and the different amounts of castle points that they yield (as well as what level they are unlocked):

  • Maiden’s Tower – 80 CL (start)
  • Barracks – 110 CL (level 3)
  • Vault – 150 CL (level 6)
  • Throne Room – 190 CL (level 9)
  • Library – 220 CL (level 12)
  • Castle Dungeon – 260 CL (level 15)
  • Wizard’s Keep – 300 CL (level 18)
  • Opera House – 340 CL (level 21)
  • The Cathedral – 390 CL (level 24)
  • Observatory – 450 CL (level 27)

Constructing the Buildings

The costs involved in constructing royal buildings may seem steep at first, but you’ll soon find out that they are a safe investment. Most royal buildings will pay back their cost in gold within a few days if you collect taxes diligently, and their value as kingdom expanding units is priceless. Nonetheless, getting them built and operational in the first place can be quite the task.

CastleVille Royal Buildings - Barracks

Building the Barracks in CastleVille.

As you level up and progress through the game, new royal buildings worth more castle points will become available to you. Be sure to stock up on the standard building supplies like wood logs and stone. Keep your crafting buildings as busy as possible, if you find that too many of them are idle then use them to refine raw materials so that you have them on hand when you need to start building.

The biggest hurdle for most players is occupying these royal buildings. After building them completely, they will award you no castle points or taxes if you do not staff them appropriately. Note that you cannot use the various quest giving NPCs throughout your kingdom for this- your only options are other players or the duke. If you find yourself shorthanded, you can recruit the duke to fill a space in a royal building for 6 crowns. Using the duke isn’t recommended because it’s a waste of crowns- the spirit of a social network game like this is to play with friends, so it is designed purposely to make it difficult to advance alone. If you don’t have any friends who play, look around the internet for communities of CastleVille players- you are sure to find plenty of people willing to occupy your buildings and visit your kingdom (the benefits of having neighbors are plentiful, it pays off well to play with others).

Decorations

Another way to increase your castle level is to use certain decoration items such as brick walls. These yield a small amount of castle level which can be helpful, but considering the amount of space they take up compared to royal buildings, it isn’t worth it unless you need just a little boost to reach your next goal.

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CastleVille Exploration Guide

By | Published December 19, 2011

The main goal of CastleVille is to expand, build, and maintain your kingdom. The areas immediately surrounding your land are obscured by gloom, a fog-of-war type of system that makes it impossible to expand your kingdom without meeting certain requirements. Exploration is the process of choosing which tiles to un-gloom strategically and managing your resources properly to make the most out of your ever-growing kingdom.

There are many factors that go into exploring and expanding, and if you want to make the most out of your kingdom you’ll have to stay on top of them. A good explorer thinks two steps ahead, un-glooming one space means access to others so try to progress as efficiently as possible, heading towards tiles that yield the most rewards. You’ll also have to take into account the requirements for un-glooming certain tiles and if it’s worth the resources to go there. No tile of land will be available for free, you’ll need to have enough castle level and any other items needed to un-gloom it.

Castle Level

One of the main requirements across the board for almost every gloomed tile available is a minimum castle level. Your castle level will increase naturally as you progress through the game and construct new buildings and structures, but gloom tiles can have heavy requirements that require you to sink a lot of time and money into your castle level in order to advance. Sometimes it’s worth it to make that extra push to venture in a certain tile, but in most cases it’s best to spend your energy tending the land you already have until you gradually accumulate enough castle level through questing to meet your goal.

So how do you raise your castle level? The main method is by constructing royal buildings, which have their own tab on the market screen. These are some of the most costly structures to build (with good reason), but their price in gold isn’t the only expense. As with all buildings, you’ll need to gather the needed resources (usually wood and stone) before you can actually construct it, but even then you aren’t finished when you’re dealing with royal buildings. You also have to man the building, or occupy it with a certain number of neighbors. The best way to do this is to play with a group of friends and occupy each other’s royal buildings as needed. Alternately, you can pay crowns to have the Duke occupy a position instead, but it’s unwise to waste crowns when there are easier solutions for free.

Exploration Crystals

Many gloomed areas require that you have exploration crystals to clear them out. These can be crafted using three Crystal Shards, which can be obtained by killing enemies. You can also gain crystal shards by helping out your friends with their kingdoms, simply visit them often and tend to their various chores. When they sign on and see that you helped them out, they are given the option to share a crystal shard with you for your efforts.

Picking Spaces

Exploration crystals aren’t the only items that you’ll expend when un-glooming new areas, you may also need to pay a good chunk of gold. Considering their cost, you’ll need to make sure you make sensible decisions when picking spaces to un-gloom. Take note of natural resources like boulders, trees, and fishing spots and compare them to your current needs. Some spaces can only be un-gloomed by completing specific quests (mostly the ones that involve meeting new characters).

If a space only requires castle level or minimal cost besides castle level to advance, try to clear these out first if you’re simply looking for some breathing room for your kingdom- you don’t have to worry about expending your castle points, they stick around.

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CastleVille Crafting Guide

By | Published December 19, 2011

What is Crafting?

One of the most in-depth features of many Zynga games is the crafting system, and it has made a return in CastleVille. As you expand your realm and explore the medieval fantasy countryside, you will come across tons of items, resources, and goodies. You can combine these using special buildings and recipes into brand new items that help you progress through the game.

Anyone familiar with RPGs and online games in general is probably already familiar with how this works, but social games often have an added dimension to crafting. Because actions cost precious energy, every single choice counts and an understanding of the crafting system is necessary if you want every play session to count. You need to be familiar with the items are the most valuable to craft and which components they need, so keep that in mind as you expend energy.

Crafting Buildings

In order to start crafting, you’ll need a special type of building known as a crafting building. There are many of these in the game that allow you to craft all types of objects, but it’s most important that beginners get a firm grasp on the first two.

The first building becomes available to you at level 2 and it costs 2000 coins- the workshop. After using 12 wood logs and 5 stones to construct it, you can access the workshop’s crafting menu by clicking on the building. Keep in mind that you can only have 3 of these buildings at once- try to make the most out of them and have a recipe preparing as often as possible. Recipes can take a long time to execute, usually a matter of hours, so having multiple buildings crafting things at once is a good idea.

The workshop focuses on construction, buildings, and materials. This is where you will be refining the raw resources you come across as you tame the wild- turning wood logs into plants, boulders into slabs of smooth stone. These refined items are necessary for building more advanced structures as they become available, so having a few items like this being concocted never hurts.
The other building you need for crafting is the kitchen. It becomes available at level 5 and costs 5000 gold coins to buy. You can construct it with 10 wood planks and 2 gold bricks (build up to this using a couple workshops). Try to build it and get it running as soon as possible, the recipes in the kitchen are some of the most important for extending your play sessions and keeping your kingdom efficient.

Priority Beginner Items

When you are first starting out and presented with the large amount of options for crafting recipes and new objects to make, it might be difficult to stick to the best ones. Here are some of the most important recipes to keep in mind as you play, try to gather their ingredients as you perform other tasks.

Food and energy items

Once you have a kitchen set up, it will be one of the most important buildings you have. Food in Castleville translates to energy, which is the most precious resource in the game. If you focus on gathering the right ingredients and crafting meals, you’ll be able to greatly extend your play sessions and get more done than before.

Look through all the recipes that your kitchen offers and take note of the activities you need to focus on to gather the right components. You’ll need to spend some time feeding animals, farming, fishing, and tending various flora and fauna to get all the right stuff. As always try to ‘sync’ your activities with your current crafting goals- if a quest wants you to gather certain items or do certain tasks, try to pick the ones that can get you relevant cooking components.

Building components

It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking that you have enough resources and materials when you really don’t. It may seem like you spent a while chopping wood and mining, but your bounty ends up considerably smaller after refining the raw resources at the workshop. This refining process can sometimes take hours for just a single item, so it’s best to think a few steps ahead and keep all your crafting buildings busy. For beginners, try to have some wood planks and gold bars ready for when you want to build a kitchen. Keep some refined stones on hand as well for royal buildings and castle extensions.

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CastleVille Beginner’s Guide

By | Published December 13, 2011

CastleVille is the new medieval themed game from the social media gaming giant Zynga, and it certainly lives up to the polish and playability of their previous titles. If you are familiar with the mechanics of FarmVille then you will feel right at home playing CastleVille, its familiar enough to pick up and play yet different enough to keep you interested.

The goal of the game is to build your kingdom, amass wealth and resources, and follow a storyline as you complete quests. We will be walking through the first set of quests together as we get acquainted with some of the basic mechanics and features of the game.

The Basics

Let’s get ourselves situated with the controls first so we can move around with ease. To move anywhere in the kingdom, simply click the ground where you want to go. To pan the screen around, click and hold the mouse while dragging.
Also, you should at least have a general idea of how energy works before you start playing. Energy is expended by every action you do, and once you are out of it, you’ll need to wait a long time for it to replenish before you can continue playing. You can use items to give you a boost, but they are hard to obtain for beginners so try to be conservative with your actions at first.
One last thing before we start questing: I should mention that one of the best things you can do to progress through the game smoothly is to play with some Facebook friends and share rewards with each other. You’ll often need extra hands to make things happen without grinding, so if you are a player who doesn’t like to wait or do repetitive tasks, make sure you find some friends to play with.
Now log in to the game, customize your avatar, and let’s start playing.

Beginner Quests

The Duke is in trouble and needs you to fend off a few enemies, the first encounter begins.

Duke is in trouble in CastleVille

Defeating them is easy, simply click them and your character will attack. Defeating enemies and performing actions reaps rewards such as gold and items, and collecting them is as simple as scrolling your cursor over them.

Once the beasties are gone, the Duke will tell you that he presides over the neighboring kingdom and that you can travel there anytime you want by clicking his portrait on the bottom of the screen. This is the same way that visiting kingdoms works for your friends as well.

Duke - First Neighbor in CastleVille

Keep in mind that you can gain loyalty hearts by helping out your neighbors, so be sure to make your daily rounds around other kingdoms to reap the benefits.

Yvette is now a guest in your kingdom and needs you to build a house for her.

Yvette Quest - Raise the Roof

This quest introduces you to building structures, this is how you will be expanding and improving your kingdom. Keep in mind that you can clear out any rocks, trees, foliage, and other items in your way as you progress, but doing so will expend energy.
Buildings require that you gather enough materials for them, so don’t assume that having enough gold to buy a structure means you’ll have access to it right away. Chop a couple trees and mine a few rocks to get the required materials to build the house, it’s as simple as clicking on them.

Yvette's House Construction in CastleVille

Next, we will learn about taxing your kingdom. Occupied buildings are taxable, meaning that they award you a certain amount of gold once a certain time limit resets. In Yvette’s case, you can gain 300 coins every half hour if you remember to click her house. Once you start building more structures occupied by your subjects, you’ll be making rounds around your kingdom to collect taxes regularly.

Collect Taxes in CastleVille

Now it’s time to learn about raising your castle level and exploring the gloomed areas around you. The Duke will give you a quest to raise your castle level to 10 so you can uncover a certain gloomed area.

CastleVille Quest - Noble Beginning

Revealing these darkened areas is how you expand your kingdoms territory and gain access to new characters, resources, and other goodies. Each gloomed segment as a different requirement for revealing it, and they often include a castle level requirement. You can raise your castle level by enhancing your castle with certain structures, one of which is rubble walls. You just need to build a few rubble walls anywhere you want until your castle level reaches 10, and then you can explore the new area.

CastleVille - Gloomed Area

Once you explore the gloomed area, you will find another subject, Rafael. You will need to build him a house as well, which will of course be taxable.

That about covers the basics of CastleVille, keep completing quests and advancing through the story to unlock new features, level up, and expand your kingdom. We’ve only just scratched the surface, there is a whole lot more complexity to the game than is presented in this first string of quests, so be sure to read up on the finer points lest you find yourself running an inefficient kingdom.

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CastleVille Characters

By | Published November 4, 2011

In Zynga’s newest game, CastleVille, the characters take center-stage. You’ll meet and interact with several different characters in the game, all with rich story lines and personalities. Here is a quick look at some of the characters you will meet in the game.

Tom the Dragon Slayer

Tom is a fearless knight with a thick Scottish accent and a penchant for cupcakes. He’s close to retiring from the life of quests and adventure and is thinking about finally settling down if he can meet the right lady.

Raphael the Woodsman

Raphael the Woodsman in CastleVille

Raphael the playboy woodsman in CastleVille

He’s handsome and charming and a definite Ladies’ Man. Raphael was orphaned as a young boy and now spends his time trying to help stop the Dark One. He also finds time to show-off whenever a beautiful maiden crosses his path.

George the Miner

George is a friendly miner who’s built like a house and has a heart of gold.

Sonja the Pirate

Sonja is a beautiful and feisty pirate who is constantly searching for treasure.

Yvette the Maiden

What fantasy setting is complete without the beautiful princess? Yvette is a fair maiden with a beautiful singing voice who features prominently in the game.

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