Kingdoms of Camelot: Ascension, Developer Diary #1

At its essence, Kingdoms of Camelot is all about building. One of the top requests we get from players is city and building expansion features. The problem is that the game has eight cities already, and simply adding more cities makes the game increasingly more difficult to manage on a day to day basis.  The release of Kingdoms of Camelot: Ascension looks to expand cities in a new way.  

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At its essence, Kingdoms of Camelot is all about building. One of the top requests we get from players is city and building expansion features. The problem is that the game has eight cities already, and simply adding more cities makes the game increasingly more difficult to manage on a day to day basis.  The release of Kingdoms of Camelot: Ascension looks to expand cities in a new way. 

Ascension will allow a player to take one of their existing cities and rebuild it from the ground up as a faction aligned Ascended City. This does not mean, however, that the effort players have put into their existing cities will be wasted. In fact, their hard work will directly influence what is involved in creating an Ascended City, which is outlined below.

This new feature will allow players to continue to build up existing cities and, when they are ready, ascend it to gain additional benefits exclusive to the faction they choose.  In Kingdoms of Camelot: Ascension, cities will have levels attached to them much like buildings currently do.  Players will continue to be rewarded as they level up their cities through ascension.  Ascension brings a number of great things to Kingdoms of Camelot. We’re very excited to better explore the factions and the role they will play inside the game. We will also discuss how a player will create an Ascended City and the specific benefits of ascending a city.

 

Factions in Kingdoms of Camelot: Ascension

Up until now, the three factions (Druid, Fey and Briton) in Kingdoms of Camelot have only been hinted at.  Kingdoms of Camelot: Ascension puts factions at the forefront and is going to give the player a chance to really learn about each faction, starting with the Druids.  Players will be able to choose which faction to align their Ascended City with.  Each Ascended City will look and feel like the faction they belong to and will give players new buildings, troops and bonuses exclusive to that faction.  In a future developer diary we’ll be taking a deeper dive into the Druid, Fey and Briton factions.

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City View will be completely transformed to fit the theme of each faction.  Druid City is shown here.

Ascension

As mentioned above, the process of creating an Ascended City requires that an existing city be rebuilt from the ground up.  Each current city will be valued based on the number and levels of the buildings it contains.  To ascend, each city must first reach a specific minimum city value. Once a player has a city that meets the minimum city value, the player can then take that city and start the ascension process. This process will evaluate the city value and determine the overall price required. The price to ascend will be in Gems, however, the higher the city value is before ascending, the lower the cost will be. If the city value is high enough, ascension could even be free.

Once a player has chosen an appropriate city to ascend, they will then be given the option to select between the Druid, Fey or Briton factions.  With the initial release, only the Druid faction will be selectable, but future releases will unlock the Fey and Briton factions as choices.  Once a faction is chosen the player will be able to select an available blessing (explained below).  After locking in the faction and selecting a blessing, the player is ready to begin using their new Ascended City.

 

Benefits of Ascension

Kingdoms of Camelot: Ascension gives us the ability to improve the way players interact with and manage their cities.  Two places these improvements are represented, using the Druid City as an example, are the Grove and City Center. 

With a completely updated Field View, the Grove allows the player to control all resource production from a single modal.  Replacing the field buildings of a traditional city, the Grove will produce the same amount of resources for the player as a maxed out field does currently.  The second way we’re improving cities is through the City Center.  The City Center will consolidate several buildings into a single building, and like the Grove, will automatically be max level.  This gives the player seven additional plots that they can build on and should allow the player to further strategize how they will construct their city with the extra space provided.

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The new Field View houses the buildings exclusive to each faction.  For the Druid City above, the Grove can also be seen as the building on the right.

The last, and possibly most important, benefit of creating an Ascended City is getting access to the blessing system.  The blessing system allows for further customization of an Ascended City. Each faction will have their own unique set of blessings. Players gain one new blessing with each Ascension level. Depending on the faction and the level of the Ascended City, a player can use the blessings to unlock new troops, special abilities for the new troops, give bonuses to the new buildings and provide other buffs to gameplay that support the theme of the selected faction.   We’re especially excited about the blessings because this is the first time a player in Kingdoms of Camelot will have access to new troops!  In a future developer diary we’ll be going through the blessings that players will have available when the Druid City is launched.

Kingdoms of Camelot: Ascension is a massive upcoming expansion for Kabam’s popular free-to-play strategy game Kingdom of Camelot, available soon.  Brian DeSanti is the game’s producer.