9 Kings: IX-IX Any King

Steam Community guide by Vao.

A few things to note first.

Welcome, my little King or Queen. You want to be the ruler with the biggest nuke, or you like a tiny “casual” one? Anyway, I will try to help you.

• I’ve tested everything without loosing any lives and save-load spam.If you wish to sacrifice lives for cards, or load to eliminate RNG, your results would be better, or less RNG heavy.
• If you just want to beat the last difficulty available ASAP, scroll down to the King of Progress specific section.**Very important notice: **
  Some rainbow cards can be game breaking if you buy them as soon as first shop arrives. For example, "patronage" can fully nullify castle lvl nerf, and if used twice will make your run super easy and smooth. It is pretty easy to get them, with "Lucky" perk, but purely random and inconsistent, so I do not use this perk in the guide below, to make the most unlucky scenario. Feel free to spam rainbow cards in shops with this perk, to make some easy and funny runs.
  Updating to version 1.0

Updates info.

I will try to add some information about new updates here, and if they affect the guide content below.

Finally version 1.0 game launch. (Patch 32:)

• New blessings:
  

• New Universal perks:
  
  "Prodigious" perk is a good universal option now.

• New rainbow cards.
• Tons of new decrees.
• New achievements.

Patch 31:

• Mostly multiplayer changes.
• Some cards improvements.
• QOL and bug fixes.

Patch 30:

• Updated perks layout for every king.
• New perks, decrees and some updates to old ones.
• The most important is the new "authoritarian" perk, you can now get one more level 3 perk and expand perk grid, or you can max out 4 lvl perks and keep castle upgrades.
• "Authoritarian" perk is a better option now for most kings:
  
• New rainbow cards.

Patch 24-29 Massive Changes:

• Added Multiplayer. (I do not believe in any competitive without proper AC system, so this guide will not cover online mode at this point. Still, a lot of tips here may be useful in pvp mode of the game.)
• Blessings can now target occupied tiles, finally making them actually useful.
• Tons of UI and QOL improvements.
• "Wallmaker" and "cauldron" hugely improved.
• Golden Boy's "vault" improvement making it even more useful with new "speculation" decree.
• King of Blood rework:
• Huge improvements to many cards, "mangler" especially, making it a viable option.
• Cemeteries rework.
• Pagoda Improvements.
• A few new decrees and perks plus updates to the old ones. (not essential)
• Mostly multiplayer balancing/fixes and perks changes/bans to fit online mode.
• Nerf of essential "ingenious" perk and time "scam" mechanic.
• Updated almost every section:
• Updated King of Spells section.
• Updated King of None section.
• Updated red one.
• Updated Mr. Compost.
• Updated Fus ro dah.
• Updated Golden Boy.
• Updated Swatch King.
• Updated The Green One.
• Updated King of Stone.

Patch 23:

• Added difficulty levels for quest mode.
• Quality of life improvements and bug fixes.

Patch 22:

• Some units and castles buffs, making most runs described in this guide easier.
• New "treasures" mechanic. It’s fun and can help while expanding in mid-game, the problem is that you should already have all you need till mid-game...
• Updated almost every king’s section.
• Added new decrees list with some thoughts:
  (Click to zoom)
  
• “Yield” is a very powerful decree for the golden boy, it insanely increases gold farm capability.
• “Magic Bricks” is a pretty interesting one, yet to be tested.
• “Invisibility” is pretty useless when focusing on scaling one unit.
• “Heartvine” Is a good choice now, increasing HP pool over limit.
• “Khanate” can help to hugely increase amount of units, especially in mid-end game.
• "Kintsugi" helps to time scale faster.
• "Fracture" is pretty useless.

Patch 21:

• I’ve noticed that sometimes there are no “golden enemies” in battle or they stop spawning. This is essential for King of Greed as this is his core mechanic. I hope it’s a bug and not some limit to “castle gold spam”, as this makes farming gold much harder now and unpredictable. On the other hand, because of the game performance overhaul, dispenser finally may outperform castle.
• Added additional information and screenshot to golden boy specific section.
• Added the “Jack of Chaos” and his deck, plus new endless game bosses.
• This content is playable after base game 33 years and is intended to spice the “Endless Mode” a little bit, so it has no impact on the guide content below.
• Significant performance increase. To be tested.
• 3 new rainbow cards.
  
• Rainbows are pretty inconsistent, so I’ll try to avoid relying on them.

Patch 20:

• Fixes and quality of life improvements.

Patch 19:

• New “Quest mode”.
• Pretty easy and relaxing journey, nice addition to the base game.
• No base game perks in this mode.
• “Essential tips” section below can also be helpful in this mode.

Patch 18:

• Despite Hogwarts King units changes, I still prefer citadel mini-gun focus.
• Blessings are still a “meh” thing, good if helps, but hard to rely on. Except “Feudalism”, it’s kinda not bad. I recommend to go for it, if you have some spare re-rolls.
  
  If the target plot is empty in the year
  of blessing get +1 card of your king.
• For King of Progress you may consider “Futurism” decree with “Overhaul” spam for infinite lvl uber unit.
  
  All progress troops
  have no max level.
• “Multiculturalism” decree is an interesting one. Cross king decrees can result in a very interesting and fun outcome, but is definitely inconsistent and hard to recommend.
  
  Triggers a Royal Council with
  exclusive decrees from the other kings.
• Added "moderate" perk.
  
• If your only perk is “Lunatic”, you’ll basically start with rainbow army as your enemy king. Pretty fun, especially with picking a decree on first year, there are endless possible fun outcomes. But considering that perks are essential to survive early game on high difficulties, this is not an easy option for IX-IX.
• Avoid “Diversification” decree for now, as it will replace rainbow cards pick too. (May be fixed.)
• I find everything else not so important or game changing, just a good add of variation for runs.

Essential tips, all kings.

** I will try to add here essential and critical tips for completing high difficulties, which you may or may not know of. **

** If you start your run with some extra deployable cards, you may want to roll for king of spells as your first year enemy. Deploy some buildings/units, and after battle you can re-roll and use "offering" card to get up to 3 castle/tiles upgrades, if you are lucky ofc. This will make some unbeatable plays possible, and make your start smoother in general. This tip can be used through entire run utilising useless cards and bad RNG. **

** Works almost like “offering”, but with “roll your enemy” added mechanic. Roll for junk guy every year, deploy some spare cards and you can easily get lvl 15 9 castle before year 9. After that your game will be smooth and easy, because many kings are castle dependant. **

** You can use "earthworks" to destroy your max level temple, and get 3 first level temple cards and 2 free tiles. Deploy them again and upgrade. Repeat till the numbers are ridiculous and game crashes. Relevant for other cards you wish to clone too, ofc. **

** If units are not able to deliver enough dmg to bosses and king’s castle is not able to kill them, use "converter" tower. **

• ** The thing is, instead of turning boss into a rat, it will highly dmg it. **
• ** Even not upgraded tower will easily kill bosses. **

** Pretty good if used to spam rainbow cards. If combined with “offering” to increase amount of cards in hand, can be game breaking. **

** With “shrine” + “overwork” decree, portals will activate on deploy, if you have nothing more to upgrade ofc. Technically this means that any king can jump in time, with a timer guy as an enemy. Relevant for mid game+, but can be universal and useful to beat otherwise ruined tries. **

King of Blood "Red Alert".

• Spam imps.
• Spam cemeteries.
• Upgrade castle.
• Eat some chicken dinner.
• Still valid, but you can eat pancakes.
• After RedFace King's cemeteries changes deleting lvl 3 imps with "overhaul" near "cemetery", will give you lvl 1 "skeleton" which you can upgrade again. This way you can increase your overall units count.
• Roll for King of Junk as your first year enemy and use his "overhaul" on lvl 3 imps to make some skeletons. Then slowly "overhaul" everything you build.
• Temple is not essential, at some point it can even hurt, boosting will be too spread.
• Still as straightforward as it was, but use “Supplies” or "War Horns" now.
• In mid game choose summon related decrees, but you can experiment, be creative.
• Ban or skip aoe kings, Stone, Hogwarts, Time. They can cause some problems.
  
  
  

More information screenshots:

Before patch 30 run:

Castle lvl15 legacy: Before 24th update.

Some legacy screenshots:

King of Greed "Oil GP Baron".

• Just spam mercenaries with 1 “mob” unit centred.
• Guess what? Now you have more population than India AND China combined.
• Additional notes:
• All the same but with "Speculation" decree, just spam banks instead of castle focus. (AI driven banks driven AI bubble?!)
• Feel free to swim in absurd amount of money and afford a proper GPU.
• Year 33 boss better not have any aoe.
• 20k unscaled units mess can be nuked, timer guy and stone are strongly not recommended as enemies.
• You better start with focusing on banks, mercs, and "Dispenser", roll for King of Hogwarts or King of Junk and use “Offering” or “Overhaul”. Remember to throw them out on first peace declaration or they may cause some trouble.
• First "free" shopping is important, pick wisely, upgrades or merc cards.
• "Demon Altar" can scale insanely fast with this swarm, especially if you add some cemeteries. Consider it for your run.
• “Servitude” decree now allows all-in shopping, so it is definitely worth it, check screenshots below.
• “Yield” decree is an easy run finish, as it absurdly multiplies dirty oil money income. The only problem is, it's a rainbow decree...
• King of Nomads update and new decrees make playing this golden boy a ridiculous mess, on slow devices your game may crash BEFORE year 33.
• "Supplies" decree gives an absurd amount of cards in hand, use it to spam MORE mercs, and get/upgrade "dispenser" early game.
• Upgrading castle is essential only if your main income is from castle, not AI bubble driven banks. More money = more mercs.
• Consider "Patronage" as rainbow pick, it works over castle's lvl limit, and easily removes the impact of "Ingenious" perk nerf in "patch 24."
• Dispenser… What a useless toy, no sense numbers, still no dmg output. I think it’s a targeting issue combined with infinite dmg castle problems. Attack speed was fixed, in a way...
• Timer guy update information:
• Okaay, so now 15 gold per mercenary, inflation I suppose?
• Updated perks layout.
• Patch 21 notes:
  Check “updates info” section for more information on gold farm issues.
• Game performance increase finally fixed dispenser in end-game. Looks like it has no targeting issues now, and makes tons of dmg, check after-patch screenshot below. (Patch 21 run.)
  
  
  

More information screenshots:

Castle income focus run.

Castle lvl15 legacy: Before 24th update.

Patch 21 run:

Broken dispenser run:

Another run:

More information screenshots:

• Drea