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Some of you have asked how city and fortress building works in Stormbinders.
The answer: classic castle building – starting from a small village and growing into the capital of your kingdom.
Each castle has:
A shared set of buildings that work the same across all factions.
A unique set tied to each faction.
For example: one faction can skip upgrade requirements, while another might convert weaker units into skeletons.
In total, with upgrades included, each faction reaches around 50 building options – that’s nearly two months of development in gameplay time! Different strategies will definitely encourage skipping or delaying certain upgrades. 😉
Castle Levels
To prevent “optimal rush” tactics (army → resources → top-tier units in week 2), we added city levels.
You need a set number of buildings upgraded before moving to the next tier.
It slows things down just enough so strategies stay flexible, but high-level units aren’t instantly accessible.
Why 2D Castles?
From the production side, we considered several approaches:
Skip castles entirely, just UI. (Didn’t fit the spirit of the game)
Minimal 2D/3D placeholders. (Uninspiring like a game with VI number in tittle)
Full 3D with cinematic assets. (Way out of scope)
Stylized 2D art.
We chose 2D art – the only realistic option.
What we didn’t expect? The time cost.
Creating 4 castles took our artist over a year:
Dozens of buildings per castle.
Upgrades, placement, adjustments.
Handling different storms and seasons.
It was a huge challenge, but worth it.
Castles on the Adventure Map
We also added a visual indicator of a castle’s level directly on the world map.
It doesn’t add much mechanically (you can always check the UI), but… it just looks cool. Sometimes you do things only because they look cool.
Sieges and War Machines
Of course, beautiful castles are only half the story.
Stormbinders also features sieges, where mighty war machines come into play:
…and suddenly, your lovely gates and towers don’t look so safe anymore.
That’s the big picture of how cities and fortresses evolve in Stormbinders.
And for a little fun:
Try to spot the placeholder Grail in the screenshot below.
