Castles Of War

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Latest news

• Patch Notes·5 Aug 2026Official

  Castles of War Demo Update 3

  Hey all! It’s been a while. We’ve spent several months honing the game based on feedback from players at MAGFest and Steam NextFest (along with adding a lot of new content!) and are thrilled to finally share it with you!So, first, here are the highlights. In terms of new content we’ve:Added Paladins and Scouts - our first mounted units! - completing the human faction roster and adding new mechanics including healing and knockbackAdded three new base tiers, creating a vertical progression system linked to gold income, unit availability, and upgrade capacityAdded buildable improvements to customize high-tier outpostsCreated a variety of enemy AI personalities to add more variety to gameplay. We’ll go into each of these additions in more detail below. We’ve also taken time to overhaul the game mechanics to make pacing feel more engaging, combat less stale, and more options for economic progression. The UI has been improved to better communicate game mechanics to the player based on feedback we’ve had from our playtesters. New UnitsPerhaps the most exciting addition to the game is our two new units - The Paladin and Scout! These are our first mounted units, and as you may expect, they take very high damage from Spearmen. The Paladin is a frontline healing-tank. They add survivability to your formation while delivering a powerful melee blow. Paladins are among the most expensive units in the game and require base tier 3 to unlock. They are heavily armored but can be countered by Spearmen and Crossbows. The Scout is a fast wolf unit unlocked at base tier 2. They are able to quickly rush to the frontline, supporting a formation on the edge of buckling or capturing outposts before the enemy can arrive. Their health pool is modest and can be quickly destroyed by Spearmen. Combat ImprovementsOne of our biggest challenges in designing Castles of War is delivering big, epic, real-time strategy battles in a 2D side-scrolling environment. This poses a lot of limitations not found...
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• Announcements·26 Feb 2026Official

  Base-Building And InfoBoxes

  Hello everyone! Hope you’ve been enjoying NextFest! We really appreciate all your feedback, and wanted to share some upcoming features that address some of it!We’ve heard from you that the overall pacing of the game feels slow, with a lot of time spent waiting around to earn gold and waiting for troops to reach the front line. We agree that this is an issue and are happy to share some solutions that are already in the works and will be available in the next update!Introducing…Outpost Improvements!One of our goals long-term is to add more base building mechanics into the game. Outpost Improvements are our first major step in this direction. Higher tier outposts now have building slots available. We currently have two buildings to choose from, with more to come! Our first two improvements are Markets and BarracksThe Market provides a powerful way to invest in growing your economy. Markets provide a base level gold income which can be increased by garrisoning Builders inside of them! The Barracks allows you to train units closer to the front line. In every Barracks you can choose one infantry unit type to specialize in - Spearmen, Archers, Knights, or Crossbowmen - and those units will now spawn at the Barracks instead of back at your base. You can change the specialization of a barracks once every 60 seconds.InfoBoxesAnother new exciting feature we’ve been working on is InfoBoxes! All units and structures can now be selected by clicking on them, providing advanced stats information and controls. We’ve moved some functionality - such as garrisons - into these InfoBox, cleaning up the main game’s HUD. Additionally, InfoBoxes provide a finer level of control over units we didn’t support previously, including the ability to individually command units to charge, advance in formation, or retreat! Long term, we are planning on adding a lot more functionality here, including the ability to manually assign targets to units (including builders!) New UnitsWe have been hard at wo...
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• Announcements·16 Jan 2026Official

  Crossbows And Stone Keeps

  We’re back from MAGFest and ready to share a new update to our demo!New Unit: The Crossbowman!With devastating armor-piercing bolts, our newest ranged unit The Crossbowman can cut down Knights from afar! They have heavy armor, protecting them from archers, and bring an exciting expansion of our counter system. Crossbowmen can be garrisoned alongside archers in fortifications.Tier 4 Outposts: Stone Keep!Build further with a new tier for Outposts and Fortifications! Stone Keeps earn more gold and provide garrison slots for ranged units. Stone Wall fortifications have significantly higher defenses and provide extra garrison slots.Wider OutpostsUpgrading outposts now makes them bigger! Fortifications push outward, creating a larger outpost for your army to hang out in! This is mostly a visual effect right now, but it lays the groundwork for future base building features.Additionally, there are now different background wall sprites for every fortification tier! Other ChangesThis update brings many small (but important changes!) so read the patch notes if you want to see them all. Some highlights include a 1.5x speed boost for all units (we heard you!) and many more tooltips!MAGFest!Last weekend we brought Castles of War to MAGFest to a crowd of over 20,000 gamers! For four days we watched people try out our game for the first time, heard what excited them and what they wished were different, and of course took time to enjoy the convention itself! We have some feedback from MAGFest marked to be addressed in future updates.Share Your Thoughts!Thank you for supporting Castles of War! This update marks an exciting step forward, and we’d love to hear your feedback on the new changes. Drop your thoughts, suggestions, and bug reports in the community discussions! Join us on Discord and Follow Us on Bluesky Patch Notes 1.0.43GameplayNew “Crossbow” unit, which has high armor, does piercing damage, but moves very slowly and is expensiveNew tier 4 outposts/walls: stone keep and sto...
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• Announcements·4 Dec 2025Official

  The Age of Magic Begins!

  Castles Of War Demo Update We’re excited to share the first major update to the Castles of War demo! A huge thank you to everyone who’s played, tested, and shared feedback. New Unit: The Mage!Magic has arrived on the battlefield! The Mage is a powerful ranged unit that unleashes devastating area-of-effect Lightning attacks. Though expensive to recruit, just one or two can turn the tide of battle. This update also introduces new Magic Damage, Magic Armor, and Magic Vulnerability stats. Physical armor does not protect against magical strikes. This change opens the door for new units and strategies in future updates.New Ground TilesWe’ve expanded the world’s terrain with three new ground tile sets: Forest, Meadow, and Rocky. While currently visual-only, these additions bring more depth and atmosphere to each map and help us tell richer stories through level design.Balance, Polish & Bug FixesWe’ve done a complete combat and economy rebalance to account for the Mage’s arrival and community feedback. Expect smoother pacing, fairer fights, and more rewarding strategies.You’ll also notice visual polish throughout the game such as refined UI panels, improved lighting, fog effects, and other visual tweaks that enhance the overall feel. Share Your ThoughtsThank you for supporting Castles of War! This update marks an exciting step forward, and we’d love to hear your feedback on the new changes. Drop your thoughts, suggestions, and bug reports in the community discussions! Join us on Discord and Follow Us on BlueskyPatch Notes 1.0.35GameplayNew unit: The MageNew damage type Magic along with Magic Armor and Magic VulnerabilityUnits now capture outposts from the far-side of the outpost3 new campaign missionsImproved handling of simulation speed: the game will now perform better on higher speeds as the load is now better distributed across frames.Collision hitboxes refresh more frequentlyUnits now use a greedy algorithm to choose attack targets, which yields huge performance improv...
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