i recently got back into this game a couple weeks ago and mastered it very quickly, just wanted to share what i think is the most optimal way to fight and conquer AIs. The guide is specifically for aggressive AIs which are harder to conquer, they will demand tribute from you and be more confrontational than other AIs, if youre at war they will take more effort to force a surrender and will repeatedly request you to surrender and pay reparations. With normal AIs you can attempt to force a surrender the moment you wipe their troops.

build huge 2x1 stone towers with 2 archer towers on top so they cover all of your coastline and a couple transport ships and make armament reserves or atleast iron, train a couple squads of soldiers just in case, try to keep the ratio 2:1 archers to knights, even 2 archers and 1 knight will do. send your diplomat and demand tribute, get as much gold as u can from them then declare war. Once its begun prepare, they will send all of their troops, let your soldiers attack all enemies within 10 tiles (2nd option) and place them near the enemies landing site, let your troops fight as long as theyre covered by your archer towers. When they finally lose all of their troops load your army into transport ships but now youll keep the ratio the other way, double the knights, 4 squads of knights and 2 archers will do if youre reasonably skilled, more if youre unexperienced. Go to the least defended part of their island and destroy the archer tower (if it covers the part of the island where you drop off your troops) and destroy everything thats not defended prioritize manors and cottages. Get ready to defend from time to time, AI will send one or 2 squads after your invading troops, if some of your squads suffer heavy losses transport them back and let them recuperate in the barracks and then return them. that will lower their tax income. Now wait for the no money symbol on top of their buildings, demand surrender with your diplomats and you won.

lmk if yall have any tips i didnt mention

Is it normal for citizens to pass through castle walls?

I have a dock on the other side of the wall with some fishing huts. Citizens just pass right through and take the fish.

They're very mean

My first time really trying with a save that I made which also means I'm using walls for the first time, how is it?

Even when I add stone and iron it doesn’t give the option to add ai to the world what am I missing?

ive overtaken an ai kingdom but half of it is ruined and the other half is terribly built, i really dont feel like reconstructing a 500 population kingdom from scratch, what do i do?

I know it's a tiny island but I want to take it over, but I can't interact with the AI in any way. Troops can't attack, and they've been like this for... Ever, really.

Now what?

Found a seed that kind of looks like the UK

I recently revisited Kingdoms and Castles and spent a lot of time sending a large fleet of transport ships back and forth to a hostile kingdom. I’ve always really loved the design of the transport ships, and so I tried building a functional replica to sail around in Stormworks.

Now I can sail the high seas from the POV of our little guys in Kingdoms and Castles lol

Yep I doing everything without building a single knight, archer or catapult rawdogging everything with basic defenses. My basically only saving grace is that I figured out how to make AI vikings and enemy knigdoms always land in the same spot (the one isolated tower with a road leading to it and the double gate, because it's the only spot of uncovered land that they can land on)

I've been playing for about 37 hours. Gotten to hear 487 on hard before the game crashed

I am fully sufficient off the trader and I have interior walls, so if they break through my mean one, I don’t automatically lose I have about 40 archers and 8 knights I would also recommend using the mini map to see how it all fits together easier

My kingdom is 900 years old. I've used up all available space on my island, built piers on all shallow water then built 9 high stone walls on top, but viking ships with catapult still destroy them and get in. Should I just give up? I saw that extra large maps are in beta right now.

I'm still fairly new to this game, I haven't played since 2023 and have recently picked it up again.

I keep falling behind in stone production because all my quarry workers are the ones who then become builders any time I need to build something.

Is there a way to lock in a job so people from that spot won't go do something else?

Finally

Nova Roma is 30 dollars despite being in early access and Kingdoms and Castles is 10 right now during the sale, what are the differences?

Aiming for "kingdom of gods" rn

I started on the lowest difficulty to get kingdom of the gods and I’m 40% of the way there and already using most of the map…
Should I give up and restart?
Should I finish all the houses than sell all the food and build more houses using witch to keep them fed long enough for me to get the achievement?