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9 Kingsis a deceptively simple little Roguelite that has a lot of mechanics tucked into what seems, at first glance, to be a small package. It’s a game that has you making a lot of important decisions at a regular click, and where one bad move can be the difference between survival and death.
Royal Decrees don’t come around nearly as often as many other mechanics in 9 Kings, but they have just as much impact as things like cards and placement. With the right Royal Decree choices, you can make a flailing Kingdom into a powerhouse. But, with the wrong ones, you can completely throw a run.
What Are Royal Decrees?
Royal Decrees arebonuses that are applied to your entire run from the moment you choose them. They have a wide variety of different effects that they can apply, and all of them are going to be situational, ranging from very helpful to very useless, depending on your build.
How To Get A Royal Decree
You cansee when you’re going to have a Royal Council on the calendarat the top of the screen; during these Royal Councils, you’ll get to select a Royal Decree. You’ll get multiple opportunities to do this during a normal run.
If you succeed in your run and progress into Endless Mode, you’ll have the option to select additional Royal Decrees regularly, until you inevitably perish.
You can select the same Royal Decree more than once, and the effect will stack.
Every Royal Decree
There are quite a few Royal Decrees, with the majority of them available to each King, andcertain specific Royal Decrees unique to individual Kings.
Every Common Royal Decree
Common Royal Decrees are generally viable to use for any of the Kings, and are the only Royal Decrees available to the King of Nothing. They can fit into most build options, though more focused builds will probably bypass these for some of the unique ones.
Effect
Bunker
Thisincreases your Tower’s Attack Speed by 50 percent. If you’ve got Beacons placed next to Towers, this is going to end up as an exponential increase. If you don’t, it might not be worth it.
Exploration
Thisunlocks three new plots in your Kingdom. These will be randomly located inside the 5x5 grid, and if you don’t have 3 free slots, this is not going to provide enough value. But, if you’re looking to expand early, this can be a great choice.
Eyeglass
All of yourTowers and Units have a 20 extra critical hit chance. With the right build, this can be an integral supporting piece, but with many builds, this is going to be ignored.
Feast
Thisdoubles the health of your Units. This works from their current value, so if it’s previously been buffed, it’s going to double the buffed statistic. Combined with well-placed Forests, this can provide a significant survivability upgrade.
Gambling
Instead of choosing one of three cards each year, youreceive two cards, but you cannot select the cards. Much like you would expect, this can go swimmingly, or it can go absolutely terribly.
Gunpowder
Thisincreases the area-of-effect (AoE) range of any AoE attack by 30 percent. This can combine very well with certain spells, like Combustion, making for a huge amount of AoE damage in the right build.
Iron Fist
Thisdoubles your critical hit damage. It integrates smoothly with the kind of build that Eyeglass fits into, and can make for a huge damage increase with builds where you have a high critical chance.
Leatherworks
Thisdoubles all of your Unit’s movement speed. This might not seem too impactful, but it makes a surprising difference, especially when you’ve got a sizable portion of melee Units.
Loan
This is a pretty straightforward Decree,putting 99 Gold into your pockets. This is the equivalent of nine years of income, and is especially helpful when running with the King of Greed and his cards that gain buffs for gaining Gold.
Outsourcing
Thisgives you nine free re-rolls, as opposed to you needing to pay for each re-roll. You can re-roll many different things, like card selections, Merchant inventories, and Royal Decree choices.
Overwork
Many buildings apply effects to those adjacent to them; upgraded versions apply those effects multiple times.Overwork adds those buffing effects one extra time, and if you’ve got a few different buildings that make use of it, it’s going to make an exponential difference.
Poison Thorns
Thisapplies a stack of Poison to an enemy each time they attack one of your Units. One stack of Poison on its own isn’t going to do much of anything, but if you’ve got a build that stacks Poison often, this is likely going to play a part.
Sharp Blades
Thisincreases all of your Unit’s and Tower’s attack power by 30 percent. For a build heavily utilizing Tower attack damage, this is going to be helpful, and just like the others, exponentially more helpful if you have Blacksmiths and/or Quarries buffing your Towers each turn.
Venom
This ensures thatall Poison effects apply twice. This is going to be even more beneficial than Poison Thorns for a build utilizing Poison.
War Horns
Thisstrengthens any summon by 50 percent. This is going to make Demons much more powerful, and is a great Royal Decree for the King of Blood.
Every King Of Spells Royal Decree
The King of Spells has unique Royal Decrees thatdebuff enemiesfrom the start of the battle, andbuff their own unique cards.
Abracadabra
Turn ten percent of the enemy force into frogsat the start of the battle. These frogs will still attack, but will be extremely less effective, essentially rendering ten percent of the enemy force useless.
Glass Staffs
YourWizards have 100 attack, but one health. This cannot be changed by buffs in any way; Forests won’t increase health, and Blacksmiths won’t increase damage. This is a helpful Royal Decree in the early going, but is usually going to hurt you in the long run.
Re-enchant
Thisdoubles all the enchantments currently applied to your Units. Because of the King of Spells' heavy focus on enchantments buffing your Units, this can be extremely helpful if you’ve already laid the groundwork.
Spiremania
Thisdoubles the healing effect of your Spires. Spires are going to require a beefy unit to focus on in the late-game because many lower-health units are going to be one-shot, but in the right situation, this can really improve your survivability.
Static Fields
Thisdoubles the attack speed of your Citadel. When combined with the King of Spells perk that gives your Citadel a chance to deal infinite damage, this can make a tremendous difference in how quickly you’re able to wipe the opposing force.
Every King Of Greed Royal Decree
The King of Greed has Royal Decrees that generally revolve aroundincreasing the size of their Gold stash. A few of their unique cards get amplified by either having or earning money, making these Royal Decrees pretty pivotal in many good King of Greed builds.
Bargain
Thishalves the cost of every card in the Merchant’s shop. Throughout the course of a run, this is going to give you a lot more freedom when it comes to building your Kingdom exactly how you’d like to.
Burglary
Thisgives all of your Units two stacks of the Midas Touch enchantment, which gives a chance to reward Gold when killing an enemy.
Insurance
Thisgives you one Gold for every ninth ally that dies.If you have a particularly large force, this can net you quite a bit of Gold.
Salvage
Thistriples the value of any card that you throw into the Pit. This can help you feed cards like Mercenaries, increasing their total Unit count.
Scimitar
This ensures thatevery time a Thief Unit hits an enemy, it’s a critical strike. This pairs really well with Eyeglass and Iron Fists.
Every King Of Blood Royal Decree
The King of Blood has a lot of Units that can be considered fodder, but that feed the Demon Altar. Their Royal Decrees strengthen this playstyle,ensuring your fodder are useful while they’re alive, and feed your Demons when they die.
Covenant
Thisdoubles the current stats of every Demon Altar; this is a great Royal Decree to use once your Demon Altars have had a chance to grow a bit. Using this too early isn’t going to provide a huge benefit.
Embalming
Thiscauses ten percent of all enemies that you kill to come back to life as allies, instead. This requires a bit more force to use properly compared to the King of Spells Abracadabra, but it has a higher overall ceiling when it comes to efficacy.
Evil Pact
Thisdoubles the amount of Imps that your Pagoda can summon. This won’t provide a huge benefit when it comes to Imps, but those Imps will likely perish, which will strengthen your Demon Altars that much more.
Fireworks
Thisdoubles the attack range of your Bombers. This means fewer Bombers are needed for the same amount of area, because your Bombers cover more ground.
Transmutation
Thisreplaces all active allied Units with level three Imps. This is a wildly situational Royal Decree, but in situations where you’re looking to significantly amplify a Demon Altar, this can have some juice.
Every King Of Nature Royal Decree
The King of Nature has Royal Decrees that, for the most part, help toeither create more Units overall, or keep the Units that you do have alive longer.
Fertility
Thisgives you three Procreate cards, which all increase the number of Units on a tile. This can help you start to severely outnumber your enemy, especially in the early-going.
Nettle
Thisincreases the damage that your Treant deals to enemy Units. This isn’t terribly beneficial, but can provide some extra damage, particularly if your Treant is being buffed by something else along with this.
Populate
Over time, this is going to have a greater effect than Fertility; with this,each time a Unit gains a member, it gains an extra member, as well. This means, with a level one Farm, this will outpace the benefit of the Fertility Royal Decree in fifteen years. If you have the time, this is the better choice.
Revitalize
Thisdoubles every healing effect on your Units. This can make a serious difference in keeping them alive, especially with a buffed Treant and/or Spires.
Wilderness
Thisunlocks three random plots, and places Forests on them, which increases the health of adjacent Units. This can end up being very helpful, but you can also get some really bad luck with the placement of them.
Every King of Stone Royal Decree
The King of Stone has one less Royal Decree than the others, but theymostly revolve around making your defenses more formidable, as opposed to improving your offense.
Barricade
Thiscauses your Walls to reflect ten percent of their damageback at enemies. This can make a significant difference, especially if there are lower-health enemy Units causing heavy damage to the Wall.
Dynamites
If you’remaking use of traps, this is going to double their damage. This is going to specifically help in certain builds that make heavy use of traps, but be skipped over in most.
Engineering
Thisdoubles the damage of all of your Towers, and is a tremendous benefit for a build making heavy use of Towers. If you have Quarries or Blacksmiths buffing them further, this is going to make them outrageously effective.
Towerdome
Thisallows your Stronghold to build Towers twice as fast. This is going to, essentially, double the damage output of your Stronghold, which plays into what the King of Stone already does best.
Every King of Progress Royal Decree
The King of Progress has cards that revolve aroundupgrading existing cards to work to their fullest. This might either change how those cards work, or else buff them considerably.
Frankensteinian
Thismakes your Converters turn enemies into Bombers instead of Lab Rats. This is going to make them much more effective, especially if you’ve got the Converter’s damage buffed.
Gentrify
Thisupgrades all of your plots by one level(unless they’re already at maximum level).
Scopes
Thisadds nine Precision cards to your hand, which will allow you to guarantee critical damage from a specified Unit. This combines very well with Iron Fists.
Splicing
Thisdoubles the level of all of your active Lab Rats. Lab Rats can be leveled indefinitely, so toward mid-to-late-game, this can be a huge increase in their stats.
Ultragravity
Thisdoubles the attack range of your Mothership, which will essentially increase its damage, particularly against large groups of enemies.
