Monster Rework, New Traps, and Destructible Decorations
This update makes castle battles much more dynamic. Monsters should no longer merely fight side by side as individuals, but complement one another through clearly defined family mechanics. At the same time, new traps expand your castle-building options, while destructible decorations can change cover and routes during an attack.
Monsters Now Fight as a Family
The biggest change in this update is the new interplay between monsters. Cold, fire, lightning, and physical beasts now each have their own identity:
Cold and undead monsters control movement, create frost zones, and mark heroes for coordinated attacks.
Fire monsters and demons scorch heroes and ground areas, ignite prepared zones, and force attackers to keep moving.
Lightning monsters build up visible charges and turn them into short, dangerous bursts of damage through discharges.
Beasts and physical monsters benefit from packs, successful hits, and coordinated hunting pressure.
Special abilities, passive effects, and important statuses are now also explained directly in the monster and trap information. The new information texts have been added for all supported languages.
Cold and Undead Family
Skeleton Warrior: While in its shield stance, it takes only a small portion of frontal directional damage. It regularly prepares this stance during combat and after taking damage.
Skeleton Archer: Its frost arrows chill heroes. At regular intervals, it fires rapid focused shots; marked targets accelerate this attack further.
Skeleton Mage: Creates frost zones at tactical positions around the hero. These zones slow movement significantly and control routes without having to appear directly beneath the target.
Skeleton Commander: Its frost breath hits an area in front of it and inflicts Chill. It also marks heroes: undead monsters deal 20% more damage to marked targets and recover their cooldowns 10% faster.
Skeleton Scout - new: Attacks once, then retreats to its post and calls monsters within a large radius into battle. Direct damage can interrupt the imminent call.
Frost Spider: Remains an inexpensive, fast cold unit for swarms and tight defensive areas.
Chill, frost zones, and the stronger Frostbind effect are now clearly separated statuses. This makes it easier to tell whether a hero has only been slowed briefly or is currently standing in a particularly dangerous control zone.
Fire and Demon Family
The fire family uses two statuses that build on one another:
Scorched is the setup. The effect applies light pressure and makes subsequent fire attacks more dangerous.
Burning is the stronger punishment. Scorched heroes and zones can be ignited by suitable demons.
Fire Imp: Its fireballs leave scorched zones at the point of impact.
Hellhound: Deals more damage to scorched or burning heroes. Its fire breath scorches the ground or ignites previously prepared zones.
Shadow Demon: Creates several scorched zones around itself. Nearby fire zones reduce its cooldowns, and its attacks become stronger against scorched or burning targets.
Horned Demon - new: Scorches heroes with its attack and ignites targets that are already scorched. Its special ability ignites nearby scorched zones or creates new fire zones.
Laserheart: Retains its role as a heavy fire elite with an area slash and sustained targeting beam. Damage channels and target assignment have been corrected, and the burst damage of its ultimate has been reduced slightly.
Scorched and burning ground zones remain active for their full duration and can hit heroes repeatedly. Their visuals and feedback have been reworked so that prepared and fully ignited zones are easier to distinguish.
Lightning Family
Lightning attacks now build up Charge on heroes. Charges are visible, expire after a period without new hits, and discharge automatically at the maximum. A full discharge deals a total of 20% of maximum health as lightning damage. Certain monsters can trigger the effect early from three charges onward.
Witch: Calls down lightning on a fixed target position and generates Charge. Her Static Curse repeatedly hits an area and builds up additional charges.
Lizardfolk Spearman: Generates Charge on hit and deals additional damage for each existing charge.
Lizardfolk Mage: Its lightning projectiles generate Charge. Against heroes with at least three charges, it can trigger an early discharge.
Storm Jackal - new: Its normal hits generate one charge, while its heavy strike generates two. A recurring pulse damages nearby heroes and briefly strengthens allied lightning monsters.
Lightning Dragon: Its attack, lightning breath, and triple lightning strike now reliably use their intended damage values. Recovery times for its attack and ability have been reduced.
Beasts and Physical Defenders
Flying Maw: Collects up to five empowerment stacks when nearby beasts land hits. At three stacks, it can pounce on a more distant hero. The attack consumes the stacks and becomes stronger with each stack.
Werewolf: Attacks faster with each consecutive hit. Its howl alerts monsters within a large radius and grants nearby beasts increased damage and attack speed for eight seconds. Hitting the werewolf during preparation can interrupt the howl.
Chicken and Golden Chicken: Attack faster for every other nearby chicken, allowing them to form surprisingly dangerous swarms. Their hits also support the Flying Maw.
Dwarven Defender: Its shield stance now protects not only itself, but also allied monsters directly behind it. Non-directional damage is also reduced within the shield zone.
General Monster Improvements
Three new monsters have been added: Skeleton Scout, Horned Demon, and Storm Jackal, each with their own icons, names, animations, and abilities.
All placeable monsters display their actual field of view and effective detection range in the castle editor.
Different fields of view make a monster's orientation more important when building a castle.
Monsters no longer retreat according to a single global default rule. Retreating and recalling are now deliberate mechanics used by individual monsters or traps.
Monsters can no longer attack through walls or tall obstacles, even at very close range. Ranged attacks remain possible over low obstacles.
The reaction, preparation, and recovery times of numerous monsters have been aligned with their animations. This makes their movement and reactions after attacks smoother.
Outdated cooldown and animation times saved in individual castles no longer override current monster values.
Movement, target selection, rotation, and idle behavior have been stabilized.
Monsters no longer open gates unintentionally simply because they are chasing a hero.
Balance Adjustments
Many regular monsters now cost significantly less defense capacity, making mixed groups and family combinations easier to build.
Skeleton Warrior: 8 → 4 capacity
Skeleton Archer: 12 → 6 capacity
Skeleton Mage: 12 → 6 capacity
Skeleton Commander: 30 → 20 capacity
Frost Spider: 4 → 2 capacity
Flying Maw: 9 → 8 capacity
Fire Imp: 10 → 8 capacity
Shadow Demon: 34 → 24 capacity
Witch: 10 → 8 capacity
Dwarven Defender: 26 → 24 capacity
Lizardfolk Spearman: 10 → 8 capacity
Lizardfolk Mage: 12 → 6 capacity
Some damage values have also been adjusted: the Undead Knight, Dwarven Defender, and Lizardfolk Spearman deal slightly more damage with their basic attacks. The Skeleton Commander, Laserheart, and Lizardfolk Mage received slight reductions to individual attacks to compensate for their new synergies and special abilities.
New Traps
Spring Plate
The Spring Plate prepares briefly before launching a hero in the trap's facing direction.
Its orientation when placed determines the launch direction.
The intended landing point is checked for walkability and obstacles.
Walls and blocking objects shorten the launch instead of moving the hero through geometry.
A brief input lock and repeat immunity ensure clear, controlled movement.
After a successful trigger, the trap requires a short recovery time.
Cost: 2 capacity and 200 gold.
Recall Stone
The Recall Stone affects monsters in its vicinity. If they move too far from their assigned area during a pursuit, they abandon the chase and return.
Monsters within its area of effect are detected at regular intervals.
The recall prevents important defenders from being lured too far out of formation.
A visible pulse shows the trap's area of effect.
When the trap is disabled, its recall assignment is cleanly removed from affected monsters.
Cost: 2 capacity and 200 gold.
Reworked Traps
Hidden Wall: The wall now responds to an actual crossing of its two trigger zones within a time window. Only then does it rise, block movement and line of sight, and disappear again after its active duration. Heroes standing in the future wall area when it appears are safely moved to one side so that nobody becomes stuck in the wall or NavMesh.
Fireball and Snowball Mortars: Target acquisition, rotation, delayed impact, and state transitions have been corrected. Shots that have already been triggered now reliably complete even outside the visible screen area. The Snowball Mortar continues to slow heroes it hits significantly.
Blocking Traps: Fire Heads, Fire Tower, Tesla Tower, both mortars, Lightning Pillar, Cauldron of Vulnerability, and Hidden Wall now use cleaned-up colliders. Low traps allow line of sight over them, while tall obstacles block ranged attackers.
All traps have new short descriptions for their attack, ability, or passive effect in the castle editor.
Destructible Decorations
All blocking decorations can now be destroyed by attacks. This means furniture, statues, barrels, and many other objects are no longer merely static obstacles, but an active part of combat.
A total of 105 blocking decoration objects have been converted to the new system.
Durability depends on size: five hits are required for each blocked tile.
After the first hit, a durability indicator appears directly above the object.
Hits and destruction use feedback appropriate to the material: wood, stone, or metal.
On the final hit, the intact object disappears and can produce a matching destruction effect with debris.
After destruction, colliders and path blocking are removed. Active monsters recalculate their paths and can use the new opening.
Low decorations continue to block movement and can be hit, but ranged monsters can see and shoot over them.
Tall decorations block movement, attacks, and line of sight until they are destroyed.
Non-blocking decorative objects remain purely cosmetic and are not affected by this system.
How Combat Changes
With these changes, castle building places more emphasis on combinations and spatial planning. A Skeleton Scout can alert a remote room, a Recall Stone keeps defenders in formation, fire demons turn narrow paths into dangerous zones, and a destroyed decoration can open a new route in the middle of battle.
We can't wait to see the new monster groups, trap combinations, and destructible rooms you create in your castles!