Step into the bustling battlefields and thriving castle towns of 城とドラゴン (Castle & Dragons), a captivating real-time strategy game developed by Asobism. With over 20 million registered users, this unique title blends dynamic tower defense combat with deep character development and strategic castle management. Whether you’re a seasoned strategist or new to the genre, mastering Castle & Dragons involves understanding its diverse cast of characters, optimizing your castle’s growth, and executing precise tactics on the battlefield.

The Heart of Your Kingdom: Core Gameplay Principles

Castle & Dragons offers a dual gameplay experience, seamlessly transitioning between intense real-time battles and strategic castle management.

Dynamic Real-Time Battles

The core of the game lies in its real-time battle system. With a single tap, you can summon a variety of unique characters onto the battlefield, where they automatically advance and engage in chaotic skirmishes. The objective is to strategically deploy your units to destroy the enemy’s castle or defend your own within a tight three-minute time limit. These battles are designed to be fast-paced and thrilling, demanding quick thinking and decisive action to achieve victory.

Cultivating Your Castle Town (Hakonai)

Beyond the direct combat, you’ll manage your flourishing “castle town,” often referred to as “Hakonai” (miniature garden). Here, you assign tasks to your “machibito” (townspeople) to continuously develop your characters and research new weapons and armor. This allows for steady progression and character enhancement even when you’re not actively playing battles, ensuring your forces are always improving.

Forging Your Army: Character and Infrastructure Growth

The key to prolonged success in Castle & Dragons is the strength and synergy of your assembled forces.

A Rich Roster of Unique Characters

The game boasts a vast and diverse array of characters, each with distinct abilities, roles, and charming animations. These range from small swordsmen, ideal for capturing forts, to archers who specialize in long-range attacks, and powerful magic users like wizards who unleash lightning. You’ll also encounter robust defenders such as orcs, who serve as reliable shields, and formidable large units like golems and cyclops that can wreak havoc on the battlefield. Additionally, characters like Medusa can petrify foes, while Mermaids can put them to sleep, providing crucial crowd control.

Acquiring and Empowering Your Units

New characters are brought into your army by hatching “eggs” obtained from the in-game shop or through the “Avatama” system. Once hatched, these characters can be trained to level up in the training ground, often using “Tore-dama” (training orbs). It’s strategic to manage your character roster, as hatching too many units simultaneously can strain your training resources. Developing powerful equipment and skills for your units is also crucial, frequently requiring “Dragon Medals” obtained from treasures and campaign rewards.

Castle Level and Research Development

Your overall progress is closely tied to your castle level, with higher levels unlocking new content and features. The “Laboratory” (研究所) is a vital facility for character development, enabling research and development of equipment and skills, and facilitating the hatching of new eggs. Campaigns that reduce research waiting times are particularly valuable for accelerating your growth.

Diverse Ways to Play: Engaging Game Modes

Castle & Dragons offers a variety of game modes to cater to different playstyles, whether you prefer solo adventures or cooperative challenges.

• Solo Play: You can single-handedly launch attacks on enemy castles, which often feels like solving a puzzle as you adapt to varied enemy defenses. This mode allows for quick, anytime gameplay.
• Co-op Play (Minna de): For more formidable challenges, you can team up with up to three friends to invade enemy castles. This cooperative mode allows you to combine your forces and tackle higher-level opponents that might be too difficult to face alone.
• Online League: For competitive players, the online league offers intense 3-minute battles against other players worldwide. These include challenging 1-on-1 duels, as well as team-based 2-on-2 and 3-on-3 modes, where you can climb the rankings and strive for the top class.

Strategic Battle Tactics for Aspiring Castle Lords

To consistently achieve victory on the battlefield, intelligent unit deployment and resource management are just as vital as having strong characters.

Masterful Unit Deployment

• Optimal Summon Orb Usage: Avoid deploying all your summon orbs at the start of a battle. Overspending early limits your ability to react to the enemy’s movements and reveals your strategy prematurely. Conversely, don’t under-summon, as this wastes the natural recovery of summon orbs.
• Widen Your View: Pinch out to gain a broader perspective of the battlefield. A narrow view can prevent you from understanding the overall situation and lead to losing control of key forts.
• Strategic Positioning: Carefully consider where you summon your units. For example, avoid placing large, vulnerable characters directly in the line of fire of enemy catapults. Instead, try to destroy the catapult first with cannon fire or deploy units from a different angle.

Efficient Resource Management in Battle

• Cost Efficiency: Be mindful of your summon cost. Unnecessarily using powerful abilities or cannons can put you at a disadvantage. Generally, reserve cannon fire for specific high-value targets like Griffons, Angels, or enemy Catapults.
• Fort Control is Key: Utilize units like “Swordsmen” to swiftly occupy forts. Controlling these strategic points is crucial for gaining an advantage and dictating the flow of battle.

Leveraging Character Synergy and Counters

• Understand Roles and Match-ups: Each character has unique strengths and weaknesses. For example, Lizardmen are strong offensively and defensively but cannot capture forts, while the Cyclops is powerful but has a high summon cost. Knowing these nuances helps you build a balanced deck and effectively counter opponent strategies. Archers are effective against flying units like Wyverns and Dragon Riders.
• Utilize Status Effects: Characters like Medusa (petrify) and Mermaid (sleep) can provide valuable crowd control, disrupting enemy advances and creating openings for your offensive units.
• Avoid Overlapping Units: When placing units, be aware that stacking too many characters in the same spot can make them vulnerable to area-of-effect attacks. While sometimes useful for pushing a single lane, it can be exploited.

Why Embark on Your Journey in Castle & Dragons?

Castle & Dragons delivers a deeply satisfying mobile gaming experience, celebrated for its unique blend of real-time strategy battles, charming character designs with lively animations, and engaging castle-building elements. The strategic depth of unit deployment, combined with the continuous progression through character development and castle management, ensures there’s always something to strive for. Whether you enjoy fierce competitive matches, cooperative play with friends, or simply the joy of nurturing your own thriving kingdom, Castle & Dragons provides a robust and continuously evolving world to immerse yourself in.