Defending the Castle
Raiders sail in from every side of your island. Sink them for gold before they reach the beach, and keep your walls standing.
Controls
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| Fire the keep's cannon | Tap a ship |
| Look around | Drag across the sea |
| Turn toward raiders out of view | Tap a red arrow on the screen edge. Tap again for the next raider on that side. |
| Collect a treasure chest | Tap it |
| Blow up a powder keg | Tap it |
| Put out fires after a sack | Tap the castle |
The keep only fires when you tap, unless you own the Master Gunner. Towers fire on their own.
Raiders
| Ship | Appears from | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sloop | Infamy 1 | Fast and fragile |
| Brigantine | Infamy 3 | Tougher, pays more |
| Galleon | Infamy 6 | Slow, tough and batters the walls hardest |
Each island has its own raiders, such as the Frost Raiders on Frostholm or the King's Fleet on the Pirate King's Isle. Raiders get 15% tougher and pay 13% more gold with every Infamy level, and come more often. See Infamy.
A lone keep faces two raiders at a time. Every tower you build draws one more, up to seven.
Walls
The walls bar at the bottom of the screen shows the castle's health.
- Raiders that reach the beach batter the walls and steal gold every second until they're sunk.
- The walls mend slowly once nothing has hit them for 3 seconds.
- Raising Castle Walls gives the walls more health and faster mending. See Defenses & Upgrades.
- Vault Guards cut how much gold raiders steal.
When the walls fall
If the walls reach 0%, the castle is sacked:
- Raiders sail off with 20% of your gold (less with Vault Guards, none with the Iron Vault).
- Six fires break out. Every defense falls silent until they're out. Tap the castle to put out each one.
- When the last fire is out, the Patch the Wall puzzle opens: tap every crack to mortar it. The clock starts on your first tap.
The faster you solve it, the more of the wall is rebuilt:
| Result | Walls rebuilt to |
|---|---|
| 3 stars (under the time shown) | 100% |
| 2 stars | 80% |
| 1 star | 60% |
| Skipped | 40% |
The Iron Vault always rebuilds the walls to 100%. After a repair, the sea stays calm for 15 seconds before raiders return.
Day and night
A day lasts 6 minutes and a night 75 seconds. A countdown appears 30 seconds before each event.
Day bosses
At midday, a boss sails in once your Infamy is high enough:
| Boss | From | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| The Crimson Corsair | Infamy 4 | A fast, burning galleon that hits the walls hard |
| HMS Sovereign | Infamy 8 | The Royal Navy, here to collect the Crown's taxes. It shells the walls from range. |
Once both are unlocked, either one may come.
Night warlords
When night falls, the island's warlord attacks. It doesn't leave at dawn: it stays until you sink it.
| Island | Warlord |
|---|---|
| Saltmere | The Ghost Ship |
| Frostholm | The Jarl's Dragonship |
| Cindermaw | The Ember Tyrant |
| Verdance | The Serpent Queen |
| Wraith Reef | The Drowned Armada |
| Stormspire | The Thunder Baron |
| Pirate King's Isle | The Pirate King |
You must sink your island's warlord before you can set sail for the next island. Warlords come back every night, and every sinking counts toward achievements.
Every boss shows a health bar at the top of the screen and leaves several treasure chests when it sinks.
Treasure chests and powder kegs
- Chests: sunk ships sometimes leave a chest (galleons more often than sloops, bosses always). It floats for 16 seconds. Tap it before it sinks for a few ships' worth of gold. The Treasure Parrot upgrade fetches chests for you.
- Powder kegs: a keg drifts in every 25 to 45 seconds, and sunk ships sometimes leave one. Tap it to explode it and damage every ship nearby.
While you're away
Your towers keep fighting while Tide Keep is closed. When you come back after at least a minute, the Welcome back screen shows what they earned. Tap Collect the Plunder.
- Only defenses that fire on their own earn while you're away: your towers, and the keep if you own the Master Gunner.
- You earn 40% of the usual gold while away at first. The Quartermaster upgrade raises this to 100%.
- Time away counts for up to 8 hours, or 24 hours with the Royal Charter.
- A sacked castle earns nothing until it's repaired.
- Builds in progress keep going while you're away.
Each new day and night starts fresh when you open the game: every session starts in daylight.