Heroes of Swords and Coins

What's new in Heroes of Swords and Coins

The game is updated often — here is what changed for players, by date, newest first.

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  • Frontiers: raids hit harder. A raid that beats the defenders of your capital now carries off a quarter of your treasury and wrecks two workplaces, so intercepting it matters more.

  • New default mode, Frontiers: warlords' bandit bands patrol the borders of their lands and retake land you capture. Grow strong enough to break a band and claim its reward, then push on to the next one. Adventure and the classic game are still on the new game screen.
  • Frontiers: every few turns a warlord sends a raid toward your capital. It plunders what it passes but can't capture land, and your party can intercept it.
  • Frontiers: places worth reaching show through the fog as pictures on the map (strongholds, towers, forges, barrows, camps), and markers at the edge of the screen point the way.
  • Battlefield: reserve archers and crossbowmen fire volleys, fighters walk twice as fast, enemy stats show on hover, and big messages call out wounds, deaths and panic.
  • A new game setting softens panic in small squads. Tooltips are larger, dialog windows have illustrated banners, and the desktop header has a music volume slider.

  • The building contribution window warns you when the contribution would empty most of your treasury, and shows how much money will be left.
  • Construction pace on the land card: Normal, Slow (a quarter of the budget per turn) or Pause. Slow and Pause keep goods in your warehouse for other needs; the work already done is kept.
  • Adventure mode: your party is no longer capped at 4 steps a turn — it now marches until it runs out of fuel (which depends on how many fighters you bring).
  • "Let the advisor decide" is now the first button in a ruler's decision window, right under the explanation — no more scrolling past every vote option to find it.
  • Adventure mode: finding something now shows a picture of what your party found, instead of a small text notice.
  • Marching on the map now shows just your prince riding out, instead of the whole retinue trailing behind.
  • After a turn, the camera now swings by any neighboring armies on the move that you can see, instead of staying put.

  • The game opens much faster, especially far from Europe: the map and the interface come first, then villagers, then music; battle art and sounds load in the background. Music files are lighter too.
  • The first-seconds tour now goes straight to the Attack button after showing you the land nearby.
  • "Play free" on the website starts a game right away.
  • No more "a knight is waiting for you to choose a skill" lines while the advisor picks skills for you.
  • The advisor now picks only each fighter's first skill; every skill after that is your choice.
  • When your retinue can't march, the land card says why: tired after a battle this turn, wounded, or serving as governors.
  • "Turn" no longer asks for confirmation outside the tutorial chapters.
  • Adventure mode on a computer: on your first turn the right-hand panel is folded into a column of page buttons, so the map gets the room; it opens after your first turn. Fold it again with the » button.

  • Adventure mode: a second click on a far land now has your prince ride there step by step. Before, he could jump straight to the target, and attacking a far land opened the battle before he arrived.

  • Adventure mode: when your party has no steps left, the land card offers “No steps left · End turn” instead of a travel button that did nothing.

  • A first-minute guide in Adventure mode: the map shows a neighbouring land your retinue can take, rings the “Attack” button, then the “Turn” button. While it runs, the advisor and other tips stay quiet.

  • New: Adventure mode, on by default for a new single-player game. Your prince and his retinue walk the map as a party with a few steps a turn, scout the fog, pick up finds and fight only the lands right next to them. Pick a far target and the party walks up and attacks in one press — or stands there, if the village lets it through.
  • “Play as guest” now starts a free game in Adventure mode.
  • A new look for the game screen: the selected land’s card on the left, six pages along the bottom of the right panel, and a one-line top bar.
  • Field battles: the battle log says why each fighter left the field — panicked, badly wounded, pulled back to the reserve or taken prisoner. Placing your troops before a battle is now a skill of the ruler; until he learns it, troops take their places themselves.
  • Your advisor picks the starting skills in a free game too (switch it off in the “⋯” menu) — now at random from the two offered, and his note says what each picked skill does.
  • The map shows one villager per land, and villagers, traders, caravans and wanderers are drawn smaller so the map reads more clearly.
  • Your prince now rides a horse on the map, walking in all four directions; when he stops the horse shifts in place. His banner, cloak and saddle cloth wear your principality’s colour.
  • Adventure paths are shown as footprints only: green for the steps the party makes this turn, red for the rest. The land card says “Your land” on your own lands.
  • The mounted prince on the map is repainted in much finer detail and in the same painted style as the villagers: gilded armour, crown, a bay horse with full tack, no shadow blot under the hooves.
  • Adventure mode: the fog now opens only where your party has been and along your own borders — far-off lands no longer show up revealed by migrants, ships or wanderers elsewhere in the world.
  • The worker counters on lands (like “3/4”) are half the size, so they no longer cover the buildings.
  • Miners no longer look sunk knee-deep into the ground: their boots are back on the map and in the land view.
  • Adventure goals: become a king within 60 turns, take two foreign capitals (raze them or make them vassals — any realm counts, even one born mid-game, and so do capitals your vassals take) and defeat the Night King. A goals panel tracks your progress, and a victory window sums up your game and lets you play on.
  • The Night King now rises around turn 70 of an Adventure game, with a warning five turns ahead. Both that turn and the deadline for becoming a king can be set on the new game screen.
  • Adventure battles: a second click on a target asks “Attack this land?” with the odds and the risk to your prince; the party can no longer walk through an inhabited land without taking it; a prince struck down in the party’s battle is often carried off wounded instead of dying.
  • Adventure finds: guarded finds are worth twice as much and carry no traps; unguarded ones are more often trapped the farther they lie from home.
  • A realm becomes a kingdom much sooner: an army strength of 400 and two profitable workshops are now enough.
  • The ruler’s decision window and its outcome now carry an illustration on desktop.
  • The Army page has separate Hiring and Equipment tabs.

  • A calmer first screen in chapters 1–3: one card over the map with the recommended action and its odds (other actions under “Other”); the land card, your retinue and the chapter goal live in the side panel, and on phones the goal sits in the top bar.
  • Hints now point at the real button with a ring and say one short line; “Why?” opens the details (and plays the mentor’s voice), “Skip tutorial” turns them off.
  • In chapters 1–2 your advisor settles small matters himself — event choices, law votes, skill picks — and tells you the outcome in a short note. Prefer to decide yourself? Tick “Decide small matters myself” in the “⋯” menu.
  • Chapter 1 is shorter: take 3 lands instead of 4 (4 on Hard), and you start with 60 more coins, so the land upgrade is affordable right away.
  • English: titles and ranks are translated throughout, and the battle card shows short ranks.

  • Field battles: with the interface size slider not at 100% (or on a very wide window) the mouse picked a hex next to the one under the cursor, so striking and shooting needed aiming off to the side. The pointer now lands exactly where you point.

  • The modern age has its army too: Snipers, RPG teams, Commandos, Drone operators and Tanks, with new pictures on the Field.
  • Field battles: the ruler always fights as a swordsman (unless you equipped him otherwise), instead of a troop type picked at random.
  • Field battles: on a shooter’s move the top line names the troop type and says how to shoot — or why it can’t (out of arrows, enemy adjacent, trees in the way).
  • Field battles: wounded fighters and fighters sent to the reserve also walk off their own edge of the field instead of vanishing after one hex.
  • Villagers: the “elder” mark is gone — it had no effect on the game and only confused.
  • The mentor now speaks too: chapter introductions and hints in chapters 1–3 are voiced (once each, with the same switch and volume as the treasurer’s voice; silent when hints are hidden).
  • Phones: no more windows piled on top of each other on the map — while a land’s panel is open the action card stays away and the chapter hint folds into a small “Hint” button; in landscape the hint is shorter and the goal plaque no longer covers the card.
  • Field battles: a unit that flees now runs all the way off its own edge of the field instead of vanishing after one hex, and the battle no longer waits for it.
  • Clearer wording: “tiles” and “cells” are now “lands”, and where possible a place is called by its name and coordinates — “the farm (12, 8)”, “the mine (34, 27)”; distances are counted in steps.
  • The Industrial age has its own army too: Riflemen, Anti-tank riflemen, Stormtroopers with stick grenades, Machine gunners with a wheeled Maxim and Armoured cars, each with new pictures on the Field.
  • Your treasurer now speaks: at the start of a turn a short spoken line (with a subtitle) reminds you what matters right now — read the report, settle free land, improve your estate, hire a retinue, or deal with trouble such as famine or a horde at the border. It can be switched off or turned down in the map tools.
  • Click a villager on the map or in “Look inside” to hear them speak — five village voices, young and old, women and men.
  • Armies now change with the age: once your science reaches the Age of Gunpowder, pikemen become Fusiliers, swordsmen Grenadiers, archers Musketeers, crossbowmen Gunners with a field cannon, and cavalry Hussars — with new pictures on the Field, new names in hiring, orders and the help. Roles, strengths and costs stay the same.
  • In English, slaves are now called captives: the Captive Market, “Keep as captives” after a battle, the Captive-taker and Liberator traits.
  • Your march is now visible on the map: the prince walks with his banner and companions to the target, the camera follows, and the battle opens where they arrive.
  • “Last turn” (key R) replays what happened since your previous turn: your neighbours’ marches as arrows with their army walking along, “taken” or “repelled” at the end, tiles that changed hands and horde trails — only what you could see.
  • Small marks on the map show where you can still settle, hire or march this turn; N jumps to the next one.
  • Field battles: a “Threat” button (key T) shades the hexes the enemy can reach this round, outlines their zones of control and shows terrain bonuses on each hex.
  • On phones the Field can now be zoomed and dragged: pinch, double-tap or the + / − buttons; the battle opens at a size you can tap with a finger.
  • Chronicle of the Reign: your principality’s growth, battles with the fallen named, titles and events, kept turn by turn. You can share it as a public link for 90 days (only names from the game, never your login).
  • The campaign screen is now a path through the chapters and Chronicles, with the length of each and marks for the levels you have beaten.
  • Your stockpile (food, weapons, metal, fuel, stone) is shown in the top bar next to the treasury; click it to open the Stockpile tab.
  • A knight’s card now shows his service record: battles, kills, wounds and the year he joined.
  • An interface size slider (80–130%) that leaves the map tiles the same size. Table rules (balance, AI, map, turn time) are shown before you join a multiplayer table.
  • On PC the coordinates of the tile under the cursor are shown next to it.
  • Fixed: if the connection to the server stalled, the game could stop accepting orders without saying why (a march would not start, a knight skill would not be taken). Now an order waits at most 45 seconds, the game reloads its state from the server by itself, and a banner offers to retry.
  • Fixed: picking a knight skill could look as if nothing happened; the window now confirms the pick and says how many choices are left. The skill window no longer pops up on the very first turn of a new game.
  • Clicking around the map is much faster: selecting a tile no longer makes the server rewrite the whole game.
  • “Look inside” now says when it is still loading or when the pictures failed to load, instead of showing an empty frame; its close button is bigger. The encyclopedia retries once if it fails to load.
  • Villagers on the map talk half as often.

  • New and freed principalities now take a fresh colour that stands apart from everyone already on the map, so neighbours are easier to tell apart. Your own colour never changes.
  • The map’s hover tooltip is now off by default; tick “Hover tooltip” at the bottom of the screen to turn it on.
  • When a principality falls, all its vassals go free at once and take on new colours on the map, whatever the cause of the fall. A vassal that takes its own lord’s capital now sacks it instead of keeping it as a vassal.
  • Chronicles: four short scenarios of 10 to 15 turns, each with three difficulty levels and its own line in your chronicle. The Hungry Winter (keep your peasants through a drought) is free; Night Has Come (hold your walls on the Field against two hordes), The Stolen Caravans (break a neighbour’s outpost and decide his fate) and The Inheritance (keep your land through a change of ruler) come with the full version.
  • A Hard Field opponent is back as a new-game option: it strikes 15% harder, and the Field header says so.
  • Before a march you can now see a second estimate: the battle played out on the Field, with the enemy led by the opponent level of your game.
  • Sieges get a forecast too: before you strike a wall or a gate, or fire a catapult, you see the hit chance, the damage to the wall, the chance to breach it and how many hits it still needs.
  • A small “i” next to goods in the bazaar and the stockpile, in the tile panel and in science opens the encyclopedia article right where you are.
  • If your principality falls, a window explains why: who took the capital and on which turn, and what could have helped.
  • New “Release” button on your own tiles (not the capital): the tile stays in your sphere as a holding, its governor steps down and its serfs are freed. It replaces “Abandon”.
  • More knight traits now have names instead of “Trait #N”, and the “Scourge of the Poor” trait now works: each turn its holder drives one resident off a crowded tile of his own to nearby land.
  • Multiplayer: watch a running open table as a spectator (you only see what any player sees; the host can turn this off), and filter tables by language, status, map size, turn time and free seats. Reported chat messages now reach moderators, and a player reported by three different people in one day is muted for six hours.
  • Tutorial Hard levels: chapter 1 asks for five tiles in six turns, chapter 5 for two of your neighbour’s tiles in three turns. A chapter debrief now counts battles that ended at the start of a turn.
  • Meet Yermil the Counter, treasurer and chronicler of your realm: the first time you open the bazaar, go hungry, see a horde nearby, pass a law or hire a knight, he explains it in a few lines with your own numbers. You can switch his advice off in the help.
  • Tutorial chapters now come in three difficulty levels — Easy, Normal and Hard — with a mark for each level you have beaten.
  • Multiplayer: open tables you can join from a list, a chat at every table (in the lobby and during the game), and you can take over a principality whose player has left.
  • Knights who reach Veteran, Seasoned and Legend pick one of two personal Field skills: flanking, counterstrike, shield against arrows, toughness, a quick step or survival.
  • On the Field, the defender's hidden terrain bonus no longer swings a battle wildly: it now stays in a narrow range, and you see it in the header. A new-game option lets you choose an easier Field opponent.
  • A "Why?" button next to trouble explains it in numbers: hunger (food wanted and bought, idle farms, growth, storehouse norms), a shrinking treasury (debt, how many turns it lasts, the biggest costs) and lost tiles (who took them, rebellion, horde, emptied), with up to three buttons for what to do.
  • An encyclopedia in the ? help: 127 articles built from the game's own data — goods, tiles, buildings, troop types and who beats whom, prince skills, perks, science and laws, with links and search.
  • On phones, dotted words now explain themselves on tap: bazaar columns, retinue and hiring headers, tile facts.
  • Knights earn ranks from experience — Recruit, Warrior, Veteran, Seasoned, Legend — with a bar to the next rank and a line in the report when one grows.
  • Right-click (or long-press) a fighter on the Field for a full card; after a Field battle, a table shows what each of your fighters did, and fallen knights are remembered by name.
  • Field battles now show a full forecast before you strike: your hit chance, damage range and chance to knock out or kill — and the target's answer back at you, if it will answer at all.
  • The Field shows each side's strength modifiers at the top, including the terrain bonus of the defender, and a breakdown of every strike ("flank ×1.25 · stronger troop type ×1.25 · charge +50%").
  • Before a march, the estimate now lists the risk for each of your knights: who may fall and who may be taken prisoner.
  • In your first turns, pressing Turn before you have settled, hired or marched asks once whether you really want to end the turn. You can switch this off.

  • The map comes alive: zoom in and you will see your people on their tiles — farmers hoeing, women reaping, miners at the pit, the wounded limping and the sick lying by the door.
  • Zoom in close and they speak up about what really troubles them — drought, hunger, the dead nearby, graves on their land. Hover over anyone to see their name, health and craft.
  • Up to three different people per tile on the map, working at a calmer pace and talking like real villagers. "Look inside" in the tile panel shows everyone who lives there.
  • Traders with laden mules walk the roads between towns.
  • Hard times show on the land: drought cracks the fields, plague sends smoke over the houses and raises a quarantine flag, famine empties the fields and sends people to sit idle at their doors, a boom fills the farms with haystacks. Graves appear where people died, and the red moon tints the night.
  • Vassals called to war now hand their liege one weapon each, if they have any. Tribute caravans travel faster the better the receiver's fuel technology. A knight's pay no longer drifts while he waits to be hired.
  • The turn report no longer keeps warning that the White Walkers will come in N turns while their clock is standing still. Making a vassal of a knight who has already left your retinue now says so, instead of quietly picking someone else.
  • Mounted knights trot across the Field again, hooves on the ground. Roads on the map are crisp sandy paths instead of a blur.
  • Water on the map: wider rivers with sandy banks and reeds, lakes with shallows and a boat here and there, a coast with foam and a real beach.
  • "Look inside" now has its own setting for every kind of tile — fields and haystacks on a farm, a pit and headframe at a mine, cut stone at a quarry, peat stacks, gold sluices by a river, a village with a cooking fire, the market square of a capital, a camp of tents.
  • Rivers no longer run under mines and houses: they wind between the tiles and narrow to a brook past a settlement, and lakes next to buildings shrink. One bridge per crossing, laid across the water.

  • Four turn steps at the top of the screen — Report, Lands, Retinue, March — show what to do this turn. The next step glows, finished ones get a check, and a step with nothing to do says why. On a computer, keys 1–4 open them.
  • Lands takes you straight to the best tile to settle or the cheapest tile to upgrade; March shows a target with your odds and a March button.
  • The Report step warns you when your people go hungry or the treasury runs dry, with a link to the storehouse.
  • The "What to do?" tips moved into the ? help, and the old "Now:" strip above the map is gone.
  • The top bar stays on one line on smaller screens too: when space runs short, the turn steps shrink to their numbers and Save, Load and New move into a "⋯" menu.

  • Field battles: mounted fighters no longer sink into the ground while moving, and the prince walks at his full height.
  • The top bar fits on one line again on wide screens when you are signed in.

  • The map ground is now one continuous painted landscape instead of separate tiles: new meadow, pasture, forest, marsh, rock, sand and soil textures, golden fields, and sandy paths.
  • All 36 building pictures were redrawn in a warmer painted style, with no pads under them, and shadows now fall the same way everywhere.
  • Fixed: a new game with a high "wild folk" setting could start into endless dark ages with no principality for you. The first principality now waits for at most 15 wild folk, and the slider is labelled "for a new principality".

  • Field battles now work between two human players: both sides place their troops, then take turns. A side that sits idle simply passes once, and you can see your opponent's placement.
  • Sieges: when a wall is broken, the Field now shows it — a path through the breach, an icon, a "Breach!" caption and hints.

  • Sieges on the Field: a capital is now defended by a palisade, a stone wall or a citadel, depending on its size, with a gate and towers. The attacker brings a catapult, and walls can be breached.
  • New prince skill, Siegecraft, which makes your catapult hit more often and fire a second shot per round.
  • A fighter locked in melee can no longer slip around the enemy through neighbouring hexes. The computer-controlled side now uses walls and the catapult sensibly.

  • Before a fight you now choose between the Field and Autobattle. The Field replaces the old hand-played battle.
  • Your prince earns levels from experience and picks one of two skills each time: Offense, Armorer, Archery, Leadership, Logistics, Pathfinding and more.
  • Orders by troop type — on your own, forward or hold the line. The prince's experience opens a placement phase before the battle and widens the area where you may place troops.

  • A new battle mode, the Field: a hex battlefield where you move each fighter, strike an enemy from the flank or rear, and shoot.
  • Five troop types — pikemen, swordsmen, archers, crossbowmen and cavalry — each beating some of the others and losing to the rest.
  • You equip your fighters from the prince's storehouse: weapons are priced per troop type, and horses eat fodder.

  • A new mode, the Dead Tide: a short 25-turn game of three waves of the dead against your capital. After each wave you pick a reward, and the final score earns stars.
  • Food is gentler: your ruling family and fighters eat less, and the hunger warnings come later.
  • When a knight becomes the new prince, the turn report explains what happened and the summary shows "New prince".

  • New music: "Dawn in the Village" on the map and "The March of the Shield" in battle.
  • Before a march you now see an estimate of your odds, for example "about 4 of yours against about 3 defenders — an even fight".
  • The bazaar shows how much of each good was sold and bought this turn.
  • Monasteries no longer empty newly founded colonies.

  • When you are attacked, the battle is shown after your turn as a replay, and if you win you decide the prisoners' fate. In multiplayer the attacker can also choose Manual or Autobattle.
  • Your retinue now walks to the march target tile by tile, and the turn report says when a tile has been emptied and is no longer yours. The Full view is the default, and the Simple view is one switch away.
  • Colonizing: the button hides after a success, and the tile counts your attempts.

  • A simpler interface: a "Now:" strip above the map names your next step, a short tile card shows what the tile gives, what the problem is and the buttons, and a Simple view reduces the status bar to four numbers.
  • The map comes alive: turning mills, chimney smoke, waving flags, birds and glints on the water.
  • A warning banner appears when an undead horde is a few tiles from your capital, with a Show button and a red arrow from the horde. Neighbour cards show a ruler's portrait, name, age and capture history.

  • The tutorial grows to seven chapters: Red Moon (defend against a horde), The March (take a neighbour's tile), Monastery and Science, and The Crown (found a kingdom in 15 turns).
  • The treasury breakdown lists spending between turns on its own line, and a "Decision result" window shows the outcome right after you choose.
  • A vassal's tribute now travels as a tribute train, distinct from trade caravans, and shows on the vassal's bazaar.

  • The tutorial, the Prince's Path, arrives with its first three chapters: New Lands, Bread and Bazaar, and Governor and Court.
  • Background music with a volume control, and real recorded sound effects in battle.
  • Battles are shown from the side by default, with painted fighters and eight battlefield backdrops. Enemy moves play out by themselves before your turn.

  • A new manual battle: you choose who strikes, with which move and at whom, with health points and hit chances. It also works against a human defender, who is invited to the fight.
  • A "To menu" button leaves a game without losing it, and Continue game brings you back. You can keep up to 20 save points per account and delete them. On phones the text is bigger and lighter, and the menu is called "Realm".

  • Accounts: register, sign in, and keep your saves with your account. You can still play as a guest.
  • Multiplayer: several people in one game, with lobbies and invitations. A turn ends when everyone is ready or the timer runs out, and a bot takes the place of a player who left. Optional emails tell you it is your turn, with one-click unsubscribe.
  • New screens for construction, the laws panel and the stock norms of your storehouse.

  • The dead rise: the Red Moon turns corpses into hordes that march on people, inquisitors hunt them, and the Night King may appear later in the game.
  • Court quests with a choice: a governor's request, a loan, a workshop, a prince's wife, a claimant to the throne.
  • Laws, the sejm, clans and rebellions, plus a full dynasty with heirs and a court.

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