10 Best Games Like 9 Kings (2026)

One good card can change the entire shape of a kingdom. In 9 Kings, a modest settlement can turn into a wonderfully excessive army once the right units, buildings and upgrades begin helping one another. Working out why a combination succeeds is a large part of the pleasure.

The games below offer different ways to keep that feeling going. Some put another compact kingdom under pressure, while others concentrate on drafting an army, arranging cards or surviving with the resources a run provides. They are not all automatic battlers, and that distinction matters: each pick explains what carries over from 9 Kings and where you will be taking a different kind of control.

10. Kingdom Two Crowns

For building a realm one careful outing at a time · PC · Solo or co-op

A few coins and a crown are enough to begin. Kingdom Two Crowns puts you on horseback beside a small camp, where recruiting workers and improving the settlement gradually gives the place a shape worth protecting. The trouble is that the Greed arrive after dark, and a promising expansion still needs to survive the night.

You make decisions by moving through the kingdom and spending coins rather than arranging a hand of cards. Finding a useful upgrade farther along the island can be tempting when the walls closer to home still need attention. Playing with a partner adds another way to share those responsibilities.

Try it if the fragile beginnings of a 9 Kings run are your favourite part. The kingdom grows through a more continuous journey here, with exploration and the timing of your spending taking the place of rapid card combinations. It is a gentler-looking adventure than its defensive problems might suggest.

9. dotAGE

For turning a tiny village into a plan that holds together · PC · Single-player

The elder has seen disaster coming, and the villagers need someone to make sense of the warning. dotAGE makes that responsibility surprisingly personal: the little people working your fields and workshops are the same people who will suffer if the settlement is poorly prepared.

You assign jobs and advance the village through turns, linking food, production and other needs into a routine that can withstand the next problem. A useful building only helps if the workers and resources around it can support what it does. The changing circumstances of a run keep that routine from becoming a single answer you repeat forever.

This is a good match for the planning side of 9 Kings, with much more attention paid to the people behind the economy. Expect village management and looming threats rather than armies automatically meeting on a battlefield. Choose it when you want to slow down and understand why the settlement works.

8. Against the Storm

For adapting a settlement to an awkward set of opportunities · PC · Single-player

A forest settlement needs more than a convenient place to put houses. As a viceroy serving the Scorched Queen, you are trying to make different peoples prosper in a world where the rain and wilderness rarely make the job straightforward.

Against the Storm builds its appeal around repeated settlements rather than a single city you keep forever. The resources nearby, the blueprints you receive and the needs of your inhabitants influence which production chains are sensible. A familiar building can become far less useful when the materials needed to support it are difficult to obtain.

Choose it for the feeling of making a strong plan from an imperfect selection. That is the clearest connection to 9 Kings, although the challenge here is economic survival and keeping a settlement functioning, rather than assembling an automatic fighting force. Runs also ask for a more involved commitment to managing the details.

7. Necrosmith 2

For building an army out of whatever the expedition brings back · PC · Single-player

Your next useful recruit may arrive as a collection of body parts. Necrosmith 2 puts a necromancer in a tower and gives that unpleasant pile a practical purpose: assembling creatures whose different parts influence what they can do once sent into the world.

The army explores, brings back useful resources and helps keep the tower from becoming an easy target. Different combinations create different strengths, while improving your base gives the expedition somewhere to return its rewards. Watching an odd-looking creation become useful is more interesting than simply producing another copy of the same soldier.

If you enjoy seeing a 9 Kings army develop its own identity, there is plenty to experiment with here. The emphasis moves towards creature construction and exploration rather than drawing buildings into a compact kingdom. Pick it when the appeal is the force you create, including the strange compromises that make it yours.

6. Stacklands

For discovering a village inside a table full of cards · PC · Single-player

At first, the village looks more like a handful of objects spread across a table. Stacklands lets those cards become a working settlement: put a villager to a useful task, gather something to eat and begin discovering how the available pieces can be combined.

Its card-stacking approach makes the relationships wonderfully easy to read. People need food, production needs workers, and finding another useful recipe can change what you want to keep. Buying card packs introduces opportunities that might strengthen the current village or suggest an entirely different project. There are also enemies to prepare for, so the table cannot remain a peaceful collection forever.

Try it if experimenting with the hand in front of you is what makes 9 Kings compelling. Stacklands spends more time on survival, crafting and discovering recipes, with a very different presentation of combat. Its appeal is watching cards stop being isolated objects and start behaving like a place.

5. Rogue Tower

For making a few defensive choices grow into a powerful system · PC · Single-player

The road keeps getting longer, and the next extension may make an apparently safe tower much less convenient. Rogue Tower turns the expanding route to your base into a planning problem, asking where a useful defence will still matter after the landscape changes.

You build and improve towers, draw upgrades and decide which combinations are worth developing. Damage types and the enemies arriving along the path make variety useful, but scattering attention across every option can leave the defence without a dependable strength. Terrain also gives placement a purpose beyond filling an empty patch of ground.

This is the tower-defence alternative for players who enjoy the escalating combinations in 9 Kings. You are shaping a defensive network rather than recruiting a travelling army, and the paths introduce a different kind of pressure. Give it a go when you want to watch a carefully supported plan handle increasingly unreasonable waves.

4. The Last Spell

For putting a carefully built town behind a tactical last stand · PC · Single-player

The city has survived another day, but the next night is already becoming a problem. In The Last Spell, a handful of heroes defend the remaining mages while those mages attempt to rid their ruined world of its magic. Every useful improvement has to earn its place before the next assault.

Daytime gives you room to develop the settlement, prepare defences and improve the people carrying the fight. When the horde arrives, combat becomes a turn-based tactical encounter. Where a hero stands and how their equipment works together matter as much as the town you assembled behind them.

Choose it if you like the connection between kingdom-building decisions and the battle that tests them. Unlike 9 Kings, it asks you to direct individual actions throughout the defence. That extra responsibility makes a successful combination feel different: the build gives you possibilities, and your choices during the night have to make them work.

3. Throne of Bone

For drafting an undead force with room for ridiculous combinations · PC · Single-player

Being left for dead has not improved this necromancer's manners. Throne of Bone gives you an ancestral castle to reclaim and an army of undead recruits to assemble along the way. The question is less whether a minion looks impressive and more what it contributes beside the creatures already in the line.

Drafting choices, spells and relics shape the force you take into automatic battles. Positioning and the relationships between abilities give a modest recruit a reason to stay, while a tempting replacement can force you to reconsider the army around it. Casting spells also gives you a way to influence a fight after the opposing sides meet.

This is one of the most direct picks for the army-building side of 9 Kings. The kingdom itself takes a smaller role, leaving more attention for the creatures and combinations that carry a run. Try it when you would happily trade a few buildings for another difficult decision about the roster.

2. Thronefall

For riding out to defend the kingdom you spent the day building · PC · Single-player

A small realm is much easier to admire before anything attacks it. Thronefall makes you responsible for both sides of that picture: putting the settlement together during the day, then riding into its defence when the next wave arrives.

The building decisions stay approachable, but choosing between income and immediate protection gives them weight. Troops and defensive structures need to work as a group, and your ruler can join the fighting rather than simply watch the plan unfold. Different challenges encourage you to reconsider an arrangement that felt comfortable elsewhere.

It is an inviting step from 9 Kings if you want a similarly readable kingdom with a more active role in battle. There is less focus on a shifting hand of cards, and your movement during an assault becomes part of the answer. Pick it for a settlement you can understand quickly and still enjoy improving.

1. The King is Watching

For another compact kingdom where every working tile matters · PC · Single-player

The people are perfectly capable of working. They would simply rather wait until the king is looking. The King is Watching builds its kingdom around that joke, giving your royal attention a practical role in deciding which parts of the settlement are actually producing anything.

Moving that focus between resources, production and military needs creates a constant negotiation. A useful new building is not automatically an improvement if the rest of the kingdom cannot support the time you spend watching it. Enemy waves test those decisions, while the changing opportunities of a run encourage you to assemble a workable system instead of repeating one layout.

Start here if you want the closest overall companion to 9 Kings in this selection. The compact kingdom, repeated defensive tests and satisfaction of supporting one useful piece with another all feel relevant. Its attention mechanic gives the familiar problem a different answer: sometimes the thing your army needs most is for you to look elsewhere.

Choose your next kingdom

Start with The King is Watching if you want another small kingdom whose economy and army constantly compete for attention. Throne of Bone is the stronger fit for drafting a force and watching its combinations come together, while Thronefall puts you beside the defenders when the fighting starts. Choose the part of 9 Kings you keep returning for, and let that guide the next run.

Still working on your current kingdom? Return to our 9 Kings beginner guide. For a wider range of campaigns and tactical challenges, browse our best strategy games.