Building a secondary castle : progression curve ?

[Haryûu]

Hi !

I'm currently 53 ilvl in the middle of brutal act 2, first run.
After getting all my earlygame in a farbane rushed-build for progression sake castle, I'd like to build a new castle in dunley since it is central and I've spotted a nice area I like.

The thing is the game has always been throwing me powercreeping mechanics regarding farming (alternative recipies, hunts, and even though I haven't found some, advanced leather & wood).

TL;DR :Without spoiling me what I will unlock, when do you think it is the best time to build from scratch a new castle to avoid further headaches of rebuilding everything or "oh now I can do in 10min what I used to do in 60" ?

For what I can see for now, there is only plant fiber & stones I can't get from hunts, everything else has at least an entry point on the crafting schedule of a final product.

I know I can just move my first castle but I'd like to keep it where it belongs, I can put 5 castle hearts on the map, and since it's my first game want to enjoy it. If you have some tricks especially for fibers, I'd love to have it since I just run in dunley "wheat" fields with a sword now.

Subsidiary questions : I know servants are bound to a castle, but the servant limite is bound to the heart of the castle and its level. However, is every castle able to send a hunt at the same place or is the location pull shared between all thrones ?

Thank you !

[Suzaku]

Anytime is a good time to build a castle anywhere you want.

Servants from multiple castles can be sent to the same location at the same time.

[James.greywolf]

"advanced" leather? Thick leather? Kill a bunch of frost wolves and arctic bears in the Hollowed Mountains and the Ruins of Mortium. Hollowed Mountains is also good for hollow wood (makes boards and oil).

[Bomoo]

Lumber too, effectively. Yes you can technically use the hunt in farbane for a little lumber, but the amount is so miniscule that's probably more for flavour. Just pop a worker blood vial and go nuts filling your inventory with wood for an hour and you'll be set for a good long while.

Other later game resources, however, are hugely more efficient to gather through servant missions than they are going there in person.

For fiber, yeah, that's a tricky one, and you end up with many uses for it in the late game that burn through all the thousands you've collected up until then. The wheat fields are a good way to do it, but a long term strategy I'd suggest is just hitting a few plant fiber bushes any time you're harvesting your planters, or when you're chopping trees or breaking rocks and ore nodes. Get a little here and a little there and it does add up.

For stone, something I like to do is go into empty player castle plots and break all the ruins. You get a TON of stone for comparatively a fraction of the work you'd get breaking ore nodes. Also breaking large stone nodes in bear form, but breaking ruins is always my go-to.

[Haryûu]

Thanks for the answers !

I'm playing in solo so no ruins. And yeah, I'm hunting for 90+ worker blood for my prison, didn't find it yet !

I'll just take my time then, I didn't want to have in act 3-4 unlocking a feature that breaks the amount of ressources I get and making me waste tons of time !

[Haryûu]

Hi, uping the thread because I've discovered the final boss of the act 2 loot which is a huge castle gate (and more of course).

This is the kind of things I had in mind when doing this post, like things that would need to rethink the layout of the castle if you care a tiny bit of aesthetics. Will there be more things like that or "soft" things only such as decorations, skins for walls or stairs/windows etc...

[Simple Tora]

I finished my first ever run solo on brutal as well and I didn't even build a castle until the very last like 6 bosses. I didn't realize you got a bonus for it and since I was solo didn't care enough to spend 100 hours gathering on my own. The bonuses are def worth it but solo it really isn't THAT noticeable until late game. I barely ever farmed anything and still managed to get the gear I needed and make the weapons that were useful.

So my best answer would do it at your leisure, playing alone it really isn't all that important to build a castle it just saves a bit of time but nothing super major

[Haryûu]

Honestly I'm more like "I want a big castle which looks great only for the sake of if" than "will level up my castle help me through the game".

So I'm just talking about practical aspect that get unlocked that may change how I make my castle (which can be new ways of laying out such as the big door I mentionned, new features/recipe that transform how fast you gather one thing.
Although after checking out, I have around 1500 planks and bricks so I should be ok regarding pure material aspects lmao.

Just don't want to feel dumb for doing one thing and then having to restart from scratch because I've unlocked something that will make my Castlevania more appealing (even though I don't own the DLC, you got the idea)

[Simple Tora]

Originally posted by Haryûu:

Honestly I'm more like "I want a big castle which looks great only for the sake of if" than "will level up my castle help me through the game".

So I'm just talking about practical aspect that get unlocked that may change how I make my castle (which can be new ways of laying out such as the big door I mentionned, new features/recipe that transform how fast you gather one thing.
Although after checking out, I have around 1500 planks and bricks so I should be ok regarding pure material aspects lmao.

Just don't want to feel dumb for doing one thing and then having to restart from scratch because I've unlocked something that will make my Castlevania more appealing (even though I don't own the DLC, you got the idea)

My memory isn't 100% correct on this (As I mentioned I didn't build until super late and it really wasn't even a castle it was just rooms in a hallway lmao) but I believe you can build OVER items that are already built. So if you invested time into building a wood castle you can build stone on those walls and it'll replace it for you instead of having to tear it all down and re-do it minecraft style

[Sly-Scale]

Build in the central area when you can. Specifically: along the northeast and north-northwest, around when you start fighting common enemies in the middle of the world.

If you have that server setting that prevents you from teleporting home with some items, you'll appreciate the shortened round trips.

Having extra castles is fine, in fact it's recommended: that's more servants you get to have. You'll often have 2 or 4 servants looting stuff in the southern region.

[Bomoo]

Originally posted by Haryûu:

Hi, uping the thread because I've discovered the final boss of the act 2 loot which is a huge castle gate (and more of course).

This is the kind of things I had in mind when doing this post, like things that would need to rethink the layout of the castle if you care a tiny bit of aesthetics. Will there be more things like that or "soft" things only such as decorations, skins for walls or stairs/windows etc...

Big castle gate (or stairs) doesn't really matter unless you have a double wide ramp on your castle plot, which most plots don't. But who am I to tell you what to build. Yes, you're going to unlock cosmetics as you go along, and maybe now and then you'd like to take a break from boss fights to rethink your castle layout and incorporate some of the newly unlocked pieces you might want to use. I've done that many times, even after three or four playthroughs.

For example, in my first post-gloomrot update playthrough I built a conventional single storey castle, not wanting to fuss around with building stairs. Until I did, which required almost a total rebuild of much of the plot area. That's one of the things I enjoy about this game, tweaking things, sometimes radically, until you're pleased with the end result, and going back and retweaking as more options present themselves.

On subsequent playthroughs you'll know what's coming up and design accordingly from the beginning, but on a first you'll have to either save those new pieces for a new castle you'd like to build somewhere else, or go in for a more radical rebuild of your existing ones.

[Bomoo]

Originally posted by Sly-Scale:

Build in the central area when you can. Specifically: along the northeast and north-northwest, around when you start fighting common enemies in the middle of the world.

If you have that server setting that prevents you from teleporting home with some items, you'll appreciate the shortened round trips.

Having extra castles is fine, in fact it's recommended: that's more servants you get to have. You'll often have 2 or 4 servants looting stuff in the southern region.

Or... 16-20 if you tweak your server settings the way I do. Why settle for 4 when you can have a whole army? If you enjoy the pokemon collecting aspect of the servant mechanic, I highly recommend exploring that option.

[Haryûu]

I actually went for this option. +4 servant per heart level, to still feel the benefits of progression through the game. Got my personnal 100% Brute and Rogue for blood, still need worker and scholar (I want to play mage gameplay but brute is so strong at my level 57).

I've started the new castle, it's just I've seen some player having huge problem when they wanted to move their stairs (that's the biggest complaint I've seen). So given that I've scaled my castle size to hit 360 at level 4 then 800 at 5, I'm a little bit afraid of getting trapped with a huge castle to redesign because of features like that.

Given that I avoid the wiki & other stuffs to avoid spoilers (Discovering unlocks feels so good !), it's kind of hard to ask for help without just looking as the guy who's lazy of playing. I'm just a QoL addict and hate to see a hard labour destroyed by game mechanics or new features !