A quest hands you a kingdom that is already half built and asks you to win with it. The start is fixed, so most of the work is seeing what the opening board wants before year 1 is spent.
How Quest Mode works
Quest Mode unlocks when you beat one run. Each quest changes the start or the rules of a run, and its conditions are listed on the quest before you begin. Some fill your kingdom with one card. Some limit what you may draw, such as The Siege, where no troop cards are drawn at all. Some pick your enemies: a Revolt is fought only against one king's rebellion, and a Total War is fought against every other king, starting with the Supplies decree.
There are three quest difficulties, switched in the bottom left corner of the quest map. Knight is the casual one. King is the intended one. Chaos has extremely strong enemies and stays locked until every quest is beaten, which also unlocks the daily quest. On Chaos, the advice below matters more and the luck you need grows with it.
Your king's perks apply inside quests. Level a king in normal runs first and its quests get easier without any change of plan.
The starts of the quests covered here
Seven quests are covered below. The condition is the whole puzzle: every one of them gives you a card in bulk, and the quest is won by turning that bulk into something else.
| Quest | You start with |
|---|---|
| Gachaland | Gachas all over your kingdom |
| Beacon Valley | Several Beacons |
| Necropolis | A kingdom filled with Cemeteries |
| Mycotocracy | A kingdom filled with Mycelium, and spores already on the field |
| Goats | A bunch of Scapegoats |
| Blood Money | The Embalming decree, and only the King of Blood to fight |
| Greed Total War | The Supplies decree, and every other king to fight |
Gachaland
A Gacha triggers a Rainbow loot event when it reaches max level, then turns into a Broken Gacha that does nothing. The quest gives you a kingdom of them, so the opening is a string of Rainbow rewards followed by a board full of dead plots.
The dead plots are the resource. Earthworks on a spent Gacha returns cards to your hand and unlocks the plots around it. Offering destroys one and pays 3 random tomes. Reroll a Rainbow event when it shows nothing you can use, because the first few rewards decide the run.
For the fighting half, a compact Stone block works: two Wallmakers placed early, then a Trebuchet and a Trapper with a Cauldron between them, all touching the Stronghold. A Shrine taken from the first rewards levels plots for 9 gold a year. Patronage adds 3 levels to the Stronghold past its cap, and X-Ray levels the diagonal plots past theirs.
Beacon Valley
You begin with several Beacons, each adding 2% attack and movement speed to the plots beside it every year. Speed is free here. Damage is what you have to buy, and the answer is Over-invest: 30 gold for +15% to every stat of a plot. Hold every copy and spend them on one plot that already sits between Beacons.
Mercenaries with a Dispenser is the plain way through. A Dispenser gains attack speed for each gold you earn, and the Beacons add to it yearly.
The wall in this quest is the King of Stone arriving early. His Ballistas fire piercing bolts that pass through a whole plot, and a small Mercenary plot does not survive a volley. If you can choose who to fight in the first years, choose anyone else. If you cannot, Steel Coat is the card that cancels a volley.
Necropolis
Every plot is a Cemetery, and a Cemetery only works when a troop beside it is lost, either in battle or to a card that destroys its plot. So the first job is to get a troop into the middle. Put an Imp in the centre in year 1. Then use Sacrifice on the Cemeteries at the corners: each one destroyed levels up the plots next to it, which takes the Cemeteries touching the Imp to level 3.
That second case is the one the card text leaves out. A troop plot beside a Cemetery that you destroy with Sacrifice or Offering comes back as Skeletons straight away, outside battle. A Bone Pile placed beside a Cemetery is turned into a Skeleton too. Moving a troop does not count: Migration and anything that swaps a plot's card, such as Randomfy, leave the Cemetery with nothing.
From there two lines both clear it. One adds a Demon Altar beside the Imps and picks fights with the King of Nature while the Altar grows from dead allies. The other skips the Altar, puts Bombers down and spends every buff on them. The Bomber line beats any king, so use it if Bombers are offered.
Keep a Cemetery between the Bombers and the Pagoda. A Bomber dies when it explodes, and each death beside a Cemetery is a Skeleton that keeps fighting.
Mycotocracy
The kingdom is full of Mycelium, a tower that summons a spore every 9 seconds of battle and keeps what it has summoned from one battle to the next. The trap is treating the starting towers as your army. A Mycelium you place yourself on an empty plot does far more than the ones the quest gave you, so open space and place new ones.
Do not lead with Boars. Placed first with nothing grown behind them they are run over, and you are down a life in year 1. Expect to lose a life early on the harder difficulties whatever you do. Orbiters are the fallback when nothing else is offered, since an Orbiter picks up any enchantment placed on a plot beside it.
The King of Greed's last three
Goats starts you with Scapegoats, which graze in the back and pay 3 gold a level when they die in battle. They are your income, and Mercenaries are how you spend it, because a Mercenary plot has one more unit for every 9 gold you hold. Build Vaults at once. The decree that changes this quest is Mecenate, which hands you an Over-invest for every occupied plot. Speculation, which lifts the Vault level cap to 99, is the next one to take.
Blood Money is fought only against the King of Blood, whose Bombers run at the first thing they reach. Thieves jump straight to the enemy backline, so keep your Thief plot alive: the Bombers spend themselves on Thieves and your Mercenaries stay whole. Put a Beacon in the middle and take a Vault as soon as one is offered.
Greed Total War sends every other king at you. Mercenaries go in the centre with a Beacon touching as many plots as possible, and a Camp is worth taking from loot. The matchup to avoid is the King of Progress. Declare war elsewhere whenever the diplomat gives you the choice.
Mistakes that cost quests
Playing the starting board as given. Every quest above is won by breaking part of it: spent Gachas, corner Cemeteries, the Mycelium you did not place.
Spending Over-invest across several plots. +15% on five plots is nothing. Five copies on one plot is double its stats.
Skipping the reroll. On a fixed start, the first loot and the first Rainbow event are most of the variance, and a reroll there is cheaper than a retry.
Going to Chaos difficulty with a level 1 king. Perks carry in, and the enemies do not wait for you to earn them.