The main goal of this guide is to provide a basic explanation of each enemy type in Castle Craft and the abilities they can be generated with. Since there are quite a few different types and skills I want to cover, I've split this guide up into multiple sections. I understand that most people will only be interested in reading about a certain subject so please feel free to use the guide index on the right side to navigate to a topic.

In some parts of this guide I have felt at liberty to share some of my preferred strategies on how to deal with certain enemies, but if you disagree with any of the methods or information on this guide, just remember they are only my opinions and I invite you to correct me in the comments at the bottom (there is a very good chance I will go back and make changes.)

And last but not least, near the end of the guide I have made an attempt to collect and archive as many screenshots of enemies taken from the game as possible, it's my goal to eventually archive all of them, but since this game uses procedural generation for it's modifiers, this may prove to be very difficult.

Disclaimer: as of writing this guide the game is in early access, meaning that some details may change.

Skeletons and Brainlings explained by Jonathan (Twin Earth)

Skeletons: They are stupid (because their brain is gone) and they only walk straight
towards the enemy/wall. The only way you can influence them is by taunting them or
using bait stations.

Image: Rushed skeleton by WhiteSparrow

Brainlings: They are sligthly smarter because they still have some brains left
and find gaps in your walls/defenses. They look like zombies.




Acolytes: They are much more dedicated, intelligent and deadlier than the other enemy factions you will face. Acolytes spawn in with a lot of very dangerous ability combinations. You will only see them in the third and final map (Hyperborea.)

There are 8 different types of enemy units in Castle Craft, these are:

• Basic Unit
  
• Destruction Unit
  
• Flying Destruction Unit
  
• Navigating Basic Unit
  
• Hero Unit
  
• Siege Engine
  
• Terraformer
  
• Boss

Basic units is an all encompassing term that is used as a label for most of the enemies you will encounter in this game, They do the dirty work and typically have no special task in the attack.
Don't underestimate them though because what they lack in abilities and skills, they make up for in numbers.

Bone Bomblings: Bombers serve a unique purpose, it's very fitting that they are skeletons because just like all other skeletons, the Bone Bombling will run in a straight line toward the wall and is not very smart. The real value that sets the bomblings apart is that unlike the flying destruction units, these guys run very quick, they are low down to the ground and they are small. All of these qualities make the bomblings very hard for your ballistas to hit since they work on precision and slow reloads.

Just be careful when approaching the Bone Bomblings because they're desperate to hand over their bombs to any target and not just the castle walls, so if you get too close, you're gonna' get blown up.

Flying Predation:
Flying destruction units do what they say in the name, they fly and they destroy. One way they do this is by using the ability "Flying Predation" in which they will lift you up and then drop you to your death from high in the sky. There are ways you can stop this from happening to your King though, mainly by building a roof over his head and employing the help of magnets to force the flying enemies down to the ground.

Dropping Bombs:
The second ability that makes these guys dangerous is their tendency to drop bombs, but this is less of a concern to your King in my opinion as they are often small bombs and don't get anywhere near him if you have turrets in place.

One thing you'll learn about flying enemies in this game is that they don't always fly very high in the sky, they mostly float at around the height of a 1 story building, this is useful for us because it means that traditional anti-air turrets like the multi-ballista aren't the only turrets that can effectively target flying units. If you were to place some flamethrowers for instance in a fortified position they can accompany your usual anti-air defences like the multi ballista quite nicely, whilst simultaneously dealing with the usual hordes of basic units.

Here is an amazing side-view demonstration of this concept designed by Rowan.



Disclaimer: this dragon is a skill not an enemy.

You may be thinking, "besides running out of resources, what's stopping me from just building a big wall or digging a hole to keep out the enemies waves?" Well... these guys, navigating basic units look like basic units but they have abilities that allow them to get over any obstacles set for them by the map or yourself.

Hovering:
There are a few different skills they use, the first is hovering: hovering is an ability that upgrades a basic unit, like a brainling grunt, with stunted wings that make them essentially immune to fall damage and allows them to go over small holes. Although I wouldn't necessarily call this "flying", it's still something you need to look out for if you are planning on using a trench/pitfall trap.

One way you can attempt to combat this is by covering your trench/ trap with a "Large Trap Door."
This will hide the trap so the enemies don't think to hover or climb over it until it's too late, then the door will open up when they stand on it.

Climbing:
The second way they navigate is with the climbing ability, these two abilities are very simple and I'm sure you can already guess why the enemies being able to climb is a bad thing when it comes to defending your castle walls.

Skittering:
The third navigating ability is called "skittering", this ability causes the enemy unit to jump frequently and randomly. On top of the fact that this allows them to bypass some obstacles, it can also make them very annoying to attack with your player's sword.

Hero units are given that name because they are a hero to the enemies... not you, remember that. These guys are big and mean, they have a lot of health and deal large amounts of damage. Hero units also don't have many drawbacks or weaknesses so when you see them in the intro screen of a wave it's a net negative.

Hero units are a good test of the defences you have build up so far and the only real way to defeat them is by throwing everything you've got at them, if you are getting frustrated that the turrets and cannons are not targeting such a big brute, you can take control of a turret yourself and show your minions how to aim properly.

On higher difficulties you will have waves where a large amount of these guys spawn at once so you may want to consider using your terraforming skill to dig out a very large trench without large trap doors, I say this because the ai of the hero units like the Grave Brute for example are smart enough to not walk into the hole but at the same time can't go over it, so them being stuck behind the trench should hold them back long enough to buy your turrets
some time. Not to mention the fact that
these guys are far less dangerous if
they aren't allowed to move forward with the
rest of the undead army.

Pro tip: Larger units like the grave brute have a much more detailed collision and skills like arrow rain for your bow should work well on them.

Just beware of the boulders they throw!

Image: "Little guy skeleton taking a ride on big guy skeleton" by Jonathan (Twin Earth)

Siege engines move very slowly and are not very good at defending themselves but if they manage to make it to your castle walls, that's when you're gonna' start having problems. There are three different kinds of siege units:

Rattling Ram:
The first is the rattling ram (battering ram), these are wooden battering rams are pushed by a team of skeletons and are used by the enemy to punch large holes in your castle walls. You can deal with these things in the same way I told you to handle the grave brutes, by digging a big hole. There is one problem you may run into doing this though.



These rattling rams can also come with the hovering ability, but they are so heavy that I have yet to see these funny little wings work on such a big contraption, so I don't think you will actually have to worry about them getting across. What usually happens instead is that they fall down slowly enough that they don't get destroyed and then start digging underground tunnels. So maybe put some spikes in your hole if you plan on digging one.

Skull thrower:
The second kind of siege unit you will commonly run into is the skull thrower (catapult), the skull thrower is kind of annoying sometimes because they can bypass all of your defences and aim straight for the King, if the flying predators weren't enough to convince you to build a roof over your King, these guys will. They aren't too hard to deal with if you are actively trying to stop them. But if left alone they will start to become a problem, their main weakness would be the fact that they can't defend themselves. Just run up to them with your sword.

When they do become annoying however is when
your turrets can't target them anymore, a common misconception would be that they aren't being killed by the turrets because the skull thrower is too far away, in reality it's actually because the skull thrower is emitting a foul purple fog stopping it from being targeted. The two abilities that are known to cause this would be: shrouded and reactive, they are both very similar with a couple minor differences to how they work and they can also stack onto one skull thrower.

Besides the foul purple fog there is another way you can tell if this is the case. If you look at the skull throwers with this effect you will notice an icon next to their health bar that shows an arrow with an x through it.


Siege Tower:
Now for the third and final siege engine type you will run into, and I'm saving the best until last here, is the skull citadel (siege tower). This thing is big, so big in fact that it doesn't even fit in the screen during the intro to a wave.


The siege engine is very tanky and has just over twice as much health as an armoured grave brute (yes, you can get grave brutes without armour on), it moves very slowly and looks as though its on a track kinda' like a landship. The siege engine works very much the same way in the game as it does in real life, it hosts a small army of skeleton basic units that it will spit out of a bridge and over your castle walls when it gets close enough to them. So I have one tip for dealing with these things, don't let them get to your castle walls, if you have enough firepower in the form of turrets you can eventually take it down.

Pro tip: every siege engine always spawns in with projectile resistance, so using your melee on them deals more damage than the bow.

Terraformers are units that have the ability to reshape the battlefield and the very earth, they will either dig under the ground or build piles of bone over it. Thankfully for us each terraformer unit can only do one of these at once and the building and digging abilities do not stack.

Grave Digger:
The first terraforming unit is the grave digger, it's a good thing the first part of their name is a play on words on account of them being skeletons, because if they dug up graves that would be scary. In actual reality their only ability is to dig underground, once they realise that they've dug directly below the King, they will begin to dig upwards, completely circumventing your walls and turrets in the process.

If you are worried about the grave diggers digging towards your base you can do one of two things:

• A: Build thumpers, the thumper creates underground shockwaves that force digging units to dig to the surface. (This will only work on the grave digger.)
  
• B: Build vertical wooden spikes walls on the wall of your trench.

Boneling:
The second terraforming unit is the Boneling, the bonelings are a small skeletons with horns
and they build over walls, holes and traps by placing down chunks of bones and skulls. The boneling isn't very dangerous on its own unlike the grave digger, but where it does become dangerous however is when the entire undead army uses its newly made pile of bones as a bridge to get past all your defences.

Lowly Acolyte:
There is an honorary member of the terraformer club, although not listed as a terrarformer some of the lowly acolytes also have the ability to build up walls and over holes by placing blocks that replicate the ground they walk on. These guys are very dangerous because unlike the boneling there is no limit to how fast they can place blocks and they can even build a bridge over a gap as they walk, they don't even need to stop while building it. Again I wouldn't worry too much about them because they only spawn on the last map.

The acolytes who build even carry hammers with them.

There is something I wanted to mention that although it isn't an enemy I thought it was necessary to cover in this guide. And that is the cursed skull block, these blocks are an animated purple block covered in skulls. They're what the portal is made from and can only be created by the undead forces, the player cannot place them. They also don't provide any benefits to the player, they do however provide benefits for the enemy units and that is what I want to cover.

Buffs from the Block:
When the enemy units stand on these skull blocks
they get very powerful buffs, I don't have specific numbers to throw at you but to put it simply, when they are touching these blocks they heal very fast and also get a buff to damage.

You can see if an enemy unit is being affected by the buffs by looking next to their health bar. The healing buff is illustrated with a yellow heart and the damage buff is shown with a sword symbol, and again I wish I had percentages/stats on
how much these buff actually did but
the healing buff feels very strong.
The units with the buff also put out
floating purple skulls around their bodies.

How it's made:

Cursed Skull throwers:
There are few ways the army of the undead create these powerful blocks, the first is by flinging an effect from cursed skull throwers, although there aren't actually skull throwers with this name or an ability listed, the cursed skull throwers will launch piles of bones and skulls instead of the usual ammunition expected from a catapult. When these piles of skulls hit their target the blocks in the area of impact are changed into cursed skull blocks, yes this includes the ones you placed down.
(These skull throwers often give out a purple smoke associated with the foul fog abilities.)

The Death of the Acolyte:
Bomblings aren't the only enemy that punishes you for killing them, when you end the life of an acolyte on the final map, they will put out an affect that causes the ground they were standing on to turn into cursed skull blocks. This becomes especially dangerous when you consider the fact that we discussed in the terraformer section for the acolytes, the building acolytes replicate the block they're standing on to make bridges, so if a building acolyte is
following behind a dead friend and then starts
building a bridge over a large gap, the entire
bridge will be made out of a block that constantly
heals the enemies walking across it. This makes the
crossing extremely safe for the enemy units.

I know these blocks may look cool in your base but I would recommend you remove them.

There are two bosses in the game, the bosses are the endgame challenges of Castle Craft and you will only encounter them at wave 15 and beyond. As of writing this guide there are two bosses in the game. They don't have official names and appear with a blank title card but the community is very creative and so for the purpose of communication I will be using some popular names that have been given to them. (The name "Lich" was made official with its addition to the bestiarium

Lich:
The Lich is the first boss you'll encounter as it spawns at the end of the first map Valusia, the Lich is a large floating skeleton in a robe, he holds a spell book in his left hand and has a magic rune floating behind him. The Lich only floats about 3 feet in the air so I wouldn't deal with it as if it was a flying unit.

The Lich is a beast and has an astounding 10,000 health, to put this number in perspective, the siege tower has 4000. Trying to take down a unit with over double the health of an entire siege tower can be daunting, but I believe in you (I'm not sure King Debimius does though.)

The Lich also has been known to practice in necromancy and will reanimate the corpses of fallen soldiers to fight against you from beyond the grave.



"One day.... I will have my revenge." - The Lich after being defeated by the King's hand.

The Demogorgon:
The Demogorgon is the second and final boss you'll encounter at the very end of the game, although you will be wishing you hadn't met these things. Notice that I said "things", plural, because these guys come in packs. But don't worry because they are slight weaker than the Lich health wise and I would say that they more closely resemble a hero unit than a boss. The Lich has slightly more elemental damage (100,100) as apposed to the Demogorgon's (20,100), But the Demogorgon has a whopping 600 projectile damage against the Lich's 100 magic damage. So the Demogorgons deal far more damage, my advice is that if you're planning on going toe-to-toe with one of these guys, use their lower health to your advantage and end the fight fast. Because if you mess around with the Demogorgons, especially when they're together, you are gonna' go down fast!

Brainling

Brainlings are (slightly) less decayed than ordinary skeletons and have traces of a partially functioning brain left. This allows them to avoid obstacles and find paths to their target... within reasonable limits.

Skeleton Soldier

Skeleton melee soldiers are the backbone of any undead army, charging into battle with relentless aggression and relentless determination. Armed with bone-crushing weapons, they excel at engaging enemies up close, overwhelming defenders with their sheer numbers and durability. Perfect for holding the front lines and keeping foes distracted while stronger units deal the real damage!

Skeleton Archer

Skeleton archers provide deadly support from a distance, raining down arrows on enemies with precision and unwavering accuracy. While not as durable as their melee counterparts, they excel at picking off targets from afar, weakening enemy forces before the front lines even meet. A key asset for softening up the opposition and controlling the battlefield from a safe distance!

Bone Bombling

Bomblings are tiny but deadly, exploding upon death in a shower of bone shards and fire. They rush toward your defences with reckless abandon, eager to sacrifice themselves in a devastating explosion. Handle them quickly, or risk them blasting open a hole in your walls with their suicidal charge!

Grave Digger

Diggers are the sneaky underground menace of the undead forces, burrowing through the earth to strike from below. These relentless units tunnel beneath your walls, bypassing defences to get straight to your king. Their ability to undermine your castle from within makes them dangerous threat, requiring quick thinking and strategic countermeasure to prevent disaster!

Skull Thrower

The catapult is a siege weapon designed to launch massive projectiles over your walls, wreaking havoc from a distance. Perfect for breaking down castle defences and creating chaos among your forces, it's a key tool for softening up your defences before the real assault begins. Aim carefully, as its projectiles can also wreak havoc on friendly units caught in the blast!

Boneling

Bonelings are agile, skeletal units that spawn bone voxels to create climbable surfaces for other enemies. These tactical units work behind the scenes to give their comrades an easy way over your defences, forcing you to stay vigilant and destroy their bone-building creations before they provide a shortcut for the enemy.

Rattling Ram

The battering ram is a brute-force tool designed to smash through your castle gates with relentless power. It's slow but incredibly effective, capable of breaking down even the strongest defences and opening a path for the enemy to flood in. Protect your gates, or risk being overrun by the sheer weight of its charge!

Skull Citadel (Siege Tower)

Siege towers provide the perfect platform for scaling your castle walls, allowing enemy units to climb over bypass your defences. These towering structures are built to withstand assault while ferrying units into the heart of your fortress, making them a must-have for any serious siege. Defend your walls or face a wave of enemies pouring over the top!

Grave Brute

Brutes are towering, bone-crushing behemoths that bring sheer force to the battlefield. These massive skeletons can tear chunks from the earth and hurl them at enemies with devastating power, or even charge straight through your castle walls, leaving destruction in their wake. Their raw strength makes them terrifying opponents that demand swift and strategic responses!

Lich

The Lich is a terrifying boss unit with the power to reanimate fallen enemies, turning your own defences against you. This dark sorcerer commands the dead to rise and fight once more, making it a relentless force that can tip the scales of battle in the enemy's favour. Defeat it before its necromancer powers overwhelm your castle and forces!

Wings:

Units with wings fly instead of walking on the ground. Not all defensive buildings can target flying units!

Stunted Wings:

Stunted wings don't allow units to fly, but they can hover down when falling preventing any fall damage.

Explosive Death:

Units with the Explosive Death trait will not die quietly, they will explode and damage their surroundings.

Skittering:

Skittering units jump frequently and randomly, allowing them to bypass some obstacles.

Climbing:

Units with this trait can climb vertically. Walls alone will not hold them back.

Dropping Bombs:

Allows flying units to drop small bombs on their target.

Flying Predation:

Allows a unit to claw its victims, lift them up, and let them fall to their deaths.

Foul Fog:

These units occasionally emit a foul fog that prevents ranged units from targeting them.

Reactive Foul Fog:

This unit emits a foul fog when targeted by a ranged attack. The fog prevents the ranged unit from targeting it effectively.

Shield:

This unit uses a shield to block any incoming arrows.

Banner Carrier:

This unit carries a banner and increases the melee and projectile damage of nearby units by 20%.

This is the end of the guide, again please feel free to use the guide index to find different pieces of information you may be looking for in particular. I just want to say that not only is this guide not fully complete, there are other pieces of information I want to add eventually, but also more updates to how units work and what enemy units are in the game will be coming out as this game is in early access.

I have enjoyed playing this game so far and I want to remind you that not everything you have read in this guide is official, this was more of a fan project and I welcome any feedback, ideas and corrections to the information in this guide.

I can't recommend enough that you check out the awesome community on the Castle Craft (Twin Earth) Discord. You can access it through the discord button in the main menu, it's where I learned everything I've spoken on in this guide and I also used it to source a lot facts, pictures and tips.

Thanks for reading:
Travis150