Path of Exile Patch 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur introduces a new real-time, city-builder-inspired League mechanic that is as exciting as it is experimental. In this “minigame” mode, you will explore, manage, and allocate resources to make your base a majestic hub of commerce. Overwhelmed with all these unfamiliar mechanics? Don’t worry! we will help you summarize and break down how the POE city builder League mechanic works.
Path of Exile Patch 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur will be available for PC and Consoles on July 26th 2024
Refer here for a guide on How to optimize your progression for Settlers of Kalguur League mechanic
Settlers of Kalguur – POE City Builder Mechanic Overview
In Settlers of Kalguur – a POE city builder League, your objective is to manage the town of Kingsmarch and turn it into a glorious hub of commerce. This League mechanic can be summarized as a real-time city builder minigame that focuses on Resource gathering and allocation, upgrading and maintaining your base (Kingsmarch), planning, capitalizing and protecting your rewards.
Settlers of Kalguur follows the common “looping” theme of many other league mechanics which requires you to interact with the atlas mapping to be able to interact with said mechanics back and forth. For example, you will need contracts and markers to interact with Heist, or you will need artifacts in order to interact with Expedition.
At the core of Settlers of Kalguur, this mechanic immerses you in a gameplay loop with the new novelty of a “FarmVille” type mini-game:
- Run Atlas maps to gather gold and resources
- Employ and assign workers to work for your settlement
- Upgrade stations to unlock new tiers and higher efficiency
- Utilize the resources you produced to create valuable rewards that make you richer and stronger
- As the population and production of your base grow, so will the cost of maintenance and the risk of enemy factions attacking you.
- Go back to Atlas maps to acquire even more resources and produce even more to get even stronger. Rinse and repeat.
Many mechanics in this league are real-time and require you to wait (mining, shipping, disenchanting). This creates a further incentive to run maps while you wait for your settlement to progress, and then visit your settlement once you are done mapping, and so on and so forth. The mechanics will continue even while offline and notify you when it is done.
These design concepts may make for a fun and addicting mechanics for Path of Exile fans coming back to the game for the release of this League.
Settlers of Kalguur – POE City Builder League Mechanics Breakdown
For a more detailed breakdown of this POE City Builder League, we can categorize this mechanic into 3 types of Activity: Gathering resources in maps, Upgrading and maintaining your base of Kingmarch and Producing and protecting your rewards.
1. Gather resources in maps
The first type of activity you will engage in Settlers of Kalguur mechanic is the process of running atlas maps is to gather gold and to clear Resource Mine that when cleared can be extracted. These resources include:
- Crimson Iron: Guarded by corrupted or Vaal enemies
- Orichalcum: Guarded by demons or Beyond enemies
- Petrified Amber: Guarded by Blight enemies
- Bismuth: Creates dangerous elemental effects in its surroundings
- Verisium: A rare resource that is guarded by powerful enemies.
Once cleared, these mines are automatically tagged for extraction and you can return to Kingsmarch to assign your workers to mine for its resources.
2. Upgrade and maintain your base
Inside your base, Kingsmarch, is where you can upgrade your stations and employ workers to work on various tasks to enhance and strengthen the settlement. These stations include:
Tavern: At the heart of Kingsmarch, Tavern allows you to hire workers who are crucial to carrying out your every bidding.
Each worker has different levels of specialty for Mining, Shipping, Smelting, etc. The higher their specialty level, the more efficient they are at that task.
Upgrade recruitment to increase the population cap of your base.
Mining Station: Assign workers to the Mining Station to mine the site you previously cleared in your maps. It can be upgraded to increase the maximum number of total workers and speed up the mining process.
Smelter: Assign workers to The Smelter can be used to concentrate your resources into more valuable bars. It can be upgraded to unlock different resources.
Disenchanter: Assign workers to the Disenchanter to turn items to Thaumaturgic Dust. It can be upgraded to unlock different item rarities.
Farmstead: Assign workers to Farmstead to grow food and sustain your population. It can be upgraded to produce more efficient crops.
Note: The Town Map is an overview screen of all stations within Kingsmarch. Located near The Tavern, accessing this screen can help you manage your base conveniently in one spot.
3. Producing and protecting your rewards
Once the necessary resources are gathered, you will finally be able to interact with these mechanics which can yield a direct reward for you. These activities are:
Shipping: Assign workers shipping to trade with other settlements for goods. It can be upgraded to increase the maximum number of total workers (crew). There are 3 things you should note about Shipping.
- Shipment: The amount of resources you send will dictate the amount of potential reward. Each partnering settlement has its own preferred resources.
- Reward: Each successful trade will yield valuable goods in the form of currencies and items.
- Risk: The bigger the shipment will also result in a bigger risk of encountering monsters, pirates and environmental hazards.
Kalguur map device: Assign your workers and put in a queue of maps to automatically get your maps run. Each successful map run will yield its reward. The more difficult the map the higher the risk of your workers Pershing running it.
This is a good way to have your “bricked” maps run instead of running them yourselves.
Recombinator: This device will allow you to use Recombination Crafting. Requires gold and Thaumaturgic Dust from disenchanting to use.
Runesmith Table: This station will let you use Runes to apply powerful enchantment to your weapons. Runes can be obtained by trading with the Kalguur settlement or by killing the Boss enemies from opposing factions.
Unique Bosses
There are 3 opposing factions to Kingsmarch with 3 different endgame bosses. As you scale up your base, the more likely you will encounter these Bosses who will attempt to cease and capture your operations.
When a unique boss interferes with your operation, you will have 3 options to proceed:
- Pay the ransom
- Abandon your workers and rewards
- Fight the unique Boss
These Bosses can drop valuable Runes and unique items.
Other mechanics in Settlers of Kalguur
There are also other mechanics in this POE City Builder League that are not directly related to the main city-building mechanic. Nonetheless, they are new and exciting additions to the game that you should try out. These mechanics can be accessed by talking to Faustus inside the Tavern.
Passives respect: Gold can now be used to respec points. The higher levels the more expensive the cost of respec.
Currency exchange: This exchange allows you to buy and sell various currencies with other players. It works similar to a stock exchange:
- Select what items you want in the desired quantity
- Select what items you have in the desired quantity
When you listings match with another player you’ll automatically get the traded items.
Black market: The black market will basically let you gamble gold for items with enhanced stats in a random rarity. It is similar to Gwennen gambling and is a good way to use up excess gold.
Thoughts on the new POE City Builder League
With Settlers of Kalguur, GGG has continued a long-standing tradition of catching their player base by surprise. This time, by a POE City Builder League mechanic. Maybe a slow-paced, time-gated is just what is needed to elevate this game to a whole new level. This is also good news for the more casual players who can now kick back and enjoy their little POE settlement.
GGG has stated that this league is highly experimental and they are excited to see their players’ responses and feedback. Whether you are interested in this seemingly strange addition to an aRPG game, you have to admit that GGG sure knows how to shake things up and away from a boring release.
