Hermits

The Hermits are special and reclusive folk who can upgrade archer towers, walls or farms to special structures. There are five unique hermit types: the Ballista Hermit, the Bakery Hermit, the Knight Hermit, the Signal Hermit and the Stable Hermit. Some colors of the Hermits' cloths depend on the Monarch's own colors.

BehaviorEdit

UnlockingEdit

Kingdom: New Lands – The Monarch has first to unlock the hermit on a certain island (see below) by using the signpost. Afterwards, a random unlocked hermit can be coaxed outside of their cottage, by paying 4 coins.

Kingdom: Two Crowns – Various amounts of gems and coins are required to coax hermits. Each hermit has their own cottage and can only be found on a certain island (see below). Unlocking using gems has only to be done once, whereas hiring with coins can be repeated, if the hermit gets kidnapped.

The hermits will slowly wander their way towards the Town Center and choose a spot to idle. Paying 1 coin directly to the hermit allows them to ride alongside the Monarch on his or her mount. Once they're taken back to town, the hermit enables the option to reconstruct a building into a special structure, dependent on which hermit type they are.

UsingEdit

The hermit must be riding alongside you in order to upgrade a building. They will jump off your mount if you go outside the borders of your kingdom at night, so be careful. You just have to pay 1 coin to have them ride alongside you again, but if you go in the wrong direction they will jump off again. They can also be taken to the next island, if you have them on the back of your mount when you sail with the boat. In Kingdom: Two Crowns you don't need to have them with you in order to carry them to the other islands: all hermits alive on the island will come with you upon departure.

When a tower is upgraded with a hermit, the archers are released and return to their normal role of archers, hunting during the day and guarding the outer wall during the night. So, other than giving to towers a special ability, the Monarch may want upgrade them for the simple purpose of releasing these archers; either because of economic needs (if the number of archers hunting is insufficient), or because the outer wall has advanced and these towers have little use as defensive structures.

Kingdom: Two Crowns – A monarch can manually dismount a hermit, by flipping back and forth rapidly.

KidnappedEdit

The hermit can be captured by the Greed to be taken back through their portals. If a hermit is taken they do not appear on that island again. However, killing or stunning the greedling that has captured the hermit will free them.

Kingdom: Two Crowns – There are two more ways to get your hermit back. The first one is to lose, then to come back to the hermit cottage and pay a certain amount of coins to get a new one. The other one is to destroy the cave on the island your hermit has been kidnapped, by using a bomb. If you manage to survive the assault, you'll see your lost hermit waiting in front of it (also works for the dog and the gems). If you have your hermits kidnapped and then lose your crown they will not reappear when the cave is destroyed. Instead, you have to go back to the cottage and get a new one

TypesEdit

Ballista HermitEdit

The Ballista Hermit appears as a crouched person with a funny, feathered cap and brown robes. They enable the Monarch to upgrade triplet towers into ballista towers for 6 coins in New Lands and 15 coins in Two Crowns, which have greatly improved range — around a full screen. The ballista is manned by a builder who will stay in the tower permanently. Ballista shots can take out swathes of greedlings and kill floaters with a single hit.

This tower is only able to defend attacks from the forwards direction and cannot shoot backwards. The builder operating is also still vulnerable to floaters.

Kingdom: Two Crowns – The Shogun version is a man with a pony tail wearing a ripped toga.

Bakery HermitEdit

The Bakery Hermit appears as an old person with a chef's toque and an apron. They allows towers to be upgraded into bakeries for 6 coins in New Lands and 15 coins in Two Crowns.

At a bakery, the Monarch can purchase loaves of bread for 1 coin in New Lands and 4 coins in Two Crowns with the bakery holding up to 7 loaves of bread. This attracts vagrants from their camps to come and eat freshly baked bread. This is a fast way of recruiting villagers, as the vagrants start coming right after they appear from their camps. However, eating bread does not convert a vagrant to a villager. Instead, the vagrant will keep eating bread until there are no more loaves or until they are hired. In order to save coins, hiring should be done before the running vagrants reach the bakery. In order to save time, the best moment to hire a vagrant running towards the bakery is when they are very close to bakery, as running vagrants stop running once they become villager. This shortens the time they take to reach the town center if there are no tools lying on the ground.

The Bakery Hermit is perfect for bringing to Skull Island or later on new lands since the vagrant camps there are usually beyond the portals and attracting vagrants with bread is much safer than venturing far away and waiting for vulnerable villagers to walk over. It is also safer as the vagrants are not attacked by Greed that are venturing the map, whereas a claimed villager will be attacked if they are not protected.

Kingdom: Two Crowns – The Shogun equivalent is a small bald old man with a headband instead of a chef hat.

Knight HermitEdit

The Knight Hermit appears as an old man with a long, white beard. He allows the Monarch to upgrade a tower to a knight tower for 6 coins in New Lands and 15 coins in Two Crowns, where a villager can be upgraded to a squire/knight by purchasing a shield for another 6 coins in New Lands and 4 coins in Two Crowns.

The Monarch can carry only 3 knights on board the ship to the next island.^[1] For this and some other reasons (see "Balance notes") it is advised to use the Knight Hermit sparingly.

Horn HermitEdit

Kingdom: Two Crowns content only.

The Horn Hermit can build war horns on tall stone walls for 12 coins and on iron walls for 16 coins. These horns can then be used for 1 coin to call reinforcements, drawing in military units from the whole map. Due to all reinforcements being drawn to that wall, it is advised to use these warhorns with caution.

This hermit appears as an old man with long, white hair and beard, carrying a great war horn on his back.

Stable HermitEdit

Kingdom: Two Crowns content only.

The Stable Hermit turns a fully upgraded mill house farm into a stable to keep the mounts inside it. The Monarch(s) can then mount new horses at will from the stable. However, it will destroy every crop field except one and the farmers will have to work elsewhere.

The Shogun version is a small black haired woman with bright pink clothing and bun hat.

Hermit CottageEdit

The hermit cottage is a natural structure that appears in the forest. Four coins in New Lands and some gems in Two Crowns may be paid to it to call out the hermit; and a further 1 coin can be paid to allow the hermit to mount the Monarch's mount.

If a hermit is not picked up, he will wander back to the Town Center on their own (in New Lands this may trigger a bug).

Unlike vagrant camps or the Merchant settlement, the hermit cottage does not need to exist in the forest, and so it will continue to exist even if the forest around it has been cut.

Kingdom: New Lands – Multiple hermit cottages may exist on the same island and they all look the same.

Kingdom: Two Crowns – Each hermit lives on a different island and there are some visual clues around each cottage to guess which one lives in it.

GalleryEdit

The Hermit having chosen the siege workshop as his spot to idle

A Bakery Hermit and Ballista Hermit next to a Ballista Tower

A Vagrant eating bread from a Bakery

The Horn Hermit in front of his cottage

ReferencesEdit

1. ↑ New Lands: The Monarch was able to bring more than 3 sets of knights aboard the boat, resulting in the ability to have as many as 12 (or more) knights aboard the final land. This was later patched out before the release of Skull Island, and so may limit the usefulness of this hermit. See the change here.