Kingdoms Reborn adds Aztec-inspired faction that loves tequila

Early Access city-builder has five civilizations now

Kingdoms Reborn is a city-building game that’s been in Steam’s Early Access program since November 2020 and it received a massive update this past weekend, adding a fifth civilization with the Tlatoa, an Aztec-inspired faction fueled by tequila and tobacco.

The Tlatoa joined the Duchy, Emirate, Norsemen, and Shogunate in a bid for economic and military domination. Thanks to a decreased food consumption, you’ll have an easier time of getting the Tlatoa through harsh winters, but at the same time they pay much higher fees for trading, making their development a lot more challenging as imports put a heavier strain onto your coffers than is usually the case. It looks like runs with the Tlatoa will be a tricky business.

The Tlatoa come with their own architecture and wonders / Earthshine

As you’d expect from an Aztec-inspired civilization, the Tlatoa have access to a special building that lets them farm corn as a basic and very nutritional ingredient for their food production chain. Naturally, you can have your people bake tasty tortillas to supplement their diets with. As for new luxury goods, they get to farm tobacco and manufacture cigars from it, while agave farms enable them to distill tequila.

The “Echoes of the Sun Stone” update, as it’s called, made some sweeping changes in other areas as well. Iron is no longer found at specific nodes, but can now be extracted from any type of mountain, akin to stone. There has also been a rework for the blacksmith and stone tools workshop with changes to the worker capacity and upgrades. You better get used to those quickly, as tools are one of the critical resources that can absolutely grind a city to a halt if they are mismanaged. For the early game, it should be easier to get access to medicine thanks to a new building enabling you to gather medicinal herbs from your surroundings instead of having to farm them.

Unfortunately, the newest update also seems to have attracted some unwanted guests: bugs. One of these pesky visitors is making your town hall invisible, which is pretty annoying – let’s hope that developer Earthshine will come out with a fix for that soon.

With over three years in Early Access, Kingdoms Reborn has steadily taken shape and can already provide hours of city-building fun. Those willing to give the game a shot can do so at a 20% discount until March 2, 2024, via Steam.

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