Introduction

Family members (or Nobles) play a very important role in Kingdom Maker. In this guide we will look at the basics, such as growing your family, unlocking new noble roles and ranking and leveling up family members.

Growing your Family

You start the game with a married couple and you can extend the family by making babies by having the husband and wive interact. Go to the Keep overview, select either of the married couple, select Interact, select the other and select Greet. Now you get into an menu with some interaction options, which will allow you to chose the option Married Boink, which has a chance to result in a baby.

There are also possibilities to have marriages between your family members and family members of other players, which gives a wider variety of possible babies. This is not a necessity early on, as you can create babies a lot faster than you will be able to unlock new roles, and each baby needs to have a role assigned before it can mature.

In the Nobles research category you can unlock new Noble roles and increase the number of nobles that can have a certain role. All research is important, but this one is good to focus on as it directly limits your family size.

After selecting one of the available roles for your baby you see the traits. These are random based on the role and quality of the parents. There are some re-rolls available in case you are not happy with the given traits and you want to try your luck.

Assigning to a Room in Your Keep

You can assign nobles to a room in your keep to get boosts. If you go to your Keep and click on the buttons at the side of a room, you will open up a dialog. In this dialog you can typically assign 2 nobles (by clicking on the top buttons and selecting your noble), assign one of a visitor from another family (will deal with this in another guide) and assign one family member via the button with the shield who will protect against saboteurs.

As you increase your Keep level more rooms will be unlocked.

Leading your Armies

Another function of your nobles is that they can lead an army. Depending on your Keep level you can preset a number of Armies. It is best to select a Noble with a combat focussed role to lead an Army.

Exploring Dungeons

Family members can also be used to Explore Dungeons. Try to do this whenever you can. Once a Noble has explored a dungeon a cooldown starts before this noble can explore a dungeon again.

Dungeons can be found on the map, every County has some.

Trading Post

Nobles can also be used to make trades in a Trading Post. Select a Trading Post and select the Summon menu. Select one of the Nobles in your family and click Summon. Nobles with a trade focussed role can provide some extra benefits. Once the Noble has arrived a Trade button is active at the right part of the screen. Click it, select your Noble (you can send more than one noble to a Trading Post), select the preferred Barter Option (often I only have one option) and click Confirm. Trades will take some time and provide you with some EXP.

Where is my Nobel?

In the Family overview you will get an indication where a Nobel is. There is a button next to the description, for example "Idle at Trading Post" that will take you exactly to the location where the Noble is.

Noble Talents and Tiers

Each Nobel has 4 tiers of each 5 talents. These talents can be unlocked with Combat Merits and silver. When unlocked these talents provide a direct boost (can be a wide variety, for example an offense bonus to the Nobles Army against Orc Camps, or an increased chance a capture attempt is successful).

Once all 5 talents in a Tier are unlocked the next Tier is opened up. This means new talents to unlock, but also increases the maximum XP level you can upgrade your Noble to.

Note that when you click on the + button in case you don't have enough Combat Merits the game will tell you they can be retrieved from Dungeons, however this is not the case. You get Combat Merits by attacking camps (e.g. Marauder or Ravanger Camps), you can see the Combat Merits as rewards for these camps when you click on them.

How to Level Up Family Members

Nobles have a XP level, which is maxed by the tier. When a Noble is Tier 1, maximum XP level is 10, Tier 2 it is 20, Tier 3 30 and Tier 4 40.

The XP level can be increased by Noble or Family XP. Noble XP is specific for that Noble and is typically accumulated by doing actions with that Noble. Family XP is general and can be used to upgrade any Noble.

Sacrifizing your Nobles

When you go to the state map you can find a county with a Volcano. You can double click on the county and click on the volcano, select one of your nobles and sacrfizie them. Note that this is irreversible.

Nobles can have different qualities in order from low to high: Runt, Normal, Impressive, Exceptional, Legendary, Mythical. A reason for me to sacrifize some of my nobles was that they were of Runt quality.

Conclusion

This guide should give you a good understanding of the basics of the Nobles or Family members. There is a lot more to do with them, I will share that later in an advanced guide.