The Palace Builder: Official Tips

Master The Palace Builder with these official tips from the game's designer, Nico. In this building simulation game, you are an up-and-coming architect building majestic palaces for the French nobility in the 1700's. You start out building for a Baroness, but as your fame grows you will work your way all the way up to the Queen herself.

Any good architect needs to know how to do three things:

1. Provide the structures that the noble wants
2. Direct your workforce, and
3. Manage your inventory of materials

Every noble wants certain structures in her palace. She’ll let you know what she wants in the OBJECTIVES that she assigns you. But don’t let the objectives get in the way of your creativity – the noble is always happy if you build more than she asked for!

In the game, you will build palaces for 7 different nobles. As you climb the ranks, the nobles become more demanding and your tasks become more challenging. Below is a quick overview with some details about each noble, and one or two tips for how to excel at these levels.

Baroness

The Baroness is the least demanding of all the nobles. You will build six Palaces for her. For the first four, you’re still an architect in training, so she cuts you some slack.

Tips:
• Two workers (or more) are better than one! You can hire more workers by expanding your workforce. You can also assign multiple workers to a structure to build it faster.
• Buy in bulk! When you buy five materials at a time, you get a discount over buying them one at a time. Buy in groups of five whenever you can – and remember, even if you don’t need the extra materials right now, you probably will before the level is through.

Viscount

This noble is a bit more challenging. You’ll start to see a lot more obstacles that you have to clear to make room for your structures. You’ll also encounter rain for the first time. When the rain starts, all of your workers slow down.

Tips:
• Hire some extra builders early in these levels. That way, you’ll have plenty of workers to clear obstacles while still keeping your construction going.
• Buy umbrellas for your workers, which prevent them from slowing down when the rain starts. Also keep in mind that umbrellas get more expensive as you expand your workforce, so buy them before expanding if you can.

Count

By the time you’ve graduated to the Count, the Royal Seal of Quality goals are quite a bit higher than what you’ll get just following his objectives.

Tips:
• Hold off on completing all of the objectives (so the level doesn’t end) and build some extra structures. This will give you enough Noble Appeal to get the Seal.
• You’ll see your first fruit tree at the end of this noble’s stage. Harvest fruit by assigning a gardener to the tree. This will give you a boost to the speed of all your workers. The boost is pretty substantial, so use fruit as often as you can! Sometimes you’ll have to explore the level carefully to find out where the tree is.

Marquis

The Marquis owns a lot of land with very old structures on it. Many of these are in ruin, so you’ll have to tear them down to make room for new construction.

Tips:
• You need builders to demolish the old structures, so hire some extra builders as soon as you can afford it. That way you can assign some to tearing down while others keep your construction underway.
• Every time you demolish a structure, you’ll gain some materials. Usually you get enough materials to keep you going through the early part of the level, so don’t spend money on materials until you really need to.

Duchess

Things are getting pretty challenging now! The Duchess likes expensive buildings, so you might find that your money starts getting really tight.

Tips:
• Some structures earn a lot of money each payday, but don’t earn much appeal. Others get a lot of appeal but not much income. Try building high-income structures early on so you don’t run into cash-flow problems later. Fountains are good for money, but Stables are the best money-earners.

Archduke

You’ll face all sorts of challenges on these levels – tight budgets and timelines, plagues, burglars, and skunks.

Tip:
• When the skunk appears, he permanently decreases the Noble Appeal of the palace. It’s only by a small amount, but the longer he stays on the level, the worse it gets. You can find him by following the exclamation mark on the edge of the screen. Whack him with a broom and he’ll clear out!

Queen

You’ll need to put everything you’ve learned to use in this level!

Tips:

• Expand your workforce and use multiple workers to speed up a structure
• There are a few structures to demolish, so use these to acquire some materials early on
• There is a fruit tree on the right edge of the grounds – use it wisely!
• Build Fountains and Stables early to build up a good income
• Don’t forget to buy the wood processing area as soon as you can, or your Chateau will be stalled
• Hold off on completing all of the objectives until you’ve gotten enough Noble Appeal for the Seal

Do you have any tips of your own to share? How far have you gotten in The Palace Builder?

Written by: Nico
Games in this post: The Palace Builder