RimWorld Royalty DLC Guide: Master Titles, Throne Rooms, and Psycasts

The Royalty DLC introduces the Empire faction, an ultra-tech level society that arrives on the Rimworld as refugees seeking allies with their honor-bound culture and hyper-advanced technology. This expansion fundamentally transforms how you interact with the world, allowing colonists to earn Imperial titles like Acolyte, Knight, and Baron through completing quests and earning Honor. Higher noble titles grant permanent buffs including trade privileges and access to powerful psycasts, creating new strategic pathways for colony development and survival.

Understanding the Empire Faction

Who Are the Empire?

The Empire is an ultra-tech faction introduced in the Royalty DLC. They are characterized by an honor-bound culture that wields hyper-advanced technology while still adhering to ancient traditions of royalty. This faction arrives on the Rimworld as refugees seeking allies, bringing their unique blend of futuristic power and monarchical hierarchy.

Honor: The Imperial Currency

Honor: This is the primary currency used to gain favor with the Empire.

You can earn Honor by completing quests for the Empire or by selling valuable items like gold, prisoners, or slaves to royal tribute collectors. This new currency is separate from standard faction goodwill and is used to progress through the Imperial title system, granting your colonists ranks like Acolyte, Knight, and Baron.

Empire Quest Types

The Empire offers a variety of quests that test your colony's capabilities. These tasks can range from hosting individuals like nobles or refugees to undertaking construction projects that require you to defend the site. Military missions are also common, including raiding enemy outposts or neutralizing dangerous mechanoid clusters.

During some of the more difficult quests, the Empire may provide direct assistance, such as sending elite Imperial cataphracts to help you fight. Successfully completing these quests provides valuable rewards, including Honor, faction goodwill, unique implants, archotechnological artifacts, gear, and royal titles.

Royal Titles and Their Benefits

Title Hierarchy

Royal titles include ranks like Acolyte, Knight, and Baron. Each level represents a higher standing within the Empire and unlocks new benefits for the titled colonist. Gaining higher noble titles grants permanent buffs, such as trade privileges and access to powerful psycasts, further enhancing their capabilities.

Title Requirements and Benefits

Titled nobles demand increasingly lavish lifestyles to satisfy their expectations. These requirements include grand throne rooms and specific clothing and food. As nobles rise through the ranks, they require increasingly luxurious accommodations, including specific apparel, better food, and more impressive throne rooms to maintain their honor.

Imperial Permits: Once a colonist reaches the Knight title or higher, they gain access to permits. These permits allow a colonist to call upon the Empire for immediate aid. This aid can include military support or essential supplies.

Mastering Throne Room Requirements

Basic Requirements

In the Royalty DLC, a throne room is required for any noble above the Yeoman rank. There are seven total honor ranks in the game.

At a minimum, a throne room must have 24 floor tiles, a throne, and two lit braziers. These basic elements form the foundation for any noble's court.

Title-Specific Requirements

As your colonists gain titles, the requirements for their throne rooms become more demanding. For example, a Knight's throne room must have a minimum impressiveness of 60.

Higher ranks require even more impressive spaces. A Praetor's throne room needs a minimum impressiveness of 80, while a Count or Countess requires an impressiveness of 120 and six pillars.

Maximizing Impressiveness

Room Impressiveness: This stat is calculated based on the wealth, beauty, space, and cleanliness of a room.

To meet high impressiveness thresholds, focus on valuable and beautiful items. A Grand Throne is required for higher titles and provides a greater impressiveness bonus than a basic one.

Using high-value materials is an effective strategy. For a Count's throne room, building pillars out of gold provides 40 beauty each. Similarly, golden, silver, and jade items add significant beauty and impressiveness when used in construction, even for simple elements like fences.

Psycasts: Mastering Psychic Abilities

What Are Psycasts?

Psycasts are psychic abilities available to pawns who have attained psylink levels. Most of these abilities focus on battlefield control and utility rather than dealing direct damage. To use them, you must manage two key resources: your Psylink Level, which determines the abilities you can learn, and Psyfocus, which is the fuel required to cast them that regenerates through meditation.

Key Psycast Abilities

Several psycasts stand out for their tactical impact.

• Skip is a level 4 ability that teleports any person, creature, or small object within a 27.9-tile range to another unoccupied spot in line of sight.
• The Invisibility psycast, unlocked at level 5, makes the caster completely unseen by enemies for 17.5 seconds.
• Blinding Pulse is a tier 2 psycast that obscures the vision of all pawns within a 3.9-tile radius by inducing noise in their visual centers.
• Vertigo Pulse is a level 3 psycast that causes all pawns in its area of effect to stumble randomly and repeatedly vomit.

Strategic Uses of Psycasts

Strategic application of psycasts can turn the tide of any battle. You can use Skip to teleport wounded allies to safety, reposition enemies into kill zones, or rescue valuable items from dangerous areas. The Invisibility psycast allows your psycaster to walk into enemy groups and cast disruptive abilities like Berserk Pulse or Vertigo Pulse without being targeted.

• Blinding Pulse is highly effective against clustered ranged attackers in chokepoints, causing their chance to hit to plummet.
• Many players consider Vertigo Pulse to be the best force-multiplier psycast, capable of neutralizing entire human raids by incapacitating their forces.

Maximizing Your Royal Advantage

Royal Tribute Collectors

Royal Tribute Collectors: These are imperial agents who periodically visit your colonies to collect resources. They provide a unique opportunity to convert your excess gold, prisoners, or slaves into additional Honor. This system helps maintain and advance your noble standing within the Empire.

Choosing Your Path: Allying or Opposing the Empire

You are not obligated to serve the Empire. Players can choose to oppose them, which transforms the faction into a formidable enemy and presents a different set of strategic challenges for your colony. For those who want to engage with other DLC content without the Empire's politics, it is possible to disable the Empire faction entirely at map generation. This allows you to still utilize features like anima trees and the quest system.

Advanced Tips for Late Game

Maximizing your psycasters' potential is crucial in the late game. When a psycaster noble meditates on a throne in an 'Unbelievably impressive' room, they can gain up to +33% psyfocus per day, dramatically increasing their power. Furthermore, if you have the Ideology DLC, certain belief systems can make this easier; for instance, colonies with the Rough Living - welcomed precept will face lower throne room requirements.

Key Takeaways

• Honor Drives Progression: Complete Empire quests and use tribute collectors to earn the Honor needed for title advancement.
• Throne Rooms Are Essential: Each title level requires progressively impressive throne rooms with specific requirements.
• Psycasts Offer Tactical Superiority: Master abilities like Skip, Invisibility, and Vertigo Pulse for battlefield control.
• Permits Provide Emergency Support: Knight-level nobles can call for Imperial aid during critical situations.
• Strategic Flexibility: You can choose to ally with or oppose the Empire based on your colony's goals.

Conclusion

The RimWorld Royalty DLC transforms the core gameplay experience by introducing a sophisticated faction system with deep strategic implications. By mastering the honor economy, building impressive throne rooms, and leveraging powerful psycasts, you can elevate your colony from struggling survivors to respected members of the Imperial court. Whether you choose to serve the Empire or forge your own path, the Royalty DLC provides rich new mechanics that reward careful planning and strategic thinking. Focus on building relationships with the Empire, invest in your nobles' accommodations, and master psychic abilities to dominate the RimWorld like never before.