Line #30 VideoGame/RealmGrinder


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rg.png]]
2	->''"Fancy being a benevolent king or a cruel tyrant? Choose an alignment between Good and Evil and form alliances with multiple races such as fairies, elves, angels, goblins, undead and demons in order to improve your coin output. Click to harvest your treasure, build your almighty empire, unleash your magic upon the land and be the richest ruler of the realm!"''
3
4	''[[http://www.kongregate.com/games/divinegames/realm-grinder Realm Grinder]]'' is an IdleGame created by Kongregate developer ''[[http://www.kongregate.com/accounts/DivineGames DivineGames]]''. The earliest version was released on May. 19, 2015 and has enjoyed a frequent number of updates since, the biggest of which have been referred to as "expansions".
5
6	In this game, you play as a nameless ruler of a kingdom in an unspecified location with a (not-so) simple goal - become the richest king/queen in the realm.
7	The first person you see in the game is the Advisor. She serves as a tutorial of sorts, explaining various features to the player and offering tips in discovering new things.
8
9	The primary resource in Realm Grinder is Coins. They are used to buy more buildings and different types of upgrades. You gain more by clicking anywhere in the landscape. Eventually, clicking will become insufficient and your assistants will take care of most of the work for you.
10	Occasionally, an assistant or click will produce a Faction Coin, the secondary resource. These are needed for negotiations with the multitude of races living among the Realm. But you can't form an alliance with any of them without choosing an Alignment first.
11
12	When you start, you can decide whether to be Good or turn Evil in order to attract the presence of the Factions. Each has a different set of playstyle influenced by its upgrades along with a "Faction Spell", a unique spell only that specific faction can cast by spending mana. Every race has its own strengths and weaknesses and it is of most interest to you to take advantage of the various spells to start exploring.
13
14	As you and your heirs rule through the eras, you will discover ancient civilizations, meet underground dwellers and much more through the eyes of your future selves.
15
16	A mobile version has been released. You can get it [[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kongregate.mobile.realmgrinder.google&hl=en here]].
17
18	!!''Realm Grinder'' contains examples of:
19	* AchievementSystem: Called "trophies", the achievements range from simple tasks such as clicking a bunch of times or having a certain number of buildings. "Secret trophies" on the other hand don't tell you how to get them, but they always reward some sort of upgrade.
20	* AdReward: The Scrying function can give a boost to production in exchange for watching an ad. As ads are disabled on Steam, the entire feature is hidden away on that version.
21	* AdorableEvilMinions: Your assistants, oddly-endearing Lilliputian creatures that help gather more treasure for your kingdom. Naturally, depending on your faction, they may not be evil nor adorable.
22	** The Dragon assistant is a cute little critter that also appears near your advisor's feet on the "Dragon Tamer" upgrade.
23	* AllYourColorsCombined: The Dragon faction's spell Dragon's Breath. Based on chromatic dragons and designed around the tiered spellcasting mechanic, successfully casting it five times in the same time frame bestows all of its breath effects at once.
24	* AllYourPowersCombined: Allying with the Mercenary faction grants spells and faction upgrades from all races (including the Neutral Prestige faction, once unlocked) for the player to mix and match, affording carte blanche on playstyle and progression. One achievement takes it further by requiring the player to purchase an upgrade from each and every other faction.
25	* AndroclesLion: [[spoiler: How you unlock the Dragons. Taking time to nurture one of the mightiest, most imposing creatures of all the realms has its benefits.]]
26	* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: The Demonic racial upgrades all sound as evil as you'd expect, except the last one, which is simply called "Very Bad Guys".
27	* ArtEvolution: The game began as a simple colored screen with a treasure chest to click on, as well as primitive icons. After the Overhaul patch, you can now see a piece of land containing your buildings built on a path and features pixel style graphics.
28	* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: Eventually, your treasury will overflow with so much gold that it completely [[KillScreen distorts the very fabric of reality]]. The game's solution to this problem? Essentially make you a god. Gods care not for the trifling gold currency of mortals, anything of interest can simply be taken for free or with fancier, scarcer ''diamond'' coins.[[labelnote:*]] Unfortunately, your godhood does not matter to other races, you must transact with them normally with their preferred currency.[[/labelnote]] Later patches meant that more ascensions were needed, and your treasure would be replaced with emerald and amethyst coins.
29	* AscendedGlitch: The Reverse Autocasting feature, which is used to reset spells for better luck with them, was originally unintentionally in the game because spells were turned off upon importing a save file. This meant it was possible to export and reimport saves to control RNG. This was officially added to the game in the Elite Challenges update.
30	* BoringButPractical: Many upgrades and researches boost production slowly at first but are dependent on a statistic that increases over time, such as spells cast, mana produced or, well, time spent in a single game.
31	* ChangingGameplayPriorities: Because mechanics and perks are unlocked as you progress, the strategies involved may drastically change.
32	** Very early game, you're likely to use Elves's higher faction coin chance for quicker setup runs, while midgame faction coins aren't as important, and therefore, choosing other perks is better.
33	** The biggest gameplay priority change, however, is after Ascension. Most of the production upgrades you're used to are severely handicapped while more utility ones begin to shine. You are now focused on multicasting your spells and finding ways to either reduce an upgrade's penalty or replace it.
34	* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: Each faction is associated with a predominant color:
35	** Fairies: Pink
36	** Elves: Green
37	** Angels: Sky Blue
38	** Goblins: Olive
39	** Undead: Dark Violet
40	** Demons: Red
41	** Titans: Yellow
42	** Druids: Brown
43	** Faceless: Purple
44	** Dwarves: Blue
45	** Drow: Amaranth
46	** Dragons: Dark Green
47	** Archons: Blue Gray
48	** Djinns: Light Purple
49	** Makers: Gray
50	** Mercenaries: Black
51	* CriticalHit:
52	** Elves bestow your clicks a chance to earn up to 250,000% more gold than usual.
53	** The Lightning Strike spell and Miracle research massively increases a building's production for a certain period, then moves to another one. Unfortunately, there's almost always a single building producing most of your coins, meaning most of the time the affected building won't even make a fraction of our main building. But when it does...
54	* [[invoked]]CharacterAlignment: In Patch 3.4, the game introduced the OrderVersusChaos alignment in addition to the classic Good versus Evil. And with it, sorted the nine base factions into cells in the alignment grid:
55	** Fairies: [[invoked]]ChaoticGood
56	** Elves: [[invoked]]NeutralGood
57	** Angels: [[invoked]]LawfulGood
58	** Goblins: [[invoked]]NeutralEvil
59	** Undead: [[invoked]]LawfulEvil
60	** Demons: [[invoked]]ChaoticEvil
61	** Titans: [[invoked]]LawfulNeutral
62	** Druids: [[invoked]]TrueNeutral
63	** Faceless: [[invoked]]ChaoticNeutral
64	** Each of the six alignments on both axes also has an elite faction (known as a Prestige Faction) to embody it:
65	*** Dwarves: Good
66	*** Drow: Evil
67	*** Dragons: Neutral
68	*** Archons: Order
69	*** Djinns: Chaos
70	*** Makers: Balance
71	* CrutchCharacter: When you first unlock them, the Neutral factions are far more powerful than the basic Good and Evil ones, but they're outstripped after you unlock the prestige factions for the base ones, as the bonuses granted by the Dwarf and Dark Elf subfactions allow the enhanced Good and Evil factions to outperform the Neutral ones. The Neutral factions are still useful in the opening stages of a new reincarnation, when you don't have enough gems to be able to afford the upgrades for the prestige factions yet, but they rapidly drop off. Of course, this is [[AvertedTrope averted with a vengeance]] once you eventually unlock the ''Neutral'' prestige faction, ''Dragons.''
72	* DiminishingReturnsForBalance: Par for the course for an incremental game. As such, any upgrade which scales linearly is [[GameBreaker indispensable]].
73	* {{Druid}}: A Neutral faction, the Druids are a group of Neutral-aligned people who strove to maintain world balance with powerful magic. As such, allying with the Druids will boost your maximum mana, as well as balancing out your weakest buildings by giving them huge boosts. They profit off Stone Pillars, eventually transforming them into Stonehenges.
74	* DiscardAndDraw: What Ascension entails. Most of your production multipliers suffer a Penalty, reducing them to a very small percentage of their previous effectiveness. In exchange, you have the potential to cast any non-Tax Collection spell up to five times, form an alliance with the Dragons (which unlike the other factions do not suffer from penalties of their own) and upgrade your Bloodline to a Lineage.
75	* DragonTamer: The Dragon assistant is a cute little critter that also appears near your advisor's feet as a sign of the "Dragon Tamer" upgrade.
76	* EasyLevelTrick: Some achievements become trivial with the right setup of bloodlines/upgrades/research.
77	** The Chain Lightning research requires casting 25 Brainwaves, which would take more than four hours in a single game. But since it only requires 25 spells in a single Reincarnation, it's possible to cast the spell as soon as you ally with the Faceless, abdicate, join the Faceless again, cast Brainwave, and get the achievement in minutes.
78	* EarlyGameHell: As is the norm for an IdleGame. However, unlike Abdications where you get a massive income boost, every Reincarnation is a new EarlyGameHell, because you don't start out with any Gems (the main source of income bonuses at the start). Trophies and Reincarnation bonuses can help as you accumulate them.
79	* EffortlessAchievement: Some of the secret trophies require something as basic as playing the game for 3 hours or staring at the patch notes tab for 3 minutes.
80	* EldritchAbomination: The Faceless are a Neutral Faction of [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Cthulhu-looking]] beings whose HiveMind governs all their choices and behaviors. They have the ability to boost your production based on your past choices while giving progressively better bonuses. They're associated with Labyrinths, which eventually get upgraded into Sunken Cities.
81	* ElvesVersusDwarves: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Here, the Elves and Dwarves can ally with each other, and their skills mesh quite well with each other.
82	* EndlessGame: The supposed "endgame" doesn't last for long. Late features are periodically implemented to keep playing as long as possible.
83	* EvilCounterpart: The evil aligned Drow are this to the good aligned Elves.
84	* FactionCalculus: Unique among idle games and probably ''Realm Grinder'''s defining feature, the game offers a total of 16 factions—divided into three alignments—for the player to form allegiances with, each promoting a different and distinct approach in amassing unfathomable wealth. In practice, the Mercenary faction has exclusive upgrades depending on which of the three alignments you pursue, effectively making three Mercenary sub-factions, bumping that number to 18.
85	* FallenAngel: The flavor text for Angel challenge 3 mentions fallen Nephilim who seek to spread false hope amongst mortals, and the challenge itself requires you to pick the demon bloodline and build no good buildings.
86	* FeatheredSerpent: The Mercenary faction uses them as their assistants.
87	* FireIceDuo: Two event-only factions are available only during the Summer Festival event, the chaotic [[PlayingWithFire Summeraans]] and the meticulous [[AnIcePerson Winterly]].
88	* FlavorText: Present on the Artifacts and Challenges.
89	* GottaCatchEmAll: Aside from the standard trophies, ''Realm Grinder'' introduces collectibles such as artifacts, heritages, and bloodlines. All of which boost production in some way.
90	* GuideDangIt: For starters, only the names of most of the Secret Trophies are visible. There is only one in-game hint for one of them, the rest are found either by accident or by looking them up. Some later features come with their own requirements and are likewise hidden.
91	* HeelFaceRevolvingDoor: Good, Evil, Neutral? It doesn't matter what side you choose—this life or the next—as long as it means more treasure. No one seems to mind you sided with their mortal enemy during your previous sovereignty anyway. You can take an evil bloodlinewith a good faction and vice versa.
92	* {{Hellfire}}: The Demonic Hellfire Blast increases your coin output the more trophies you managed to unlock.
93	* HolidayMode: 8 different Events have been held so far. Most of them come with a Quest series who give a permanent bonus even after the Event ends. When a previously held Event starts again, the Quest series for it resets, but its previous bonus remains. Completing quests and sometimes other tasks will also award Feats, a special kind of Trophies. Some Events allows you to get more Rubies.
94	** Valentine's Day: The [[ManaMeter Mana Meter]] turns red and Call to Arms becomes Call to Love, earning more Hearts per second depending on how long you kept the spell active. The Hearts can then be spent on upgrades in a manner similar to Rubies.
95	** Easter: You can collect Common Eggs which are then exchanged for Rare ones (or Unique ones, and is actually a better deal). The rare ones can then be used to buy specific upgrades or 8 Unique eggs. The Unique eggs grant you a very useful upgrade as well as a free Ruby.
96	** AprilFoolsDay: A rather powerful looking upgrade appears, but buying it doesn't do anything. Then another one that claims to fix it shows up and so forth. Buying them quickly actually reduces your production for nearly an hour. These upgrades poke fun at some of the playerbase's complaints towards the game.
97	** Anniversary: Gives an upgrade for a short time that boosts production depending on how long you've played.
98	** Summer Festival: Brings two temporary "mini" factions: [[RedOniBlueOni The Summeraans and the Winterly]]. To befriend them, you have to spend Flame Orbs for the Summeraans and Frost Orbs for the Winterly while allied with another faction. Allying with one of them grants 3 of their respective racial upgrades as well as their unique spell: Heatwave or Hailstorm.
99	** Halloween: This Event give daily presents in the form of Pumpkins. Smashing a Pumpkin reveals a Ruby, event resources and a random monster of three: Vampire, Ghost or Skeleton. You feed the monster with Blood, Ectoplasm or Bones, respectively. A monster fed enough times will level up, giving more perks as well as one spell for each monster.
100	** Thanksgiving & Black Friday Sale Event: Thanksgiving gives a temporary 25% to production upgrade, while Black Friday gives a 50% discount to Gift of the Heroes during the event.
101	** Christmas: You collect Snowballs that powers up the event only Avalanche upgrade. You also get a daily Christmas present, containing either Snowballs or Rubies.
102	* {{Irony}}: The Druid's Grand Balance spell increases the production of the lowest-tier buildings, and is applied to more buildings as you produce mana. Eventually, ''all'' buildings are (equally) affected by the boost, meaning the low-tier buildings are right back to being the least productive.
103	* JackOfAllStats: The Neutral alignment is eclectic and versatile, not focusing on a single aspect of the game but picking something from all of them.
104	* KillScreen: Being made in Flash, the cap to any value in game is e308. The Ascension reset mechanic was implemented to prevent this, as well as impose a very harsh penalty to most upgrades unlocked up to that point.
105	* {{Lunacy}}: The Elven Moon Blessing spell grows stronger as you accumulate more clicks.
106	* LastLousyPoint: Unless you're willing to [[BribingYourWaytoVictory spend your Rubies on Time Skips]],[[labelnote:*]] arguably the best option to spend Rubies on anyway, as the game tracks time spent for many upgrades,[[/labelnote]] every unlockable with a time requirement—ranging from eight hours to ten ''days''—becomes this.
107	* LightningCanDoAnything: It gives you faction coins every time it strikes, as well as boosting the power of a building stack.
108	* LuckBasedMission:
109	** The Titan Lightning Strike spell boosts a building by 4x (or 5x if upgraded) the number of Iron Strongholds you have, which is a ''massive'' amount. The catch is that the building is targeted at random, so you might well be stuck waiting with a negligible increase in production until it hits the higher-tier buildings.
110	** Exaggerated for their Tier 4 Challenge. You need Lightning Strike to hit the Hall of Legends ''twice in a row'' (where there are 11 buildings total) and you're not allowed to "cheat" here (either by skipping buildings, as you need at least one of each building; or by Lightning Rod / Craftsmanship 375 (a Research upgrade exclusive to Titans that makes Lightning Strike hit Halls of Legends and one other target at random), since you're not allowed to buy Researches), so that's a 0.83% chance of it happening.
111	** Goblin's first challenge asks of you to get 1000 times your coin production from Green Fingers Discount. This upgrade gives a random amount of coins (1 to 1200 seconds of production) ''every 10 minutes'', meaning you can get it very soon or very late.
112	** The Miracle research gives a big boost to a single building for 2 minutes. Good luck getting it to hit the building that's actually the most productive, however...
113	* {{Mana}}: You get more in the form of Mana Points per second. It pays to get as much mana as possible in order to make spells cast by themselves, while increasing maximum mana is important to fire off multiple spells at once, greatly increasing their output. Some builds maximize maximum mana over regeneration, making for very slow, but very powerful, spell bursts.
114	* MarathonLevel: Several trophies and challenges take quite a while to obtain.
115	** The Beard Carpet achievement requires you to play the Dwarf faction until their beards are three kilometers long. At a rate of 1cm/s, you're looking at three and a half ''days'' of grinding without abdicating or reincarnating.
116	** One Demon challenge requires you to find 5,000 demon coins ''without'' using excavations, Gem or Reincarnation power, so getting enough assistants to get those coins is going to take almost as long as if you had just started playing.
117	** Several Neutral researches require spending two days as that faction. Fortunately, it isn't required to do so in a single game.
118	** Getting the Djinn's unique building requires 5 day's worth of activity time from Chaos spells. Fortunately, it counts combined spell time, and since you likely have 5 Chaos-aligned spells when playing as them, it only takes one day.
119	* MassiveRaceSelection: As of Patch 4.2, the game has introduced 15 races for the player to grind for coins with, each with their own ideas on how to make you the richest in the realm. It has the original six Vanilla factions, split between Good (Fairy, Elf, Angel) and Evil (Undead, Goblin, Demon), three Neutral factions (Titan, Druid, Faceless), three Prestige factions (Dwarf, Drow, Dragon), and three Elite factions (Archon, Djinn, Makers). There's also, of course, the Mercenary faction, which lets you pick and choose from every race and make your own custom faction, making it 16 factions in total. There are also mini-factions from events, such as the Summeraans and the Winterly from the 2016 Summer Festival.
120	* MightyGlacier: Many builds sacrifice mana regeneration in exchange for building up a huge amount of mana to fire off all their spells at once, which translates to a big gem boost but also means it takes a (very) long time to recharge with only the default regen upgrades available.
121	* MinMaxersDelight:
122	** Several upgrades in the Research Facilities are so useful that nearly all builds won't discard, such as:
123	*** Gem Duster (Craftsmanship 340): multiplicatively boosts gem production from Rubies found. Even Rubies found without purchasing them are just enough to make this a must-have.
124	*** Vivication (Alchemy 120): adds assistants according to your mana pool, which keeps increasing the more you reincarnate, thus always providing a hefty amount.
125	*** Formation (Warfare 180): The Call to Arms spell increases production from the amount of buildings you own. This upgrade makes each building count as 15 buildings instead. Even after an Ascension Penalty, a Call To Arms 5 with Formation is more powerful than most Faction Spells in that stage.
126	*** Scavenging (Warfare 1375): Boosts your faction coin chance according to your assistant amount, in addition to a multiplicative 275% boost. Goes hand in hand with Vivication mentioned above, this upgrade is essential for every build to set up a run quickly.
127	** The first Undead Lineage perk: It changes its bonus from a fixed number of additional assistants into a multiplier, resulting in an absurdly high count of assistants reaching hundreds of thousands. Moreover, it fuels key upgrades that use assistants as their basis—such as Magical Treasure, which adds a fixed[[labelnote:*]]i.e. ''linearly'' scaling[[/labelnote]] amount of mana regeneration per assistant.
128	* MinMaxing: Of course. Inefficiency has no place in your realm when your objective is to be the wealthiest monarch to ever exist, especially with numerous tools at your disposal!
129	* NewGamePlus: Gem Power is the main source of coin production, growing more powerful the more Gems your kingdom has found. To get them, you must Abdicate from your rule, breaking off any alliance with the faction you had in that session as well as forfeiting all (faction) coins and buildings built, but allows you to ally with another faction, even the same one or in a different Alignment. But this won't be enough as any kingdom you develop will begin to stagnate [[spoiler: until you Reincarnate]].
130	* NoPointsForNeutrality: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]]. The Neutral Alignment's options (once found) are vastly superior than both Good or Evil's at first. Later games tend to diminish the differences between alignments.
131	* NumberOfTheBeast:
132	** There's a trophy for having a total playtime for Evil above 6 days, 66 hours, 666 minutes and 666666 seconds.
133	** Demons Challenge 2 requires you to have exactly 666 non-Demon Royal Exchanges purchased within 666 seconds of starting a new game. The reward is an increase of maximum mana when playing Fairy, based on 6.66% of the number of Hall of Legends you've built.
134	** Once research is unlocked, the hellfire spell can be upgraded by casting it 666 times in a single reincarnation.
135	** One of the relics you can excavate requires playing as the Demons while having 666 or more trophies.
136	* ThePaladin: A Dwarven Challenge reward. The spell Holy Light becomes more powerful depending on the number of Knights Jousts and Wizard Towers you have built.
137	* ObviousRulePatch: The Grand Balance spell used to target the weakest bought building for a huge boost, thus it was possible to skip buying Deep Mines and make the spell target the next building tier, resulting in higher production than usual. This has been changed so that Grand Balance will always target the weakest unbought building. [[LethalJokeItem This trait would be crucial to cheese Druid Challenge 3]].[[labelnote:Note]]The challenge is to have Grand Balance affect Stone Pillars, then Monasteries, and then Ancient Pyramids. It just so happens that Stone Pillars (building tier 5) are weaker than Monasteries (building tier 7), which in turn are weaker than Ancient Pyramids (building tier 10).[[/labelnote]]
138	* OurAngelsAreDifferent: The Angels are good aligned, [[WingedHumanoid winged]] and [[InTheHood hooded]] creatures who help you get rich from the gates of Heaven, which eventually open, becoming stronger as you use magic more often. Mana is everything to them (they have three buildings that increase mana, everyone else gets one at best), thus they are faster to afford to cast spells than most factions early on.
139	* OurDemonsAreDifferent: The Demons are a race of evil, power hungry horned humanoids with a face resembling that of a skull. They prefer to profit off their Evil Fortresses and [[{{Hellgate}} Hell Portals]], and eventually the Hall of Legends. They are strengthened by trophies, alluding to their quest to power. Later they succeed in transforming their portals to Hell itself.
140	* OurDragonsAreDifferent: Dragons are grand and mighty, refusing to ally with non-Neutral factions, and as such are a Prestige Neutral faction. All their abilities are very powerful and even have a heritage that persists through reincarnations. Iron Strongholds are their favoured building, which are eventually transformed into Wyrm's Dens, a more fitting accommodation for them.
141	* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: The Dwarves are a Prestige Good Faction, and like most standard depictions are sturdy bearded, stout, cheery, ale-loving miners and blacksmiths who live underground. They primarily focus on Excavations, having multiple abilities that grow in power the more excavations the player has performed. They eventually upgrade their Blacksmiths into Dwarven Forges.
142	* OurFairiesAreDifferent: The Fairies are represented as small, pink, singing figures from the Good Alignment. They focus on making their cheapest buildings even cheaper, but also stronger. They also like to gather as many assistants as possible, whose number is then amplified to quickly earn Gems.
143	* OurGeniesAreDifferent: The game has Djinns as a playable faction, and they're so different that they don't look like djinns at all. They, or at least their masks, look more like the [[AsianFoxSpirit Japanese kitsune]].
144	* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: The Goblins look like the common depiction - small, pointy eared and greedy, residing in the Evil Alignment. Their plan is to have as many buildings as possible to earn Gems, which are twice as powerful and grant more Faction Coins the more in number. Goblins suffer from no extra mana generation whatsoever at the start, [[MagikarpPower but later they become one of the most useful races in the game]].
145	* OurElvesAreDifferent: The Elves, as well as the Drow:
146	** The Elves are from the good Alignment, have pointy ears and are one of the most active races in the game. Their clicks are much stronger than everyone else's and acquire Faction Coins very easily. The downside is, don't expect much profit from them if you feel like idling more. At least, not until they receive [[ThePowerOfTheSun aid from the Sun itself]]. They'll decide to start training more troops to help with the coins.
147	** The Drow are a Prestige faction of the Evil Alignment, and like most depictions, are deceptive, shadowy, dark-skinned elves that live underground who worship an evil religion. Being manipulative, a good number of their abilities revolve around Royal Exchanges, and they are a great at complementing the Evil factions thanks to increasing mana regeneration as time passes. They eventually upgrade their Dark Temples into Spider Sanctuaries.
148	* OurTitansAreDifferent: The Titans are an ancient race of godlike beings and millenia of knowledge, and are of the Neutral Alignment. Just like how big and powerful they are, their abilities boost your economy to massive numbers. They profit off several buildings such as Deep Mines and Monasteries, but it is the Hall of Legends which are eventually upgraded to Olympian Halls themselves.
149	* PointBuildSystem: The Research mechanic, first introduced in the "Secrets of the Realms" patch, allows you to choose a limited amount of upgrades from six different Research Facilities [[spoiler: and a secret forbidden 7th facility]]. You can only pick four from each Facility, but as you progress through the game and depending on the faction chosen, you can increase this limit as well as choose from unique upgrades, allowing the possibility of more diverse builds.
150	* PowerOfTheSun: It clicks for you!
151	** The Sun Force artifact gives you different bonuses depending on the time of day.
152	* PrestigeClass: There are three factions which you cannot ally alone with and must first establish relations with races from their respective Alignment. The Dwarves for Good, Drow for Evil, [[spoiler: and the Dragons for Neutral]].
153	* RandomEffectSpell: The Dragon's Breath spell gives one of five effects, based on the colours of the chromatic dragons from ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
154	** Red increases the production of Unique Buildings based on the amount of Faction Coins found.
155	** Green increases the production of all buildings based on the amount of spells cast. Higher bonuses are provided to lower building tiers.
156	** Blue increases mana regeneration by 200%.
157	** White temporarily increase the amount of assistants based on total time spent being neutral.
158	** Black increases the production all buildings based on Dragon's Breath spell activity time.
159	* ReducedResourceCost: Certain upgrades reduce the resource cost multiplier (e.g. Fairy changing the multiplier from 1.15 to 1.13.
160	* {{Satan}}: A good aligned Mercenary using only evil upgrades or vice versa awards the "Lucifer" trophy.
161	* SaveScumming: Played with. While you can save and reload at will, the RNG states are part of the save file, so it won't help you find any artifacts. That said, it can still be useful if you just want a refund on the money you spent on the excavations.
162	* SecretArt: After completing a quest to unlock a faction's unique building, the Research Facilities open, where you can unlock special upgrades that only specific factions can use. Prestige factions gain an additional 3 along with the standard 6 for every race, one for each combination. Only an Elven/Dwarven alliance, for example, can use the "Alloys" upgrade.
163	* SkillScoresAndPerks: Many of the generically-termed "Upgrades" function like perks; the Mercenary and the Research systems in particular bring the inner minmaxer out of most players with their [[ExponentialPotential abundance of options]].
164	* SkillPointReset: You must purchase upgrades again every time you abdicate or reincarnate. Fortunately, the game lets you do so with a single button and can let you save Mercenary and Research configurations.
165	* SoulPower:
166	** Reincarnation Power, a free upgrade that bestows increasingly growing perks and features in length and strength the more times you reincarnated.
167	** Spiritual Surge is a rather expensive spell available to cast after your soul has become powerful enough.
168	* SoLastSeason: A newly-unlocked game mechanic will quickly become overshadowed by the next one. Good and Evil will make less money that the Neutral factions, until you encounter the prestige factions for the first two, then back to Neutral once you can join the Mercenaries, then back to Good and Evil once you unlock Research, etc.
169	* SpellLevels: Every spell except Tax Collection can be upgraded to the sixth tier, allowing you to simultaneously cast it up to the number of tiers you've unlocked.
170	* StopPokingMe: Clicking a hundred times on your assistant or advisor awards a trophy for it. The former appears to receive a black eye.
171	* TechTree: The Research progress system. See Point Build System above.
172	* ThemeNaming: The upgrades in the Research Facilities all follow a theme:
173	** Spellcraft's upgrades are related to mystical effects.
174	** Craftsmanship's upgrades are related to invention and mining.
175	** Divine's upgrades are related to light and biblical terms.
176	** Economics's upgrades are related to business and trading.
177	** Alchemy's upgrades are related to chemical effects and poison.
178	** Warfare's upgrades are related to war and battle tactics.
179	* TheUndead: An Evil Faction, the Undead appear to be some sort of skeleton/zombie hybrid. Patience is required to play as them, as they only get stronger as time passes, accumulating more assistants along the way. It is possible to make progress with them without even being online. The source of most of their strength is the [[TheNecrocracy Necropolis]] building.
180	* VideoGameDelegationPenalty:
181	** Subverted, passive coin gains will pretty much always be superior to those obtained by clicking, and even specialized builds only bring it up to ''nearly'' the same amount.
182	** Previously played straight by autocasting, which gave a 50% penalty to mana regen, and required you to purchase improved version to offset the penalty. No longer applies in the latest version where autocasting doesn't affect mana regen.
183	** Subverted with assistants, who not only suffer no penalties for being used, but several factions depend almost entirely on them.
184	* VillainsActHeroesReact: {{Inverted\|Trope}} here. The Evil factions are focused on being less proactive and more idle-based compared to the more active Good factions, which tend to reward click-based gameplay (although unlike most idle games, clicking gets a smaller reward than the idle one). Later on the line becomes blurred with both sides benefitting from autocasting spells.
185	* WizardsFromOuterSpace: Possibly the Archons. It may sound like they're angels on steroids, but their upgrades suggest they belong more in a sci-fi setting, with mentions of time and interstellar travel. Their closest analogue to another fictional race is with [[Characters/MarvelComicsSpecies Marvel Comics' Celestials]].

Context VideoGame / RealmGrinder