“Hark! I see no Kings here, only Jesters”
A Write-Up on AI-Coached Strategies for Beating the Game 9 Kings

July 24, 2026

Game: 9 Kings
Duration (i.e., Total Rounds): 2 hours, 5 games
Target: Beat Level 10 Difficulty.

Today, I am going to be playing the game 9 Kings. Explained by my AI Coach:

“9 Kings is a fast-paced indie deckbuilder where you build a kingdom on a tiny 3x3 grid, draft card synergies, and defend against auto-battler waves.” (AI-generated)

If you are familiar with other card/deckbuilder games, a general (but terrible) explanation would be: You have a deck of cards; every turn you draw a couple and use your cards to attack an opponent and score points to win. In the case of 9 Kings, you can play against a real person or against the computer, but instead of a “race to x-points”, the game is tallied by lives (i.e., every round gets harder, and you are given a score when all lives are lost).

Now, to be honest, whilst I am familiar with the game, it is not my most played (at around 27 hours of total play time). The game, however, was one of my favorites back in 2025, so this is gonna be a fun game to test AI out on.

Similar to the other games, I am going to be playing a couple of runs on my own first before I go on to use Coach G (Gemini Pro). I will not be playing multiplayer, rather single player, so I am again playing against the computer. Similar to the previous games, I decided to set that boundary of not playing against other players, primarily on the basis of fairness. These online players do not know I’m playing with coaching assistance, and neither are they probably using or getting coached by an AI either.

Warm-up Games

So I played a total of 4 games as a warm-up, King of Nothing on King II Difficulty (i.e., Level 10). In order to “win” a run in 9 kings, you need to make it to 34 “years” (i.e., “years” = rounds). In my test runs, I had made it as far as year 15. King II is currently my hardest unlocked difficulty (difficulty can go up to King XX).

In these runs, I used my usual strategies with my Castle in the backline, perks focused on my troops/paladins, and strategically placed blacksmiths to buff said troops. Since it has been a while since I’d played, I definitely used the first two runs to get familiar with the game again, then the next 2 trying to actually win. Obviously, I didn't exactly achieve that as I “died” by Year 15.

Coach G’s Strats

Similar to my last entries, I started the conversation with a simple prompt:

"I am going to play a run on 9 kings. The run is going to be with King of Nothing, on Difficulty: King II. Give me strategies to win this run and make it past year 34."

Keeping it simple, I gave the Context-Conditions-Goal kind of prompt, then attached specifics:

"Additionally, give me tips on what perks to use (and order of selection) as well as what troops/towers/stretegies will get me past year 34."

To keep it simple, Gemini then responded in kind, giving me a breakdown of Perks (i.e., pre-run buffs you can select–think of them as medals you get from previous games, but they have a benefit for the next run) to prioritize, grid layout (i.e., what troup/building to put and where), and general strategies for cards to try to get, prioritize, and use. In the game, you are also pitted against other Kings (each king has a different ‘load-out’ or deck of cards), so Coach G also gave me a heads-up on what Kings to watch out for.

After a couple of follow-up questions, I was ready to play. Now, informed on what strategies to play out and what to keep in mind, I started my first game.

Post AI-Assisted Gaming Session

9 Kings New Record

I played one game. Total run time was 1 hour and 27 minutes. 78 years survived. What the fishsticks?!?! (I didn’t play another run after that).

HOW DID THIS MAKE ME FEEL??

(skip to this part if you are bored with the gaming terminology)

To those who have older siblings, do you remember playing games as a kid and just getting wrecked by said older siblings when you would play with them? Like, the genuine feeling of being humbled so bad that you just think: “they must be cheating!” or “they have GOT to know something I don't know!” That was honestly my reaction to playing this one game.

Now, I can already hear it through the screen–” Obviously you would win. You had an AI coaching you!”. And whilst that is true, I would just like to reiterate that I only asked for initial strategies at the beginning of the run. In between Years (rounds), I did not prompt any additional questions to help me make decisions or ask how to get me out of pinches.

Taking the actual strategies and winning out of the question, I think the main aspect that surprised me is just how vastly more successful my run was after learning from the AI exchange. Halfway through this run, I was honestly very pleasantly surprised with how well the run was going, but as we hit the 45-minute mark, I just started to be in disbelief (and not in the good way).

All I could think was, “there’s no way this works so well” because the strategy didn’t feel vastly more revolutionary than my original playing style. I was so taken aback by how good it worked that I played one game and left it at that. Maybe, had I played another run (maybe at a greater difficulty too), I would have begun to notice the nuances of every decision and how it compounds, but post-game 1, I was done.

The game suddenly didn't feel so interesting or rewarding, and I am not entirely sure if that stems from the robustness of the Gen AI assessment of the game itself, or if the game itself is that easily solvable.

Interestingly, however, it was nice to learn of the core strategy to complete that level of difficulty. Is it the only strategy that would have worked? Probably not. But having Coach G tell me what to target and how to get there makes me think I saved another 10 hours trying to be the same level, had I done it on my own.

Overall, I have mixed feelings on playing this game with Gen AI coaching me. On one side, I learned some new strategies and nuances of the game that I didn’t know before. But on the other hand, maybe I would have enjoyed figuring out those answers, had I played it on my own.

It would have taken way more time, sure. But possibly those additional runs would have been more engaging than playing the game with the answers in hand and just mindlessly clicking and waiting for it to be over.

THE VERDICT

Game Strategies Learned: 4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Gaming Satisfaction and Impact: 2/5 ☹️☹️

Link to Gemini Chat:
https://share.gemini.google/b3N9F0OUxb9J