Commander's Handbook

Always build outward from your base. Your initial turns should focus on upgrading your home base, claiming nearby settlements with roads, and maximizing your resource intake. Unsupplied areas yield less, so stay connected!

When trading via Maritime Trade (4:1) (requires any Coastal Town) or a connected Strategic Port (2:1 + 1 AP Refund), simply type the exact amount of resource you are willing to trade (or click the MAX button):

• Live Return Calculation: Typing 100 Ore in 4:1 Maritime Trade automatically calculates and displays You Trade: 100 ORE ➔ You Receive: 25 SHEEP (or 50 SHEEP at a 2:1 Specialty Port).
• Unspent Remainder Protection: If you type a number that is not an exact multiple of 4 (or 2 at a Port)—for example, typing 25 in 4:1 trade—only the valid bundle (24) is spent for 6 in return, and the leftover 1 is safely kept in your stockpile.

As you expand far from your Capital, Distance Tax increases construction costs. To ensure ultra-long-range island colonization is always possible within the 500 resource storage limit:

• One-Off 500 Cap on Uncolonized Islands: When building your very first Town on a distant island where you do not yet own any settlements, the required Wood, Brick, Sheep, and Food are capped at a maximum of 500 each (4 AP).
• Establish a Regional Capital to Expand Locally: Once your first Town is built on that island, designate it as a Regional Capital (⭐) to reset local Distance Tax to 1.0x across the island! Attempting to build a second Town on that same distant island without a Regional Capital remains uncapped.

Settlements can construct and upgrade Defensive Perimeter Walls. Each wall level increases structural defense against melee assaults and provides solid cover against enemy archery and naval volleys.

💡 Level 4–5 Citadel & Fortress Walls render with radiant imperial aura and animated rotating bastion turrets around your perimeter, and are supported in the Multi-Settlement Batch Wall Upgrade tool.

When a settlement's walls are damaged or destroyed by enemy siege bombardment (Trebuchets or Dreadnoughts), wall reconstruction is blocked under a mandatory 24-hour breach penalty. A live countdown timer is displayed in the Settlement Management window, and bulk multi-settlement wall upgrade orders automatically skip breach-locked locations until their timers expire.

Commanders can demolish owned settlements from the Settlement Hub to relocate or reorganize their territory, returning the vertex to open terrain for future road or settlement construction.

There is no standalone "Hospital" button in the bottom build toolbar. To build a Hospital, you must first build a Town (🏡), upgrade it into a City (🏙️), and then upgrade the City into a Hospital City (🏥) via the Settlement Management window!

When crafting an item, commanders can fine-tune 3 independent parameters:

• Durability (6 to 15 combat uses): Determines how many battles/clashes the equipment can withstand before breaking.
• Primary Stat Multiplier (1 to 10): Dictates the core combat potency of the gear (Attack, Armor HP, or March Speed reduction).
• Secondary Stat Multiplier (1 to 10): Enhances auxiliary defensive or health capabilities.

Exponential Cost Scaling: As the overall item quality tier \(Q = (\text{Durability} - 5) + \text{Primary} + \text{Secondary}\) rises from 3 up to 30, the required AP, Ore, Wood, Brick, and crafting duration scale exponentially. Maxing out a masterwork tier 30 item represents a massive economic investment that produces overwhelming combat dominance.

• Zero Distance Tax on Forging: Blacksmithing and equipment crafting orders are 100% exempt from distance taxation. Commanders can craft weapons, armor, and gear at any owned Forge City across the realm at standard base resource costs, regardless of distance from your capital.
• Forge Storage: Completed equipment is automatically delivered to the Forge City's storage armory.
• Equipping Troops: Armies stationed directly on the Forge vertex can equip items from storage or return previously equipped items back to the armory.
• ⚙️ Reinforced Wheels for Trebuchets: While Footwear crafts boots for infantry and cavalry, Trebuchets can equip Reinforced Wheels in the footwear slot to overcome their slow overland march speed.
• Queue Timers & AP Speed Boost: Active forging orders feature live countdown timers (formatted cleanly in multi-day style for long crafts) and can be expedited instantly using the AP Speed Boost button.
• Passive Durability Healing: Stationing an army with equipped gear at an owned Forge City restores and repairs durability over time.
• Instant Polish & Repair: Commanders can click the "🛠️ Polish & Repair Gear" button inside the Forge Armory to immediately restore all damaged equipped items back to 100% maximum durability.
• Combat Degradation: Each combat clash or settlement assault decrements the durability of all equipped gear by 1. When durability reaches 0, the item breaks and is destroyed.
• Order Cancellation: In-progress forging orders can be cancelled at any time for an immediate 50% resource and AP refund.

Ranged Immunity: When Archers, War Galleys, or Dreadnoughts bombard non-ranged targets, the target cannot counter-attack at distance.

Surviving Archer Retaliation: If you fire a 1-hex volley at enemy Archers and they survive the incoming strike (HP > 0%), the surviving enemy Archers will immediately return fire with an instant counter-volley!

Fortification & Wall Cover: Open ground units take 25% damage from Archer volleys (30% from War Galleys). Units garrisoned within a walled settlement gain strong stone cover, taking only 8% damage from Archers (12% from War Galleys).

Sieging Enemy Settlements: Stationing an army on an enemy settlement places it under siege (marked with a red ⚔️ Sieging enemy City indicator), suppressing enemy yields and blocking reinforcements.

🎯 Siege Artillery Doctrine (Melee Prohibition): Trebuchets are specialized long-range bombardment weapons and are strictly prohibited from participating in direct melee settlement assaults. By contrast, War Galleys (⛵) and Dreadnoughts (🚢) can both bombard from offshore and directly assault coastal settlements, ports, and shipping routes!

Wall Demolition (Trebuchets & Dreadnoughts): Unpacked Trebuchets (60% HP damage) and offshore Dreadnoughts (50% HP damage) can bombard enemy settlements up to 2 hexes away and demolish 1 Wall Level per strike (e.g. from Level 4 to Level 3).

⏱️ 24-Hour Rebuild Lockout Penalty: When a settlement's defensive walls are damaged or destroyed by bombardment, wall repairs and rebuilding at that settlement are placed under a mandatory 24-hour breach penalty.

Safe Defensive Bombardment: If an enemy army is sieging your own town or city, bombarding them with a Trebuchet, Dreadnought, War Galley, or Archers deals full damage to the invaders while inflicting zero damage to your own settlement or walls.

Naval units are specialized maritime warships commissioned exclusively at coastal Naval Base Cities (⚓). They dominate the high seas, provide coastal bombardment, and execute rapid maritime demolition operations across enemy shipping routes:

• 🌊 High-Seas Domain: War Galleys and Dreadnoughts are restricted to deep-water shipping lanes, coastal beach vertices, and strategic ports. They cannot sail onto inland land roads or landlocked settlements.
• 🗺️ Hostile Shipping Route Traversal & Capture: Both War Galleys and Dreadnoughts (alongside land armies across hostile roads) can chart multi-segment voyages straight through connected enemy shipping lane networks!
• ⚓ Rapid Demolition & Real-Time Route Capture: As your War Galleys and Dreadnoughts sail past each enemy shipping lane segment, the route is dynamically severed, demolished, and captured under your empire's banner in real time! This instantly cuts enemy maritime supply lines, breaks trade route connectivity, and triggers isolation and starvation countdowns on remote enemy islands.
• 🌊 Contested Waters Speed Penalty (50% Speed / 2x Duration): Sailing through hostile enemy shipping lanes halves the vessel's cruising velocity (doubling segment duration to 480s for War Galleys and 720s for Dreadnoughts; 48s/72s when speed boosted). Cruising through friendly and allied shipping routes incurs no penalty, maintaining full cruising velocity. The auto-pathfinder automatically factors in this penalty and displays [Enemy Waters: 1/2 Speed] in the march draft.
• 🎯 Long-Range Coastal Bombardment:
  • War Galley Broadside (1 Hex): Fires broadside volleys up to 1 hex away (1 AP, 10m reload) dealing 30% open / 12% walled damage without retaliation (unless surviving enemy Archers return counter-fire).
  • Dreadnought Naval Artillery (2 Hexes): Heavy capital warship artillery striking targets up to 2 hexes away (2 AP, 15m reload) without needing to unpack! Inflicts 50% HP unit damage and demolishes 1 Wall Level per strike (triggering a 24-hour rebuild lockout)!
  • Safe Harbor Defense: Bombarding enemy armies sieging your own coastal cities or ports deals full damage to the invaders while dealing zero damage to your own settlement or walls.
• ⚔️ Direct Coastal Melee Assaults: Unlike land-based Trebuchets (which are barred from direct melee combat), both War Galleys and Dreadnoughts can directly attack coastal settlements, enemy ports, and hostile shipping route edges in melee combat, or combine forces in 3-army assault cohorts with adjacent forces.
• ⚓ Strategic Port Garrisons (+1 Def) & Deployment: Warships stationed at Strategic Ports gain a +1 Naval Garrison Defense bonus and can be launched immediately into combat or exploration via the Port Hub's [ ⚔️ March Garrison ] action.
• 👑 Hero Synergy & Forge Boots: Faction Heroes assigned to naval units grant Ocean Speed (+10% cruising speed per point across shipping lanes) and survivability perks, while forged Speed Boots further accelerate open-ocean navigation.

Garrison Capacities: Standard settlements and road junctions hold a maximum of 1 stationed unit. Archer Towers (🏹) hold up to 2 Archers, while Hospital Cities (🏥) and Great Fortresses (🏰) expand garrison capacity to 4 stationed units simultaneously! All defenders inside combine their combat defense, Hero stats, and Forge gear together and share casualties.

⚔️ Coordinated Assault Cohorts: Up to 3 owned armies stationed directly on or positioned adjacent (1 road/shipping edge away) to a competitor settlement, road, or shipping lane automatically join together as a coordinated assault cohort, combining their attack strength and casualty absorption.

🛡️ Marching Army Protection: Armies currently moving or marching along roads are safely excluded from assault cohort drafts until their march concludes and they are stationed, ensuring ongoing troop movements are never prematurely interrupted.

12h Overflow Starvation: If a joint assault is victorious, all surviving armies enter the conquered settlement. The primary army stays as garrison (up to building capacity), while any overflow armies trigger a 12-hour eviction timer. Move them off the vertex within 12 hours or they will die of starvation!

Managing Food Consumption: Active field units consume Food (🌾) every minute (harvested from Wheat fields and Sea fishing tiles), with exact class-by-class costs broken down in Strategic & Economic Intelligence and recruitment screens. If you foresee a food shortage or wish to optimize your supply lines, you can selectively retire individual armies using the Disband (1 AP) button on the Army Selection Bar, Active Armies Widget, or Settlement Garrison Card.

Safe Hero Unassignment: Disbanding an army costs 1 AP and permanently retires the unit, immediately stopping its food drain. Any assigned Faction Hero will automatically be unassigned and safely returned to your hero roster without loss of level or XP.

The "Ship (🚢)" icon on the bottom build toolbar is NOT a boat unit—it is the Shipping Route tool used to paint sea lanes across ocean water (the maritime equivalent of roads). Actual boats—War Galleys (⛵) and Dreadnoughts (🚢)—are military combat units recruited exclusively inside coastal Naval Base Cities (⚓)!

Recruit heroes from the Faction Hub. Give them custom names and choose/upload unique avatars. When assigned to an army, the hero's avatar renders directly on the map as the army token, showcasing your legendary generals on the battlefield!

XP & Leveling: Winning battles yields 50 XP to the primary hero leading the attack, and 15 XP (25% share) to other heroes in the same cohort group. Every 100 XP levels up the hero, granting +1 Stat Point to spend.

Weekly Cooldown: To prevent rapid redeployment exploits, changing a hero's assigned army is restricted to once every 7 days (weekly cooldown). Plan assignments carefully!

The auto-pathfinder utilizes a weighted Dijkstra routing algorithm that prioritizes the shortest valid path while favoring friendly over enemy roads of equal length:

• 🤝 Allied Road Traversal: Armies freely pathfind and march through road and maritime networks owned by allied players at full cruising speed. You and your allies share seamless military transit rights across each other's entire road and shipping infrastructure!
• ⚔️ Universal Enemy Road & Sea Traversal (50% Speed / Auto-Capture): All land armies and naval vessels can now chart multi-segment routes straight through connected enemy road and shipping lane networks! Moving through hostile segments halves cruising velocity (2x duration, labeled in the march draft), and each enemy segment is dynamically captured in real time as your unit marches across it—until stopping at any fortified enemy settlement, which must be conquered first before advancing past it.
• ⏱️ Sync Multi-Army Arrival: When marching multiple selected units together, faster units (such as Cavalry or War Galleys) automatically pace their speed so your entire strike force arrives at the destination at the exact same second.

🏝️ Island Sovereignty & Coastal Beach Glow: When a single commander owns all settlements (Towns, Cities, Workshops, Forges, Naval Bases, and Hospitals) on a contiguous island landmass, that island becomes a Glowing Island, radiating a vibrant coastal beach aura in the sovereign's faction color!

🌫️ Automatic Fog of War Regrowth: The moment you claim sole ownership of an island (either by settling an uncolonized island alone or conquering the last rival settlement on a contested island), the Fog of War automatically regrows over the entire island and its 3-hex coastal waters for all non-allied players, while sweeping away any orphaned enemy land roads or ports on that island.

🔭 No Ocean Shadow-Peeking & Harder Rediscovery: Sailing past a rival Glowing Island in open water will not reveal its coastline or settlements through the 1-hex ocean shadow ring. To rediscover a rival Glowing Island, an opponent must physically land a shipping route or unit directly onto a beach vertex of the island—which reveals only the exact beach tile(s) touched while veiling interior tiles under a tighter, faction-tinted Sovereign Shroud (🌫️) that shrinks rival vision radius to 1 hex.

Claiming Ports: Strategic Ports are indestructible permanent landmarks pre-placed across coastal waters. They can be assaulted and conquered by players. Upon victory, an interactive Strategic Port Hub Dialog opens immediately to review your new harbor's capabilities and launch maritime operations.

Premium 2:1 Maritime Trade (+1 AP Refund): Owning a Port unlocks a discounted 2:1 maritime trade ratio for that port's specialty resource (Wood, Brick, Sheep, Food, or Ore). Every trade transaction also refunds +1 Action Point (AP)! Simply enter the amount of specialty resource you want to trade (or click MAX) to see your exact return. To activate 2:1 trading, the port must be connected to any of your Settlements or Capitals via an unbroken line of roads or shipping lanes (allied infrastructure counts!).

High-Seas Shipping Launchpad: You can launch new maritime shipping routes (🚢) directly from any owned port across water tiles to explore uncharted islands and connect isolated colonies (shipping route construction costs are capped at 80 Wood & 80 Sheep regardless of distance).

Naval Garrison Defense (+1 Def) & Marching: Ports have a baseline defense rating of +1 Port Infrastructure (wall upgrades cannot be built on ports). Any military unit stationed at an owned Port gains an additional +1 Naval Garrison Defense bonus. Clicking an owned port opens the Port Hub with a dedicated [ ⚔️ March Garrison ] button to immediately draft your stationed unit for overseas or inland movement.

Targeting Competitor Lanes: Commanders can click directly on competitor road segments or maritime shipping routes to open the assault dialog and launch targeted border cuts or maritime piracy assaults.

Edge Combat Rules: Roads and shipping route segments feature a baseline structural defense of +0 Defense (unless guarded by an enemy army stationed on the edge). Successfully capturing a competitor's road or shipping route segment instantly claims it under your empire's banner, severs their connected supply chain, and triggers starvation countdowns on isolated enemy outposts!

🚢 Rapid Route Demolition via Naval Cruising: Rather than declaring manual assaults edge-by-edge, you can deploy War Galleys (⛵) or Dreadnoughts (🚢) to plan a voyage straight through enemy shipping lanes! As your fleet cruises across hostile waters, each shipping lane is rapidly demolished and instantly captured under your empire's banner as your ships pass over it (traveling at half speed through contested waters). This is the fastest method to slice rival overseas supply chains in two, isolate coastal colonies, and choke off enemy island yields.

Ceasefire covenants are fully customizable. When proposing a truce to a competitor, you can add custom terms: offering or demanding resources (Wood, Brick, Sheep, Food, Ore) or ceding/demanding settlements (Towns, Cities). Upon acceptance, all assets and territories are transferred atomically in database transactions!

Alliance Ownership: To maintain faction authority, only the primary Alliance Owner can edit the alliance name and banner color in the settings panel. Co-owners and Members cannot access these updates.

24h Update Cooldown: Alliance identity updates are limited to once every 24 hours. Inputs lock and display a countdown timer when updated.

Alliance Post-Attack Cooldown: When an alliance is cancelled, a cooldown period is initiated. You cannot assault or wage war on your former ally for a set number of days, preventing immediate betrayals.

1. Normal Play: Players expand and build normally.

2. The Lockdown (1-2 Weeks): New land generation is capped. No new land sectors or resource islands will generate. However, players can still discover new ocean tiles, allowing isolated factions to sail across the seas and find one another to resolve the final battles.

3. The Reset & Hall of Fame Archive: The active world is archived into the seasonal Hall of Fame standings, leaderboards reset, and the next season begins.

In the Hard Realm, survival is paramount. If your capital is captured or your faction is eliminated, you are permanently dead for the rest of that season on the Hard Realm. You cannot respawn, rebirth, or rejoin the Hard Realm until the next season begins.

Customize your Sovereign Name directly from your profile modal, tune soundtrack and SFX volumes with the built-in Audio & Volume Controls in Settings, and view accurate live player status on the Leaderboard (tracked from active foreground sessions and recent interactions, cleared immediately upon logout).

Standard movement and cycling hotkeys are safely ignored whenever you are typing in chat, renaming units, or searching lists to prevent accidental inputs.

💡 Universal Escape Exception: Unlike other hotkeys, the Esc key works everywhere at all times. Even if your cursor is actively focused inside a text input or textarea, pressing Esc will cleanly blur the field and close the open dialog window instantly.