The Lord’s Handbook

Your lands grow one tile at a time. Pick an empty tile next to your territory and send troops to claim it. Every wild tile has guards — more on richer deposits, and more still on passes. Win, and your troops stay to till the land; the tile is yours once the tilling is done.

Claiming costs resources, and the bigger your lands, the more it costs and the longer the tilling takes. How many tiles you can claim at once depends on your town hall.

Land cap: 15 tiles at the start, plus 5 for every town hall level. Beyond 15 tiles, every extra tile eats a little food each hour — more and more as you grow.

Tiles cut off from your capital stop producing. If someone cuts through your lands, reconnect them quickly.

Each time the Grey Tide pulls back, sleeping knowledge wakes: the Bronze Age opens for everyone on day 7, the Iron Age opens for everyone on day 21, the Medieval Age arrives with the expansion “The Southern Ebb” on day 42, the Gunpowder Age opens for everyone on day 56.

Research in your academy. Finish the research that leads into a new age and you step into it: new troops to train, and buildings that can rise higher. Lords 2 or more ages behind the server build and research in 50% of the time and for 50% of the cost, so they can catch up.

Each age offers three policies; choose one and follow it — Stone Age: Farming, Hunting, Stockade; Bronze Age: Commerce, Martial spirit, Rites and music; Iron Age: Prosperity, Conquest, Bastion; Medieval Age: Manors, Levy, Stronghold; Gunpowder Age: Colonies, Artillery, Field Surgeons. Once chosen, it cannot be changed.

Once your city stands, choose your people (“The Four Peoples…” at the top of the city panel): Highlanders (Stone production +10%, Iron production +10%, City defense +10%); Steppe Folk (Food production +10%, March speed +10%, Carry +15%); Forest Folk (Wood production +10%, 10% more of the storage is safe from raids (of the storage cap)); Tidefolk (Land tax +20% on every tile linked to the capital, 20% more from every market trade).

A people's bonuses always apply. The clan hall trains your people's unique troops, one for each age, finer than the common troops of the same kind: more attack, defense and life for about the same food, though they cost more and take longer to train, and the hall trains only half as many per batch as the barracks (25 per hall level). Each age's unique troop needs the clan hall at level 1, 3, 5, 7, 9; no research is needed. In battle, unique troops get the same bonus from the building that trains their kind (barracks, archery range or stable) and the same counters.

The first choice is free. Switching later costs 3000 gold, 2 times as much each time; you keep the unique troops you have, but cannot train more. Everyone can see which people you belong to; the old houses have peoples of their own, while the wild tribes and the Royal City's guards belong to none.

The only way from one province to the next is through a pass. Your armies cannot march through a pass another lord holds: go around, pay the toll if the holder has set one, or take the pass — its guards outnumber an ordinary tile's by 20.

Hold a pass and you set its toll: which resources and how much, or no passage at all. When a march would cross a toll, the march dialog lets you choose: pay and go through, or take the long way round.

Renown only ever rises, and everyone can see it. Each battle earns 5% of the strength of the enemy troops you destroy (defending your city and fighting guards when claiming count too); beating a camp earns more (by camp level: 20, 50, 120); and so does entering a new age (100, 300, 600, 1000).

The famous legends come only when your renown is high enough: Guan Yu, Leonidas, Subutai, Ramesses II and others (15 in all) want 300; Julius Caesar, Hannibal, Bai Qi, Han Xin and others (11 in all) want 1000.

No one holds the Realm alone. Band together with lords you trust: allies cannot raid, occupy or scout one another, and an ally's pass is as free to cross as your own. The map is colored by alliance, so allied lands read as one, with the alliance tag before each name (you can switch back to coloring by lord in the alliance panel).

Allies share what they learn: talk to them in the alliance channel at the bottom left; intel scouted by any ally is seen by the whole alliance (the channel announces who was scouted, and the raid view's odds use it); allied marches and enemies marching on an ally show on your map, and you are warned when an ally comes under attack.

You can station troops in an ally's city: when raiders come, the host's army and every garrison fight as one, behind the host's walls and under the host's defending hero; losses are shared by how many troops each brought, and renown by the strength each lent. A city houses 50 garrison troops per town hall level; garrisons take no hero and still eat their owner's food, the owner can withdraw them at any time, the host can send them home, and they all go home if the two of you stop being allies.

Allies can also strike a city together: call a rally, pick an enemy capital and a strike time (1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 24, 36 hours ahead), and your allies send troops to wait beneath its walls. At the strike time everyone there fights as one army, under the leader's general and bonuses; losses are shared by how many troops each brought, loot by what each side's survivors can carry, and renown by the strength each lent, and then everyone marches home. Troops that join bring no general and must reach the walls before the strike; the leader can call it off and anyone who joined can withdraw.

Founding an alliance costs 500 Gold; the founder becomes its leader. Others apply in the alliance panel and the leader or an officer accepts them — or the alliance can be open to all. An alliance holds at most 10 members and 2 officers.

The leader cannot simply leave: hand over leadership or disband first. After leaving or being expelled you must wait 12 hours before joining or founding another alliance.

Each time the Grey Tide ebbs from another stretch of the world, a new expansion begins: new land rises, new ages wake, and the Royal City is contested again. The first expansion runs from the founding of the world, with the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age; on day 42 the southern tide ebbs and the second, The Southern Ebb, begins, revealing Ebbshore and opening the Medieval Age (day 42), Gunpowder Age (day 56).

Until an expansion begins, its land stays under the mist: you cannot see it on the map or march into it, and the southern mist tells you how long remains. The moment it begins, a notice appears on the page; click it to load the new map. The outer provinces of the new land open that same day; the province at its heart (Sunkenhold) opens 7 days later and has richer deposits.

Once an expansion begins, newcomers found their cities on the new land only; the old outer provinces keep the covenant's protection but take no newcomers. Old lords may push into the new land too, by the usual rules: new land must touch your own, and armies can only cross by the isthmus fort that joins the two continents. Warlords and wild tribes arrive on the new land the moment it is revealed.

The Royal City is contested in the last two weeks of every expansion: days 21–35, days 63–77. If the throne stands empty when a round opens, its guards are restored in full; a regent alliance still holding it must defend it themselves.