The Black Tide
The Black Tide is a hostile sea power that claims abandoned shores. It cannot be bargained with, it hoards what it steals, and it remembers who strikes it. Learn to read its islands and you can raid it, rob it, and stay out of its way. Misread them and you lose a fleet finding out.
Combat
Raiding
Lumen & the ShrineThe three faces of the Tide
Every Black Tide island plays one of three roles. The role decides what the island does, how hard it is to crack, and whether it is worth your fleet.
| Type | What it does | How to spot it |
|---|---|---|
| Fortress | Holds the Tide's stolen lumen and treasures behind walls and a heavy garrison. Never sails out to attack. | Warships visibly circling the island on patrol. Patrol means fortress; bring a real fleet or sail on. |
| Raider | The thief. Slips out to plunder glowing shores and ferries the stolen lumen home to a fortress vault. Hunts down stolen idols. | Lighter defences, a big harbour, no patrol. The shore to strike first. |
| Warband | The fist. When any Tide island is struck, warbands answer with reprisal waves. They also carry the great swarms. | Catapults and boarding crews in its garrison, no patrol. |
The blackened idols
The Tide hoards blackened idols, dark treasures it guards jealously on its shores. Break its harbours and an idol can fall into your hands. Taking one has consequences, and all of them arrive by sea:
- When an idol is torn from the Tide's grasp, the whole ocean rises. The Tide answers with a swarm of fleets against every glowing shore in the world, and the town crier tells everyone why.
- The Tide's raiders hunt stolen idols. Keep one on a shore they can slip into and they will carry it back into the deep, where it is lost for good.
- A standing patrol over your island screens raiders away. If you mean to keep an idol, keep ships circling above it.
What it wants
The Tide acts on appetite, not whim. It is drawn to 
lumen: its raiders plunder shores whose reliquaries glow with stored light, and its churches store what they steal but never produce any of their own. A shore with no church casts no glow, and the Tide's patrols sail past it. It reclaims its stolen idols. And it answers anyone who strikes it.
Reprisals are sized to what you brought: roughly three quarters of the force you sent, returned in waves from several warband harbours. Keep striking and the waves keep coming, each heavier than the last. The Tide respects alliance protection and new-governor sanctuary at all times, and it passes over long-absent shores.
Going dark
A Governor who has not provoked the Tide can vanish from its patrols by emptying their shore of lumen. Tearing down your Church drains the reliquary and stops the glow, at the cost of the Church itself and most of the materials sunk into it. No Church means no lumen, no blessings, and no shrine, but also no beacon calling the deep to your harbour. Reprisal is the exception: once you have struck the Tide, its revenge follows you regardless of the glow.
Watching the Tide
Your watchtowers can be turned outward. Open the Watchtower at the Governor's Desk and switch to the Black Tide ledger. What you can read depends on your watch score, the combined level of every watchtower across your realm: at low watch you see nothing, then the size of the Tide's lumen hoard, then how many islands it holds and how fast the hoard is swelling.
How it spreads
The Tide claims Forsaken shores: islands whose Governor has been absent for at least 14 days. It takes an abandoned realm slowly, one island per day, and the capital always falls last. A failing realm stays on the chart, and raidable, the whole way down. The Tide never claims a shore whose Governor is still active, and it never settles empty water.
Some waters were never clean. A new Governor may find a Tide harbour already standing in their home reaches the day they arrive. Such a foothold keeps to itself unless provoked.
How to clear one
A Black Tide holding is removed by force. Win a normal attack and leave no real defenders alive, and the holding breaks: plunder resolves first, then the island returns to the world. A liberation is a shared victory, and every Governor active in the world that hour receives a small mix of reclaimed stores in their Claims tab. Strip the Tide of every shore and it falls silent until it gains a foothold again.
If you return after losing everything
A Governor whose realm is gone is not sent back to the beginning. Rejoin the same world and you are granted a fresh island that already stands well above bare ground, with a stockpile to rebuild from, and new-governor sanctuary applies as it would for any fresh arrival. Use it to rebuild before you provoke anything, the Tide least of all.
Reference
What rules govern the Black Tide?system force
The Tide is a force of the sea, not a rival court. Happiness, food, population, trade, research, diplomacy, and rankings do not govern it. It cannot be messaged, allied with, or found in player search. Its islands show plainly as The Black Tide when selected, marked with a black ring in region view, and it acts only from harbours it holds: a Tide reduced to zero shores stays silent until it claims a Forsaken shore again.
What does a Tide fleet look like?composition
The Tide masses 
Small Warships carrying 
Stone Throwers, laced with 
Catapults as a campaign wears on. Fortresses keep dense garrisons of guard hounds behind high walls. Raiders keep merchant hulls for ferrying stolen lumen. Warbands carry the siege engines.
Common questions
Why did the Black Tide attack me?
Your defence dispatch names the cause: you struck one of its shores and this is the reprisal, your reliquary glows brightly enough to draw its raiders, or you are holding something it wants back. The way out is named too: let a reprisal cool, darken your shore, or accept that an idol is worth the weather.
How do I keep a blackened idol once I have one?
Raise a patrol over the island that holds it. The Tide's raiders are thieves, not soldiers: a screen of warships standing over your harbour turns them away.
My friend stopped playing. What happens to their islands?
After 14 days of absence their shores become Forsaken and the Tide begins to take them, one island per day, capital last. Until each one falls it sits on the chart like any other shore, and raiding it is fair game.
Can the Black Tide be wiped out completely?
Yes. Take every shore it holds and it falls silent, with no further strikes or reprisals, until it gains a new foothold.
If the Tide takes my last island, am I finished in this world?
No. Rejoin the same world and you are re-established on a fresh island that is already built up, with a stockpile to rebuild from and the tutorial set aside.