Controls
Most orders begin with a place. Select an island, read the actions it offers, and move between shores without losing the work in front of you.
Start with the map
Tap or click an island on the map to focus it. Your own islands open the familiar home actions: Settlement, Build, Shrine, and Forces. Other shores show the target actions that make sense there, such as Intelligence, spying, attacking, raiding, or colonising.
The region arrows at the edge of the map move between neighbouring sectors. They are the reliable way to cross the world map without guessing where a sector begins.
Switch islands in place
The island name in the top bar opens the island picker. On touch screens, swipe the top bar left or right to move through your islands; on desktop, use the small arrows beside the same name.
Many island dialogs have their own place switcher in the title area. Swiping or using its arrows changes the island inside that dialog, so you can compare build queues, forces, or research without closing the panel.
How you leave decides where you are standing afterwards. Press the title area, where the island name and its coordinates sit, and the dialog closes on the island you switched to: the map follows you there, and that island becomes the one your orders answer to. Tap the darkened map outside the dialog and it simply closes, leaving you on the shore you started from.
Open something inside a dialog, a building, a blessing or a report, and Back appears at the top, under the tabs. Esc and your phone's back gesture step out the same way: whatever you opened last closes first, and the dialog itself goes last.
Sound and settings
Two small round buttons sit in the top-left corner of the top bar. The cog opens Settings: language, notifications, your worlds, and account actions. The speaker beside it opens Music & Sound.
Music & Sound is where you switch the music on, skip to another track, and set the music and effects volumes separately. Music starts switched off, so nothing plays until you turn it on there.
Two bells ring for things that happen to you: the watch bells when an attack is spotted, and a hand bell for a new letter. They start switched on, stay quiet while the game is in the background, and can be switched off in Settings, beside the Chronicle ticker.
The speaker itself tells you the state without opening anything: it turns gold while music is playing, and shows a struck-through speaker while it is off.
Keyboard is the fast lane
Desktop shortcuts are for repeated work once you already know where you are going. They stay quiet while you type in chat, rename an island, or fill in a field. While a dialog is open the keys belong to it: Tab stays inside it, and closing it puts you back where you were.
Which desktop shortcuts are available?8 shortcuts
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| ← / → | Cycle through your islands, or an open dialog's islands |
| B | Open Build |
| R | Open Research |
| S | Open Settlement |
| F | Open Forces and Fleet |
| I | Open Holdings |
| M | Return to the map |
| Esc | Close what is on top: a detail first, then the dialog |
Common questions
Why did the arrow keys switch the dialog instead of the map?
While a dialog is open the map ignores the arrows. From the dialog's title, where it opens, they move that dialog between your islands so the open task stays in view; on a row of tabs, they move between the tabs.
I closed a dialog by its title and the map did not follow. Why?
The map follows only when you were already looking at one of your own shores up close. Pulled back to the region, or with another Governor's island in view, closing leaves the map exactly as it was.
Can I swipe with a mouse?
Top-bar swiping is for touch screens. Desktop play uses the visible island arrows, the island picker, or the keyboard arrows.
Why did a shortcut do nothing?
Shortcuts pause while a text field has focus, and they ignore keys pressed with Ctrl, Alt, or Cmd. Leave the field and try again.