Distress Calls

A sail on the horizon and hours before it lands. A distress call turns that waiting into a rescue: raise it for one of your islands and every member of your alliance is told, sees who can reach you in time, and can send troops that stand on your walls when the blow falls. The ones who answer share the battle report afterwards.

Alliances

The crew that answers the call.

Combat

How the defence resolves when the attack lands.

Raising the call

Any island you own can raise a call, from the Distress page in alliance Operations, from a threatened island on your Watchtower, or straight from an incoming attack dispatch. Raising is free, needs no incoming attack and stands for 24 hours unless you end it sooner. Each island carries at most one active call, and an alliance holds at most 25 at a time. Add a short word for your allies, what is coming and when, and every member is notified the moment the call goes out. Alliance chat pins a standing alert until the call ends.

The world is wide and most attacks give hours of warning. That travel time is the whole game here: a call raised the moment the sail is sighted gives a distant ally a real chance to arrive. A call raised at the last bell helps nobody.

Answering it

Tapping a call takes you straight to the island in distress. From there, send ships and troops from any of your own islands to garrison it; the troops ride the ships, so a column of spearmen with no hulls under them goes nowhere. Aid can only sail to your own islands or a fellow member's, never to strangers.

When aid arrives it becomes a garrison: your troops, standing on their island, still yours. The defended Governor sees it inbound like any delivery and is told when it lands. If the island falls to an enemy while your aid is still at sea, the fleet turns for home with everything it carried rather than hand your soldiers to the conqueror. If the call was merely cancelled and the ally still holds the island, arriving aid garrisons anyway; the danger may not be done.

Captain Thorne: Send what can arrive

Check the sailing time before you commit. If your fleet arrives after the attack lands, your troops defend the next wave, not this one. That still has worth, a standing garrison is a deterrent, but do not strip your own walls for a fight you cannot reach.

The garrison

A garrison fights as a full defender: its strength joins the owner's troops behind the same wall, and casualties are shared in fair proportion between every force on the sand. It costs the host nothing, no food, no happiness, no room in the harbour; picture the allies living on their own ships. It stands until its owner recalls it from their fleet desk or it dies defending. The host can see who garrisons them under Forces, but cannot send an ally's troops home.

The battle and the story after

When the attack lands on a garrisoned island, every contributor receives their own copy of the battle report with the full defending coalition: who stood, what each sent, what each lost, with your own line marked. The attacker learns only that the island was reinforced and the strength they faced, never which allies answered. Alliance chat gets a single card naming the defenders and the outcome, so the whole crew sees the wall held.

Ending a call

The caller ends it one of three ways. Stand Down withdraws a call that turned out to be a false alarm. Mark Resolved closes it after the battle, the danger dealt with. And an untouched call quietly expires after its day. None of these move the garrisons; troops stay where they stand until their owners recall them.

Reference

Common questions