Settlement & Life

Settlement life is the slow pressure behind every order. Taxes bring coins, food keeps people steady, and happiness decides whether the island works at full strength or drags every fleet and mine behind it.

Resources & Economy

Production rates, storage limits, and the raw materials that fuel expansion.

Island Prestige

See how a living settlement is judged from foothold to dominion.

Council Affairs

Council dispatches that shape the wider realm and still strike at island life.

Coin Income

Coins flow from taxation. The base rate depends on the current tax policy. Coin income scales with population, every 50 workers roughly doubles the base rate. A sprawling island fills the treasury far faster than a small outpost.

Coins are the currency of the Bazaar, where Governors purchase supply crates and secure advantages that raw materials alone cannot buy. A settlement without coin reserves has no bargaining power beyond its own shores.

The Workshop Ledger

The Workshop tab records durable goods held by the settlement. Before a Workshop is built, the ledger stays locked and goods cannot be collected from raids launched there. Each Workshop level adds more goods storage — and the higher the level, the larger the jump, so late upgrades are worth far more shelf space than the first few. Successful raids can return with goods in addition to resources. The same ledger feeds and receives goods from expeditions filed at the council seat.

The Main House determines how many coins a settlement can hold, its vault grows with each level. Earnings beyond the vault's capacity are lost, so spend at the Bazaar or upgrade the Main House before the coffers overflow.

Food Balance

Every worker consumes food, roughly 0.35 per hour per head. A small natural yield of 8/h feeds the earliest settlers, but each Farm level adds 16/h to the supply. As the settlement grows and more buildings demand crew, food is consumed faster. Build farms ahead of the shortage. The Farm detail in the building record also shows the present population, current balance, and the first Farm level that ends the shortage for that settlement.

When stores are running out, less than 24 hours of food at the current rate, happiness drops by 1.5 per hour. A negative balance with a fat stockpile is fine; only a short runway hurts morale. If food hits zero, the penalty steepens to 4 per hour, morale can collapse within a day. Recovery requires surplus food and stores above 120 before happiness begins to climb again, at just 1 per hour. Prevention is far easier than repair.

A settlement may show Food Supply as Surplus while stores are still empty. In that state, provisions are refilling, but the people still feel the shortage until stores rise above zero.

Happiness

Happiness ranges from 0 to 100 and directly affects production and military effectiveness. It drifts over time, shaped by three forces:

• Taxation: Heavy taxes push happiness down; light taxes let it recover.
• Food: Shortages and empty stores penalise heavily. Recovery requires surplus stores above 120.
• Colony neglect: Newly founded colonies lack the cushion of a starter island. Idle holdings accumulate neglect that weighs on happiness independently. Build, research, and train to steady it.

Recovery is always slower than the fall. The Civic tab names the strongest strain first so a Governor can see what needs attention. Lower taxes and ensure food surplus to raise happiness. A thriving life layer also helps an island keep climbing in prestige, because stable settlements are easier to finish and harder to lose.

The people's mood is shown on the Civic tab as one of six tones, each reflecting a range of happiness:

Production Penalty from Happiness

When happiness drops below 40, workers slow down. The lower morale falls, the harsher the penalty, at the worst levels, mines and farms produce only half their normal output.

Sea & War Penalties from Happiness

Morale does not stay on land. Once happiness falls below 40, fleets slow at sea and war operations suffer. These same penalties appear in fleet, attack, spy, and colonisation forecasts.

Tax Policy

Each tax policy affects coin income, the rate at which happiness drifts, and production speed. Extreme policies also nudge output directly, light taxes give workers a slight boost, while heavy taxes slow them down even before happiness drops.

Making Your Settlement Happy Again

When happiness drops and production slows, the fix follows the same order every time. The core rule: recovery is always slower than the fall, so act quickly.

1. Read the Civic tab: the guide line names the strongest strain. Start there.
2. Drop taxes to Very Low: fastest lever, +1.5/h toward recovery.
3. Fix food: if the balance is negative, upgrade the Farm. Recovery only begins once stores exceed 120, at just +1/h.
4. Address colony neglect: if this is an active starter or earned-standing island, keep signing in while it recovers. Otherwise, keep building and researching.
5. Thin the headcount: if population pressure is the strain, move idle garrison troops to another island. Troops stationed abroad no longer count against the home settlement's food load.
6. Wait: raise taxes back to Normal once happiness passes 60.

Colony Neglect

Colonies you found or conquer start fragile. While they remain at Outpost or Settlement prestige, idle holdings with no building, no research, and no training accumulate a neglect score that drags happiness down independently. Neglect builds when colony happiness sits below 55, and accelerates below 35.

Once a colony reaches Colony prestige or above, it enjoys the same protection as a starter capital: neglect only resumes if its Governor falls silent. An island that has earned its standing will not be punished while you are still in port. If old neglect remains, it recovers passively while you stay active.

The score above only governs the happiness penalty and how dim your island looks. The full Forsaken stage is not a score — it is reached only when the Governor has been absent ≥ 14 days (see below). An active Governor's island never shows Forsaken, no matter how high the score.

Active development is the cure for ordinary colonies. Starting a building removes 18 points, starting a research removes 12 points, and training units removes 0.25 per unit. The score also decays passively at 0.75/h. Keep a building and research queue active on every unprotected colony and neglect will never take hold. Starter islands and earned-standing islands can show passive recovery instead; in that state, staying active is enough.

While you are active, neglect is only a happiness drain — your islands dim on the map (Strained, then Fading) but are never shown as Forsaken and can never be taken from you. Tending a colony clears the morale penalty; leaving it idle costs happiness, not the island.

Forsaken & Abandonment

An island only becomes Forsaken when its Governor has been absent for at least 14 days — one clock, the same for a capital and an ordinary colony. Missed roll-calls and a Governor gone abroad both count. Until that 14-day mark the island is fully protected: it can be raided and its lesser buildings battered, but its main house can never be razed and it can never change hands. Once Forsaken, the island is shown plainly as Forsaken on the map — what others see is exactly what they can act on:

• A capital can never be colonised — that is a hard line. A Forsaken capital can only be liberated: a plain attack razes its main house, the absent Governor is struck from the world, all of their islands return to the wild, and the freed starter slot waits, protected, for a new arrival.
• An ordinary colony, once Forsaken, can either be liberated by a plain attack (reverts to a normal wild island; the attacker takes nothing) or colonised by a charter (the attacker takes it). If it was the Governor's last island, liberating it strikes them from the world like a liberated capital.

Returning before the 14-day mark resets the clock entirely — sign in and your islands are safe again. Liberation and conquest only ever fall on Governors who have genuinely abandoned their realm.

If the absent Governor logs back in before liberation, the score begins to recover at the standard 0.75/h decay rate. A Governor returning from a long absence will find their holdings weathered but recoverable — provided none has already been liberated.

Treasurer Mora: Treasury habit

Recovery feels slow because it is meant to. Focus on removing the strains: lower taxes, fix food, keep colonies active. The numbers will climb on their own. A Governor who checks in once an hour and keeps the queues running will see their settlement recover steadily.

Governance

Affair rulings shape the character of your realm across three axes, law, trade, and military posture. Over time, your decisions push the kingdom toward one of twelve possible identities. See the full Realm Governance guide for details on axes, identities, and how scores work.

Population

Every building and land unit on an island demands hands to operate. Population counts include local garrison troops, units in training, and building crews. Housing increases the settlement capacity, early levels add the most room, while later levels taper off as the settlement grows harder to manage. Ships are crewed at the harbour and do not count against population. Garrisons stationed abroad do not count against the home island.

Treasurer Mora: Treasury habit

Open the Civic tab to see your settlement's mood, food balance, Lumen stores, and coin flow at a glance. When morale begins to slide, read the guide line first, it names the strongest strain before the loss worsens. Recovery is always slower than the fall.

Common questions