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.

Starvation

For settlements of Colony prestige rank and above, empty stores do more than sour morale: the garrison starves. The moment food hits zero, units begin to die — starting at 0.5% of the garrison and worsening by 0.5% each hour the stores stay empty, up to a ceiling of 5% per hour. Losses are spread across all unit types in proportion to their numbers. Ships and unique units do not eat and do not starve. Outposts and Settlements are spared, so a young governor's first troops are never at risk.

The Quartermaster sends a dispatch the moment starvation begins, and the Food card on the Civic tab shows how many units are dying each hour. Shipping food in — or a Farm upgrade that flips the balance — ends the dying the moment stores rise above zero. Beware the Famine curse: it empties the stores instantly, so on a Colony or larger island it starts the starvation clock at once.

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. The score creeps up slowly even on a happy island, builds faster when colony happiness sits below 55, and fastest below 35. A colony left completely untouched takes two to three days to cross the grace window and start feeling it.

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. One build a day is enough to gain ground on even a badly slipped colony. Ordinary colonies do not shed the score on their own; starter islands and earned-standing islands recover passively at 0.75/h instead, and for those 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. Tending a colony clears the morale penalty; leaving it idle costs happiness, not the island. The dimming is a morale cue, not a shield, though: an ordinary colony can be razed or taken by a rival whether you logged in an hour ago or a week ago (see Colonisation).

Forsaken & Abandonment

An island 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. Forsaken no longer decides whether an ordinary colony can be attacked, only the two outcomes that would otherwise erase a player entirely:

• A capital can never be colonised, that is a hard line. Its main house is also shielded from catapults until its Governor is Forsaken. Once Forsaken, a plain attack that razes the capital's main house liberates it: 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.
• A Governor's last island. An ordinary colony can be liberated or taken at any time, but if it is the Governor's only remaining island it is shielded: it can be battered, yet is only liberated (striking them from the world) once they are Forsaken. No amount of conquest removes an active player from a world.

Everything else is fair game regardless of the clock. An ordinary colony that is not its Governor's last island can be liberated by a plain attack (it reverts to a normal wild island; the attacker takes nothing) or colonised by a charter (the attacker takes it), whether or not the owner is active.

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 taken or 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

Your recent deeds, blended with a smaller pull from affair rulings, shape your realm's identity across four bearings, Warrior, Commonwealth, Mystic, and Merchant. See the full Realm Identity guide for details on the bearings and how the compass reads them.

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