Shuttering Your Realm
Going away for a while? Shutter your realm. Close the gates, lock the ledgers, and send the watch home across every isle you hold. The world keeps turning, but no fleet sails for or against you while you are gone. It is the governor's leave of absence: protection earned by standing still.
Combat
Settlement & Life
The Black TideHow Shuttering Works
Open Settings, then Shuttered and lower the shutters. Your whole realm enters a still, protected state at once: every isle you hold, not just one. To return, raise the shutters from the same place; your realm also opens on its own when the booked stretch ends.
What You Can and Cannot Do
While shuttered, your realm holds its position in the world but gives no orders.
| Still open to you | Closed until you return |
|---|---|
| Chat: direct, alliance, and world | Attacks, raids, spying, colonising |
| Browsing the map and reading reports | Building, research, training |
| Reading mail and viewing the market | Marketplace listing & buying, bazaar |
| Receiving friendly support & trade | Expeditions, blessings, curses |
| Council affairs, alliance management | |
| Renaming, flags, and tax policy |
While You're Away
- You leave your alliance. Shuttering resigns your alliance membership the moment you go dark — the price of stepping away. If you lead an alliance you must first hand leadership to another member or disband it; you cannot shutter while others still look to you. You can ask to rejoin once you open the shutters again.
- Hostile fleets are turned away. An attacker can still send ships at any of your isles, but they find the gates barred on arrival and sail home empty: no battle, no losses on either side. The sender receives a brief "turned away" report.
- Spies learn nothing. Reconnaissance against a shuttered realm finds no way in; the agents return unharmed with no intelligence.
- Curses and blessings are refused. Instant magic cannot reach a shuttered isle, friend or foe.
- Your isles do not decay. Colony neglect pauses across the realm for the whole stretch, and the Black Tide cannot mark a shuttered shore. You return to the realm you left, not a smoking crater.
- Trade keeps flowing. Incoming friendly support and trade-route deliveries still arrive, so resources accrue while you rest.
- Your market stalls close. Any open marketplace listings are withdrawn and their goods returned to your wharfs the moment you shutter.
- You step off the standings. A shuttered realm is hidden from the main scoreboard while you are away and rejoins it when you open the shutters. Anyone viewing your record sees a Shuttered mark so they know you are resting, not beaten.
The Rules
- Up to 21 days in a single stretch.
- Up to 30 days per rolling year in total.
- You may raise the shutters early, but only after the first 24 hours.
- After opening, there is a 12-hour cooldown before you can shutter again: no flicking the shutters to dodge a single fleet.
- You cannot shutter while hostile fleets are already inbound: no ducking a blow that is already on its way.
- You cannot shutter while you hold a contested objective island. Sitting on a prize untouchable would break the contest.
Shuttered For You
If an established realm falls quiet for a stretch of days, the Stewards will raise the shutters on your behalf rather than leave your shores exposed while you are gone. You will receive both an email and an in-game dispatch telling you it has happened and for how many days the shutters will hold.
- It reaches only realms of some standing — fledgling settlements are left as they are.
- The stretch is drawn from your own yearly allowance of shuttered days, capped at the usual 21 in one stretch. If your allowance is spent, no shutter is raised.
- The same protections above apply: no raids, no spies, no decay.
- The moment you return, the shutters lift on their own — there is nothing for you to undo.
