Treasure Islands

Somewhere in the archipelago, the tide leaves behind more than driftwood. Every few hours a handful of uninhabited shores glint with a faint, golden shimmer — a signal to sharp-eyed Governors that something has washed up beneath the sand.

Raiding

How to take the shimmer — fleets, attrition, and the mechanics of an uninhabited raid.

Chart & Navigation

Reading the region chart — where to watch for the sparkle.

Reports & Dispatches

Where treasure finds and cursed chests are recorded.

What They Are

A treasure island is an ordinary uninhabited shore that the archipelago has, for a time, marked as holding something worth finding. You will see them in region view as islands that twinkle softly — no other indicator, no label, no fanfare. Just the shimmer.

• Only uninhabited islands can bear treasure. A settled shore cannot sparkle.
• The set rotates roughly every 4 hours. The same island may or may not be chosen again.
• The number of treasure islands scales with how busy the world is. A thriving archipelago shows more; a quiet one shows at least a couple.

Claiming the Shimmer

Send a raid fleet to a sparkling shore. If your raid lands successfully and a landing force survives the wild defenders, the island's prize is yours. The shimmer fades the moment it is claimed — other Governors who arrive afterwards will find an ordinary, picked-over shore.

The prize itself is not guaranteed to be friendly. Most successful claims yield a buried treasure chest worth between 5,000 and 10,000 coins (50% of claims). A smaller share (10%) uncovers a cursed chest — the landing force is lost, but your ships escape unharmed. A minority of claims turn up nothing but sand. Either way, the shimmer is gone.

Why Rotation

Before the rotation existed, any raid on any uninhabited island could stumble into a chest by pure luck. Now the archipelago itself decides where a prize lies — briefly, visibly, and for everyone to see. Speed, scouting, and fleet readiness matter more than repetition.

Marshal Voss notes

A shimmer is a clock, not a guarantee. By the time you muster a proper fleet, another Governor may already be sailing. Keep a lean raiding force rigged and ready — the first hull to arrive takes the gold.

Read the Charts Faster

Sweeping the map for a shimmer takes time — chart-readers need a beat to take their bearings between regions. The Laboratory on your capital island shortens that beat: every level cuts the scouting delay on the world chart. Rivals with a neglected Laboratory will see a shimmer fade before their charts settle, while a well-appointed laboratory lets you leap from region to region almost without pause.

Strategy

• Watch the map. Open region view periodically. The shimmer is your only tell.
• Send cheap landing troops. A cursed chest wipes the landing force regardless of what you sent — spearfighters die just as surely as stone throwers, at far greater cost.
• Don't linger. The rotation is short. A fleet that arrives after the claim finds nothing but an ordinary shore.
• Spread your raids. Multiple islands sparkle at once. The quickest hand to any one of them takes the gold.

For the full raiding playbook — carry capacity, attrition, diminishing returns — see the Raiding guide.