Getting started

Band of Rudders is a persistent Age-of-Sail world shared with every other captain. How you rise is yours to choose: trade a fortune between distant markets, arm a fleet and hunt prizes at sea, fly the black as a pirate, build an industry, or climb a realm’s ranks toward the crown and its wars. Most captains do a little of everything.

1. Create a captain and verify your email if you’re prompted to.
2. You always have a current port — your base. From it you can trade, build ships, run an industry, and manage your affairs, even with no fleet at sea.
3. Earn your first coin at trade. Buy a good where it’s cheap, carry it to a port that craves it, and sell into the gap — the surest way to a starting stake.
4. Reinvest and branch out. Bigger holds and more ships, a warehouse and a factory; arm your hulls and learn combat; take a realm’s flag and a career — Navy, Privateer, or Merchant Guild — or turn outlaw and sail with a Brethren.

Trade is the surest first step, but only the beginning — industry, naval combat, sieges, piracy, crowns and their wars all grow on top of it. Skim the contents above and chase whatever draws you.

Trade & markets

Keywords: buy sell market prices spread price impact bulk buy into sell from warehouse fleet ship selector fill all sell all load fleet unload fleet company market storefront company markets here visit market tariff duty.

Each port runs its own market for 8 goods (Grain, Timber, Rum, Salt, Iron, Hemp, Spice, Black Powder). A port’s price for a good reacts to how scarce it is there — so the same crate is cheap where it’s made and dear where it’s wanted.

• The spread. A port sells to you above the mid price and buys from you below it — about a 20% gap in total. Profit comes from the price difference between ports, not from buying and selling in the same place.
• Price impact. A large order walks the price as it fills — buying a lot drives the ask up, dumping a lot drives the bid down. Split big trades across ports.
• Where the goods go. One Buy into / sell from selector runs the whole counter: choose a warehouse at the port or a docked fleet (then a ship for the hold you're filling). Buy and sell sit side by side in a single table — Buy loads the place you picked, Sell pulls from it (your warehouse stock, or the fleet's holds). With a fleet chosen you also get Fill all (load the whole fleet with one good in a stroke) and Sell all (empty its holds to the market at once) — no clicking through a convoy hull by hull.
• Company markets. Chartered companies run their own markets too — the port’s Market tab lists any Company markets here, with a link straight to each one’s counter. A company sells from its stores and buys into its coffers at the prices it posts; you trade there from a warehouse or a docked ship just like a port. Guns trade there as well. See Merchant Companies.
• Where you can trade. Buying or selling goods needs a store at that port — a docked fleet or a warehouse. Managing (shipwright, armory, warehouse, fort) only needs your current port.
• Tariffs. Docking a laden fleet at a nation-controlled port pays a duty on your cargo’s value into that realm’s treasury. Rates are set by each realm’s law; naval officers dock free at their own realm’s ports.

Ships & hulls

Build hulls at any port’s shipwright. Sell any hull back for 70% of its build price. A ship’s hold is shared by crew (1 slot each), cannons (2 each; heavy 32lb guns 3), and cargo (1 each) — so arming and manning a ship eats into what she can haul. Both guns and crew come in tiers — see Crew, guns & upgrades.

Roles: the Cutter is a fast, cheap scout. Traders (Ketch, Fluyt, Galleon, East Indiaman) pair big holds with small crews. Warships (Frigate, Ship of the Line) carry heavy guns and large mandatory crews — well-armed but poor haulers. The Sloop is a quick all-rounder; the Brig is the most agile hull in a fight — the hardest to hit, it fires cleanly while maneuvering, seizes the opening volley, and can break off at will, though it stays fragile under a solid hit. Two hulls are locked to an allegiance: only the Navy commands a Ship of the Line, only the Merchant Guild an East Indiaman.

Click any ship’s name for its profile: Overview (stats, hold-usage bar, cargo manifest, rename), Jettison (heave cargo or guns overboard to free hold at sea), and Scuttle (sink her deliberately wherever she lies).

Fleets & trade routes

Keywords: fleet ships tow escort transfer trade route auto trade automated circuit stops buy from company sell to company company market fort buy orders warehouse lie up blown pause resume.

A captain owns ships; ships ride in fleets, and only a fleet can move. A ship left out of a fleet sits idle at its port.

• A fleet sails at the speed of its slowest ship, so a galleon chains a fast escort to its pace. A hull under tow drags the whole fleet to three-quarters of her own speed.
• A hull below its minimum crew — a fresh prize, chiefly — no longer strands the fleet: she rides under tow, and needs a fully-crewed escort of her weight class or heavier in the same fleet to make sail (a captured East Indiaman or Ship of the Line needs two escorts of Fluyt class or larger). The fleet still needs one crewed, workable hull to make way; the Fleets page flags any that’s short.
• The fleet page has tabs: Ships (roster), Transfer (move crew, guns, and cargo between ships that are together — same fleet, port, or region, never at sea), and Manage (rename, set sail / take station, dissolve).
• Trade routes: a fleet can be set to run an automated circuit of 2–4 ports, doing a chosen action at each stop — set it up, then pause, resume, or stop it from the fleet page. At every stop it first unloads, then loads, so a classic run is Buy at one port and Sell at the next. Each leg can target the port market, your warehouse there, the port fort’s standing buy-orders, or a company market — pick Buy from a company / Sell to a company and the leg trades at that company’s posted price (capped by its stock, coffers and storage). A route set to lie up when blown holds in port to cool off before sailing on.

Crew, guns & upgrades

Outfit ships at Local Port → Wharf → Crew & Guns. Only docked ships can be armed or manned, and every gun and hand takes hold space, so there’s always a trade-off against cargo.

Guns mount into a hull’s gun-ports (up to its cap), and come in three calibres — heavier shot hits harder but weighs more:

Prices are the port’s armory rate (a Governor may set their own; Navy pay 10% less, privateers 5%). Remove any gun for a half refund. A port always keeps 12lb guns in stock; 24lb and 32lb are supplied by players’ factories (see Industry & factories) — 32lb only ever comes from a Level 3 factory.

Crew come in three grades. Common crew are hired for 8g each. Two trained grades cost more and each need a matched pair of arms in the port’s stock, but fight far better — sharper gunnery, more guns worked per hand, and stronger in a boarding action:

• Skilled crew — 20g each, plus a saber & musket each. Steadier aim and heavier boarding.
• Veteran crew — 40g each, plus a flintlock pistol & boarding cutlass each. The best gunners and boarders afloat.

Skilled and Veteran bonuses scale with the fraction of a ship’s crew that is trained, so a partly-upgraded crew gets a proportional edge. Their arms (sabers, muskets, pistols, boarding cutlasses) all come from factories — a fresh port stocks a little, but resupply is player-made. A port’s Governor sets the price of the crew wage and each arm they carry.

Wages: every crew member — of any grade — draws 1g per tick from your purse, docked or at sea. A big standing fleet is an ongoing cost, not a one-time hire. If you can’t cover the wage bill, the unpaid share deserts (biggest crews first) — which can drop a ship below the minimum it needs to sail. Keep a cash buffer. (Navy pay no crew upkeep; privateers pay half.)

Upkeep beyond wages. Two gold sinks keep idle hoarding in check: ship maintenance of 50g per hull each tick (every ship you own, whether crewed, mothballed, in a fleet or loose), and an escalating fleet commission — your first 3 fleets each cost 250g/tick, but beyond that every fleet costs double the one before (a 4th fleet 500g, a 5th 1,000g, a 6th 2,000g…), so a swarm of small fleets becomes ruinous while a few big ones stay cheap. Company fleets a member runs ride their own ladder (paid from company coffers) and don't push the member's personal fleets up their commission line. A Navy captain's realm treasury covers both when it can afford to, falling to their own purse only if it runs dry. A fleet whose commission goes unpaid past a short grace is grounded until settled.

Warehouses

Lease a warehouse at a port — set it up from your current port, or by bringing a fleet there — and you can view and trade that port’s market even with no fleet present — bought goods go into the warehouse stockpile, and you can load/unload between the warehouse and any docked fleet.

A warehouse is leased square-footage: you set its capacity and it charges rent (about 0.1g per leased unit per day) from your purse each tick. If you ever can’t cover the rent, capacity automatically shrinks to what you can afford — so size a warehouse to what you’ll actually use.

Industry & factories

Keywords: factory industry lot lease craft production rate recipe guns cannon 24lb 32lb saber musket pistol boarding cutlass where the guns go route destination warehouse armory company market storage governs pause fallback auto sell small arms.

War-goods — the higher-tier guns and the arms that trained crew carry — aren’t conjured by ports. Captains make them. Every port has an Industrial District of leasable lots where you raise a factory and craft munitions to arm your own ships or sell to others.

• Lease a lot. Each district has up to 6 lots; leasing one costs about 3,000g (a Governor may set the fee, to any amount). Your factory is a persistent, one-per-captain business — it lives with you, not the lot, so it survives when a lease ends and resumes wherever you next lease.
• Build & upgrade. Raising the factory costs 325,000g and the wrights take 24 hours to build it. Upgrade to Level 2 (750,000g, ~72h) and Level 3 (1,500,000g, ~144h) to unlock the heavier recipes — each upgrade builds over time.
• Craft. Each recipe turns raw goods (iron, powder, timber, silk) plus a labour cost into finished units over real time. Set each line’s production rate — a faster rate makes more per hour but costs steeply more labour — and toggle Production on to run it.
• Where the guns go. A cannon line no longer piles its output in a bin — each gun it casts lands somewhere the moment it’s made, at a destination you pick per line: your warehouse at the port, the port Armory, or a company market (paid from that company’s coffers at the price it posts). Whatever the chosen buyer won’t take that tick falls back into your warehouse. And because guns need a real place to land, storage governs the line: with nowhere to put the next gun it pauses rather than making into thin air, and the iron and powder for it stay in your stores until room frees. Small-arms lines route the same way — sabers, muskets, pistols and cutlasses go to your warehouse, the port, or a company market just like guns.
• Sell into the port. Goods sold into a port’s stock feed the very pool that ships and forts arm from — that’s how 24lb/32lb guns, sabers, muskets, pistols and boarding cutlasses reach the armory.

Sabers & muskets arm Skilled crew; pistols & boarding cutlasses arm Veteran crew; the three cannon calibres arm ships and forts. A whole supply chain sits behind a well-gunned fleet.

Merchant Companies & the Exchange

Keywords: company merchant house coffers exchange shares voting common dividend loan credit charter director member company market storefront buy orders sale price lease storage public market trade counter guns factory route fort.

A Merchant Company is a player-run trading house with its own coffers. Any captain can invest in one on the Exchange; Merchant Guild captains can join one and work for it.

• Chartering. A Merchant Guild captain pays a one-time fee (100,000g) plus starting capital (50,000g) that seeds the coffers. The founder becomes Director and receives the founding voting shares. Company names are unique, and you can upload a flag and write a description.
• Two kinds of share. Voting shares are member-only and carry control; approved members buy them at book value and may redeem them back to the company at book value (paid from coffers). Common shares trade on the Exchange — anyone can buy and sell them, and their price rises and falls with the company’s net worth (coffers + the value of company ships). A small bid/ask spread and shifting market sentiment mean the price wobbles around fair value. Each company’s page shows your position — the price you paid on every buy, your average cost, and your unrealized return.
• Membership. You apply, the Director approves, and you can belong to one company at a time. Members trade on their own purse but pay the company a sales tax (set by the Director, up to 10%) skimmed into coffers, and may draw a wage from coffers each tick. Leave the Guild and you leave the company — your voting shares convert to common.
• The company market. A company can buy itself a market at its home port — a proper trading counter open to every captain, not just its members. The Director posts buy orders to draw goods in (paid from coffers) and sale prices to send goods out of its stores, with storage leased off the port like a warehouse (rent from coffers). Any captain at the port with a warehouse or a docked ship can trade there; guns trade there too. Producers can route a factory’s guns straight into it, a port’s fort can buy from it, and a trade route can be set to deal with it — so a well-run market becomes a hub the whole map feeds and draws from. The Director’s market paperwork (buying the market, leasing storage, setting prices) lives under Manage → Market.
• Armoury contracts & market access. A company that keeps a market can be named a port’s armoury contractor by its Governor (or a fort’s by its Commander): captains hiring crew or mounting guns there then draw from the company’s stores at its prices — the company earns the sale, the port takes a 15% cut, and wages still go to the port. To protect that supply, the Director can close any of three channels from Manage → Market — walk-in captains (and their routes), the port contract, or the fort — so committed stock isn’t drained out from under a contract. A market moves with the home port: relocate and its stock, prices and leased space follow.
• Company fleets. The Director buys trading hulls from the coffers into the pool. A member requests a fleet — ticking the pool ships they want and naming her — and the shareholders vote to release them as one fleet. A company fleet is locked: you can’t add, remove, or dissolve her ships; sail her and trade, then return her whole to request another (one at a time). The company takes a commission voted at 0–25% of her trading profit — nothing on a break-even or losing sale. The Director may recall a fleet at any time: if she’s at sea she finishes her current leg first, then her cargo is sold (or warehoused where there’s room) and her hulls return to the pool. The Director can rename a company fleet at any time — even one out at sea and assigned to a member — from the company’s Fleets tab. Note: company hulls carry no insurance, and losing one in battle costs the operator 30% of her value.
• Nation & charter. A company bears its founder's realm for life, and the realm's Monarch must approve the charter before it activates. Until then it can't trade or operate; if the Monarch refuses, the founder is refunded in full. On approval the founder's charter fee flows to the realm treasury, and thereafter the Crown takes a Charter Tax — a rate the Monarch sets among the realm's laws (0–25%) — as its cut of the company's takings (member sales tax, fleet commission, and loan interest). The tax never touches the company's capital or a member's own purse, only its earnings, so a low-tax realm is a friendlier home for merchant houses.
• Net worth & price. Net worth is coffers + company-ship value + money owed on loans and lines of credit. Buying a company ship is net-worth-neutral; the ship earning is what lifts the share price. Selling shares back is paid from coffers, so a cash-poor company can’t always buy everyone out at once.
• Dividends & loans. The Director can declare a dividend paid per-share to every holder from coffers. Loans work two ways: the Director may offer a loan directly to any captain (they accept and repay over time), or a member may request a loan — naming the amount, term, and interest they’ll pay — which the shareholders vote on; on approval it’s disbursed from coffers. A loan’s term is counted in real days (it comes due that many days after approval), and interest is charged per real day and compounds daily. Any loan can be written off as a default.
• Line of credit. Any captain holding a company’s common shares can borrow against them without selling — open a line from the Exchange or the company’s page. You may draw up to the market value of your common shares (funded from the coffers, so a company can only lend what it holds). It’s interest-only: 4.5%/yr charged every tick (outstanding × 0.045 ÷ 365), taken from your purse — or capitalised onto the balance if your purse runs dry. There’s no term and no forced principal; repay any amount, any time from the company’s page. Only the shares worth what you owe are held from sale — the rest stay yours to trade. If the price falls so your shares are worth less than you owe, the line goes underwater and those shares freeze (no buying or selling) until you repay above your collateral. A captain may hold one line at a time. Drawing is value-neutral to the company (coffers become a receivable); the interest is the company’s earning.
• Succession & dissolution. A Director can hand the company to a member, or dissolve it — the fleet is sold, and the remaining coffers are split among all shareholders pro-rata.
• Governance votes. Voting shareholders open votes, weighted by voting shares and shown as percentages. A vote ends the moment its threshold is met (otherwise it closes after a few days). Members also put fleet requests and loan requests to the shareholders this way. A vote sets the fleet commission (0–25% of company-fleet profit) and the member insurance payout, each needing a majority of all voting shares; a motion to remove the Director needs a supermajority — so the Director’s own shares (and vote) count heavily against it. A successful ouster passes the company to the largest voting holder.

Ports, populations & forts

Keywords: port market warehouse wharf fort population poll tax commission walls barracks cannons soldiers garrison ship of the line supply upkeep buy from company company market guns to walls fort warehouse.

Each port’s page has a left menu: Market (buy/sell), Warehouse (build/stockpile/transfer), Wharf (shipwright, armory, crew), and Fort. Your Local Port (/hq) is your current port shown as a dashboard.

Populations. Every port has a living population that grows or shrinks over time — from a sleepy backwater up to a great city. Its labour underpins the town and can be taxed by a realm’s Poll Tax, but tax too hard and the people emigrate, shrinking the very port you draw from.

Forts. Every port can hold one fort, owned by its controlling nation:

• Commission: only the realm’s monarch may break ground, paying 100,000g from the treasury; it takes ~8 hours to build.
• Fort construction — the master level (1–6). Expanding the fort is bought as land for level × 50,000g (paid to the port). It sets the ceiling for the fort’s three buildings — walls, barracks, and warehouse — none of which may exceed it.
• Supply: the fort’s gold is funded from the realm’s treasury through the Naval Yard; captains can also donate powder, iron, timber & grain into its stores. Every upgrade and all upkeep is paid from these, and a standing-order system lets the fort buy resources from passing merchants. If it names a company its contractor (Build tab), the fort auto-restocks iron, powder and grain from that company each tick, paid from fort gold into the company’s coffers — hands-off supply for a well-funded fort. Upkeep is per-tick and unforgiving: every gun eats iron + powder (heavier calibres more — 12lb 1+1, 24lb 2+1, 32lb 3+2), and every soldier eats 1 grain. Any gun that can’t be fed is spiked and any soldier that can’t be fed deserts — so a fort is a standing cost, not a one-time buy. Keep the stores topped up; the fort page shows the drain and roughly how many ticks your reserves cover.
• Cannons: the fort arms from the port’s own armory — 12lb, 24lb, or 32lb guns at that port’s armory price, paid from the fort’s gold (32lb needs a garrisoned Ship of the Line). It can also buy guns from a company market at the same port — those mount straight to the walls too — and buy other goods from a company into the fort warehouse, all paid from fort gold into the company’s coffers. Each gun burns iron + powder every tick — heavier calibres burn more, and a starved fort loses its lightest guns first.
• Walls (≤ fort level). The walls are the fort’s combat hull: 2,000 HP per level — exactly the HP an assault must grind through, with no hidden multiplier — and they set the gun capacity (+20 slots per level). Funded from fort gold + timber; repair with timber (40 HP each).
• Barracks (≤ fort level). The barracks set the soldier billets (+150 per level) and which troops you may raise. Every two levels unlocks a tier: Regulars (barracks 1+), Grenadiers (3+), then Marines (5+). Once a tier is unlocked you may recruit any available tier.
• Soldiers: trained from fort gold by type — Regulars 60g, Grenadiers 120g, Marines 220g. Upkeep is the same for all: 1 grain per tick, or the cheapest desert first when the granary runs dry. Release a lower tier back to the town to make room for a better one. In a land storm each type fights at its own weight (Regulars 1×, Grenadiers 2×, Marines 3.5×).
• Warehouse: a fort building of its own (≤ fort level) — stockpiles any market good up to warehouse level × 500 units, a defensible reserve the realm can draw on. Enlarge it from fort gold + timber.
• Garrisoned Ships of the Line: the Fleet Admiral may berth a crown ship-of-the-line in a fort (from the Naval Yard). Each one raises the fort’s gun and soldier ceilings by her own capacity (+60 guns, +300 men) and unlocks 32lb fort guns. Provision up to the higher cap as normal; if the fort’s Commander later assigns her to an officer, she sails out carrying that provision — fully armed and crewed.

Seasons

The world cycles Spring → Summer → Autumn → Winter, shifting production at source ports. Each season two goods peak (abundant, cheap) and two go lean (scarce, dear):

A port’s produced good only grows; every other good only shrinks as the town consumes it, can fall to 0, and stays there until players bring some in. So a good in heavy seasonal demand drains from consumer ports fast — and those ports pay top price for resupply. The Quartermaster and the Ports grid flag each season’s high-demand goods (▲ in season, ▼ out).

The chart & sailing

The Chart is your hub. Pick a fleet, then tap an isle to sail there and dock, or a region of open water to take station. Gold rings mark ports where your fleets are; a teal ring marks your current port. Three modes: move a fleet, set your current port, or open a port’s page.

Voyages happen in real time — a longer route takes longer to arrive.

Regions & visibility

The open sea is a grid of eleven named regions that tile the whole chart, so a fleet is always inside one. Regions are sail destinations like ports: take station to loiter there.

• Watch the waters. Click a region to see the fleets crossing or stationed there — but only if you have a fleet stationed in it. No presence, no intelligence.
• Visibility. Every fleet carries visibility points. Leaving port adds 1 per ship (a big fleet makes a conspicuous departure), and a fleet sheds a point every 5 minutes. At 0 it runs dark and can’t be spotted; at 1+ it shows on watch lists.
• Towing keeps you lit. A fleet dragging a hull under tow is a conspicuous sight — she sheds visibility at half the usual rate, so a laden prize crew is slower to slip into the dark.
• A lurking pirate can let its own visibility fade to nothing before striking from the dark.
• Attacking lights you up. Firing on a fleet adds 3 visibility to the aggressor — and far more in patrolled waters, where every witnessing patrol also lays a mark on you and may hunt you down while you stay lit. The loser of a battle instead sheds 10 (she scatters and runs darker). So a raider grows more conspicuous with every prize she takes — let the heat fade before the next strike.

Weather & disasters

The Isles have weather of their own. Each world tick there’s a chance a storm forms over one or more sea regions (or a fire on a port’s docks), and it’s far likelier in the stormy seasons — Spring and Autumn — than in calmer Summer and Winter. A struck region flashes on the chart with a storm icon, and any captain with a fleet there is notified (tune weather alerts in your notification settings).

• The Doldrums. The wind dies over a region and the sea goes glassy. Any voyage that runs through it — to or from a port in those waters — drags (about half again as long). Harmless, just slow.
• Lightning storms. Mostly spectacle — but while one rages, hulls at sea in that region are far likelier to catch fire. Ride it out in port if you can.
• Gales. Rough seas: worse going than the Doldrums, and each tick a hull at sea in the gale can have a few crates washed overboard. No hull is ever lost to a gale.
• Ship fire. A hull at sea can catch alight — by accident, or much more readily under a lightning storm. There’s no hull “health” to burn through, so a fire never sinks your ship — it burns cargo and costs crew. A green crew catches fire more often and loses more; veteran hands catch fire far less and contain what starts. A ship safe in port never catches fire.
• Port fires. Rarer. A fire tears through a port’s quays: stores burn, the treasury is spent rebuilding, and some townsfolk are displaced (they return in time). Forts and their guns are untouched.
• Hurricanes. The rarest and worst — and the only weather that can sink a ship. A hurricane forms one tick before it strikes, flagged on the chart and by a make-port warning, giving your fleets time to run for harbour. When it lands it batters every port in the region like a fire, and puts hulls in danger: any ship left at sea there — or a loose ship (out of any fleet) sitting in one of the region’s harbours — faces the smallest chance of being lost, and otherwise loses cargo and crew. A crewed fleet can simply sail out of the port to safety during the warning; garrisoned ships (resting in a fort) are never touched.

Only a hurricane can sink a hull, and only one that ignored a tick’s warning — no other weather sinks ships, and none touches a crewed fleet safe at anchor.

Naval combat

Combat is attacker-initiated and auto-resolved — you issue an attack, the defender’s standing stance applies, and the server resolves the whole battle deterministically, then hands you a round-by-round report. The loop: station → spot → engage → capture/plunder → haul home → sell.

• Engage an enemy fleet from a region page, from a fleet you have stationed there. You can hit fleets on station or sailing through.
• Intent: sink · plunder-&-sink · capture (dismast & board, take her as a prize). Priority: weakest, warships, or fattest cargo first. A defending fleet also carries a standing targeting order — weakest, strongest, or spread — set from its Manage tab, deciding which enemy hull its gunners lay on first.
• Defender stance: fight; scatter (each ship runs on its own speed — fast ones escape, slow ones are caught); or surrender — strike your colours to have cargo plundered while your ships are spared, at the cost of treble the usual renown, double the purse skim, and up to 15% of your crew defecting to the victor (only as far as their holds have room).
• Ambush: only pirates and privateers get the surprise opening volley — and only while the attacking fleet is running dark; once she’s been spotted the surprise is gone and you strike in the open (the raid still goes in — being seen never stops it). Only your lead ship springs the trap — the rest of the fleet is still closing and joins from the first open round. And watched waters foil surprises: an active patrol in the region has a good chance to spot the raiders and raise the alarm (the more patrols on station, the likelier), stripping the surprise and lighting and marking the raiders for the Navy to hunt — though it never stops the attack itself. A privateer who ambushes their own crown forfeits the marque and fights without surprise.
• Cut-out: a raider's trick for pirates and privateers — slip a small fleet (a few hulls) running dark alongside a large enemy convoy, snatch her trailing straggler, and run before the escort can turn. Coming in unseen, only a hull or two of her screen can answer in time; if they badly outgun you, you break off with a good chance to slip clean away. Found on the region page when you've a dark raider on station and a fat convoy in the water.
• Outcomes: captured hulls join your fleet with their cargo, and part of the prize’s crew defects to sail her; sunk ships are lost with everything aboard; a win skims about 2% of the beaten captain’s purse. Move cargo ship-to-ship in the region, then limp prizes to a port to be rid of them.
• Disposing of a prize: a captured hull can’t simply be cast loose — she must be sold or sunk. Pirates fence or re-flag her at the Haven; navy & privateers condemn her at their crown’s Prize Court; merchants and the unaligned sell her to any port’s shipwright (at a discount, since they hold no prize-broker’s papers). And any captain may simply scuttle a prize they can’t crew, sell, or haul home — sink her where she lies, from her Scuttle tab.
• NPC traffic: merchant convoys (cargo), naval patrols (well-armed), and rare treasure fleets drift the seas. They don’t attack players and expire after a while.

How a fight actually plays out

There is no single right way to fight — every engagement is a set of trade-offs, and every edge you reach for costs something else. The blunt truth under all of it: the harder you hit, the less you keep.

• Sink vs. take. Sinking is surest, but a hull on the bottom drowns her cargo — you win the fight, not the prize. To capture or plunder her you must board and win the fight on her decks before your own guns sink her: on a capture run your shot goes high — chain-shot into masts and rigging to slow her — and capture-fire is stayed from sending her under, so she stays afloat and boardable.
• The raider’s paradox. More guns sink the prize faster — often before your boarders ever cross. Overwhelming firepower wins fights but drowns plunder; to take her you want boarding strength and restraint, not a heavier broadside.
• Guns that actually fire. Only the engaged flank bears — about half your guns can fire in any one exchange — and each firing gun needs a small gun-crew to work it (reckon roughly three hands per gun). Short of crew, the surplus guns sit silent: an undercrewed warship looks fearsome and fires like a sloop, so a big hull needs a real complement just to keep her broadsides full.
• Crew does double duty. The same hands work your guns and fight your boardings, and every soul aboard takes room that might have held cargo or another gun. Boarding is a straight crew-against-crew melee with the boarder holding the initiative — bring more hands than she has left standing and her deck is yours; too few and she throws you back.
• Grape. A sweep of canister across her deck just before your boarders cross guts a slice of her crew — frequently the margin between a repelled boarding and a taken prize. Thin her, don’t sink her.
• Weight of metal. Light (12lb) iron is cheap and everywhere; heavier 24 and 32lb guns hit harder and bite through armour, but each is bulkier and dearer — the big calibres mean fewer guns, less cargo, and fewer crew on the same hull.
• Speed & crew quality. A fast hull is harder to hit, but firing from a hard-manoeuvring deck throws off your own aim; skilled and veteran crews work more guns, aim truer, and board harder — a seasoned crew can out-fight a larger green one.
• Squadrons. More hulls brings more of everything — more guns, more boarding crew, more room to absorb losses — but also a faster sink. Build a wall of guns to win, or crew-heavy hulls holding their fire to take.

Read the sea and choose your cost: weight against crew, guns against cargo, killing against keeping, speed against aim.

Sieges & port battles

A siege or raid is a coordinated assault on an enemy port — the way land actually changes hands. Between realms both require your realm to be at war with the target; pirates answer to no crown and may raid where they please. Either way, joining an assault on a crown’s port brands you hostile to it (realms already at war with it are exempt).

• Siege (captures the port) is declared by the Monarch or Fleet Admiral. Raid (plunders and leaves) can be led by a Commander or higher. Declare from the enemy port’s page, or find every active assault on the ⚔ War page.
• The muster. Declaring opens a window — 4 ticks for a siege, 1 tick for a raid — over chosen muster waters (the port’s home region or a neighbouring one), and puts the port under blockade (no trade). Both realms sail fleets there and commit them to the assault.
• The waters are live. Committed fleets hold station in the muster region and fight by normal region combat throughout the window — losses carry into the final assault, reinforcements can keep arriving, and a fleet that sails off drops out. Beat every attacker before the deadline and the siege collapses. Committing also grants both sides sight of each other’s mustered fleets.
• Resolution. The assault resolves at the deadline, once the defenders have had the full muster window — it cannot be launched early. It resolves in two phases. Sea: the committed attackers fight the fort (its walls are its HP, its cannons fire back), any garrisoned Ships of the Line, and the committed defenders — the walls must be breached. Land: the surviving crew storm the breach against the fort’s soldiers, whose strength is weighted by type. Win both and the port falls. A raid ends at the sea phase — win the approaches and plunder.
• Spoils & cooldowns. Capturing flips the port to your realm, loots the fort and port treasury, and pays renown (more for a capital). A taken port is siege-immune for 12 ticks; a repelled siege sets a re-siege cooldown, and raids a shorter one.
• Defending. Raise the walls and barracks, train better troops, and berth Ships of the Line before the assault — or break the siege at sea by beating the attackers in the muster waters. A patrol on those waters gets an early warning the moment an enemy declares, the ⚔ War tab glows, and besieged waters tint red on the chart.
• Counter-measures (from the siege card, once declared). Emergency works — the Commander, in the first tick only, spends fort timber to add +2,000 wall HP for the coming assault. Militia — the Governor levies townsfolk (25g each, up to 3× the barracks billets) to bolster the land storm; they’re expendable, and 65% are lost if the fort holds, 90% if it falls — a doomed defender can levy-and-burn to leave the captor a depopulated ruin. Fireships — the Commander or Admiral looses up to 3 garrisoned sloops or brigs (before the third tick); each strikes the attacking flagship before the sea phase, and is consumed.
• The capital fortress. The fort at your realm’s capital (home of the Yard) may build to level 8 — far beyond the provincial cap of 6 — for higher walls, more guns, a bigger garrison, and a much larger militia call-up. Taking a capital demands a major coalition fleet.
• Slighting. A stormed fort is razed to a bare level-1 shell — walls, barracks, warehouse, guns, and garrison all gone. Whoever captures the port reinvests from scratch to raise a fortress of their own.

Scouting

Before you commit a fleet to a siege, you’ll want to know what waits behind the walls — the garrison and any relief fleet are what actually decide the assault, and neither shows on a port’s public readout. That’s what a scout is for.

• The scout. A fleet that is a lone Cutter or Sloop may scout, and you can send her from anywhere — a harbour or open water. From her fleet page, choose 🔭 Scout a Port; the Chart opens in scout mode, and you tap an enemy port to send her to its waters.
• The look. On arrival she reconnoitres. There’s a chance she’s spotted (higher in patrolled waters); if she is, the fort’s guns open up with a chance to sink her, and she’s lit up (+6 visibility). Slip in unseen and you get exact numbers; get spotted but escape and you bring only a rough count.
• The run home. The intel isn’t yours until she reaches one of your realm’s harbours — she automatically makes for the nearest port your realm controls to the one she scouted. With the visibility from being spotted, a patrolling officer may hunt her down on the way back; sink her, at the wall or on the return, and the report is lost. (Should that harbour fall while she’s inbound, she diverts to the next-nearest one; if your realm holds no ports of its own, she files at the nearest harbour she can reach.)
• The report reveals the garrisoned Ships of the Line, fireship hulls berthed, the barracks’ troop split, the fort and port treasuries, and any relief fleet mustering in home waters. Read it under Scout Reports on your profile; it fades after 12 ticks, so scout close to your assault.

Allegiance

Your flag is your nation; your allegiance decides what you may do. The three empire paths are mutually exclusive: your first pick is free and you get one free change of path, after which a 14-game-day cooldown applies between changes (you can quit any time, but can’t pick a new path until it elapses). Choose from a realm’s overview under Realms.

• Navy — a 500g/tick stipend, no crew upkeep, and your realm covers your fleet commission & ship upkeep when its treasury can (else it falls to your purse); 10% cheaper cannons; the only path that may command a Ship of the Line (crown-owned, stewarded from the realm's Naval Yard), and the Patrol: watch a region, expose & brand raiders, and collect crown bounties.
• Privateer (a Letter of Marque, 15,000g) — may ambush opposing nations only, +5% offense with Sloops/Brigs/Frigates, half crew upkeep, 5% cheaper cannon and goods, the cut-out (snatch a straggler from an enemy convoy), and the Hunt (1 point/tick, bank up to 4).
• Merchant Guild — 10% cheaper hulls (and the East Indiaman), 5% cheaper purchases, +5% sale profit in home ports; sworn to peace (no combat).
• Republic of Pirates — may ambush any fleet innately; +10% offense with Sloops/Brigs/Frigates; the strongest Hunt (2 points/tick, up to 4); ports charge pirates 10% more; outlaw status.

The Hunt. Pirates and privateers bank Hunt points each tick (per captain, capped, no decay). From a fleet on station in a region, spend one point to expose a rival captain running dark — all of their fleets in that region at once, shown to you alone, and only while you and they both stay there. Exposing a fleet is what lets you target and strike it; splitting into many small fleets buys no cover, and a hunt that finds empty water still spends the point.

The Patrol. The Navy's mirror of the Hunt. From a fleet on station, designate a region as patrolled for 2 hours (then a 30-min cooldown; up to two regions at once; leaving ends that watch early). Everyone sees the waters are watched — never by whom. Raiding another player in patrolled waters lights the raider up (+1, plus +6 per witnessing patrol) and brands them WANTED to the crown they wronged: barred from that crown's harbours while lit, and reported to every patroller by The Admiralty. A Navy captain who downs a raider wanted by their own crown collects a bounty (from the crown's treasury) and defense renown; defeat lifts the brand. Every attack now lights the attacker, and the loser of a battle runs darker.

The Naval Yard. A realm's Ships of the Line belong to the crown, not the captain. The Monarch names a capital (home of the yard) and a Fleet Admiral; together with each port's Commander they run the yard. A hull an officer buys is stewarded to them — theirs to sail while they serve, but forfeit to the yard (never sold) the moment they leave the Navy or change flag. The crown can also commission hulls straight into the yard from the treasury (one per tick); the Admiral garrisons those into forts, where each one raises the fort's gun and soldier ceiling, and the port's Commander provisions to the higher cap and may assign a garrisoned hull to an officer — she sails out armed and crewed from the fort's stores. Lose your capital in war and its idle yard hulls are lost — 30% sunk, the rest seized into the conqueror's yard; stewarded hulls, at sea with their officers, sail on. Every action is written to a public yard ledger.

You pick a flag on joining and get one free change; each change after that triggers a 30-game-day cooldown. You may renounce your flag at any time to sail stateless, but the join cooldown still applies before you may take a new one.

Pirates & the Brethren

Flying the Pirates flag makes you an outlaw: you may ambush any fleet at will, you’re overcharged and barred at crown ports, and you keep no treaties — there is no war, peace, or alliance to be had with pirates, only open season both ways. The flag itself governs nothing.

• The Brethren. Governance lives in player-formed crews called Brethren. Any pirate may raise one (name it, set its Articles, fly its own flag) or apply to sign on to another — a Lord or Captain approves each application — one crew at a time. Find them under ☠ Brethren.
• Ranks & votes. The founder is the Pirate Lord (3 votes); they may name as many Brethren Captains (2 votes) as they like; everyone else is a Brother (1 vote). The Lord can promote, demote, remove, or hand the crew to another, and disband it.
• The Treasure Coffers & the Articles. Each Brethren keeps a shared pot; any member may Fill the Coffers. The crew votes Articles (weighted Lord 3, Captain 2, Brother 1): the Account (up to 30% of members' daily gains skimmed into the Coffers), Health Insurance (a set sum from the Coffers per hull a member loses when attacked), and a Divvy (share a sum of the Coffers out to the crew). Disbanding hands the Coffers to the Lord.
• Pirate holds. A pirate-held port keeps no Governor and levies no population tax. Any pirate present may build on its fort; the gold comes from a Brethren's Coffers (a Pirate Lord funds it from the Lord's Cabin), and any pirate can donate powder, iron, timber, and grain at the port. Pirates hire no soldiers or marines — when the fort is stormed, the town's whole population takes up arms.

☠ The Cove. The Brethren share a hidden Haven — an outlaw port open only to those who fly the black, where you can do what no crown quay allows:

• The Fence. Sells your plundered goods above their worth and buys prizes taken in battle at full value (less the crew’s share). Or, rather than sell a prize, re-flag her — forged papers and fresh colours for a fraction of her worth — and she joins your fleet as an ordinary hull you own, clean of the prize-heat that lights you up at sea.
• The Vault. A hidden cave-store, safe from raids. It keeps the stolen mark on what you stow — stockpile contraband here and run it out later, once the patrols thin. Dig it deeper for more room.
• The Dry-dock. Berth a hull out of its fleet to fit permanent refits — reinforced planking, a razee for speed, extra gun-ports, a heavy battery, a grapeshot deck, keg-mines — up to two per hull, each a real trade-off.
• The Flagship. Christen one hull as your named flagship, a legend you keep across a career of lesser ships, and crew her Bridge with officers. Beyond her dry-dock refits she bears four bespoke fittings of her own.
• The Roost & the Tavern. The Brethren pool their scout intel at the Roost (the freshest report per port, shared by every pirate); the Tavern signs on common crew; and you can careen a fleet on the sand for a burst of speed.
• The Back Room & treasure hunting. A back room off the Tavern (and the privateers’ Commission) deals in Buried Charts and the hunt for Dead Man’s Hoards — a whole pursuit of digs, guardians, relics, curses and rival raids. See Treasure hunting for the full account.

Smuggling — hot goods & the black market. Plunder rides home marked stolen, and running it past the excise-men is the smuggler’s trade. Both stolen cargo and captured prizes radiate heat: your visibility spikes when the plunder comes into the open — slipping out of port, or taking it at sea — and a fat prize lights you like a bonfire. You must sail that heat off before you can slip into a customs house clean; a laden hull tied up at a foreign quay won’t cool, so only the open sea and your own Cove will bleed it away. Every crown’s port hides a black market — seen only by those who fly the black — that buys smuggled goods at a steep premium, far above the Fence, but a customs inspection rides on every sale, and its odds climb the hotter and the more hunted you are. Arrive dark and they barely glance at you; arrive hot and they’re already waiting. The Cove’s Fence is the safe, lower-paying alternative.

Still to come for the Brethren: Marks (bounties funded from the Coffers).

Treasure hunting

Out past the settled lanes lie wild, uninhabited isles — and gold buried under them. Only those who fly the black or carry a letter of marque may hunt it: pirates and privateers. Navy officers and Merchant guildsmen cannot partake. Everything for a hunt lives on the water region’s page where the isle lies, under its Treasure Hunt tab; the charts that start it are sold in the Back Room at your Haven (pirates) or Commission (privateers).

Buried Charts — the first digs

A Buried Chart marks a hoard on a named wild isle. Buy one in the Back Room, or take one as plunder from a captured prize. To work it: sail a fleet to the isle’s waters, station it there, and land a shore party of 40+ crew. Then search the ground spot to spot across a map of the isle — marching cell to cell like a fleet crossing the water — until your crew strikes the cache. The dead keep only a light watch over a buried chart, so the fight to take the ground is an easy one; then they dig it out (about an hour) for a clean reward — roughly 70,000–100,000g and a hold of luxury goods, no stolen mark, sold honestly at any market. You may keep two charts in play at once (charts in pocket plus digs under way); finish one to free a slot. A chart that falls to you as plunder comes even at the cap.

Dead Man’s Hoards — the deeper hunt

A dig sometimes turns up a rumour of something richer: a Dead Man’s Hoard. A rumour names only the waters, not the isle — station a fleet in that region and survey to run down which isle holds it. These hoards bear no X: land a party and search the ground cell by cell across a fog-shrouded grid, marching square to square until your crew strikes the cache. The haul dwarfs a buried chart — on the order of 140,000–210,000g and a heavy load of goods.

But the dead guard their gold. When your party finds the cache they must first storm a guardian force dug in on the ground — a land battle decided by how many crew you land. When you put a party ashore you choose the size, from a small vanguard up to your whole ship’s company: a bigger party storms harder, but every hand you lose ashore is gone for good, so a lighter landing risks fewer lives at the cost of a weaker assault. Bring too few and they are routed outright. Win, and the dig proceeds to its haul; lose, and you are thrown back and the hunt broken.

Your officers ashore

Who you send ashore from your flagship’s Bridge decides the hunt:

• Sailing Master — the party searches the grid at twice the pace.
• Boatswain — leads the assault on the guardians, turning fights you’d otherwise lose.
• Surgeon — brings far more of the crew home from the fighting.
• Quartermaster — wards curses, holding the dead’s malice at bay.

Legendary Reckonings

A Hoard may itself point onward to a Legendary Reckoning — the richest caches of all, guarded fiercest of all — and a Legendary can chain to another Legendary lead in turn. That is the top of the ladder: buried chart → Dead Man’s Hoard → Legendary Reckoning.

Relics & the Cabinet

A Hoard — and, more often, a Legendary — may give up a relic: a trophy kept for good. There are six in all, in two grades, gathered in your Cabinet and shown on your profile for every captain to see; the ones you have not yet found sit faded until you dig them up. You may slot up to two at once.

The three common relics are passive trinkets — a standing edge on the hunt: fatter hauls, a Sailing Master’s search pace, or a fiercer landing. Their effects stack in your slots (haul bonuses add up, assault bonuses multiply).

The three legendary relics are active war-powers. Slot one in the Cabinet, then put her to work on a single fleet from that fleet’s Artifacts tab — a relic serves one fleet at a time, and its power fires once every four ticks across all your fleets (the cooldown is shared, not per-fleet). They are:

• the Kraken’s Heart — at the first bell of a fight, the deep drags one of the enemy’s strongest hulls (up to a Ship of the Line, never a flagship) straight to the sea floor;
• the Ghost Compass — its Dead Man’s Fog slips your fleet clean out of a fight a rival forces on you, no pursuit;
• the Drowned King’s Crown, the Dread Sovereign — every enemy crew that fights that fleet fights a full grade lower, their veterans as skilled hands, their skilled as common.

Slot two legendaries together and you hold the Drowned Court set — +15% plunder and +15% renown carried off a beaten captain, every engagement.

Rare finds

Now and then a dig turns up more than gold and goods: a rare collectible — a jade idol, a gilded reliquary, a jewelled chalice, a set of crown regalia — fenced on the spot for a fat windfall of gold on top of the haul. The richer the cache, the likelier one surfaces.

Curses

Not every hoard rests easy. A Hoard may bear a curse that tolls a share of the gold; a Legendary’s curse can rot the goods to salt in your holds — though a curse never takes the relic. A Quartermaster ashore holds the worst of it at bay.

The contest — raiding a dig

The moment a crew begins digging a Hoard or a Legendary, the dig is broadcast — it shows in the Back Room and on that region’s page for every hunter to see. Bring a fleet on station in those waters and you can raid the dig: a land battle for the ground. Win and you seize the hole and its haul mid-dig, continuing on the same timer under your own flag; lose and you are thrown back bloodied. The same officers and relics that storm guardians serve you here too, on attack or defence. Buried digs stay private — only the great hoards draw a crowd.

Realms, crown & nobility

Each realm has a treasury and is governed by its members. Endowing the treasury earns you renown and standing.

• Renown. Fame earns a captain standing at court: an Esquire (450,000 fame) carries power 1, a Knight (1,000,000 fame) power 2.
• Nobility. Once you reach Knight (1,000,000 fame) you may burn fame to mint Nobility Points (100,000 fame and 100,000 gold each). Points buy titled ranks that carry standing power: Baron (5 pts, power 5) and Duke (15 pts, power 7).
• Offices. Appointed offices carry their own power on top of any title — a fort Commander holds power 10, a Governor 15, and the Fleet Admiral 20. A member counts only their single highest rank or office.
• The Crown. One member may hold the throne (Monarch, power 25). A claim needs an official who holds the realm’s highest Nobility and ranks among its top contributors. Monarchs commission forts, appoint governors, and conduct the realm’s foreign affairs — war, peace and alliance. The crown may also set a private wage for each office — Governors, the Fleet Admiral, and Commanders — paid from the treasury each tick; only the crown and each officer see their own.
• Pirates wear no crown and hold no court on the flag — it’s pure outlaw identity. Governance lives in player-formed Brethren (a captain’s own crew): see Pirates & the Brethren.

Diplomacy: war, peace & alliance

Realms stand Neutral by default. A realm’s foreign affairs are conducted by its Monarch (a Pirate realm keeps no treaties — see Pirates & the Brethren). Standing between two crowns is public knowledge, shown on each realm’s Relations tab.

• War is one-sided. Declaring war costs a 50,000g war chest and is a directional act: it closes your harbours to the realm you declared on and lets your citizens ambush and besiege them — but they keep access to your ports until they declare war back. The moment war exists on either side, combat runs both ways and neither realm’s captains gain hostility for fighting the other (you are already at open odds).
• The realm you strike is warned. When a crown declares war, every captain of the targeted realm gets an event — their harbours are now barred to your fleets and their monarch may declare war in turn to close their own.
• Standing down. A Monarch may stand down to withdraw their own declaration — reopening their ports and ending their aggression. If war then remains on neither side, it is fully over: any assault between the realms lifts and mutual hostility clears.
• Peace & alliance are proposals the other crown must accept. Sealing a Peace ends all war between you at once — harbours reopen and lingering hostility is wiped, so regular life resumes. An Alliance (make peace first) opens a private council forum for both realms’ Monarchs, Fleet Admirals and Governors.
• A signed treaty holds. Once two realms sign a peace or alliance, neither may declare war on the other again for 7 real-life days — no war-then-peace spam. The Relations tab shows the cooldown in place of the war button.

⚓ The Naval Yard & squadrons

Warships are the crown’s, not the captain’s. Every realm keeps a Naval Yard at its capital, run by the Fleet Admiral (or the Monarch), funded by the yard budget the crown endows from the treasury.

• Commission & outfit. The Admiral lays down sloops, brigs, frigates, and Ships of the Line from the yard budget, choosing each hull’s guns by calibre (12/24/32lb, within her slots and hull cap) and crew by tier (base, skilled, veteran). She rests in the pool until she’s given a fleet. The yard lays down at most one Ship of the Line per spell (6h); lesser hulls are free of that limit.
• Squadrons. The Admiral forms pooled hulls into a named squadron and assigns her to any serving naval officer — an officer may hold as many squadrons as she’s given. A squadron is locked: her name is fixed and no hull can be added or removed by hand.
• Garrisons are a Commander’s pool. The Admiral may instead garrison hulls into a realm’s forts, raising that fort’s gun and soldier ceilings. A fort’s Commander forms squadrons from the hulls garrisoned there — each sails out armed and crewed from the fort’s own stores.
• No insurance, no loss charge. A squadron pays no insurance and, if a hull is lost in battle, costs the officer nothing — the Admiralty bears the loss. (Company fleets, by contrast, are charged for a lost hull.)
• Prizes fly the crown’s colours. A prize a squadron takes at sea becomes a crown hull and stays with her — you must sail your capture home. When the Admiral recalls a squadron she makes sail for the capital (or a fort Commander recalls her to her home fort), and on arrival every hull — prizes included — returns to the yard pool. A recalled squadron is a squadron at sea, and can be caught on the way in.

⚓ Patrols & the watch

The Patrol is the Navy’s signature — a serving naval officer stands a fleet on station in a region to watch those waters and answer for what happens there. It is how a crown polices its shipping lanes, and how a Navy captain earns a name without ever raiding a soul.

• Standing a patrol. From a region page, a Navy captain with a fleet stationed there raises a patrol over the waters. One officer may watch up to two regions at once, and a patrol holds for a fixed spell. Standing down, moving the fleet, or leaving the region ends the patrol and starts its cooldown. Everyone can see that a region is watched — never by whom.
• A patrol catches raiders — it doesn’t cage them. Raiding a fleet in watched waters does not stop the attack. What a patrol does is three things: it foils the ambush (the more patrols on station, the likelier the raiders are spotted and the surprise stripped — though a heavily-watched lane never makes it a certainty); it lights the raider bright on every watch list, far more than firing alone would; and it marks her — branding her WANTED to the crown she wronged, and handing every witnessing patroller a personal mark to hunt her down while she stays lit.
• The Navy then hunts. A crown’s warships may lawfully strike a raider their own patrol has caught in the act (as well as pirates, enemies of their state, and realms they’re at war with). Run the marked raider down while she’s still lit and the victor — if Navy of the wronged crown — collects the bounty on her head.
• Renown for the watch. Standing a full patrol earns renown; catching a raider in your waters earns more; and foiling a surprise outright earns extra still — all without firing on a merchant.
• Incident reports. Every attack a patrol witnesses pings all patrollers in the region, and the region’s log, with an incident report — so the watch always knows who struck whom, and where.

Laws & Articles

A realm’s laws are set directly by its crown from Realm Management — no vote; any citizen may view them on the Laws page. The Republic of Pirates, by contrast, sets its Articles by timed votes — one vote per citizen, two per sitting Lord; a 3-day poll enacts on a majority. Effects settle once per tick.

A realm’s laws are set directly by its crown from Realm Management — no vote; any citizen may view them on the Laws page. The Republic of Pirates, by contrast, sets its Articles by timed votes — one vote per citizen, two per sitting Lord; a 3-day poll enacts on a majority. Effects settle once per tick.

Realms (crown-set): Subsidy (a per-rank stipend), Tariff (a per-flag duty schedule up to 20%, with a Governor surcharge on top), and Shipping Insurance (a treasury payout per hull lost at sea). A port’s population tax is set separately by its Governor.

The Republic votes on Articles: Shares (a per-standing daily share), Republic Tax (a cut of each member’s daily plunder), and Health Insurance (a payout per hull lost).

Fame, ranks & hostility

Fame is your renown. It grows from +1 fame per gold spent (goods, ships, guns, crew, warehouse rent, treasury endowments) and +1 fame per crate sold, and the victor of a battle loots a slice of the loser’s. Fame is not permanent — a little fades each tick and a defeat costs a slice — so leaders can’t sit on the throne forever.

Commoner ranks climb with fame: Subject → Freeholder (25k) → Gentry (150k) → Esquire (450k) → Knight (1M), the threshold of nobility.

Hostility & branding. Attacking a nation raises hostility with it (+2 per attack, +10 against your own crown, +20 for joining an assault on its port); it cools 2 per tick. Realms already at war gain no hostility against each other, so siege hostility mainly falls on pirates and opportunists. At 60 with a nation, that crown bars you from its ports until it drops. Turn your guns on your own crown and reach 60 and you are branded a pirate — all empire allegiances dropped.