Glossary

Terms grouped by topic, as in the sidebar. Link to a term with its name, such as glossary.html#tick.

The World

Address

Where a house sits, written realm:state:house, such as 4:2:1.

House

What one player runs: land, peasants, gold, food and troops. One per account per age.

Personality

Your house's second choice after its race, with its own bonuses and penalties. See Personalities.

Race

The people your house belongs to. It sets your units and your bonuses and penalties. See Races.

Realm

A group of states (7 each). Realms are the top level of the world map. See The World.

State

A group of houses (up to 15) that play together.

Economy

Aid

Goods, soldiers, horses, aether or explorable acres sent to another house in your state. Some is lost on the way. See Aid.

Aid tax

A tax on aid received by a house that has taken in much more than it has given. Giving first builds credit. See Aid.

Barren land

Land with no building. It houses a few people and grows a little food.

Building efficiency

How well your buildings work: 50-100% from staffing, then raised by science, race and projects, or lowered by hexes. See Land and Construction.

Cross-realm fee

What a buyer pays on top when the seller is in another realm. Destroyed. See Trade.

Depletion

In some ages, a realm's deposit of a material runs down as it is worked, so output falls late in the age. See Trade.

Explorable acres

How much land you can still explore. They grow every tick with your land and bank up to a limit. See Exploring.

Leader

The house that runs a state, chosen by its members' votes. It sets the tax, trades with the treasury and declares war. See State Leadership.

Market fee

What an order pays when it fills against an order already waiting in the book. The waiting order pays nothing. See Trade.

Material

A resource each realm produces every tick. See Materials.

Peasants

Your working population. They pay your gold each tick, and soldiers, adepts and direct recruits are drawn from them. See Economy.

Refining

Turning one material into another, such as pine into timber or resin. It happens at once. See Materials.

Season

The cycle each material's output runs through, rising above and falling below its base. Materials are out of step with each other. See Trade.

Share

A state's part of its realm's production. See Trade.

Spoilage

Materials held beyond a free allowance waste away each tick, faster the bigger the hoard. See Trade.

Treasury overflow

In some ages, a treasury's materials beyond its allowance are shared among its state's houses instead of spoiling. See Trade.

Tax

The share of every member's income a state takes into its treasury each tick. The leader sets the rate. See State Leadership.

Treasury

A state's own gold and materials, run by its leader.

Science

Academic

A named scholar with flat attributes that strengthen your science; one per 100 universities. See Academics.

Attributes

An academic's flat bonuses to your science. See Academics' Attributes.

Books

Science points, written by scientists and earned by learning by doing. See Science.

Colloquium

A state's shared research: the leader picks a project, members give books. See Colloquium.

Investing books

Spending books on a science in their category. The bonus nears the science's limit and never reaches it. See Science.

Knowledge fades

A Colloquium project loses knowledge every tick, faster the longer nobody contributes. See Colloquium.

Learning by doing

Books earned from play rather than scientists, such as military books from a close-fought win. See Science.

Lost texts

Economy books your explorers sometimes find while exploring. See Science.

Paper

A material your scientists may use to write more books each tick. See Science.

Scientist

Writes books every tick in the economy, military or arcane category, more as it gains rank.

War

Adept

A non-fighting unit, drawn from peasants at shrines, that works rites.

Aether

What rites spend; shrines gather it every tick. See Rites.

At war

Two states in a declared war. Attacks between them take more and earn more renown, and neither can trade in the Hall of Deeds. See War.

Ceasefire

A period with no attacks or spying between two states. One follows every war. See War.

Countercast Vengeance

Strength a house's own hexes gain against a state whose houses tried hexes on it; it fades every tick. See Rites.

Declaring war

Only a leader can declare war, and only when the two states meet set conditions of size and past attacks. See War.

Desertion

Troops at home leaving because their wages went unpaid. See Military.

Draft rate

The share of your population you want under arms; soldiers are drafted toward it each tick. See Military.

Elite

A race's best troop, strong in both offense and defense. See Military.

General

A commander raised from elites, with flat traits; one per army.

Hall of Deeds

The market where houses buy and sell generals and academics. See Hall of Deeds.

Hex

A rite that harms another house. See Rites and Hexes.

Hostility meter

How hostile one state feels toward another, raised by that state's attacks and spying. Sets the relation: Normal, Unfriendly or Hostile. See War.

Medic

A non-fighting unit that saves battle deaths. See Military.

Mercenaries

Troops hired for a single attack. The survivors leave afterwards. See Military.

Mount

A horse or chariot that adds offense to the troop it carries. Bred in stables. See Military.

Peace dividend

A bonus for a state that has stayed out of war for 168 ticks. See War.

Protection

A new house's first 72 ticks: nothing hostile in or out. See Getting Started.

Recovery

Cheaper, faster building and faster regrowth for 72 ticks after losing a war (half after a peace). See War.

Relation

How one state stands toward another, set by the hostility meter: Normal, Unfriendly or Hostile. Worse relations mean bigger gains when you attack. See War.

Renown

Public standing, won mostly in battle and never spent. Unlocks better generals and heir slots. See Military.

Soldiers

Peasants drafted under arms (1 offense, 1 defense). They train into specialists, elites and thieves. See Military.

Specialist

A troop trained for one job: offense specialists attack, defense specialists hold. See Military.

Spell Resilience

How hard a house is to hex after hexes landed on it recently; it fades every tick. See Rites.

Strong hex

A hex, such as Siphon or Hellfire, allowed only when relations with the target are bad enough. See Rites.

Thief

A troop that carries out operations instead of fighting. See Intrigue.

Traits

A general's flat modifiers, in force while it leads an army or the defense. See Generals' Traits.

Tribute

Part of a losing state's material output paid to the winner of a general war. See War.

Upgrade

Turning a specialist or elite into its stronger + form, paid in a material. See Military.

Wages

Gold your troops cost every tick, by their training price. See Military.

War points

A state's score from wars: 2 for a win, 1 for peace. See War.

Attacks

The kinds of attack. Each one's gains, costs and conditions are on Attacks.

Assault

The standard attack: takes land and earns renown. See Attacks.

Blockade

Cuts the material output of the target's whole state for a while. The lost output is destroyed. See Attacks.

Breach

Takes land while cutting the target's defense bonuses, at the cost of heavier losses. Needs a Bellator general or an Ancestral Hall. See Attacks.

Massacre

Kills part of the target's peasants and thieves. See Attacks.

Raze

Destroys land of an inactive house in your own state. Nobody receives it. See Attacks.

Reclaim

Takes back part of the land an enemy army is carrying home from you. See Attacks.

Sack

Carries home part of the target's gold, food and materials. See Attacks.

Torch

Burns part of the target's buildings, leaving barren land. Costs resin. See Attacks.

Information

Courting

An operation that makes another house's general or academic waver; its owner can reassure it. See Intrigue.

Divination

A rite that reads another house without risking thieves. What it learns is shared with your state. See Rites.

False Flag

Sending an operation under another state's colours. See Intrigue.

Intel

An operation that reads part of a house, or all of it with a Full Dossier. The target isn't told. See Intrigue.

Might

What a house has built up apart from land: troops, thieves, adepts, mounts, medics, generals, academics and science. Public, like land. See The End of an Age.

Nerve

What your thieves' operations spend; it recovers every tick. See Intrigue.

News

Your house's private feed of what happened to it. See What You Can See.

Operation

One thing your thieves do: intel, theft or sabotage. See Thieves' Operations.

Reassure

Paying to end a courted character's wavering and keep it loyal for a while. See Intrigue.

Robot

A house played by the game, not a person. A world can fill some of its seats with robots, so a thinly settled age still has neighbours, trade and war. Robot houses are marked as robots wherever houses are listed; they play by the same rules as everyone else. When a person joins a full state, its weakest robot leaves to make room (see Where new houses go).

Rite

Magic worked by adepts with aether: rites on yourself, divinations, hexes and vigils. See Rites.

Sabotage

An operation that delays, burns, poisons or kills. See Intrigue.

Spy report

What a successful intel operation learned about another house. Shared with your state.

Subversion

An operation that works on a house's affairs: its orders, its general, its soldiers, its tax or its characters. See Intrigue.

Theft

An operation that takes gold, food, materials, horses, books or peasants, capped by the thieves sent. See Intrigue.

Vigil

A rite a whole state funds together; every member gains while it lasts. See Rites and Hexes.

Vigilance

How alert a house is after recent operations against it; it lowers the next one's chance. See Intrigue.

Ward

Resistance to hexes and divinations, from watchstones. See Rites.

Time and Ages

Age

One round of the game, from start to reset. Each age has its own frozen rules. See All Ages.

Heir

A general or academic a house keeps into the next age. See The End of an Age.

Score

A state's standing at the end of the age: its land and its might, each against the leading state, plus its war points. See The End of an Age.

Tick

The hourly economy update: income, food and population. See How Time Works.

Lore

Age of Ash and Salt

What the taverns call the current age. See Lore.

First Transgression

The Saltborn invasion that sacked Ruikhire, giving rise to the Freehomes and the Mycellians. See Lore.

Long Winter

A generation of unbroken snow, about a thousand years ago, that drove the Drow underground. The Realms count their years from its thaw. See Lore.

Mount Ishiraki

The volcano whose eruption burned the Drow city of Vael Nhur and scattered the Ashcliffe. See Lore.

Night of Silver

The night the Daemons slew every sorcerer-king of Unlith and took their contracts. See Lore.

Ruikhire

Once the World's greatest city, sacked by the Saltborn and now fought over by the Freehomes and the Mycellians. See Lore.

How the rules are recorded

Definition

A race or personality's numbers and effects for an age, such as orc@v2. A rebalance is a new definition of the same identity.

Effect

One building block of a race or personality: a modifier, a flag, an unlock or its unit slots. See Effects.

Identity

A race or personality's permanent name, such as orc. It never changes, so history can follow it across ages.

Lineage

A reworked race gets a new identity that points back to the one it replaced (for example Revenant from Undead).

Rules fingerprint

A short code computed from a definition's mechanics. Same fingerprint, same rules, even across ages.

Slot

A numbered place an age puts a definition into; each age has a fixed number for races and for personalities. Slots can be left unused. Only the current age uses them; history records identities.