Each state can have a leader, chosen and removed by a simple majority of its houses. The leader runs the state's treasury.
Voting
- Your house has one standing vote: for a house in your state (yours included), against the current leader, or none.
- Votes are counted every tick. A house backed by more than half the state's houses becomes leader.
- A leader opposed by more than half the state's houses loses the post. Opposed means voting against them, or for someone else.
- Votes stay until you change them, so a leader stays in office only while the state backs them.
Everyone in the state hears when a leader is chosen or removed. Other states can see who leads each state on the realm page; only members see the vote counts.
What the leader can do
- Set the state's tax.
- Buy and sell on the market with the treasury's gold and materials.
- Grant treasury gold or materials to houses in the state.
- Rename the state.
- Declare war, offer peace or withdraw from one.
- Agree a ceasefire with another state, and break one.
- Choose the state's Colloquium research.
- Propose the realm's work, and vote on it for the state. See Realm Works.
- Open a vigil for the state.
Any house, leader or not, can give gold or materials to the treasury. Everything else about a house stays with its owner.
Names
Every realm and state gets a generated name when the age begins, such as The Sundered Reach. Realm names stay for the whole age.
The leader can rename the state at most once every 24 ticks. A name is 1 to 40 characters, without <, >, control characters or text-direction marks, and no two states can share one (capitals don't count as different). Every house in the state hears about the change.
State chat
Every state has its own chat, for its members only. Messages arrive live on your house page. It keeps its newest 1,000 messages for the rest of the age; see Chat for the limits.
Tax
Each tick, the state takes a share of every member's income and pays it into the treasury. The leader sets the rate anywhere from 0% to 10%; a new state starts at 2%. A change applies from the next tick, and every member's news reports it.