Mechanics

Mid-game events

So that the middle of a match is not only fighting, each seat receives an event card at set intervals: two options, the outcome of both written out beforehand. You pick your own card; opponents answer theirs on their own turns.

When an event comes

The card is drawn when your turn opens, at the very end of the start-of-turn work (The turn cycle). So income, production, population and the revolt counter have already been processed for that turn: the option's reward does not enter that turn's income, and a timed multiplier takes effect for the first time in the next turn's income.

Which card comes

The deck is made of favorable and unfavorable cards.

Every card has a condition; a card whose condition does not hold is not drawn for that seat. For example, an unfavorable card whose price is gold does not come when your purse is empty, and public unrest does not come when you have no city that could fall into revolt. The conditions are written on the card pages.

The draw is random but stateless: the card derives from the map's seed, the turn and the seat, a stream separate from the randomness that generates the map. A match that plays the same moves from the same seed draws the same cards; loading from a save does not change a card.

Two options, a visible outcome

The event dialog writes out each option's outcome beforehand, and the number written is the very number applied when you choose: the preview and the application come out of the same calculation.

Four kinds of effect

A one-time resource. The amount is written to the purse. Gold goes straight into the purse; production joins the pool at the start of the next turn, and the part the cities do not draw turns into gold (The production queue). Food is written into one city's store by the same rule as the food surplus at the start of the turn; if no city can receive it, it goes to the granary and the part exceeding the granary's limit is lost (Cities and population). An expense is taken when the card arrives (escrow), and the card only comes if the purse covers the price.

A unit gift. The unit appears on the first empty, passable tile adjacent to the first of your cities not in revolt, in id order; it can play that turn and, like other units, asks for upkeep (Economy). The tiles it sees are revealed. If there is no room, no gift arrives, and the dialog says so beforehand.

A timed multiplier. It applies as a percentage to a resource's gross per-turn income, which is the income before upkeep is deducted. It applies once to each turn's income, for as many turns as the card says. A negative percentage lowers income. Three details:

N turns of revolt. Among your cities that are not the capital and not in revolt, the one with the smallest population falls into revolt for as many turns as the card says (ties are broken by city id order). The capital is never the target; an event does not eliminate you. The revolt's rules are the same as under a capital's fall: no income, the production queue does not run, no repair at the start of the turn, low defense (Victory conditions). The difference is that the Divan does not shorten this revolt: the Divan only shortens the duration of cities inherited through a capital's fall. A player who knows Law still takes a share from the revolting city's income.

Opponents and playing on the same device

The numbers on this page are read from the game’s balance tables.

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