Old Seas & Corsair Fortresses

"Where the wind carries the names of forgotten captains across open reefs, there wealth and danger lie side by side."

— From the travel journals of an anonymous chronicler

TL;DR: Ruins keep producing — plundering follows the usual rules, and a spy report shows how things stood at the moment of spying. Wealthy ruins raise their own guards. Corsairs keep raising fortresses — prizes for alliances to contest.

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Old Seas #

An Old Empire ruin does not lie idle. Its mines keep digging, its saws keep running, and whatever nobody collects piles up in the old warehouses. Scouts report yards heaped with gold, stone and wood — and sites where guards walk their rounds again.

On the map, Old Empire ruins have a grey-brown color and a cell tooltip. The anchor symbol indicates vacation.

• Wealthy ruins — those with large warehouses and running production — reward raiders most; age is only a rough indicator of that.
• The resources and guards shown in a spy report are there at the time of the report.

The map legend explains its colors and symbols.

The Stores of the Ruins #

Ruins keep producing; their warehouse limits how much they can store.

The same rule applies to every captain. Normal plundering rules apply: warehouse protection, cargo capacity and reduced loot from repeated visits in quick succession. A spy report shows the resources as they lay there at the moment of spying; you can take only what the warehouse does not protect and your cargo holds can carry.

A ruin that has been cleared out does not stay empty: its own production refills the stores over the days, until the warehouse draws the line.

Where a wealthy ruin still has barracks or a harbor, it recruits guards of its own out of its stores. Such sites fight back — the spy report names the garrison before you set sail. And when an empire falls for good, its last stores arm the garrison once; the rest decays.

Conquest brings no loot, but the island comes with its stores: whoever takes over a ruin gains the island, its buildings and its stores — as far as the damaged warehouse can still hold them, just like any conquest. At the very least, your settlers bring a small starting supply of gold, stone and wood.

One more difference: any captain can not only plunder some old-empire ruins but take them over outright and settle them anew. See the chapter "Colonization" for more.

Corsair Fortresses #

Corsairs raise their fortresses among older Old Empire ruins. A black flag above cliff-fastened walls — a target that calls an alliance to arms.

• Corsair Fortresses keep appearing across the seas — where the next black flag rises, nobody knows. When one rises, it becomes the prize every alliance fights over.
• It never attacks on its own. It waits.

An alliance objective — no solo conquest #

A Corsair Fortress cannot be taken by a single captain alone. It requires at least two members of the same alliance — real coordination, not a solo ride.

It does not matter which ocean you attack from — fleets from distant waters count fully too. Only the captured bonus later applies in the fortress's ocean.

Land troops decide the assault #

The fortress does not fall to bombardment from the sea. It is a land assault: your troops fight for the walls, your ships carry them there. Without troops you cannot capture it. Your loot share, however, reflects the contribution of the whole fleet, including ships.

The shared assault deadline #

In a Combined Attack, fleets gather at the fortress and resolve at their shared deadline. A normal solo attack instead fights alone as soon as it arrives, cannot capture the fortress and costs troops. Several separate solo attacks do not form a Combined Attack.

A combined attack on a fortress deliberately schedules a longer approach window — so allies from distant oceans can reach the storm in time as well.

If the attack narrowly fails, each participant bears their share of losses. Loot is also divided by contribution, rather than equally.

Holding with a garrison #

After conquest, your alliance holds the fortress with stationed troops. If the garrison drops below a critical threshold, loss of the fortress threatens after a grace period. A warning appears on the alliance fortress page.

No alliance holds a fortress forever: sooner or later it decays — the corsairs move on, and the fortress vanishes.

The hold bonus and the spoils #

While your alliance holds the fortress, its members on the same ocean gain an ocean-wide bonus. Every held fortress brings both: faster fleets and better spying. You pick nothing, and one fortress is like the next in this.

The spoils of the assault go to the active participants — those who sent troops share. Those who did not, watch.

The War Chest #

A held Corsair Fortress is the great prize alliances vie over — and it grants more than the ocean-wide bonus alone. As long as your garrison holds the walls, a War Chest quietly fills. The longer you hold, the richer it grows — up to the maximum hold time, which no alliance can exceed: it is also the ceiling of the War Chest. Whoever stands the full term has taken everything there was to take.

Assault loot goes to each eligible participant’s main island after conquest. Only what its warehouse can hold is credited; surplus is lost and does not enter the alliance treasury. If storage is full, delivery is retried a limited number of times; if unsuccessful, the share is lost. The War Chest is separate: it builds up while held and pays out when your alliance relinquishes the fortress through recapture, a weak garrison or the maximum hold time.

The War Chest travels to your main island in a convoy. You find it in fleet lists within watchtower range; it does not appear on the map. What no longer fits in storage there flows into the alliance treasury.

A share goes to whoever still holds their own troops in the garrison when the fortress falls. The split favors the smaller contributions out of proportion — a modest commitment earns relatively more than the same fraction of the total force. Whoever contributes nothing or withdraws their troops beforehand comes away empty-handed — and withdrawn troops cannot return, because the garrison cannot be refilled. If all holders pull their troops out before the fortress falls, the entire War Chest is forfeited to the corsairs.

Recapture splits the War Chest. The displaced holder keeps the larger share. Part goes to the conquerors, limited by their surviving troops’ carrying capacity. These troops remain as the new garrison; the loot arrives by convoy. Anything beyond that capacity stays with the holder. If the fortress decays or reaches its hold limit, the entire chest stays with holders who still provide a garrison.

Keeping an eye on the fortress event #

A world banner below the navigation highlights active Corsair Fortresses and leads to the fortress page, which lists them all. You can dismiss it. Changes may make it reappear, but it does not announce every change of holder; check the fortress page for the current state.

The fortress page shows each holder, the Hold ceiling and the War Chest.

Fortress Lord #

Holding fortresses for a long time earns the three-tier Fortress Lord achievement. When a holding ends, its full days count for captains who still have their own troops in the garrison. Withdrawing everything beforehand earns no days for that holding. A holding in progress does not count yet.

Fortress Stormer #

The counterpart to the sitting Fortress Lord: those who recapture fortresses are honored as a Fortress Stormer — an achievement in three tiers for the most successful re-conquerors. Every successful recapture across your whole career is counted.

Recapture — the fight over an occupied fortress #

Together, conquering, holding and recapturing a fortress form the Capture the Fortress game mode.

A held fortress is not safe property. Rival alliances can recapture it — and your own alliance can do the same to foreign fortresses. The fortress changes hands when the attacking force overwhelms the holding garrison.

When you attack:

• Pick a fortress held by another alliance (you cannot attack your own).
• Gather a Combined Attack just like any fortress storm — again, at least two members — from any ocean, land troops decide, ships only transport.
• This time you are not fighting corsairs but the stationed garrison of the holding alliance. If your pooled strength is large enough, the fortress falls to you — you take over the fortress together with its ocean-wide bonus and station your surviving troops as the new garrison.
• A freshly captured fortress is protected for a while — you cannot immediately attack it again. That gives the new holder time to settle in.
• A recapture yields no assault loot the way a win over the Corsairs does — but the conquerors do claim a share of the ousted holder's War Chest (see "The War Chest").

When you defend:

• A rival alliance creating a Combined Attack against your already held fortress triggers an alliance chat warning. On your alliance page, under “Held Fortresses”, the fortress is marked “Under attack” while a Combined Attack against it is under way — including one created before your conquest that therefore triggered no chat warning.
• The garrison is fixed with the storm: it is made up of the troops that survived the original conquest, and it cannot be manually reinforced — there is no way to move more troops into a held fortress.
• Defending therefore means repelling or deterring recapture attacks. When you repel a storm, the attackers return home with losses — but your garrison also erodes a little. If it falls below the critical threshold, a grace window opens during which the fortress is especially vulnerable; if a storm overwhelms it entirely, the fortress falls to the other alliance.
• Decay ends this holding: the corsairs move on and the fortress disappears. A new fortress may later appear on the same island.

How many fortresses may an alliance hold? #

An alliance can currently hold exactly one fortress at a time. If your alliance already holds one, you cannot capture a second while the first is held. A fortress cannot be given up with a button: you withdraw the garrison below the hold threshold, and after the grace period the fortress falls — the consequences for the War Chest are explained further up in this chapter. That keeps more fortresses contested among more alliances — and stops any single alliance from locking up every ocean.

This holds true mid-storm, too: if your Combined Attack wins the fight for a second fortress while your alliance already holds one, the fortress is not captured — you won the battle, but there is no free slot. Your fleets turn about and return home unharmed, with no losses; the battle report tells you plainly that only the fortress limit stood between you and victory. To take this fortress, the one you hold must fall first: withdraw its garrison below the hold threshold and wait out the grace period.

Note: Creating or joining a Combined Attack against a player-held fortress ends your beginner protection and it does not return. A warning appears beforehand for you to confirm. Protection does not end at the later battle resolution.

Visibility #

On the map you can see which alliance currently holds a fortress. Under “Held Fortresses”, your alliance page shows garrison strength, the “Held until” date and the danger warning at a glance.

The battle report after an assault shows the pooled attack strength of all participants against the fortress defense.

Active Corsair Fortresses are visible on maps of foreign oceans. In your own ocean, watchtower visibility is still required. Clicking a visible fortress cell shows the holder and actions; surrounding islands remain hidden as usual. A new fortress or conquest generates a brief world rumor in the logbook.

What happens on expiry #

A Corsair Fortress does not last forever — if nobody breaks it, the corsairs move on and take everything valuable with them.

Spying #

Spy ships can scout fortresses. For an unheld fortress, the report lists bastion strength, estimated loot and remaining time. For a held fortress, it instead shows recapture defense strength and the stationed garrison; bastion strength and loot estimates are omitted.

If the fortress changes hands during your voyage #

If another alliance captures the fortress while you are en route, the result depends on your attack. A solo attack returns without battle or loot. A Combined Attack also turns back without a battle during the protection window. Once the protection window of a freshly captured fortress has ended, it fights the new garrison as a recapture instead, which can cost troops.

"You do not raze a fortress for yourself. You raze it for seven crews, and the sea divides the share."