The Treasure Hunt

"Nine pieces of a ship are only driftwood. Nine pieces of a map are an invitation."

— From the Guild's notes, before the silence

TL;DR: The sea occasionally washes salt-crusted fragments onto your shore. Nine pieces form a map. A map leads to a salvage.

- Fragments appear rarely and by chance while beachcombing

- Four rarities exist — the rarest turns up very rarely

- The harbor's black market lets you swap fragments

- A complete collection unseals a treasure island

- Salvage takes hours and costs a real fleet

---

How it begins #

When you collect on the shore, a lone map fragment may occasionally sit among the usual driftwood. It is not guaranteed — the sea decides.

Each fragment bears one of four rarities. Every rarity has nine map pieces.

The Treasure Map #

You can find the Treasure Map in your navigation. There you will find:

• Collection — Which map pieces you own and which you still lack
• Black Market — A harbor where fragments change hands between governors
• Chronicle — Your completed salvages
• Legend — The Hall of Treasure Finders: the names of those who broke the Seal of the First Admiral. A deleted finder appears as “Unknown captain”; their alliance tag remains.

Trading on the Black Market #

Have duplicates, or need just one missing piece? The black market is not an official merchant — it is a meeting point. Offers expire after seven days. You can post them publicly or direct them at a specific governor. You can have only one open offer at a time. Map pieces can only be swapped within the same rarity.

The Salvage #

Once you own all nine map pieces of a rarity, you unseal a map. An uninhabited island appears in the ocean — visible only to you. Send a fleet with at least one trade ship and one warship; travel takes as long as your fleet needs to cover the distance. The on-site dig takes several hours, depending on rarity.

Unsealing also starts the salvage deadline: within that window you must send the salvage fleet off — travel and digging are free to finish afterwards. The rarer the map, the longer that window — roughly three days for the most common maps, up to a week for the rarest one. Let the deadline pass without dispatching the fleet, and the map sinks back, with the nine fragments spent: they are collected at the moment of unsealing and do not come back. You can watch the countdown on your treasure hunt page.

The reward is fixed when you unseal the map.

The salvage as an event #

Every salvage is an event for the whole world, at every rarity. At the unsealing, the start of the dig and the lifting of the treasure, every governor learns the ocean and rarity; your name is spoken only once the fleet is back home.

While you dig, fleets sail from the ruins of the Old Empires in every ocean and press your salvage fleet in several waves — it holds, there is nothing you need to do. The waves are a story: no battle, no losses, no report, no alarm. The page of your treasure hunt shows which wave has been repelled and how many Old Empire islands came from which ocean; the logbook records every wave.

The Chronicle also carries two boards every governor can see: Salvages under way -- each open map in four steps (Seal broken · The spades are ringing · The treasure is raised · Homecoming), with ocean and rarity; the finder's name falls only at the homecoming -- and the Treasure Hunters' Log, where every completed salvage is entered: name, rarity, date, the latest first. The Hall of Treasure Finders stays reserved for the Seal of the First Admiral.

What a treasure brings #

Every map brings resources and ships. The reward is fixed when you unseal it.

Resources. Gold, stone and wood.

Ships. Warships and colonization ships; depending on the map, other ship types as well.

The ships may overfill your harbor. Before you dispatch the fleet, you see how much room is free. You then build new warships and trading ships only once there is room again.

Alliance share. If you were in an alliance when you unsealed the map, its treasury also receives resources at the homecoming. You lose nothing by this.

Colonization. At the homecoming, every member who was in the alliance at the unsealing and still is gets a colonization permit as a gift in their colony account. If that account is already full, nothing is added. Without an alliance there is neither share nor permit.

The Seal of the First Admiral also puts you in the Hall of Treasure Finders.

Display case and spoils #

Next to your chest you have a display case on your main island. Whatever lies in the chest stays invisible and safe. You put pieces in the display case yourself — one at a time. As long as a piece stands there, you can neither trade it nor use it to unseal a map.

Whatever you show in the display case, a victor on your main island can take from you — one piece per victory, with no weekly limit. Only a solo victory counts. A victor who is clearly stronger than you can't take anything from you as long as you are active — one who is equally strong or weaker can. Whoever is protected or on vacation loses nothing. Spoils and pieces won in a draw must stay on show for seven days.

How to take a map piece:

• You win a solo attack (not a Combined Attack) on the victim's main island, and it reaches the plunder phase. Conquering the island doesn't count.
• One piece per battle, drawn by lot from the displayed pieces.
• The victim is active, has been away for 7 days, has submitted a deletion, or is an Old Empire ruin. An uninhabited island never counts.
• The strength rule applies only to active victims: the victim has at least about 91% of your total points. It does not apply to players who have been away for 7 days, to players deleting their account, or to ruins.
• You are not in the same alliance.
• The victim is not protected: no beginner protection, no vacation, no ban or suspension.
• You are active yourself and not banned or suspended.
• The piece then stands in your display case for seven days, and from there it can be taken from you again right away. You can't put it back in the chest during that time.
• No limit on how often: there is no waiting period, neither for the victor nor for the victim.

If someone doesn't play for 7 days or deletes their account, their map pieces go into the display case automatically. They stay there until the player puts them back in the chest. Vacation mode protects them.

Pieces in an open offer or trade do not go into the display case; once the offer ends, they follow. For an account deletion, displaying starts after the request. After 7 days away, it follows the next daily run, often not until the following day.

Old Empire ruins can be raided on their main island, and spies see the display case there. If a ruin no longer has a main island, nobody can take its pieces.

Whoever returns is protected as normal again: the strength rule applies to them once more. Their pieces stay on display until they put them back themselves, which takes a day. While your account deletion is scheduled, pieces put back are displayed again.

Visitors to your profile see the display case — and so do spies who scout your main island. Nobody sees the chest. Putting a piece back into the chest takes a day; until then it stays on display.

Corsair fortresses can also yield map pieces: when the war chest of a held fortress is paid out, a piece may go by draw to one of its holders — the more garrison, the better the chance; if the fortress is recaptured, the conquerors draw. Not every draw yields a piece. Across all fortresses there is at most one such piece per week, and whoever draws it must display it for seven days.

Things to remember #

• Fragments are rare. You will not find a piece every time you collect.
• Only one salvage at a time. Finish the current one before starting another.
• Salvage fleets cannot be recalled or attacked by other players on their journey. The fleet belongs to the island it sailed from.
• Offers on spent fragments cancel automatically. Unsealing a map cancels any open black-market offers on the nine fragments it consumes.
• The black market doesn't remember you. Cancel an offer in time, or it will expire or be accepted.

"Some maps end at an X. Others end at a coast no chart ever shows."