Your Island

On these barren islets there are exactly three resources that determine the rise or ruin of every fledgling island realm.

TL;DR: Your island is the center of your empire.

- Three resources govern everything: Gold, Stone and Wood

- Buildings produce, protect and expand your capabilities

- Strategic upgrading decides success or failure

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The Three Resources #

Every island produces three basic resources needed for all actions in the game:

• Gold -- The most versatile resource. Gold is required for almost everything and serves as the universal medium of exchange. When looting, attackers split the stolen cargo evenly between Gold, Stone and Wood.
• Stone -- The eternal bottleneck. Stone is essential for defensive structures and many buildings, yet its production lags behind the other resources. Experienced players always plan around the Stone shortage.
• Wood -- The fuel of expansion. Without Wood there are no ships, and without ships there are no fleets. Those who fail to fell their forests remain prisoners of their own island.

Resources are produced continuously, even while you are offline. Production runs until your storage is full.

Buildings Overview #

Your Main Building is the heart of the island. It unlocks new buildings and speeds up construction times. Every other building has a specific purpose:

• Gold mine, Quarry, Lumberyard -- The three production buildings. Higher levels mean more resources per hour.
• Warehouse -- Increases your storage capacity and protects a portion of your supplies from looting. The higher the level, the more is safe. It can be expanded up to level 40 -- each of the high levels is costly and slow.
• Stone wall -- Grants your defenders a significant bonus in land combat.
• Watchtower -- Extends your line of sight across the ocean and lets you spot approaching fleets earlier. It can be expanded up to level 40. Line of sight and recall range, however, only grow up to level 20 -- higher levels sharpen your reconnaissance. The fleet page shows how many spy missions you have left and what that depends on. For reconnaissance: the type and the exact arrival of an approaching fleet reveal themselves to you earlier. What stays hidden at first is explained by the sections on the fog of war and arrival within a time window in the "Combat" chapter.
• Barracks -- Trains land units and determines how many troops you can maintain in total across all your islands. Expanding additional barracks enlarges your troop pool. Barracks and harbor are strategic endgame buildings with an extended upgrade path: the barracks up to level 44, the harbor up to level 40 -- each of those high levels is costly and slow.
• Lab -- Enables research. Unlocks military and economic technologies.
• Harbor -- Builds ships, enables trade and determines your total fleet capacity: harbor levels add up across all your islands -- every harbor contributes, not just the largest one. A fully developed harbor allows larger fleets and more ships in reserve.
• Statue -- Has a dual role: it earns you personal prestige and ranking points and, together with your alliance members' statues, drives the alliance buff. Only the statue on your main island counts for that. It grants no direct production bonus. How the buff unlocks is explained in the "Alliances" chapter.
• Trading post -- Enables resource exchange with the quartermaster and access to the player market.
• Shipping Office -- The counting house of your automatic trade routes: it raises the route limit of an island, lets you attach freight rules to a route and run circuits across several of your own islands. You can build it once the harbor stands at level 10 and the trading post at level 5 -- everything else is explained in the "The Shipping Office" chapter.
• War Academy -- A building for captains whose harbor is already well developed. It requires harbor level 10 and lab level 5 and appears once those stand -- or if you already own one anywhere -- the "The Art of War" chapter goes into detail.

Returning garrisons count toward harbor and barracks capacity immediately. If your stock exceeds it, you keep everything; you can build new ships or train troops again once there is room.

Gold mine, Quarry and Lumberyard can be upgraded up to level 30 -- the levels above 20 are expensive but pay off in the long run. A War Academy at level 6 anywhere in your empire unlocks the Destroyer, Boarding Brig and Firebrand on any of your islands -- no sea doctrine needed.

Buildings are constructed one at a time -- only one build order per island is active at once. Higher levels cost more and take longer. Canceling a build does not refund resources.

The smaller your empire, the faster you build. With up to four islands, construction, training, shipbuilding and research run twice as fast; with five islands 1.75 times, with six about 1.6 times, with ten 1.25 times as fast; from 20 islands on, normal speed applies. Every extra island still adds to your total building output. The count is taken when an order starts or joins a queue; orders already running keep their time. The build pages tell you your speed and show the real, already shortened times.

You can plan ONE upgrade per island: it starts on its own once the requirements are met, the resources are there and nothing else is being built. On your main island, a gold reserve is kept for the wages of your reinforcements stationed elsewhere; a planned upgrade may therefore wait even when its construction costs are covered. Until then it costs nothing, and you can change or delete it at any time. For barracks and harbor you pay when you queue an order; for a planned upgrade only when it starts. While the plan waits, the card on the build page also tells you what it waits for -- resources, the running build, a prerequisite, a bigger warehouse or a delivery. When a planned upgrade starts on its own, it counts toward the daily order "Upgrade any building" -- credited if you view your island again on the same day (the UTC calendar day counts).

You can also plan the next level of the building that is currently under construction: its card offers "Plan level X", and the upgrade starts on its own once the running build is finished and the resources, including any required wage reserve, are there. Canceling the running build does not void the plan -- it steps down one level to exactly the upgrade you canceled, and can start on its own right afterwards and spend resources.

If your resources are not enough for an upgrade, the link "Fetch what is missing from [island]" appears next to "Buildable in …": it opens the trade form of your supply island with the target and missing resources filled in as far as supplies there allow. Choose trade ships and check the cargo before sending. Which island serves as your supply island is set in the island overview (your main island by default).

Storage and Protection #

Your warehouse determines how many resources you can store at most. Excess production is lost when storage is full. The warehouse also protects a share of your supplies from looting -- even after a defeat you keep this baseline. The number with the lock in square brackets after a resource shows how much of it is protected from plundering.

Always plan your warehouse level alongside your production. High output is wasted if your stores keep overflowing.

The high levels up to forty are meant for growing realms above all: every further colony ship costs more than the one before, and at some point your stores have to be able to hold that price at all. Each of those levels is expensive and takes a long time -- in return, the share no attacker can take from you grows with it.

Building Strategy #

• Diversify early: Do not build only gold mines. Stone becomes a bottleneck fast.
• Prioritize the Main Building: It unlocks new buildings and shortens build times for everything else.
• Do not forget the warehouse: Protected resources survive an enemy attack.
• Use build times wisely: While a building is under construction you can research or train troops -- those run in parallel.

Island Names #

You can give your islands custom names -- for example Home Harbor or West Quarry. These names are private: only you see them. They appear beside the coordinate in many places; some notices show only the coordinate. On the "My Islands" page (menu item "Islands") you set, change, or remove them (to reset, leave the field empty and choose "Rename"). Other players still see just the coordinates.

Changing Your Main Island #

You can declare a suitable colony your new main island; the old one becomes a normal colony. This is currently possible once every 90 days, and is blocked by a visible threat from foreign fleets heading for the old or new main island. Trade and scouting fleets and incoming reinforcements do not block the switch.

You do this in the islands overview or on the island page of the colony; the colony needs a Main Building at level 5. Treasure islands and islands with an active corsair fortress are not eligible. Your account must be active: you cannot switch during beginner protection, vacation, a suspension, a pending deletion or registration for a feud draw.

From the switch on, the new main island pays the wages of your reinforcements stationed with allies — if it runs short of gold, they return home.