HOW TO PLAY [close]
Everything is done by picking someone, then clicking the thing you want done.
GIVING ORDERS
Click a personPick them. Their panel opens on the right.
Then click a thingThat is the order. A spruce is felled, a stone broken, a stake raised, a ruin rebuilt, wild grass gathered, a crop brought in.
Shift + clickQueue a tree, a stone or wild grass behind the job in hand, up to eight. The queue shows as numbered marks; any other order clears it.
Click bare groundThey walk there.
Click them againLet them go.
Right-clickCancel — drops the selection, the build ghost and the road.
Click a buildingOpens it: what it does, and what it is doing.
Click any panelPuts it away. Anywhere on it that is not a button, a field or a name you can pick.
SOLDIERS
Click another soldierAdds them to the band. Keep clicking to gather a company.
Click the groundThe whole band marches there in column, and holds that ground.
Drag across the groundWith two or more picked, drag to form a line of battle. Drag further for a longer line, and they will keep the formation. Mouse only — on a touchscreen a drag moves the view.
Click a raiderThe band goes for them.
ON A TOUCHSCREEN
Press and readPut a finger down and a plaque says what letting go will do. Lift to give that order, or slide away to think again — sliding moves the view instead and orders nothing.
DragMoves the view about.
PinchZoom in and out. Two fingers also carry the view.
HoldClears the selection, as a right-click does on a desktop.
The side buttons✕ clears, ⌂ returns to your first cabin, ⟳ turns a wall, ☰ pauses. Heal and Deposit are buttons on a picked civilian's panel; the Chronicle and the Roll are along the bottom.
KEYS
W A S D / arrowsMove the camera. Hold Shift to hurry.
Screen edgePush the pointer to the edge and the map scrolls. Can be turned off in Settings.
Mouse wheelZoom in and out. + and − do the same from the keyboard.
SpaceHold the world still, and let it run again. The camera, the panels and every order still work while it is held.
1 2 3Run the world at one, two or three times its pace.
B T O K MBuild, Research, Government, Military and the Map, as the buttons along the bottom.
IGo to the next person with nothing to do, and pick them. The IDLE count on the top bar does the same with a click.
FFollow the picked person with the camera. Moving the camera, or F again, lets them go.
NShow or hide the map in the corner: the country around the camera, your people, your buildings and anyone coming for them, in red. Click or drag on it to look somewhere else.
HSend the picked civilian to a hospital bed.
GHand what they are carrying to the town store.
CThe Chronicle — everything that has happened here.
PThe Roll — every soul, what they are doing, how they are.
RTurn what you are placing or carrying: a wall between running east-west and north-south, a building between its front and its gable end.
EscClose what is open, or pause.
THE WORLD BEYOND THE TREES
One mapZoom out far enough and the ground gives way to Europe, 1683 — the same map, not a separate screen. The MAP button takes you straight up there and straight back down.
How far you can seeThe Exploration tree lifts the ceiling: Cartography, Surveying, the Astrolabe, then Mercator's Projection. Each one also buys in the charts for the country it opens.
CitiesRest the pointer on one to read its size, its walls and — if you have an agent in that country — its garrison. Click it to select it and fly there.
ColumnsArmies march in real time along the roads of Europe. Yours are always drawn; theirs only while something of yours is near enough to see them.
Scouts and agentsSurveying trains Scouts, who chart what they ride through and count what they meet. Ciphers trains Agents, who take service in a foreign city and report its strength — until the day they are caught, when everything they knew is lost with them.
TradeA route is a standing bargain: you send a load out every caravan and they send one back. Haggle over both halves at the table — they are rich in some goods and short of others, and price them accordingly. Your side comes out of the capital's stores, and a route you cannot pay is one they tear up.
MayorsGive a daughter town to one of your people and it runs itself — rebuilding, sending for bread, calling for hands, paying into the chest. Four bars on the appointment sheet say how good they will be at it. An idle one lets the place rot; a grasping one helps himself.
Word from the fieldNotices stack at the lower right and carry the place they are about. Click one and the camera goes to it.
STAYING ALIVE
Needs seeing toThe short list above the map in the corner is the colony's troubles, worst first: fires, raiders inside your borders, the starving, the sick, the roofless, unbuilt sites and ruins. Click a line to go to the next one of them. The Chronicle's LEDGER shows how the colony has done over the years.
Wood firstEverything is built from it. Fell, then deposit — logs in a pack are no use to the town.
Roofs before richesThe homeless freeze in winter and pay no tax.
Keep the larder fullFarms and hunters feed them. The hungry do poor work and worse.
Fair taxesGreed breeds rebels. The GOVERNMENT panel holds the dial and the whole bill.
Move what you regretSelect a building and press Move it. It follows the cursor — green where it can stand, red where it cannot — and its people and stores come with it, for a quarter of what it cost to build.
Wall the townRaiders come at night, and they come for the stores.
Keep a file of itYour colonies live in this browser, at this address — clear the site data or move to another machine and they are not there. Save to a File writes one out to your disk, and LOAD FROM A FILE on the front door brings it back, on any browser.
Hints appear at the cursor as you play. Turn them off in Settings if you would rather work it out yourself.
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POP 2
IDLE 0
HAPPY –
TAX 2
TAXES IN 4:00
SUMMER
☀ 6:00 AM
HOLD1×2×3×
