Victory progress

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Your next move

Supply & demand

Bars above the line show room to build. Striped bars below it show a shortage.

ExtractorsFactoriesCities

Your country

Open markets

Activity

Choose your startClick open, flat land to move your country there.

ReplayThe match plays again up to where its game state was copied.

Treasury

Troops available

Attack strength

Field manual

Every empire starts with a supply line.

Build a working economy, grow your territory, and hold more than the winning share of land chosen for your match.

Your first supply line

01Place a factory 2
Build on your land, a few tiles from a deposit (gold crystals, marked by a pale diamond from afar).
02Add an extractor 1
Place it on the deposit. Roads connect automatically. Your land pays a little gold every minute, and every delivery pays on top.
03Build a city 3
When you can afford it, add a city nearby to buy goods and grow your army.

Then expand. Click unclaimed land beside your border. Use Your next move for building advice, and keep troops at home to defend your country.

Essential controls

Move the mapDrag, WASD, arrows

Move the mapDrag

Zoom out / inScroll, Q / E

ZoomPinch

Back to your countryH

Inspect / claim landClick

Inspect / claim landTap

Lower / raise attack strength[ ]

Attack / country actionsRight-click

Attack / country actionsLong press

Build / deploy1–9, 0, -

Upgrade selected buildingU

Pause / resumeSpace

Match speed down / up, / .

Cancel / menuEsc

Place severalShift + click

Strategy reference

Land and troops

Attack. Click unclaimed land touching your border to claim it, or right-clicklong press a country's land and pick Attack, with the share of troops set on the slider. Once a country holds 100 tiles or fewer, the next tile you take finishes it. Its whole treasury and the land joined to yours become yours, and its other neighbors not at peace with it take the land beside theirs. Land walled in by other countries, with no coast, map edge or unclaimed land beside it, goes to one of them not at peace with its owner, though yours is safe during the grace period.
Troops regrow faster with more land and 120 per minute for each working city level, up to a cap of 500 plus 1,000 per working city level and one per tile of land. Losing a city, or letting one break down, lowers the cap at once, and troops above the new cap drop by as much as the cap fell, but not below it.
High ground. Hills and mountains cost a few more troops to take than flat land, mountains the most, so attacks take the lowest ground first. Inside a defensive structure's area, high ground adds its extra cost instead of multiplying it.
Defensive structures make attackers lose three times the troops inside the wall drawn around them, more with each level, on their owner's land only. One is destroyed when its land is conquered.
Invading by sea. Click unclaimed land you cannot reach over land, such as an island, or attack a country there from its right-click menu. The share of troops set on the slider sails slowly from your nearest port (you need one), lands on the easiest coast near your click and attacks from there, so defensive structures near the shore make it costly. Only the defender's pirate ships stop them at sea. A fleet turns back if you are at peace with the owner when it arrives.
Computer countries attack the neighbor with the fewest troops per tile, so troops at home protect you. One with a port also sails against an overseas country clearly weaker than all its land neighbors, or when it has none, so a thinly held coast invites a landing.
Grace period. If chosen in the start menu, computer countries leave you alone until the countdown in the top bar ends. They do not attack, invade or nuke you or break a peace with you, and pirate ships on both sides leave each other alone, while they still expand and fight each other. Declaring war on a computer country, attacking, invading or nuking it, or sending a pirate ship after one of its pirate ships ends it for everyone.
After a win, every war ends and nobody can attack, declare war, fire a nuke, board a ship or buy weapons. Building and trade go on.

Peace and war

ClickTap another country to see its numbers, and right-clicklong press it to attack it, propose peace, declare war or an embargo, or send it troops or gold (the share on the slider).
Peace. Neither side can attack, their pirate ships leave each other alone, and exports between them pay 1.2 times as much to both. Each side's buyers turn away shipments still on the way from countries without a treaty, to make room for the other's goods.
Who agrees. Much larger countries refuse peace, and a country you took land from, nuked, boarded or betrayed refuses it for 3 minutes. A computer country breaks a peace once it grows far larger. Computer countries also make peace with each other for about 5 minutes, or 10 if they trade in the first 5. They end any peace with a country holding more than 35 percent of all land and refuse a new one.
Betrayal. A peace has a 5-minute term. Declaring war within it breaks the peace early, and for the rest of the term the betrayed country's troops fight twice as hard against the breaker. A betrayed computer country turns on the breaker. A country that betrayed you shows Betrayed you · 2x on the map with the time left. A new peace ends the advantage, and a peace with a country holding more than 35 percent of all land has no such term.
War. Declaring war, attacking, invading, nuking or boarding puts both countries at war, even when the attack fails. Trade stops both ways, the roads between them are torn up, and shipments caught inside either country are seized. It lasts until 30 seconds after the last such act, or until peace.
Embargo. Either side's embargo tears up the roads between the two countries, rebuilt once neither embargoes the other and they are not at war. A war's embargo cannot be lifted, and one you declared stays after the war. A computer country lifts its embargo about 90 seconds after your last attack on it.

Nukes and pirate ships

Nukes (key 0). Click the land of a country you are not at peace with, as long as the blast stays off every country you are at peace with. Your nearest loaded missile silo launches it, and it wipes out everything within 8 tiles, your own land included. That land becomes unclaimed, its buildings, shipments and troops are destroyed, and nobody can claim it until the fallout clears, within a minute. Each nuke costs 1,500 gold, and a silo reloads for 30 seconds. Computer countries fire nukes at countries that attacked them lately and at any country holding more than 35 percent of all land.
Hydrogen bombs (key -) fly and get shot down like nukes, but cost 15,000 gold and wipe out everything within 80 tiles, your own land included. Their fallout clears within a minute, like a nuke's.
SAM launchers shoot down every nuke aimed inside their ring, then reload for 20 seconds, so a salvo from several silos can get through. Every ring shows while you place a building. Stacked silos and SAM launchers reload faster. Computer countries build SAM launchers once a possible enemy owns a silo.
Warnings. A siren and a banner warn of every nuke whose blast would reach your land, naming the launcher and counting down. Click the banner to see where it lands.
Pirate ships (key 9). Click near one of your ports to launch one. It waits there and hunts inside its ring. Each raises the price of the next. Computer countries launch them after they are attacked.
Orders. Click your pirate ship, then right-clicklong press the sea to post it there, or right-clicklong press a hostile pirate ship, even one at its port, to chase it until it sinks. A posted ship brings its loot home before sailing back, and Guard home port on its card calls it back.
Boarding. Guarding its port, it boards only ships of countries already at war with you. Out at sea, it boards ships of every country you are not at peace with, which starts a war and stops your trade with it. Goods it takes become yours to sell.
Sea fights. Pirate ships fight hostile ones at sea and repair only while waiting at their port. Inside its ring, it goes after a fleet sailing to land on your land ahead of any ship it would board. Each hit drowns half the troops the fleet set out with, and a second hit sinks it. A hostile pirate ship in range still draws its fire first, so an escorted fleet can slip through.

Buildings

Placing. Keys 1 to 8 or the bar below. Extractors go on deposits (gold crystals, marked by a pale diamond from afar or while you place an extractor), ports on the coast, and nothing on steep mountain ground. Deposits are rare. Every country but the market, Galenport Isles, starts with one, and the rest sit in a few contested regions.
Train stations (key 6) lay track to up to three of the nearest stations within 80 tiles, yours or those of countries you can trade with, over both lands. Trains carry goods free and twice as fast as ships, changing trains at stations on the way, and goods reach a station by road. War, an embargo or land under it leaving both countries tears it up.
Construction takes from 5 seconds for an extractor to 20 for a missile silo, while a ring around the site fills. A stacked level takes as long, and the building keeps working at its old level meanwhile. A site is lost if its land changes hands.
Prices. Each level of a kind you built and still own, or are building, raises the price of the next. Levels cost 1, 2, then 3 times the base price, then 2 times the base more each time, so cities cost 400, 800, 1,200, then 2,000 gold. Every extractor or factory level beyond the first of its kind raises the price of both, so specializing in one side of the chain and trading for the other keeps prices lower. Captured buildings don't raise your prices, but levels you stack on them do.
Deleting. Select your building, choose Delete in its panel, then confirm. It stops at once and goes with its roads, its waiting goods and any level being built, with no gold back, and stops raising your prices. Tearing down takes 5 seconds, and nothing can be built on or near the plot until then.
Breakdowns. A factory or city getting less than about half of what it needs breaks down and turns gray. Its 2-minute clock runs while a factory is empty or a city's backlog is full, and each delivery winds it back only by the time that unit covers. A broken city adds no troops.
Repairs. Click your broken building with the hammer cursor and pay up front, half of what rebuilding would cost, counting only the working levels of that kind you built (for a factory, extractors past the first raise it too). So with ten broken cities, the first repair is priced like your first city and the tenth like your tenth. It takes 4 seconds per level. Broken buildings still count toward the price of new ones.

Trade and roads

The chain. Extractors ship raw materials (amber) to factories, and factories ship goods (cyan) to cities. An extractor feeds two factories, and a factory supplies two cities. Each shipment goes to the buyer that pays you the most gold per minute, at home or abroad. A stacked building ships one unit per level at a time.
Pay. Every country earns 0.15 gold per tile of land each minute. Each accepted delivery splits what is left after freight 50/50 between supplier and receiver. Sales abroad pay 2.5 times the base reward.
Roads appear on their own. They wind around hills, cross rivers by bridge and never cross mountains or steep ground, so a road over rough land runs longer, and a building gets none to one it could reach only over the mountains.
Reach. While you place a building, the dashed ring shows how far its roads reach. They reach another country's buildings inside it on the same land by their own road, never through your other roads.
Freight. Each road tile costs a shipment 1% of its value. Ships carry goods free and four times faster, so ports earn far more from distant sales. Each port has three ships, and a congested port gets more when upgraded.
Partners. The Diplomacy panel shows the gold per minute you earned over the last 2 minutes selling to and buying from each country, with your top three partners each way. Hover a country to see your trade with it.
Shipments. Exports ride under a tarp in the seller's color, banded amber for raw materials or cyan for goods. At home, raw materials ride in sacks and goods in crates or barrels. At every zoom, cargo shows as an amber disc marked with ore or a cyan disc marked with a box, ringed in its owner's color. Overlapping discs merge into one showing the number of loads, and a trade ship floats one over its sails.

Reading the panels

Territories. Select a country to center it on the map, or a column heading to sort. The building icons show total extractor, factory, and city levels, including upgrades.
History. Click a chart to hold a recorded moment while you read its values. Use the earlier and later buttons, or focus a chart and press the arrow keys, to move through time. Choose Live to follow the match again. Select a country to highlight its line and completed buildings, then a construction icon for details.
Moving panels. Drag Diplomacy or History by its heading to move it, and double-click the heading to put it back.
Treasury. The income below your gold includes deliveries from the last minute plus the current income from your land. Buying and selling both earn gold. Diplomacy compares income from other countries over the last 2 minutes.
Supply bar, above your troops. It lists broken buildings, factories short of raw materials, cities short of goods, full stockpiles nobody buys, and extractors waiting on factories full of unsold goods. Red means a building broke down or is close to it. Hover an item for what to do, and click it to see those buildings on the map, the closest to breaking down first. With nothing wrong, it shows what your extractors dig, your factories can make and your cities buy each minute, and whether goods are moving.
World prices show what a delivery of raw materials or goods pays now. Every country sells at the same price, which rises while the world wants more than it makes and falls while it makes more than it wants, so building what is scarce pays best.
Your next move suggests an action and explains why. An attack on you leads, then broken buildings with an inspection link so you can review repairs before building replacements, then unclaimed land to claim and what to build next. Expand Supply & demand to see buildings to add (bars up) and factories and cities short of supplies (striped red, down). Your country covers your country, and Open markets every country you can trade with. An outline shows the room an embargo closed.
Badges. A badge throbbing red marks your factory or city heading for a breakdown, faster as it nears. An orange ring breathing around a badge means a full stockpile. Click a building for its stock, demand and countdown.

Take your time. The match waits while you read.

Paused

The match waits while this menu is open.

Graphics

Lower settings run faster on slower computers.

Resolution

Supply Lines

Build supply lines, grow your country and hold the most land.

Playing as

New room

Only players you give the code to can join.

Join by code

Public rooms

Supply Lines

Room code

Countries

1 You

Country color

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Map preview unavailable. You can still choose a map and start.

Map size

Starting gold

The same treasury for every country.

Grace period

Time before computer countries can attack you. Attacking them ends it.

Land needed to win

Control more than this share to claim victory.

Your expedition

Supply Lines

Your next move

Activity

Every empire starts with a supply line.

Your first supply line

Essential controls

Strategy reference

Paused

Graphics

Supply Lines

Public rooms

Supply Lines

Countries

Preparing your match

Made for a larger screen

Your next move

Public rooms

Supply Lines Main screen

Countries

Preparing your match

Made for a larger screen

Supply Lines