Planting the Heartwood

The Heartwood is your city's heart: its treasury, its bind point, its Runemaster's post and the thing your enemies must fell to take the city. Stewards in the realm's settlements sell Heartwood Seeds.

1. Stand where you want your city, in a province that no other city holds.
2. Double-click the Heartwood Seed in your bags. It takes root at the centre of the ground you stand on.

The rules

• Only the Guild Leader can plant, and a guild has one Heartwood.
• It must stand at least about 1 km from any other Heartwood.
• Not in another nation's ground. Where another nation holds half or more, no Heartwood may be planted, and a rival's unfinished Heartwood counts as the tree it will be. See Territory and outposts.
• Your city's grid is the square of ground about 700 m across centred on the tree (11 × 11 areas). You build inside it; see Build mode: placing buildings.

Growing the Heartwood

Raising the Heartwood's rank (Building Management, Rank +) is free and instant, and it matters: each rank houses more citizens, widens the ground your city holds and lets you stand another outpost, and opens more buildings. Visitors can travel to your city by Runemaster once it reaches rank 4, if you open it to them. A higher rank also means an enemy needs a higher-rank Warstone Claim to besiege you, but the Heartwood cannot be ranked up while a Warstone stands against the city.