Territory and outposts

Ground is held by control, a share from 0 to 100% at every spot. Your Heartwood holds the ground round it almost whole, and its hold fades with distance: at rank I it holds half the ground about 3 km out and nothing past 6 km, and each rank reaches about 1 km further. Outposts add a smaller circle of their own, and a mine your guild holds tilts the ground round its tower a little.

Where two guilds' ground meets, they share it by how strongly each reaches there, and some of it stays nobody's. Guilds sworn into one nation add their shares together: ground your nation holds half or more of is your homeland (see Homeland and supply). The box under the minimap and the banner as you travel name who holds the ground where you stand and by how much.

The world map's Guilds and Nations layers colour the ground by its holder, deeper where the hold is firmer, with a border where one holder's ground ends and a name over each region. The Provinces layer shows the old empires' provinces: their names are still the places' names, but they decide nothing about who holds what.

Widening your ground with outposts

1. Pick a spot inside your city's own reach: near your Heartwood, or near one of your outposts that is still connected to it.
2. In /buildmode, place an Outpost there. Outposts go outside your city's grid; the ghost says how much of the ground there your guild holds now and once it is built.
3. Your builders raise it like any building (150 lumber, 150 stone, 300 gold).

• A city may stand as many outposts as its Heartwood's rank, up to 8.
• No outpost may stand where another nation holds half or more, nor inside another guild's city grid, nor on a mine.
• An outpost counts only while it is connected: inside the reach of your Heartwood or of an outpost that is. Lose the outpost in the middle of a chain and every one beyond it goes dark and holds nothing until the chain is rebuilt. A rival's ground never cuts a chain; only losing an outpost does.
• On your nation's own ground a finished outpost can only be attacked during a daily one-hour window, starting at the hour it was finished. Anywhere else, and once its city has fallen, it can be attacked at any time.
• No Heartwood may be planted where another nation holds half or more, counting a rival's unfinished Heartwood as the tree it will be. Your allies may plant inside your ground.

What your ground yields

• Every spot of land yields lumber, stone, ore, wheat and gold by its kind of ground, in proportion to the share you hold there.
• The ground within your Heartwood's own reach pays straight into your stores.
• Ground past it yields only where an outpost works it: its yield piles up at your nearest connected outpost and is carried home by caravan. See Caravans.
• The City tab lists your home ground and every outpost with what each yields an hour, and which outposts have gone dark.