Press Play in the library. The illustrated title page opens. Choose New Game to open setup, Resume saved game to restore the autosave, or Saved games to browse the autosave and three named manual slots. You lead the first house; choose how many lords sit at the table (two to four, so one to three computer lords), each rival's difficulty and temperament, the lay of the land, map size, chance, cities to win, conquests per year, year limit, opening and random fortunes. Press Begin the chronicle. New to the game? Leave Guided play on in the Table panel: a short tip appears the first time each phase comes round. Or try the first challenge, The First Charter.
| Mouse or touch | Click a territory to claim it, place your stockpile, place a building, move a unit or call the muster roll. Drag to pan; wheel or pinch to zoom. Click the overview map to jump. |
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| Keyboard | Enter ends the current phase · Esc cancels or closes a dialogue · H steward's counsel · L Ledger · R Realm Atlas · B Build Planner · C Realm Council · Home center your stockpile · F fit the map · +/- zoom · arrow keys pan |
| Map views | Political, Wealth, Contest and Network buttons above the legend. Click a resource in the legend to light up every land that yields it. Use Fullscreen to expand the game when your browser permits it. |
Choose Council or press C during a chronicle. Its three tabs let you inspect exchanges, diplomacy and shipment routes. Actions become available during your own Trade or Shipment turn. The Council is unavailable while a required battle or harvest dialogue needs an answer, during replay or in the Map Workshop.
Suggested exchanges shows up to six small swaps that improve your selected goal and would currently be accepted. Choose Inspect offer to load one into the draft. It is still yours to review and propose. A goal that is already affordable needs no funding suggestion.
Gold substitutes for missing coal, iron or timber. Selling material your goal needs can cancel the benefit of gold received. The Council accounts for that substitution when comparing offers. Resources ready means the cost is affordable; you still need a legal site and your Development turn to build. Horses for placement must be in your stable.
In the Crown Market, choose a resource to buy and another to pay with. The quote includes the payment resource, your resulting stockpile and your remaining annual allowance. Each purchase buys one unit; you can make two purchases per year. Gold cannot be used as payment. Prices reflect scarcity and demand, so review the new quote after buying. Selecting an improving purchase only prepares its quote; Make this purchase commits it.
Review each rival's cities, lands, temperament and active truce. Truce through year N includes the whole stated year. The border counts show how many of your lands the rival can directly out-muster, and how many of theirs you can out-muster. They honour existing truces and compare forces before dice or third-party allies.
When an envoy is available, the Council shows the rival's expected reply. Choose Propose 3-year truce to send it during your Trade turn. You may make one proposal to each rival per year, including a proposal they decline. Truces prevent direct attacks for their duration; a lord may still support a third party in a battle.
A defence margin compares a land's defence with the strongest individual rival's muster. Dice and allied support can change a battle. Inspecting an offer, truce or route does not spend resources, move units or consume a random roll.
The resource dashboard keeps your stockpile visible during the computer lords' turns. Its harvest forecast shows ordinary production from the lands you currently hold. The city goal and renown standings answer two different questions: cities determine victory at the end of a year, while renown determines victory when the year limit arrives.
| Build Planner (B) | Compare cities, weapons, boats and horses. Inspect the exact materials you will use, gold that substitutes for missing coal, iron or timber, remaining shortfalls and estimated ordinary harvests to affordability. Having resources does not guarantee a legal site: boats need a coast, and each land holds only one of each building or unit. Build during your own Development phase. |
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| Realm Atlas (R) | Search territory names and filter the realm, then locate a land on the map. Locating a territory inspects it; use the normal map controls for claiming, placing, moving or attacking. |
| Conquest shortlist | During your Conquest turn, compare reachable targets and their projected odds. Choose Preview to inspect the existing muster roll before committing. Expected allied support is a forecast: the other lords may choose differently. |
| Return to your stockpile | Home centers your stockpile. F still fits the whole map. |
Forecasts assume ordinary production from the current realm and exclude random fortunes, trades, spending and later changes of ownership or units. A horse land without a deployed horse fields its next horse there; a land that already holds a horse sends the next birth to your stockpile. Keep fielded horses and stockpile horses separate when planning.
The Realm Atlas and Build Planner are available during a chronicle outside mandatory battle/harvest dialogues, replay and the Map Workshop.
Lords claim lands in turn (the order snakes back each round), then each lays a stockpile. Every year then runs in five phases:
Nothing walks across the board one step at a time: territories change hands by conquest. In the shipment phase your stockpile and units move anywhere through your own connected lands, and a boat lets them cross water between coastal lands. After a victory you may advance one horse or weapon from a bordering land into the land you took.
The muster roll adds up each side. Attacker: +1 for each of your lands bordering the target, +1 for each horse and +2 for each weapon on those lands, +2 for each of your boats whose waters reach it. Defender: +1 for the land, +1 horse, +2 weapon, +2 city on it, plus its own bordering lands, horses, weapons and boats. Unclaimed lands are held by tribes worth 1. Other lords who border the target may join either side. With chance on, each side adds a die. The attacker must exceed the defender; ties hold. Renown (the score at the year limit) counts cities, lands, units and stockpile.
Hold the set number of cities at the end of a year. If several lords do, the one with more cities wins, then the one with more lands. Driving every rival from the land also wins, and so does leading in renown when the year limit arrives.
You lose if a computer lord wins first, or if you lose every territory. Losing the land that holds your stockpile costs you the whole stockpile, so keep it deep inside your realm.
The game updates its autosave after committed play changes during an active chronicle, including trades, shipments, development, phase undo and battles. Opening menus and inspecting plans do not themselves change the saved chronicle. The Save button writes the current game to that same autosave outside a dialogue. Resume saved game on the cover restores it.
Choose Saved games in the header or on the cover to open Saved Chronicles. The autosave appears separately above three manual slots. Each occupied slot shows its name, house, year, phase, map and save time.
| Save here | During an active chronicle, enter a name of up to 48 characters and save into an empty manual slot. |
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| Save over | Replace an occupied slot with the current chronicle after reviewing and confirming the replacement. Other slots and the autosave are kept. |
| Load | Restore that manual chronicle. Load autosave restores the separate autosave. Saved data is checked before the active game is replaced. |
| Rename | Apply a new name without changing the saved game itself. Editing the name field takes effect only after Rename or a save. |
| Export | Download the stored chronicle as a separate file. Open it later through Codes. |
| Delete | Review and confirm removal of that manual slot. This does not delete the autosave or other manual chronicles. |
Manual saving is unavailable during replay, in the Map Workshop, after a chronicle has ended or while a required battle or harvest dialogue needs an answer. If a stored record cannot be read, the archive offers a recovery export. An unreadable save is not loaded over the current realm.
Codes can export the current game as text or a file and import exported chronicles. It uses the same saved-data checks as the cover and Saved games. Browser storage is local: clearing site data removes stored saves, so keep exported files for chronicles you want to retain elsewhere. Earlier saves and chronicle codes continue to use the original format and namespace; the manual archive is stored separately.
New Game opens setup; Back to the game returns to the active chronicle. Title Screen opens the cover, and Continue current game returns to play. Setup also has a Back to cover button. Shipment and development retain their Undo this phase controls.
The full core rules, with their tables, are in the manual (docs/manual.pdf). The v1.8.0 Council, archive and other interface tools are described in this tutorial and README.txt.