Maps and prestige

1. The six maps

A map opens once your prestige reaches its gate. Prestige isn't spent to do this, it only has to reach the gate. A map's "end prestige" is simply the next map's gate. Each map also sets its own land price curve (section 3) and the governor base level.

What carries over a reset

Prestige

the reset adds to it. Each point gives +10% production, transport and research speed: the game's Economy Boost (formulas page, section 4).

Map bonus

the best progress you've made on each map is remembered and becomes a permanent transport boost, the game's World Completion Bonus (section 4).

Research, governors, boosters

kept. The game's reset screen says so directly: you keep all research progress and all governors, and boosters keep running. You lose your kingdom (buildings and land).

2. Map viewer

Each map is a hex grid read straight from the game's map files. Hover or tap a tile for details. Shrines are numbered; selecting a shrine or deposit rings the area it can be placed in.

What changes from game to game

The drawing is the map file. Each time a map is generated, three things are rolled with an unseeded random number generator, so they differ every time. After a reset the game itself says "Shrines and forests have moved".

• Grass and forest (only once you've reset at least once). A grassland or forest tile more than 3 tiles from the castle, with no deposit and no building on it, is re-rolled: grassland becomes forest with a 3% chance (Next(100) > 96), and forest stays forest with an 86% chance (Next(100) < 86), so 14% turns to grassland. Tick the box under the map to outline those tiles. One tile on map 3 is excluded.
• Shrines. Some shrines are marked on several spots in the map file (map 2's shrine 3 has four). One spot is picked at random. Then the shrine can move up to its Radius to an empty tile of the same terrain, with no building, claimed land or deposit on it, chosen at random from the tiles in range (the starting tile included).
• Deposits move the same way, up to 2 tiles.

Tile counts in the legend and the stats are for the map file as drawn, before any re-roll.

Who controls which tiles

• Neutral villages control tiles up to 2 away, but not across water (seen in the game; mountains unconfirmed). The map data also gives each one a tile count (3–8, or 1 for the small second villages on maps 4 and 5). The code uses that count when working out a village's free tiles. Hover a V to see it.
  While a village is still neutral, castle governor boosts don't reach any building within 2 tiles of it. This is the Village Center's collection distance (BuildingCollectionDistance(VillageCenter) = 2), the same area it draws inputs from once you take it over. UpdateNeutralVillageCollectionRangeCacheSystem builds that area into NeutralVillageCollectionRadius, and ApplyCastleGovernors skips every building in it.
• Your own villages control only the tiles you add to them. A village at level L can hold min(⌊L/5⌋ + 1, 18) tiles: 1 at levels 1–4, 2 at 5–9, and so on up to 18 from level 85 (one more tile every 5 levels, confirmed in the game). The data allows at most 6 Village Centers (not yet checked in the game).
• The castle's governor range grows with castle level and spreads along tiles you own, not in a straight line. See the governors page, section 7.

3. Land costs

Land claimed

the land count the game shows. It's 1 right after a reset (just the castle), and free tiles count towards it (confirmed in the game).

Start(map)

0, 27, 65, 117, 167, 280. A new map's land is priced as if you'd already bought that many tiles.

PriceScale(map)

1.7 on map 1 down to 1.47 on map 6. SetSettlementCostScale writes it into the settlement cost's growth rate when a map loads, so later maps' land grows more slowly per tile.

Free tiles

each terrain's research (Grassland Dwelling, Forest Dwelling, Swamp Dwelling, Shipbuilding for water, and Mountain Dwelling) gives a number of free tiles of that terrain, and those don't count in n (research page). The castle counts as a grassland tile you own (it sits on grassland on every map), so it uses up one free grassland tile. If research gives 4 free grassland, you'll only see 3 when you claim land. Because the castle is cancelled out this way, your first paid tile costs Steps[0] = 1 Food.

Example

4 free grassland and 1 free swamp from research. After a reset you own the castle and claim 3 free grass and 1 free swamp: claimed = 5, free used = min(4, 4) + min(1, 1) = 5, so n = 0 and the next grassland costs 1 Food. Then claimed = 6, free used = 5, n = 1, and the next costs 113 Food (confirmed in the game).

4. Map bonus

The game calls this the World Completion Bonus and describes it as "globally boosts transport and research speed". Each map remembers its best land count, and all six maps' bonuses multiply into one permanent transport capacity boost. Research speed rises with it because research runs on the Science that carts deliver to Universities. It isn't a production boost, but transport is often the bottleneck (production page, section 5). Completing a map doubles transport capacity for the rest of the game.

5. Reset calculator

What a reset would give you right now, and which maps it opens. The prestige rule is the same as on the formulas page: gain = land × resourceFactor × landFactor(map), with thresholds for Food, Material and Science collected this run and for land claimed on this map.

6. Shrines

Every map has 13–18 shrines. Most cost Science to unlock and then boost production of a whole category, or transport capacity of stores, Universities or Academies. The most valuable are the building shrines, highlighted below: ×4.5 to ×20 production for particular producers or refineries, such as ×10 for Fishermen on map 3 or ×12 for Bookbinders on map 4. A shrine's effect is global: it applies to every matching building on the map, wherever the shrine is (seen in the game). The effects below are read from the data. Radius is not an effect range: it's how far from its marked spot the shrine can be placed when the map is generated (see the map viewer).

What's verified and what isn't

• Read from the code: the settlement count (claimed − free + Start), the price scale per map, the step table and fallback formula, free tiles per terrain, the map bonus formula and that all maps' bonuses multiply into a transport capacity boost, map end prestige = next gate, and the prestige-on-reset rule.
• Read from the code: the map randomisation: grass/forest re-roll odds and conditions, shrine spot choice and placement radius, deposit placement radius of 2.
• Seen in the game: shrine effects are map-wide (shrines have no range), shrine unlock costs match the shrine table, neutral villages control tiles within 2 but not across water, and the map gates match: map 5 needs 200ad prestige and map 6 needs 10ah.
• Map drawing: rows with alternate offsets, confirmed against the game. Map-file codes without a known meaning are drawn as plain terrain. Distance from the castle for the re-roll rule is measured on this grid.
• Map bonus confirmed in the game: two saves match every map. The game shows the current bonus, and its detail line ("199 land → ×1.34") is the next step. Map 1 ×1.33 → 199, map 2 ×1.15 → 175, map 3 ×1.05 → 180, map 4 ×1.01 → 165, and another save's map 1 ×1.16 → 148, all as the formula predicts. The total, ×1.62, is the product 1.33 × 1.15 × 1.05 × 1.01 = 1.622.
• Confirmed in the game: "land claimed" is the land count the game shows. It's 1 with only the castle, and free tiles are included. The land price formula matches a late-game save: 4 free grassland (one taken by the castle) and 1 free swamp, then a paid grassland tile at 1 Food, then the next at 113 Food.
• Reset calculator confirmed in the game: on map 4 it gave 2.055ac prestige and a 31.66% boost, and the game showed 2.05ac and ×1.32.