AshthroneSeason 4 · The First Ash
Every number the realm runs on, read straight from the season being played. Not a guide written once and left to rot: this page reads the live configuration, so if the numbers move, the page moves with them.
The Season
Turns are the clock every other rule is measured against. They accrue whether you are here or not, up to a ceiling, so a season rewards showing up regularly more than it rewards sitting at the screen.
Turn rate
Turns accrue in real time whether you are logged in or not.
1 per 15 min (96/day)
Turn bank cap
Accrual stops here. Past the cap you are burning time you cannot get back, so this is the number that decides how long you can safely stay away.
700
Daily bonus
A one-off grant each day, landing the first time the realm hears from you - opening a page is enough, no action needed. The day turns at UTC midnight, and a bank already at its cap burns the grant.
10
Reserve cap
A separate war-chest, handed to you at the start and topped up only when your realm is razed. It does not accrue: turns past the bank cap are burned, not saved here.
4,000
Reserve unlocks
Locked before this, so nobody can open the season by spending a stockpile.
Day 7
Protection ends at
Networth. Below this line you cannot be attacked - but you can still attack, and the moment you do your shield is gone for good. It is a nursery, not a hiding place.
25,000
What every ruler is handed on their first day. Identical for all eight races: the differences between them are multipliers on what you do next, never a head start.
Tier 1 troops
You begin with an army already standing, so your first muster is reinforcement, not recruitment.
100
Tax rate
Your opening rate, adjustable from the first turn. Higher rates earn more per head and slow your population's growth, until at the top rate it stops climbing altogether.
40%
Land floor
No conquest can take you below this. A losing empire can always be rebuilt from.
40
A season is the whole life of an empire. When it ends the board is swept: every realm, army and coffer goes with it, the winners are cut into the Hall of Fame, and the next season opens with everyone at the same start. Nothing carries over but the story.
The Eight Races
Every race begins with the same land, gold and troops. What differs is what your choices are worth afterwards: a modifier is a multiplier on effort, never a head start. Only levers the engine actually reads are listed here.
Humans
Adaptable and ambitious, the free cities of men breed quickly and count coin well, and leave sorcery to those with the patience for it. They master nothing and manage everything. Where elves scheme for centuries, humans just get to work.
-5% mana production+10% population growth+10% gold income
High Elves
The High Elves remember magic older than the mountains, and never let you forget it. Their spellcraft is unmatched, their bloodlines thin. A dwindling people who would rather be right than many.
-10% offense+20% mana production-8% population growth+15% spell success
Wood Elves
The Wood Elves read the wilds like a ledger and claim new land before rivals find the map. Patient defenders of the deep forest, they keep little gold and fewer promises. Cross their border and learn why.
+10% defense-15% gold income+15% explore yield
Dwarves
Dwarves count coin and cut stone, and both come out flawless. Their holds are fortresses and their vaults are legend, but magic slips through their thick fingers, and they do so hate to travel.
-15% mana production+20% gold income-10% explore yield+15% fortress strength
Orcs
Orcs field the cheapest, angriest army on the map and drill none of it. They are through your gate before the plan is finished. Defense is a problem for the orcs who survive, which is the joke.
-5% defense+15% offense-10% mana production+10% gold income-20% training cost
Undead
The Undead host never tires, and it eats sparingly - the dead ask less of a granary than the living, though they still ask. The living give their lands a wide berth, so trade and population wither. An economy of the grave, patient as the grave.
-20% population growth-15% gold income-25% food upkeep+10% offense vs razed foes
Dragonkin
Dragonkin raise few soldiers and every one is a catastrophe. Their elite cost a fortune to muster and their broods fill slowly. Few in number, ruinous to meet.
+10% mana production-10% population growth+25% troop cost+20% elite unit power
Goblins
Goblins would rather steal your gold than earn it, and rather sell it back than keep it. Masters of the market and the midnight raid, they make dreadful soldiers and worse neighbors.
-15% defense-10% offense+20% spy success+20% steal yield3% market fee
The Roster
Six slots, eight races, forty-eight units. Within a tier the stat budget is fixed, and a race only chooses how to split it between attack and defense. What that tier costs a given race, and what the split is worth once the shields meet, is what its modifiers change.
Slot
Budget
Gold
Gold/turn
Food/turn
Networth
Train
Tier 1
8
300
0.5
0.25
4
2m
Tier 2
12
550
0.8
0.4
7
3m
Tier 3
16
900
1.2
0.6
11
5m
Tier 4
24
1,800
2
1
18
9m
Wizard
n/a
1,200
1.5
0.5
12
8m
Rogue
n/a
1,000
1.2
0.5
10
7m
Offense and defense for every unit, shown as off / def. Add any pair and you get that tier's budget exactly. That is the law the whole roster is built on, and you can check it on any row.
Race
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Tier 4
Humans
High Elves
Wood Elves
Dwarves
Orcs
Undead
Dragonkin
Goblins
Wizards and rogues carry no offense or defense. They never join the battle line; they fight on the magic and espionage curves instead, which have their own chapters.
Buildings
Buildings are ordered with gold and a single turn, then raised over real wall-clock minutes. They produce per turn SPENT, not per minute waited, so a finished building sitting idle earns nothing.
Farm
Grain, yielded turn upon turn. The plainest of holdings, and the first whose absence an army feels.
115 food per turn
500g · 20m
Cottage
Roofs, and the people housed beneath them. Every greater ambition is bounded by the number the realm can shelter.
+60 housing
400g · 15m
Mine
Coin drawn straight from the rock. Slower than the taxing of a people, and far more constant, for stone does not resent the levy.
70 gold per turn
700g · 25m
Barracks
Drill-yards and armories. Each raised speeds and cheapens every muster that follows, to the limit past which more halls avail nothing.
-1% train time and cost each, down to -30%
Sealed until the Age of Strife.
900g · 30m
Mage Tower
Where the realm gathers its mana and lodges its wizards. Without it there is no sorcery of consequence, and a fixed bound on the mages the realm may keep.
16 mana per turn, +20 wizard cap
Sealed until the Age of Strife.
1,100g · 35m
Fortress
Walls, and the sober labor of holding them. Each raised renders the realm harder to take, until more wall stands than the ground behind it is worth defending.
+0.5% defense each, but only forts numbering up to 15% of your acres count, and never past +50%. Reaching that ceiling takes 667 acres.
Sealed until the Age of Strife.
1,400g · 45m
Market
A house of honest commerce, which tempers the dishonest sort besides. The more the realm maintains, the less the smugglers take when terms are struck with them.
Narrows the black-market spread by 2% of the remaining gap toward fair, each
800g · 25m
Land you have not built on is not wasted, only inefficient. A Mine pays 700 times what the same acre yields wild, so building always wins; the trickle exists so land is never dead weight.
Wilderness
Paid per turn on every unbuilt acre.
0.1 gold/acre
Housing per acre
Your population ceiling before a single Cottage is raised.
3 people
Build queue depth
Orders waiting at once. Land is reserved the moment you order, so nothing can be double-booked.
5
The Treasury
Coin is the one resource every other one converts into, and three rules govern it: what share of your people's due you take, what idle gold earns, and what borrowed gold costs.
Tax rate
Each citizen owes 0.9 gold a turn, and your rate is the share of that you keep. It takes hold from your next spent turn, and a season may hold you to a waiting period between changes.
5% to 95%
Growth fade
Population growth is multiplied by this. Higher tax fills the coffers faster and slows the queue of new citizens, until at 95% the realm stops growing entirely. That is the whole trade, and there is no rate that wins both ends of it.
(95 - rate) / 90
Collect
Leaning on the counting-houses pulls this multiple of a turn's tax, for 1 turn. Same people, same rate - paid early.
x1.5
Gold left sitting earns, but only so much of it. A vault is not a strategy.
Idle interest
Paid on every turn you spend, on your gold up to the cap below.
0.5% per turn
Interest ceiling
Gold above this earns nothing. Hoarding past it is worth less than any building you could have raised with it.
200,000
The crown will lend against your standing. It is a war-chest lever, not an income - the interest never sleeps.
Borrowing limit
Total debt may not pass this multiple of your networth.
x2
Loan interest
Charged on the outstanding balance every turn you spend, and it compounds. A loan that outlives its purpose is a slow leak.
1.5% per turn
Balance ceiling
The hard cap on debt, whatever your networth says. Borrowed gold also lifts your networth, so a large loan can carry you past the protection line and out of your own shield.
500,000,000
The Market
Three ways to trade and one set of caps that keep them honest. The dealer is always open and always takes a cut; the open board is players trading with players; the Smugglers sell soldiers who need no drilling.
Food reference price
The anchor every other price on this page is a multiple of.
0.5 gold
The dealer sells at
Always open, never generous. Each Market you raise narrows the spread toward fair.
125% of reference
The open board is where players set the price. Your listing sits in escrow until it sells or you pull it, and it counts toward your networth the whole time.
Price band
Listings must price inside this multiple of the reference price. It is what stops a listing being a gift with extra steps.
x0.5 to x2
Market fee
Skimmed off the seller's proceeds and destroyed, not paid to anyone. Goblins work the boards for less - their race card carries the number.
6%
Listings at once
You may hold this many live listings, and each Market you build grants 2 of them.
10
The Smugglers sell trained soldiers on the spot. No drilling, no queue, and a price that reflects both.
Smugglers' premium
What you pay over the training price for skipping the wait entirely.
x2.5
Volume limit
Measured in the networth of what you buy, on a rolling window - capacity frees as old deals age out. Small realms get a floor of 21,000 networth regardless, so the cap never locks a beginner out of the channel.
10.5% of networth per 168h
Resources can also be handed over outright, for nothing. Three ceilings stop that becoming a way to crown a friend.
From one sender
Per rolling 24 hours, measured against the receiver's networth. Reverse flows net off - trade between equals is not feeding.
3%
From one clanmate
Alliances are allowed to actually supply each other, which is most of what an alliance is for.
20%
From everyone together
The backstop: without it, twenty senders at the per-sender cap would add up to no cap at all.
40%
Clans and Garrisons
An alliance is a shield, a shared ledger of intel, and a supply line. It is also the only way your soldiers can stand on someone else's wall.
Members
The most any one clan may hold. Big enough to defend each other, small enough that the realm is not two empires wearing a crowd.
25
Garrisoning lends units to a clanmate's defense. You keep paying their wages and rations the whole time - lending an army does not stop feeding it.
Cost to send
Recalling them is free, and they come home the moment you ask.
1 turns
Time on the wall
They march home on their own after this, so a forgotten garrison is not a permanent gift.
72 hours
Share of your army
Weighted by networth, so you cannot empty your own walls to fortify someone else's.
25%
Fighting abroad
Lent units defend at this share of their strength at home. Fighting on unfamiliar ground has a price, and this is it.
80%
Clanmates may also be supplied with resources, on a longer leash than a stranger.
Daily aid from a clanmate
Against the receiver's networth, where an unallied sender is capped at 3%. The full set of anti-feeding rules is in the Market chapter.
20%
The Four Ages
Research carries your realm forward an Age. Every Age multiplies your units' power, and multiplies what everything costs to raise - troops, buildings and the Smugglers' wares alike - so advancing is a commitment rather than a free upgrade.
Age
Gold
Gold so far
Mana
Turns
Power
Costs
Dawn
-
-
-
-
x1
x1
Strife
500,000
500,000
12,000
40
x1.25
x1.2
Ruin
1,800,000
2,300,000
45,000
80
x1.55
x1.45
Ash
4,500,000
6,800,000
110,000
140
x1.9
x1.75
Dawn is where every realm begins. It costs nothing and multiplies nothing, which is what the other three are measured against. Each row is the price of that one step: there is no buying Ash directly, so the road to it costs every step along the way, which is what the running total counts.
The Age of Strife opens Barracks, Mage Tower, Fortress to your masons.
War
You may only attack inside a networth band, only so often, and never a target sitting under protection. Everything below is a hard limit rather than a tendency.
Attack band
Outside this range the attack is refused. It stops the strong farming the weak, and stops the weak throwing armies at the untouchable.
25% to 400% of your networth
Cost to attack
Per attack, win or lose.
2 turns
Hits on one target
Counted across you and your clanmates together, so a clan cannot take turns on one victim. Unrelated rivals each get their own allowance.
3 per 24h
Revenge window
After you are hit, you may strike back outside the usual band. Being attacked opens a door.
24 hours
Luck
Rolled per battle on both sides. A close fight is genuinely uncertain; a lopsided one is not.
x0.9 to x1.1
Home ground
Defenders fight harder at home. Attacking costs more than the turns.
x1.25
Garrison strength
Troops lent to a clanmate defend at this fraction of their strength.
x0.8
What a win is worth. Conquest takes land and a reduced share of goods; a raid takes no land but loots harder and kills less.
Conquest: land taken
Every conquest takes this much. The margin of victory would raise it, but at this season's numbers even the narrowest win already reaches the ceiling, so the lower bound in the config is unreachable. A defender already on their land floor loses less, or nothing.
7%
Conquest: loot share
Conquest loots at this fraction of a raid. You came for the land.
x0.5
Raid: goods taken
Of their gold, food and mana, climbing with your margin of victory. This is the reachable band: the narrowest possible win already pays the lower figure.
9% to 12%
Raid: casualty share
Raids kill at this fraction of a conquest. A raid is theft, not a war of extermination.
x0.5
Loser losses
The attacker loses from what was committed. The defender loses from the whole standing army at home, and from any garrison lent to their wall - a defence risks everything held, not only what was sent. A raid halves both figures, using the casualty share above.
5% to 12%
Razing is the end state for an army that loses catastrophically. It is survivable by design: a razed realm is rebuilt faster than it was built.
Razed below
Army networth. Razed only if you are also down to your land floor - a broken army on intact land still stands.
400
Ruins last
Production runs at x0.5 while in ruins, and nobody may attack you - nor you them.
72 hours
Reclamation
Afterwards, production runs at x1.5 and building finishes x2 faster.
5 days
Reserve granted
Turns handed back so a razed realm has something to rebuild with.
200
Two things are deliberately missing from this chapter. The effective fortress-defense table is a curve, not a limit, and it will be rendered once it has a tested twin rather than being reimplemented here. A fully worked battle needs two complete armies, both Ages, race levers and a pinned luck roll to be honest, and a half-specified example would teach the wrong lesson.
Magic
A cast succeeds on the ratio of wizards to land, yours against theirs. Land matters as much as wizards: a large realm with a few mages is thinner than a small one with the same number.
Success range
The curve starts at 50% for an even match and moves 40 points per full step of ratio advantage, then is clamped into this range. Nothing is ever certain and nothing is ever hopeless.
15% to 90%
Mana scales to land
A hostile spell costs its base mana scaled by the TARGET's land, against this figure. Striking a giant costs more than striking a neighbour.
400
Buffs at once
Self-buffs held simultaneously, each lasting 50 turns of your spending.
3
Offensive casts on one target
When a season sets one, it is counted across you and your clanmates together, so a clan cannot take turns on one victim, and counted whether the spell lands or fizzles. Scrying and crystal balls never count - looking is not attacking.
3 per 24h
Backfire threshold
Fail against a mage more than this much stronger and you lose 10% of your wizards. Failing against an equal is merely a wasted turn.
x2
Every figure below is computed by the same engine code that resolves a real cast, against this season's live numbers. It is not an illustration of the formula, it is the formula being run.
Wizards (yours vs theirs)
Success
Vs Ward
High Elf
5 vs 20
20%
15%
23%
10 vs 20
30%
21%
34.5%
15 vs 20
40%
28%
46%
20 vs 20
50%
35%
57.5%
30 vs 20
70%
49%
80.5%
40 vs 20
90%
63%
90%
60 vs 20
90%
90%
90%
Assumes equal land on both sides. The Ward column is a defender holding an active Ward, which cuts incoming success by 30%. The High Elf column is that race's spell bonus applied to the plain column. Notice the bottom rows: past a certain advantage the cap binds and more wizards buy you nothing.
The spellbook. Self-buffs cost mana against your own land; hostile spells cost against the target's, scaled to 400 acres.
Fertile Lands
The wizards quicken the soil, and a season's yield ripens in a night. Bought growth, and it fades when the working does.
Self-buff
harvest 40%
Gold Rush
A glamour laid upon the counting-houses, and for a time the revenues run rich. The gain is borrowed, not earned, and it ends when the spell does.
Self-buff
income 40%
Arcane Shield
A lattice of warding drawn across the walls, set to turn steel where a common ward turns spellcraft. The mana is paid in the drawing, and the lattice holds while your turns are spent beneath it.
Self-buff
defense 20%
Bloodlust
An old battle-fury summoned to order and spent as swiftly. For its brief hour the army strikes above its strength, and recalls little of it after.
Self-buff
offense 15%
Ward
A shroud against hostile sorcery. It does not forbid a spell outright, but makes the realm costly to reach, and a wise caster seeks a plainer mark.
Self-buff
incoming spells 30%
Fireball
The oldest instrument of war-sorcery, and the least subtle. It falls upon a gathered army and unmakes the ranks that did not disperse in time.
Offense
kills 2% to 4%
Blight
A rot called down upon a rival's fields, silent and complete. The granary is what empties, and the ranks feel it after, when the rations fail.
Offense
harvest 8% to 12%
Earthquake
The earth is made to shift beneath another's works. What was raised in patience comes down in a moment, and does not rise again cheaply.
Offense
buildings 2% to 3%
Ember Storm
A tempest of fire loosed upon a rival's treasury. Coin does not burn so much as melt and run, and the vaults are counted the poorer for it.
Offense
coin 5% to 8%
Curse
An affliction of ill-fortune settled over an entire realm. Sword and shield alike answer a little slower, and every stroke falls a little short of its mark.
Offense
defense -10% · offense -10%
Scry
The wizards observe a rival from afar: the extent of the realm, its worth, the burden of its taxes. A reading of the surface only - but the working is seen, and one who is read learns who read them.
Intel
Crystal Ball
The deeper sight, and the more costly. Treasury and granary, every regiment and every wall a rival keeps, disclosed as plainly as one's own accounts.
Intel
Mana is spent whether the cast lands or fizzles. The listed cost is what a spell costs against a realm of exactly 400 acres: Fireball at 1,500 mana costs 3,000 against a realm twice that size.
Espionage
Ops run on rogues per acre, the same shape as magic with one term removed. Turns are the only cost, there is no mana, and in this version nothing shields the mark.
Success range
Starts at 50% for an even match, moves 40 points per full step of ratio advantage, then clamps into this range.
15% to 90%
Caught threshold
Fail against a mark more than this much stronger and you lose 10% of your rogues and your name is revealed. Fail against an equal and you simply slipped away.
x2
Counter-espionage
Magic has the Ward; espionage has no equivalent in this version. Rogues are the only defense against rogues.
None yet
Offensive ops on one target
When a season sets one, it is counted across you and your clanmates together, and counted whether the op lands or is caught. Scouting and infiltration never count - looking is not stealing.
3 per 24h
Computed by the same engine code that resolves a real op, against this season's live numbers.
Rogues (yours vs theirs)
Success
Goblin
5 vs 20
20%
24%
10 vs 20
30%
36%
15 vs 20
40%
48%
20 vs 20
50%
60%
30 vs 20
70%
84%
40 vs 20
90%
90%
60 vs 20
90%
90%
Assumes equal land on both sides. The Goblin column is that race's spy bonus applied to the plain column. Note the bottom rows: once you are far enough ahead the cap binds, and the bonus buys nothing that the ratio had not already won.
The five operations. Intel ops read the mark and leave nothing behind when they land; offense ops take something. Any op can get you caught, intel included.
Scout
A rogue surveys the border and reckons what is plain to see: the land, the standing, the taxes a rival bears. A modest report, and often enough to choose a war or decline one.
Intelligence
1 turns
Infiltrate
A rogue who passes wholly within and returns with the full account: the treasury, the granary, the muster rolls, the wizards, every wall. All that a rival would keep from the record.
Intelligence
1 turns
Steal
No assault, but a quiet subtraction. The rogues leave a rival's treasury and stores diminished and your own enriched, with no hand set to the ledger.
food 4% to 7% · gold 4% to 7%
2 turns
Sabotage
Rogues at work in the dark, undoing a structure from within. It asks no army, and leaves none at the border to mark the deed.
buildings 1% to 2%
2 turns
Incite
A word set in the proper ears, and a rival's own people turn on the garrison. Soldiers desert and citizens scatter, and no banner is traced to you.
population 1% to 2% · troops 1% to 2%
2 turns
Percentages are taken from whatever the mark is holding at the moment the op lands. Intel is timestamped, which means old intel does not warn you that it is old.