Rules

..and so the Elemental gods battled over Eluria: mountains rose and fell at their whim, seas dried and deserts became oceans, violent storms rocked the world....

The inhabitants of Eluria, mere mortals, could do nothing to appease the warring gods. The once proud cities of Eluria were reduced to rubble, chaos spread and anarchy ruled. For two years the gods fought their battle across Eluria until, as quickly as it started, the conflict ended.

The inhabitants of Eluria cautiously arose from their hiding places to find their world in ruins. There was no law except the survival of the fittest. Survivors were forced to band together in order to protect their families and their properties. While many despaired, others saw the opportunity for wealth, and power. They began to construct strong citadels to protect them from the lawless world and plotted the expansion of their kingdoms. The one goal in their minds was to re-unite Eluria under the power of a single warlord.

This is the story of these warlords of Eluria....

The landscape of Eluria was vastly changed after the "Elemental Wars" as they became known. New mountain ranges cut through the world and old land masses, previously heavily populated now lay under the sea. Eluria had become a new world, unexplored and unknown.

Eluria is inhabited by a vast number of different races and semi-intelligent creatures. However there are six races, known as the Major Races, who form the majority of the population. These races now vie against each other and within themselves to rebuild their civilisations and become the ruling power of Eluria.

Human Humans are the most abundant race in Eluria. Their intrinsic cunning, ruthlessness and arrogance has made them a powerful group. Once the builders of vast cities and ports, they now must fight again to recover their status and civilisation left behind during the Elemental Wars. Dwarf The short-statured dwarfs are a tough mountain race. Famed for their knowledge of the mountain ranges, their ability to mine the hills for precious metals and gems and their huge appetite for alcohol. Dwarfs have a friendship with humans but have always shown animosity to all the other major races. Elf The Elf is traditionally a woodland creature. Their slight build means they are not a strong as other races, but this is more than made up by their agility and intelligence. The elves keep themselves to themselves and rarely communicate with other races. Half-Elf The Half-elf is an inter-racial breed of elf and human. They still retain the slight build and agility of their elven brothers but the cunning mind of their human side is plainly apparent. They are barely accepted by their pure brethren and so tend to group together. Orc The Orcs are a vile evil race of semi-intelligent creatures. A lot of muscle and sinew, but usually little brain material. From birth they are brought up to fend for themselves which provides them with a vast amount of knowledge in the ways of survival. These creatures are born fighters and should be respected for this. Goblin Goblins are a vicious little race who love mischief. They are fairly intelligent which helps them survive, for they are not blessed with strong bodies. Usually goblins will associate themselves with Orcs for protection, relying on their bigger friends to fight their battles. Goblins do have one feature which makes them special and that is their seemingly good affinity with magic.

When starting the game, you must choose one of these races for your warlord. New players to the game will be limited to the Human race. As your rank increases, more races will be unlocked to you.

After the Wars, groups of the populace banded together for survival. New cooperative societies grew up to protect themselves from the untamed land. Each group defended its territory bitterly, highly protective of the little it had managed to recover. As these groups squabbled and fought between themselves, new larger factions emerged, lead by a leader of great courage and strength. These leaders became known as the warlords of Eluria

As a player, you control one of these rising factions seeking to expand its borders. To do this you must issue faction policy and determine military strategies to conquer the untamed lands and place yourself as supreme ruler of Eluria.

A faction can only expand by one means and that is by arms. You must send out armies to conquer the land and bring it under your control. Extort taxes from your subjects in return for their protection and use these funds to grow further. However, armies do not just appear at your command and you will have to look to hired help...

In order to strengthen their positions, each of the rising factions must rely on the help of the many mercenaries and leaders who roam Eluria seeking work.

There are many different leaders who will offer their services to your faction: warriors, seers, sorcerers and demonologists to name but a few. Each may help you expand your borders in their own way, but each has a cost..

Every game turn you may be visited by one or more leaders offering their services to your faction. Usually to hire a leader you will need to pay a fee. This fee is a one-off payment to enroll the leader into your service. Once a leader is in your service you need only pay their salary at the end of every turn. You will be told how much a leaders hiring fee is when they arrive at your citadel looking for work.

Once a leader has been hired he expects a regular salary to remain in your service. The more powerful a leader is, the more he will expect as a salary. You will be told a leaders required salary when they seek to be hired at your citadel. Once hired the salary will not change.

To afford a leader you must make sure you have enough gold in your treasury to pay his initial hiring fee. Thereafter a leader will expect payment at the end of each turn (including the turn you hired him). A hired leader will be paid from your coffers automatically after taxes have been levied. If at some time you cannot afford to pay the salary, the leader will leave your service.

If you wish to hire a particular leader you should issue a hire order

Manage your funds wisely my friend. Only hire those mercenaries that you need for should you be visited by a powerful leader who would be invaluable to your faction, you had best hope you have the necessary funds to hire him on the spot. A cash flow problem at the wrong moment has been the downfall of many a warlord.

There are many different professions who will offer their services to your faction. Each profession has different advantages and possibilities available to them. The most common professions available are:

Warrior Necromancer Pyromancer Elementalist

Demonologist Sorcerer Seer Gate Mage

Each leader will only follow one profession but each may have a different proficiency in their chosen occupation. The level of proficiency gained by a particular leader will be reflected in his title. One must note that a leader may gain experience but they will never increase in level. However, experience will lend them the ability to be more effective in combat.

These are the most common types of professions followed by leaders, however there exist some secretive and rare schools of leader who have occasionally been known to seek work with the warlords of Eluria...

Each of the mage professions have a number of magical abilities which they can call upon. With each level of profession is an extra magical ability. A master sorcerer has all the abilities of a lesser leader of the same class and will even perform the same tasks with more expertise.

The warrior class do not have any magical abilities. They are born to fight and not to think. Warriors are much more common than mages and also a lot cheaper to hire.

In addition to the special abilities available to the mage classes, each leader has a number of statistics which reflect his prowess in his profession. These are listed as.

Attack This represents the combat prowess of the leader and how easily he can severely wound his opponent in battle. The higher this is, the more damage he can inflict in combat. Defence This represents a leaders toughness and agility. When in combat this decides how adept the leader is at avoiding damage. Leadership Leadership represents the charisma and willpower of a leader. With a higher leadership value a leader can influence and control larger numbers of followers, persuade more followers to join his cause and generally manipulate people to his will. A higher willpower is also useful in spells and a mage with a high leadership will perform spells better than one with a lower value. Experience Experience is a rating given to leaders depending on the amount of combat they have participated in. Experience is rated from 0 to 5 stars, with 5 stars indicating a very experienced veteran. An experienced leader will be able to lead his followers in battle with more expertise and so gains a bonus in any conflict situation.

Initial statistics tend not change throughout the game, although rarely they can be altered through the use of magical items. Usually statistic-altering items only enhance attributes when worn or wielded, although occasionally an item can permanently change a leaders attributes. If a non-permanent enhancement is given through the use of a magical item then both the initial and enhanced attribute are listed, separated by a slash.

Warriors generally have better attack and defence statistics. Their leadership will also rival a similar level mage, although it must be remembered that a warrior only uses his leadership stat to control his followers

If at some time you wish to remove a leader from your payroll you should issue a fire command. The leader will leave your service immediately and not carry out any orders assigned for that turn and you will not be required to pay the salary that turn.

Items carried by the dismissed leader are dropped and will remain in the province until another leader picks them up or buries them. Any followers the leader has will be garrisoned in same the province, so long as that province can adequately support them (otherwise they are lost). =

A leader cannot be expected to wage war on his own, and so he can recruit followers to aid him. Followers can consist of any race and even some semi-intelligent creatures. Followers will obey the leaders commands and fight in any battles alongside their leader. Unlike leaders, followers are not paid a salary by your faction but instead make a living from the spoils of war.

Followers come from many race and creature types, however they can be loosely divided into three groups

To gain followers a leader must spend time recruiting in a province. During this time the leader will try to find as many suitable recruits as possible to follow him. Followers cost nothing to maintain since they are in effect mercenary troops; their reward for following a leader are the spoils of battle. To recruit, a leader should issue the recruit command.

The type of follower available to recruit depends on the terrain type of the province in which the leader is present. The number of followers available for recruitment depends on a number of factors: their overall abundance in a province, any features which affect their numbers and also their disposition to the leader who is trying to recruit them. A full list of followers and their terrain habitat is given in the appendix.

Know who will follow you and who will not. An orc with even the highest leadership will have trouble persuading dwarves to follow his cause. Play to your strengths and secure those provinces which will reap the highest rewards for your leaders.

A province can only support one recruitment round per turn. The first leader to issue a recruit command in a province will obtain all possible recruits. Any other recruitment attempts will fail to find further followers in the same province that turn. Note that any summoning spells performed by mages is not affected by, nor does it affect recruiting.

A leader can transfer followers to another leader in the same province or to the local garrison (more is said about garrisons in section 5). To transfer followers between leaders (or the local garrison) you can order the first leader to garrison followers and the second to ungarrison them afterwards.

Garrison followers to keep your garrisons stocked up and transfer followers between leaders so that they each have as many different follower groups as possible. Transferring followers is also useful to prevent followers deserting a particular leader at the end of the turn!

A leader may wish to dismiss some or all of his followers rather than transfer them. The reason for this is discussed in the following section. This may be done with the dismiss order.

There are no penalties when dismissing followers. They simply part company and blend in with the local population before slowly moving to a province of their preferred terrain type.

There are limits to the number of followers that a leader (or garrison) can have. The number of followers that a leader can have is proportional to the leader's leadership (The exact amount can be different for each game - check the game info details to find out the levels for your game). If a leader has more followers than they can support then some of the excess number will depart at the end of the turn. The type of followers that leave will be random. Using the garrison and dismiss orders will allow you to select which followers leave a leader rather than it being left to chance.

Deliberately overfilling follower ranks could have advantages since the excess number will not leave until after any conflicts have been resolved. I will leave it up to players to take advantage of this.

The Land of Eluria is divided up into a grid of squares. Each square is known as a province and represents an area of about 10,000 acres and each area has a set of coordinates which distinguish it from other provinces.

Each province has an indigenous population which remains transparent to the player. The predominant terrain type is also given for each province as well as any unusual or significant features.

Glades Marsh Swamp Scrubland Desert Woodland Forest Plains Grassland

Hills Mountains Craggy Peaks Impassable Peaks Shallows Shoals Reef Sea

Different terrain types have different indigenous population and different financial base. For example grassland can support farming and can therefore produce more wealth than, for example, a desert province. The different populations in each terrain type effect which followers can be recruited by a leader.

The impassable peaks are, as they suggest, impassable. It is impossible for a leader or any followers to enter this terrain type.

Craggy peaks are nearly impassable, but occasionally a path through these treacherous mountains can be found. However if you own the terrain, your leaders will find it much easier to enter this terrain type.

Each terrain type can also be represented by a single character. These characters are sometimes used when mapping large sections of the land. The terrain characters are listed in the appendix.

In the same way that a leader may have followers, a province may also have followers in the form of a garrison.

Usually a province has an active garrison of troops which serve to defend the province from any marauders. The garrison will automatically take part in any battle in its province in an attempt to keep control of the region. To capture an unowned province a leader will have to first defeat any garrison in place. Once owned a new garrison may be formed and added to at any time. Garrisons have a limited size which depends on the wealth of the region. This limit reflects the ability to meet the cost of keeping such a garrison and is defined as:

Max number of garrison troops = (region income + 3) * 8

A leader can transfer followers to and from a garrison in the same way they can between another leader. There can only ever be one garrison per province, but a garrison may contain any mixture of different followers.

A province may have a local feature which depends upon the predominant terrain. Usually this feature is well-known in the province and appears on your status report. Occasionally though, there are undocumented features in a province. It is up to a leader present in such a province to find any hidden features by exploring the area.

Features in a province can have many useful properties. Often they just bestow an increase in revenue from the province they are in. Some offer bonuses to spells cast in the province while others can be looted or explored. A list of possible features and their uses are given in the appendix.

A leader can attempt to locate any hidden features using the search command. Provinces already containing a feature or starting provinces (where your citadel are located) have only a very small chance of having a hidden feature. The exception to this is the unexplored island feature. A province containing and unexplored island will have no hidden features. If a leader issues a search command in a province containing an unexplored island, the leader will instead explore the island for anything of interest.

A province which contains either a battlefield or burial mound can be plundered of any objects that it may have. To loot a battlefield or burial mound in a province a leader has to give the loot order. Once looted, a feature will be unable to support any more loot commands. Note that a looted battlefield will not give a bonus to undead summoning.

If you locate a battlefield you will be presented with the decision whether to loot it for large short term gains, or whether to leave it to give your necromancers better summoning powers. The choice is yours, but make it wisely.

Sometimes a province will contain places which house dangerous creatures. A leader can opt to adventure into these places and do battle with whatever lies within by issuing a quest command. When a quest command is given in a province with a relevant feature, the leader ventures into the creatures domain a challenges it to battle. The creature will then appear in the province and will attack all units in that province at the end of the turn.

Why would you want to disturb such creatures? Usually these powerful creatures have lived a long time and in that time acquired vast amounts of wealth and rare artifacts. Some of the rarer magical items in Eluria are kept by such creatures - but be warned, these creatures are powerful and will not relinquish up their hoards easily.

Questing can be a dangerous pastime, so be prepared for a difficult fight. A creature which kills all attacking leaders will then remain in the province, taking control for itself. Be prepared to lose ownership of your province if you do not succeed in killing what you disturb!

A province may have a strategic point where a defensive building can be erected. There are four types of structures which can be built

Tower Keep

Castle Citadel

Once a province is under control, a leader in it may organise the building of fortifications. This is done with the build order. If there are no buildings present in province then the build order will instruct the leader to oversee the construction of a tower. If a building already exists then it will be improved upon in the sequence: tower, keep, castle and citadel.

The build order should be given by the leader overseeing the project. Each level of improvement to a building costs 25 gold which comes from the faction's treasury. Only one build order can be given per province per turn.

A faction can only ever have one citadel. If a leader issues a build order in a province which contains a castle then a new citadel is created and the old one is demoted to a castle. This can be a useful way of relocating your citadel.

Adding buildings to a province has many advantages: they increase the defensive value of the province, increase revenue and allow a large garrison to be located in the province and protect the province from elementalist spells. Buildings may only be erected in land terrains. If a leader issues a build order in any sea terrain (shallows, shoals, reef or sea), the order will fail. In addition, buildings can not be erected in impassable peaks terrains.

If there is a building in a province during a battle and the defenders lose, the building will be degraded one rank, meaning a castle would become a keep, etc.

The defensive properties of buildings are given in the appendix.

Ownership of a province bestows a steady income to the owner faction in the form of taxes. The base income for a province depends upon the terrain, but this may be augmented by the effects of various features which may be present. This income is stored in the faction's treasury at the end of every turn and goes towards hiring new leaders and paying the salaries of existing leaders in employment.

Different terrains have different base rates of income. Make sure you conquer the rich grassland and plains provinces to bolster your coffers!

Your aim as a warlord is to expand your faction by increasing the number of provinces under your control. However most provinces will not succumb to your control passively. In order to gain control of a province it is therefore necessary to take it by means of force. This means moving troops into provinces and removing any controlling bodies by means of conflict.

To move your leaders from one province to an adjacent one, you should issue a move order in the action phase.

The only other way for a leader to move to another province is by gateways. A leader may make use of gateways which allow travel over large distances. If a leader is in the same province as a gateway then he may use it by issuing an enter command. The leader and his followers will then be transported to the gateways other side. Travel is not instantaneous, and any leader entering the portal will be unable to perform any other actions in the same turn. Gateways can only be opened by gate mages. This is discussed in section 9.

The game map wraps in both dimensions. That is to say that a leader at one edge can move off the map into the joining province on the opposite edge. For example in game map of size 40x40 a leader in province [10,1] at the bottom of the map can issue an order to move south into province [10,40].

The terrain types of the provinces can be divided into land and water types. A leader is able to travel freely between the two types (it is assumed that some vessel is available to use) but followers are not. When crossing from one type to another, all followers with a leader who are unable to survive in the new terrain type are left behind as a garrison. As a general rule, followers who can fly are able to transverse both water and land while all others must remain behind in a garrison.

A further restriction on movement is made when attempting to enter craggy peaks. This treacherous terrain is prone to fierce storms, flurries of snow as well as being notorious for avalanches and landslides. Travel in craggy peaks can be brought to a halt at any point by any one of these events. To represent the difficulty of travelling in such a terrain a leader is given only a 25% chance of being able to enter such a province. This penalty on movement is applied only when moving into a province with craggy peaks.

When entering an province not owned by your faction, your leader(s) will prepare at once for conflict. If there exist at least two different factions, or an unowned garrison and an leader then conflict will automatically break out at the end of the turn to decide ownership. It is a fight to the death with whoever surviving taking control of the province. Should there be a draw (i.e. all units being simultaneously wiped out, the control remains with the original owner).

If a leader suspects the province (s)he is in will be invaded, they can prepare against the incursion by issuing a defend or ambush order in the action phase.

The defend order instructs a leader to position himself and his followers in the most strategically advantageous location and "dig in" to prepare for the forthcoming conflict. Any units which do this gain a bonus to both their attack and defence throughout all combat that turn.

The ambush order instructs a leader to covertly position himself and his followers in readiness to surprise attack any enemy units entering the province. The surprise can be very decisive in battle but the bonus gained only contributes to the first round of conflict

Defend and ambush also provides some slight protection against fire based attacks.

Issuing either of these commands takes a leader the entire round to complete. More than one unit can issue these commands in the same province.

Each leader and follower has an attack and defence stat. These values are all relative so that a follower with an attack stat of 3 can inflict as much damage as 3 followers with an attack stat of 1. Also a follower with a defence stat of 4 can sustain four times as much damage as a follower with a defence stat of only 1. Combat stats can be augmented (or reduced) by the use of various items (see section 7).

In addition to equipment, units may receive combat bonuses from the following:

• A bonus to defence is also applied to defending units for defensive buildings present in the province.
• Garrisons are assumed to be a local group of troops who patrol the province. They gain a bonus due to their local knowledge of the province and their ever ready defensive stance in addition to any bonus from buildings present.
• Having a combat ready stance
• The terrain type being defended. Some terrain types make it much easier for the occupants to defend than others. This is represented by a slight bonus in combat.
• The experience level of the units leader. The more experienced a units leader is, the more likely he will be able to react decisively during the course of battle giving an edge over a less experienced leader.

Bonus may affect attack, defence or both. Any bonuses are applied to the whole unit, i.e. a leader and his followers.

The actual bonuses gained are detailed in the appendix. All bonuses are cumulative. So a leader who issues a defend order and who has 4 experience stars will gain a total bonus of 125% to both attack and defence to both attack and defence. If the same leader was in his home province with a citadel then the total bonuses would be 125% to attack and 325% to defence.

If you are victorious in battle the following happens:

• The province falls under your control if not already.
• Items held by defeated leaders are dropped to the ground and can be picked up by the leaders of the victorious faction.
• All surviving leaders listed in the province gains experience from the battle. A leader will gain an experience star (*) after a certain number of battles. As a leader becomes more experienced, it will require more and more battles to gain these stars.
• If you capture an enemy's citadel then that player is knocked out of the game. The citadel becomes a castle and your troops plunder any wealth the knocked out faction may have had in his treasury. All other provinces owned by the defeated faction will revert to being unowned.

Leaders are assumed to be fully equipped with any weapons, armour and possessions that their profession requires. However, items with magical properties are known to exist in the world of Eluria and these magical items can offer a significant advantage to leaders who hold them. Only leaders can possess and use magical items.

Magical items can be procured by various methods. The easiest is to plunder old battlefields and burial mounds. Magical items can also be won in battle from other leaders or from powerful creatures who may hoard such things.

Looting and questing are discussed in section 5.

Most items need to be equipped by a leader before they can become useful. Armour is no good carried in a leader's inventory; it needs to be worn. Weapons need to be wielded. A leader can issue an equip order for any items in his/her possession to make use of them. Only one item of a certain type can be equipped at any one time. (The different types of item are listed in the appendix). Thus a leader may not wield two weapons or wear three armours. If an equip order conflicts with items already in use, then the old item is unequipped before the new one is equipped. The equip order should be given either in the pre-action or post-action phase

There are some items which do not need to be equipped and should be activated using the use command in the action phase. These are generally magical items that a leader may gain during his travels. You will be told when a new item requires the use command.

Use commands, although issued in the action phase do not take up any time (unless otherwise stated) and a leader may issue other commands in the same turn as issuing a use command.

For example, a leader may issue 3 use summon scroll and a move command which would all be carried out in the same turn. Note that if the move command is issued first, the use commands would not be processed util the following turn.

To transfer items between leaders you should drop the item in the province and have the second leader pick it up You cannot transfer items to garrisons, only between leaders.

There may be occasions when a leader will want to get rid of an item without passing it on. To do this, the leader should first drop the item in the province and then bury it. Giving the bury command hides the item forever, effectively destroying it. Once an item has been buried it cannot be recovered.

It is said that many undocumented magical artifacts still exist in the world of Eluria, lost and forgotten over the ages. Such items are rare but are said to be imbued with "Old Magik", a more primal and powerful force than the magic of present.

Magic plays an important part in the world of Eluria. The ability to harness its power and shape it to the users will has been perfected by certain professions of people. Such people are sometimes found seeking work and factions should not underestimate the usefulness of having a user of magic in their employment.

The most common professions of magic users who roam Eluria seeking work are:

Necromancer A necromancer's art deals with death and the undead. Their greatest ability is the summoning of the undead to follow their bidding. Undead are powerful followers, knowing neither fear nor pain. A Necromancer is therefore able to create a ghoulish army of half-living creatures to crush his foes. Necromancers can summon larger numbers of undead through the use of specialized magic items or by choosing to summon undead on provinces with graveyards, unlooted battlefields and burial mounds. Pyromancer The pyromancer manipulates magic to produce unearthly fire. The pyromancer is an ideal leader to head a major assault, forging the path ahead with fire. He uses his magic to drop gouts of flame on adjoining provinces, destroying garrisons, leaders and followers. Elementalist The elementalist is a rare and powerful mage. Their magic deals with the elements, in particular the earth elements. The elementalist can work with the landscape, forming different terrains. Demonologist The demonologist's art deals with the summoning and enslaving of underworld demons. The demonologist is usually a twisted, disfigured mage whose mind and soul have been stretched and tortured through use of their craft. Their appearance should not fool you however since they are powerful magic users and charge a lot for their services. Much like the necromancer, a demonologist can summon additional denizens of the Underworld through the use of magic items or stone circles, which can be found from time to time in provinces you capture. Sorcerer The sorcerer's craft works with the passive side of magic. Their spells bring harmony and peace. A sorcerer can offer some protection from the unwanted attention of other mages. Seer The seer uses his ability with magic to view distant objects and events. With this ability, a faction can gain vital information about events and places that can lead to successful campaigns. Gate Mage The gatemage's ability is in the manipulation of space and time. Using his powers he is able to open portals to other places allowing the transportation of objects and people over vast distances.

Other secretive schools of magic exist in Eluria. Contact with these schools are rare, but occasionally members will come forward seeking employment for reasons known only to themselves.

A mage has a number of spells at his/her disposal depending on the school of magic they follow and the level of expertise in the field. A mage will have access to all spells of his level and below, so a level 1 mage has access to all level 1 spells in his field whereas a level 2 mage has access to all level 2 and all level 1 spells in the field. All spells should be cast in the action phase. The casting of a spell takes a considerable amount of care and time and no other orders can be carried out in the "action" phase by the mage if a spell is being cast.

The list of spells available are

Necromancers and Demonologists can summon various followers to join their ranks. Each level of mage can summon a more varied type of creature as explained in the appendix.

The syntax for casting spells or summoning followers is laid out in the appendix. A mage can only cast spells from his own field of study, and only those spells which are of equal or lesser level than he is.

Summoning occurs before combat and any followers gained will aid in battle. This is NOT the case for other spells. Other spells come to fruition AFTER combat, even if the casting leader dies in the same round. So casting fireball on a province which you are attacking with a leader will hit the victor of any battle that took place in that province. To use spells well, you need to know where you enemy will be, not where he is! Due to the nature of sorcerers spells, these spells occur before any other spells and protect provinces from magic in the same turn that they are cast.

One final restriction is that Gatemages, Demonologists and Necromancers cannot use their magical abilities in sea terrains. The source of their powers comes from the earth and so they are hampered a great deal in non-land terrain provinces.

You can send messengers bearing words from your faction to other factions in the game. This is done using the in game messaging interface. All messages are automatically signed by your faction so it is impossible to fake a message from another faction.

A map of your kingdom and all surrounding provinces is provided after each turn. The provinces that you own are shown slightly brighter than the surrounding ones that you don't own. Neighbouring provinces that are owned by another faction are marked with a red cross.

Players are awarded points based on how well they do in a game. The winning faction in a game is usually awarded points, but in some games points will also be given to runners-up. As you gain points your rank also increases and more features of the game will open up to you.

Game Gems are like currency in the game. Some games have these Gems as a reward for the winners (in addition to player points). Other games may require Game Gems as an entry fee to play in.

You can log in at any time and submit orders to your leaders (except when game turns are processing). You can even queue up multiple orders for leaders. Queued orders are carried out, 1 per turn in the order listed. In this way you can leave orders to be carried out when you are unable to log in for a period of time (maybe due to holidays)

Some orders, such as hiring new recruits, equipping items, garrisoning troops or changing leader names are instantaneous. All other orders take one game turn carry out.

If an invalid order is given to a leader, it is ignored and the next order in that leaders queue (if any) is carried out instead.

Some queued orders are also instantaneous and take no time to execute (such as the USE order). A leader can perform any number of these orders in succession until a regular order is picked from the leader's order queue and performed. Once a leader performs a regular order, no other orders following it in the queue will be processed, including any instantaneous orders should they be queued up after it