The account page

Two names

Your account has two separate names. The display name is what we call you in the emails we send, and no other player ever sees it. Your name in a world is the one everybody in that world knows you by: it is what the ranking, the island, the chat and the diplomacy screens show. You can have a different name in every world.

You can change your display name whenever you like.

Changing your name in a world

Like the name you chose when you entered the world, a new name may only be made of letters, digits and underscores. You cannot take one somebody in that world already uses. Capitals and small letters, or i instead of ı, do not make it a different name: if there is a Işık in the world, IŞIK and işik are taken too. In a Greek name, accents and a final ς make no difference either: if there is an Άρης, Αρης and άρης are taken too. Names that evoke the game's officials, what is held sacred, or an insult cannot be taken either.

The first change is free. After that you cannot change it again for a while. The form tells you how long before you save, and the account page shows when your next change is possible.

Your new name is visible to everyone at once. Records written before, such as spy reports, keep the name they were written with.

Changing your email address

You type the new address and your password. A confirmation link goes to the new address, and your address changes when you open it. Until then the account stays at its old address and you sign in with the old address. The link on the account page cancels a pending change.

Your old address gets a note as well. If you did not ask for this, reset your password with the button in that email: a new password signs out every session and cancels the pending change.

If your address has not been verified yet, the change happens at once and the verification link goes to the new address. For an unverified address you can also ask for a verification link from this page.

Addresses from services that hand out temporary inboxes are not accepted: you cannot open an account with one, or change your address to one. Use a permanent address you can always reach.

Languages you speak

The Languages you speak line in Look and language shows your list; press Edit to open it. This is where a player who wants to write to you finds out which language to use. You add the languages you know and put them in order, the one you know best first; the page tells you when the list is full. Besides the game's own languages there are other widely spoken ones, each written in its own name: Ελληνικά, Deutsch, Español. Beside your name your languages show as two letters — EN for English, DE for German — because a language is not a country and is not shown with a flag. These marks appear on your player page, in your city's window on the island, at the head of private conversations and in friend lists.

Until you save a list of your own, it holds only the language you play in, and it changes when you change the game's language. Turn off Show to other players and your languages show nowhere; the list stays here. You can also remove every language, and then none shows beside your name either. To anyone looking from outside, a hidden list and an empty one are the same. If you delete your account, the list is deleted with it.

Colour vision

If some colours are hard for you to tell apart, you can have the game arrange its colours to suit you. The account page has a Colour vision line in Look and language (on the phone it is in My account, and the cog menu has a link to it). Press Change and four choices open: Default, I have trouble telling red apart (protanopia), I have trouble telling green apart (deuteranopia) and I have trouble telling blue apart (tritanopia). The moment you pick one, the colours of the resources, the people, the tax, the store, the units, and of good and bad change to match, and the small strip under the choices shows how they look.

The choice is saved to your account: what you pick in the browser holds on the phone, and the other way round. Icons and the tips that open on hover stay on in every choice; the slices of a bar are parted by a thin gap and named under the bar. Only the colours change, never the rules of the game.

Day and night

The game has a night. When the clock strikes eight in the evening the city turns to night: windows light up, people walk the roads carrying torches, and windows and pages turn dark. At six in the morning the day comes back. Your own device keeps the time, so the night is the night wherever you are playing.

Press the sun or the moon beside the cog in the top bar to switch between day and night; the symbol shows which one is on now, and your choice stays put whatever the time. To go back to the clock, press the cog and choose By the clock; Day and Night sit on the same row. The choice is kept in that browser only. In the phone app the same choice is in My account, under Day and night; when you change it, the app opens again for a moment. Only the look changes: production, battles and timings work the same by night.

Music

The game's music changes with what is happening to you. In the city a calm piece for lyre and aulos plays, and on the island and world maps a broader piece of open sea. While your own ships or carts are on the road with cargo, the music moves to a piece that rows along. When an enemy army or pirates are heading for one of your cities, it grows tense. While a battle is being fought at one of your cities, or with your army in it, the battle music begins. When several things happen at once, battle comes first, then the approaching enemy, then shipping. When a battle ends you hear a short victory call if you won, or a short lament if you lost. After a drawn battle neither plays.

The music starts switched off. Beside the sun and moon in the top bar there is a note: struck through while the music is off, swaying while it plays. Press it for a small panel where a switch turns the music on and off and a bar sets the volume. The choice is kept in that browser and stays through updates. Browsers play no sound before the page has been touched, so music you left on starts with your first click and rises gently over a few seconds. While the tab is in the background, and while the Tavern's own music is playing, the game's music falls silent.

Reminder e-mails

The longer you stay away, the game may write you short letters; one at each stage, and after the last one none until you come back. A letter is built from the real state of your city at that moment: battles lost in defence, enemy armies on their way, production wasted in a full warehouse, citizens without work, grapes that ran out, people who left the city, tax that fell because of Indifference, finished work, unread messages, places lost in the ranking. If your first visit was short, a letter the next day reminds you of the owl's next step. If you stay away a long time, the letters tell you what came to the game while you were gone and about a newly opened world. You also hear when an enemy army sets out against one of your cities, or somebody writes you a private message, while you are not in the game: not the message itself, only who wrote it. Nothing is written that is not so. No letter comes while you are on vacation, and none comes at night. If the army will arrive before morning, the attack warning does not come at all.

If you have no Pro membership in that world, some letters say that a few days of Pro are waiting for you if you come back within a set time. When you enter the game within that time, the gift starts by itself and shows in the bell. It is given once per absence, and not if you have become Pro in the meantime.

These letters depend on your permission: they are written if you ticked the e-mail box on the sign-up form, and not if you did not. Members from before the box are treated as having given it. The Reminder e-mails switch on the account page (in My account on the phone) takes the permission back or gives it again; the sentence you agree to when you turn it on is printed under the switch. The link at the foot of every letter does the same without signing in: a confirmation page opens first, and nothing changes until you press the button on it.

Linked accounts

On the sign-in and sign-up screens, above the email form, there are buttons such as Continue with Apple and Continue with Google; they show which accounts you can sign in with. Pressing one opens that service's own page: you sign in there and come back to the game. On your first visit the game asks you to choose your game name and accept the rules. X does not share your email address, so if you came with X you also type an address. If Apple, Google or Discord has verified your address, nothing else is needed; otherwise a verification link goes to your address.

An account opened this way has no password. Before anything that asks for a password, such as deleting your account, press Set a password under Linked accounts on this page; a link for setting your password arrives at your address.

If you already have an account opened with a password and you come through Google or Apple with the same email address, the game signs you into that account and links the new way in to it; a letter to your address tells you so. For that, you must have confirmed your account's address with the link the game sent, and the two addresses must match letter for letter. If either is missing, or you came through Discord, Facebook or X, the two are not merged on their own. The game says so and offers a button: press it, sign in as usual, and the service you came through is linked to your account by itself. To link one later, press Link beside the service under Linked accounts. You undo a link from the same place with Remove; if that link is the only way into your account, set a password first. In the phone app this section is in My account.

Passkeys

A passkey lets you sign in without typing a password: you get into the game the same way you unlock your phone or computer, with your fingerprint, your face or your screen lock. The key lives in your password manager, such as iCloud Keychain, Google Password Manager or 1Password. The game keeps only the part it needs to recognise the key, so even a record taken from the game would not let anyone into your account.

When you sign in with your email address and password, the game offers to save a passkey for this device: press Save a passkey, or Not now to go on into the game; if your browser filled in your password, it may save the key without asking. You can also add a passkey while you are signed in: press Add on the Passkey row of the Linked accounts section, and your device asks where to save it. If your password manager carries the key to your other devices, the row says "synced across your devices"; if not, the key works on that device only, and you add a separate one for each of your other devices. Each key has its own row, showing which password manager holds it, when it was added and when it was last used.

On the sign-in screen, press Continue with a passkey; your browser may also offer your passkey when you tap the email field. You do not need to type your address: whichever account's key you pick is the account you enter. A suspended account, or one waiting to be deleted, does not open with a passkey either.

You remove a key from the same section with Remove. The copy left in your password manager no longer opens your account; you can delete it there too. If that key is the only way into your account, set a password first. In the phone app, the button is on the sign-in screen and the section is in My account. If you delete your account, your passkeys are deleted with it.

Your password and the account itself

When you change your password, the device you are using stays signed in and every other device is signed out.

Deleting your account is on this page too. Once you ask, the account is frozen for a while and you can still change your mind; how long is written on the deletion form and in the email you receive. What is deleted and what is kept, what happens to your subscriptions and what to do if you cannot sign in are set out on the Account Deletion page.