The Mouseion and cultural treaties

What a Mouseion does

A Mouseion produces nothing and adds no satisfaction by itself. What it gives is room: each level is one more exhibit. Every city has its own Mouseion. A treaty is between two players and is not tied to a city: you decide which of your cities exhibits the object you receive.

A city's exhibits are taken by the objects shown in it under a treaty in force. An offer or an answer that is still waiting takes no room, so nobody can fill somebody else's museum by sending offers. The Mouseion has no last level; even so, treaties are what fill its places, and because only one treaty can stand between you and any one player, a full museum means that many different players you have a treaty with.

How a cultural treaty is made

Click another player's city on an island and choose Cultural treaty; the same window opens from the Offer a treaty block of a player's page. The offer is made to the player, not to a city of theirs. You pick the object to send, the city it is sent from and, if you like, a line of dedication. The offer goes out and your object is on its way.

If something stands in the way, the row does not open, and it says why underneath: that player has no Mouseion in any city, none of your Mouseions or none of theirs has a free exhibit or you already have a treaty or an offer with this player.

The other side sees the offer in their own Mouseion. To accept, they send you an object in return, which also takes yours, and they choose which of their cities exhibits it. The last word is yours: accept the object they sent and the treaty is formed, each object going on show in the city of the one who received it.

Where an object is shown

When you take an object, that is, when you answer an offer or accept an answer, you choose which of your cities exhibits it. The picker lists your cities with a Mouseion and how many of their exhibits are taken; a city with no room left and a city with no Mouseion are shown by name but cannot be picked. If you pick nothing, the object goes to the city you are in when it has room, otherwise to the one with the most free exhibits.

Afterwards, whenever you like and without waiting, you can move an object to another of your cities. You can also take it down into your collection, where objects wait that are shown in no city and add no satisfaction, and put it up again in any city you choose. From the moment you move it, the object stops counting for the old city and counts for the new one; it never counts for both. Bringing satisfaction to a city on the edge of revolt is exactly what this is for.

Only the object of a treaty in force can be moved; the keepsake of a treaty that has ended stays where it is. If a Mouseion shrinks or is torn down, the objects that no longer fit go to the collection and the treaty is not broken.

When there is no room

If none of your cities has a free exhibit, you cannot take the object. You can hold the offer instead: a held offer does not lapse on its usual clock but waits until a hard upper limit. When a new Mouseion, a new level, an object you took down or a treaty that ended opens room, you get a notification. Nobody accepts the offer for you: taking it, and choosing the city, stays with you.

While you hold it, the other side's object stays tied up on its way; the game tells them so, and they can withdraw their offer or answer whenever they like.

Step by step

Objects: ready-made or commissioned

Objects come in six kinds: statue, amphora, mosaic, coin, fresco and papyrus. You buy a ready-made object in the Mouseion's window, or choose one while you offer a treaty and buy it with the offer; its goods come from that city's store and its Gold from the treasury. Every kind has a few ready-made objects.

A commissioned object is drawn for Seals. There are two places to commission one: the Commission your own object card in the Buy an object tab of the Mouseion's window, or while you offer or answer a treaty. You choose its kind and start from a ready idea or write your own. The object is drawn in the city you choose, and the city's name may slip a joke into it; for one commissioned during a treaty, the name of one of the other player's cities may join the joke. The drawing goes through the content rules everything made with Seals goes through: Seals.

An object you buy or commission goes into your storeroom. The storeroom is shared by all your cities, and when you offer a treaty you choose the object from there. A ready-made object you choose while offering a treaty skips the storeroom: it is bought with the goods of the city the offer goes from and sets off with the offer; if the offer cannot go, nothing is bought. A commissioned object adds no more satisfaction than a ready-made one: Seals buy only the look.

Dedication

You can write a short, witty line under the object; it is shown with the object in the other side's museum. The chat's rules apply here too: a dedication with swearing, insults, threats or links is not accepted. If the object comes back to you its dedication is wiped, and you write a new one when you send it again.

Satisfaction

Every object a treaty in force has brought adds the same satisfaction to the city where it is shown. An object counts for one city at a time, and an object in the collection adds satisfaction to nobody. A Mouseion's level adds none by itself, and if there are more objects than exhibits, only those that fit count. This satisfaction appears on the city's satisfaction panel as its own Mouseion line.

The satisfaction starts the moment the treaty is formed and stops the moment it is cancelled; when you move an object, it stops in the old city and starts in the new one at that same moment. Satisfaction decides how fast your population grows: Population and satisfaction.

Cancelling a treaty

Either side may cancel a treaty in force, but not before its minimum term has passed. The term keeps treaties from being broken and made again over and over.

The objects of a cancelled treaty stay in the cities where they hang as keepsakes and remain on the public page; they simply add no satisfaction and take no exhibit.

Attacking your partner

The moment you send an attack on a city of a player you have a cultural treaty with — on the city, on its harbour or from a base — the treaty breaks; the minimum term does not apply. No keepsakes are left: both objects go back to their owners' storerooms. The people of the city where the object you received hangs are restless for a while and their satisfaction falls; the Town Hall shows this as Broken cultural treaty. Taking the object down into your collection does not change that: the city it last hung in is the restless one. The side that was attacked loses nothing beyond the object it had received.

Your public page keeps a mark too: for a while it says who you had a treaty with and when you attacked them. Only the player who sends the attack breaks their treaty; an ally's attack or a spy mission leaves it alone.

If an offer between you is still waiting for an answer, the attack withdraws it and any objects on the way go home; an offer brings no unrest and no mark. If you have a treaty or an offer with the target's owner, the attack window tells you all of this before you send, but it does not stop the attack.

Refusing and reporting

If you do not like an object sent to you, you can refuse it. A refused object returns to its owner's storeroom; if it was drawn for Seals, the Seals are not returned, and the owner can send it to somebody else.

If an object is offensive, report it. A reported object is not exhibited and cannot be sent anywhere else; an operator looks at it and either returns it to its owner's storeroom or removes it. No treaty is formed from that offer.

Who cannot make one

Two players can have only one treaty or offer between them at a time. You cannot make a treaty with yourself.

The public museum

A player's page shows the objects sent to them that they still exhibit: the picture, the kind, who sent it from which city, when it arrived, and the dedication. The city an object hangs in and the player's own cities are not named there.

If the player attacked someone they had a cultural treaty with, that shows at the top of the section for a while as well: whom they attacked and when.

The Mouseion's numbers

Exhibits, the satisfaction of a full museum, how long an offer waits, the upper limit on holding one for lack of room, a treaty's minimum term, what attacking a partner costs and the price of ready-made objects all come from the game's own content. The table stops here, the Mouseion does not: it has no last level, and every new level opens one more place for an object.