What Seals are and what they do

The purse

Your Seals are kept in your purse. The purse belongs to your player in that world: you have a separate purse in each world, and Seals are spent only in the world whose purse holds them. They cannot be passed to another player, nor turned into Gold or resources.

How many Seals are in the purse is shown on the Seals button in the top bar; it shows the purse of the world you are in at that moment. If some of them are set aside for a job in progress, the window shows that separately. If your purse holds both Seals you bought and Seals you were given, it also says how many of each.

Where it comes from

They come four ways. You can buy a pack on the Buy Seals tab of the Seals window; the pack goes into the purse of the world you opened the window in. They arrive as a gift at regular intervals in a world while your Pro membership there lasts; and today's gift gives Seals on the seventh day of its run. If you vote for the game on a toplist from the Earn Seals tab of the Seals window, every day you vote one more Seal comes into that world's purse; it is added by itself as soon as the site counts the vote. The prices are on the same tab. Pro is the cheapest way to Seals; the game prices the packs to keep it so. Beyond these, the ENOMOTIA team may give you Seals to make up for a fault or to say thank you; when they arrive, your bell tells you how many were added.

What it makes

Today Seals make: a custom monument for your city, a ruler portrait shown beside your name in this world, an emblem, flag and banner for your alliance, a fresco of a battle you fought, and a Mouseion object to send under a cultural treaty. The Custom monument, Ruler portrait, Alliance banner and purse, Victory fresco and Mouseion articles explain how. When the year's holiday allowance is not enough, Seals also buy extra holiday days.

Nothing made with Seals gives an edge in battle. A custom monument gives a little more happiness than a standard one, while a commissioned Mouseion object gives exactly what a ready-made one does. An extra holiday day keeps your cities out of reach for one more day. That is all; your army, your production, your research and your speed follow the same rules as everyone else's.

Where to spend it

The window that opens when you press the Seals button in the top bar opens on the What Seals make tab. Everything Seals can make is there with an example: a picture a player added and the result made from it, side by side, with the price and how many designs your purse covers underneath. Create takes you to the place where that thing is made.

You can also start the same job from that place itself: a custom monument from the Monument window in your city, a portrait from the Look and language section of the My account page, a fresco from the battle's report, a Mouseion object from the Buy an object tab of the Mouseion's window, or while you offer or answer a cultural treaty. Both ways lead to the same place, at the same price.

Everything belongs to one world

Everything you have made with Seals belongs to your player in the world you made it in. If you play in two worlds, each has its own collection: a monument made in one is not listed in the other and cannot be put in a city there.

So is the purse: each world's purse is separate, and Seals cannot be moved between worlds. Your alliance has a purse of its own; what you donate to it stays with the alliance in that world.

When a world closes

Seals you bought and have not yet spent go with you. When the world closes, they move to the purse of the world you played most recently, if you have a player in another world; otherwise they wait for you in the purse of the first world you join. Seals you were given, such as the Pro allowance, today's gift, a vote's Seal or Seals from the game's staff, belong to that world and end with it.

That is why a spend uses given Seals first and the ones you bought after. When the world closes, whatever is left of the Seals you bought moves on.

How you pay

When you ask for a job, its price is set aside in your purse. Seals set aside are not yet spent, but they cannot be used for anything else until the job ends. If the job succeeds the Seals set aside are spent; if it fails, or the content is not accepted, they return to your purse and you pay nothing.

Not liking the result is not a reason for a refund: every drawing costs something to make. Asking for a different result is a new request and is paid for again. Sending the same request twice by accident, however, does not charge you twice.

If a payment is taken back

If the money for a pack you bought is refunded to you, or you get it back by disputing the charge with your bank, that pack's Seals are taken back from the purse the pack went into, but only the ones still in it. Seals you spent stay spent and what you made with them stays yours; you owe nothing for them and your purse is not locked. If your bank rejects the dispute, the Seals taken back return to your purse. If only part of a pack's price is refunded, nothing is taken back.

Content rules

Everything made with Seals stands in a world players of every age can see. So neither the words you write, nor the picture you upload, nor the result may contain any of the following.

What is not allowed

The check

The check happens twice. First, before the request goes to be drawn: the words you wrote and the picture you uploaded are read together. Second, before the result is shown to you: a result that breaks the rules is not shown. Either way you pay nothing. If the first check refuses a request, you are told which rule it broke; if it broke more than one, or the rule is not clear, you see the general warning that lists them all. A picture that passed and that everyone sees can still be reported by players.

Uploading a picture

For some jobs you can add a picture of your own, and the drawing is built on it: its subject, shapes and colours stay recognisable, redrawn in the game's style. Today that is the custom monument, the ruler portrait, and the alliance's emblem, flag and banner. You can send a JPEG or a PNG; photos a phone takes in another format are usually converted by your browser itself.

Before it is sent the picture is shrunk in your browser, and only the picture itself reaches the game: the location, device and date recorded inside a phone photo are thrown away. A very small picture is not accepted. There is also a limit to how many pictures you can send in an hour.

Before sending the picture you tick a box. By doing so you say that the picture is yours or that you have the right to use it, that there is nothing in it against the rules, and you allow it to be sent to the drawing service to be drawn.

The picture is for that request only and is used once. It is deleted when the drawing ends, whatever the result; a picture that fails the check is deleted at that moment. A picture you do not use is deleted on its own before long. Nobody else sees the picture you upload: its preview lives only in your browser.

Examples