On the Road

Where

The mark with two arrows on the top bar is On the road. When something is on its way to one of your cities or from one of them, a blinking dot lights beside it. The colour of the dot tells you the most serious thing on the road.

The dot does not go out because you looked; it burns until the last movement arrives.

Colours

What you see

Press the mark and each movement is a line: what it is (army, fleet, transport or spies), where it goes from and to, how many there are and how long until it arrives. A bar shows how much of the journey is already behind it. Press the owner's name on somebody else's movement to open their player page. Press a city's name to open its island with that city already chosen. Your own army that is not walking yet is here too: a column forming up after an occupation shows the time until it sets off, and a column scattered on the way the time until it gathers. An army of yours about to cross the sea says "boarding" while it goes aboard at the harbour: the bar shows how far the boarding has come, and the line gives both the time until it sails and the time until it arrives. While a battle goes on, the column in it stays here as a red line, your own army and an enemy besieging your city alike: the line says "fighting", shows the time to the next round and opens the battle with "Open the battle".

The lines of your own ships also show what they carry: each resource with its icon and amount. Ships sailing out to fetch a market purchase go with an empty hold, so their line says what they are going to collect, and how much. A colony expedition's line also shows the founding cost due on arrival: an item the treasury or the capital's store cannot cover right now is in red, and if the Palace or a Governor's Residence is not high enough for this colony, the line says so. What is inside somebody else's load, and which units make up an army or a fleet, is never shown; only how many. The size of an army coming at you is a lookout's estimate. Transport ships you are moving to another of your cities appear in a Transport ships row: where they are going from and to, how many there are and what is in their holds. Load carts carrying goods between your cities on one island are a transport row too, counted in carts rather than ships.

Things coming to places that are not your cities but where you stand are here too: cities whose streets you occupy, cities whose harbour your fleet holds, and allies' cities where your army or ships stand as guests. Someone else's army, fleet or ships on their way there get a line, and under it is why you are told: A city you occupy, A harbour you blockade or Your base in an ally's city. An attack there by your allies or friends does not burn red.

Your spies

The spies you send are here too, at every stage: on the way to the target, at work in the target city, and on the way home. The line says which of your cities they left, whose city they went to, which mission they are on and how many went. The countdown runs to the end of the stage they are in: arrival at the target on the way out, the end of the work while they are at it, arrival home on the way back. If the mission did not take place, the spies turn for home the moment they arrive.

The link on the line opens the Intelligence screen on the city that sent them, at this operation: while the spies are on the way or at work their place in the In the field strip is marked, and once the work is done and they are heading home the report they wrote is open.

Spies are secret. Spies sent at you never appear on On the road, neither on the way nor in your city. You learn that somebody looked at your city only if the attempt is noticed, from Activity and the Intelligence screen.

Menu screens show one city

The Life, Economy, Army, Research, Market and Intelligence screens show only the city you are in. To look at another city, choose it in the city picker on the top bar; the screen stays where it is and turns to the new city. What happens in your other cities is told by On the road and Activity. The road strip on the Army screen, however, shows the roads of all your cities.

On the Army screen that means the city's own force and everything leaving it or coming to it: your marches, armies on their way home, troops you send here from another of your cities, and foreign armies marching on it. The battles are this city's too: those fought here and those its soldiers joined; All history lists only these. New orders and disbanding start from this city. What belongs to you does not change with the city: the head of the Economy screen shows the Gold in hand and the hourly net of all your cities together, the Research screen shows your Knowledge, and your forces at allied bases are always on the Army screen.

A padlock beside a tab means the building that screen needs is not there yet. The Market looks only at the city you are in: if this city has no Trading Post, the tab is locked. If another of your cities has one, the padlock is faded and names that city when you point at it; the Market screen lists your cities with a Trading Post, and choosing one turns the screen to that city. Research, Intelligence and Diplomacy look at all your cities: the tab is open as soon as the building stands in any of them. The Intelligence screen also opens in a city without a Hideout and shows all your reports, but spies only set out from a city that has one; the top of the screen says so, and you can switch to those cities from there.