Messages

Where

Click a city and press the envelope mark beside the player, and the conversation between you opens. There is always exactly one conversation between the same two players; if you both open it at the same moment you land in the same place.

All your conversations sit behind the envelope mark in the top strip: if anything is unread the mark carries the count, and every conversation can be reopened from there. The mark on a city starts a conversation; the one in the strip returns to the ones you already have. Hover over the mark (or focus it with the keyboard) and a small list under it names who has written, with a count; pressing a name opens that conversation. Pressing the mark itself opens the unread conversation directly. In the conversation list, unread ones stand at the top, the most recently written first.

The list has a search box and an Unread filter; search looks at the player's name and at the last thing said, because people usually remember the sentence rather than the name.

Messages are separate from Activity. Activity is the game telling you what happened; this is players writing to each other, and the contents of a private message never appear in Activity.

Channels

The messages window has five tabs: World (everybody in your world, from the beginning), Alliance (your alliance's current members, from the moment you joined), Island (the chat of each island where you have a city), Private (you and one other person) and Hermes (the game's announcements). Pressing the envelope in the top strip while something is unread opens the window straight on that conversation: the most recently written one if several are waiting, and with no private message, the alliance, island or World room that has news. With nothing unread the window opens on the World tab; on Private when you opened it to write to a player from their city.

In an alliance channel you cannot see what was said before you joined. Leaving or being removed ends reading and sending at once; rejoining starts a new period, and what was said while you were away does not come back. If you are not in an alliance, the Alliance tab says so; the channel exists once you join.

In the world, island and alliance channels you can write a few short lines in a row before the channel settles to its own pace — the alliance channel is the quickest. A private conversation has no such limit. Writing very fast is answered with “wait a moment” — it is not a punishment and counts towards no sanction. The envelope in the top strip counts private messages only. The Alliance and Island tabs carry their own counts, and the Island count adds up all your islands; the World tab shows only a dot, because a number that grows with everything everybody says is a number nobody reads.

Word from Hermes

In the Hermes tab the game's administration makes its announcements to players: maintenance, what is new, news about the world. An announcement may have been sent to your world only or to every world. Every announcement is published in every language the game speaks, and you read it in the language you play in. Announcements take no reply. If there is one you have not read, the tab shows the count; when no private message is waiting, a small dot also appears on the envelope in the top strip. Opening the tab marks them all read.

Island chat

Every island where you have a city has its own chat, on the Island tab of Messages. It works like the world channel, but only the players with a city on that island can read and write in it. If you have cities on several islands, you pick the island at the top of the tab; the tab opens on the island of the city selected in the top strip. The Island chat button on the island's screen also opens that island's chat over the island; only that island's chat is there, and you carry on the conversation in it. Whoever opens it also reads what was written before. Without a city on the island the button does not appear. Pressing the island's name at the head of the chat takes you to the island.

In the chat you read what was written after you founded your first city on the island; what came before is not shown to you. If you no longer have any city on the island, reading and writing end at once. Found a city there again and a new period starts; what was written while you were away does not come back. Every message is removed after seven days.

Messages in the island chat from a player you have blocked are hidden from you, as in the other shared channels. They are not told.

What counts as read

Opening a conversation does not mark it read. What counts as read is where you actually got to: if a new message arrives below you while you are reading older ones it stays unread and you are offered a “New messages” button. The view never jumps on its own.

Your own messages say sent or read underneath, and the other person sees the same about theirs. It concerns that message only: nothing shows who is online or when anybody was last here. The head of a conversation shows the other player's capital and its island — both already readable from the island map — and See the city takes you to that island with that city's window already open.

Which language to write in

At the head of a private conversation, the languages the other player speaks show as two letters beside their name; if they keep their list hidden or empty, nothing shows there. If the language you play in is not on their list, a line above the message box says which languages they write in. It is only a reminder: your message is not translated and nothing stops you sending it. You choose your own languages on the account page.

Deleting, reacting, emoji

You can delete a message you wrote: press the ⋯ beside it, choose Delete and confirm. The message is deleted for everyone. In its place the others see “This message was deleted” and you see “You deleted this message”; its time and who wrote it stay. There is no time limit, and it works for every message you wrote in the world, alliance, island or private chat. An announcement to your island is deleted the same way, and its lines in Activity go with it. A deleted message does not come back. If it had not yet gone out as a notification, the notification does not go either.

Deleting does not take the words out of the game's records. Players can no longer see a deleted message, but if it was reported, a moderator still sees what was written. You can report a deleted message too: if you read it before it was taken back, you are the one who can say what it was. A message a moderator removed says “This message was removed by a moderator” instead.

You can react to other players' messages, but not to your own — though you do see the reactions others give it. Under the ⋯ there are six emoji and a +; the + opens all of them. You have one reaction per message: choosing another emoji replaces the first, and choosing the same one again takes it back. Reactions are counted under the message, emoji by emoji, and yours is marked. Hover over a reaction or tap it to see who gave it; from there you can take yours back or join in with the same emoji. A reaction sends no notification and makes nothing unread. A deleted or removed message takes no reactions and its old ones are not shown. You do not see reactions from a player you have blocked. While you are muted you cannot react either, and if you change your reaction too quickly you are asked to wait a moment.

While you write, the smiling face beside the box opens the emoji panel: faces, gestures and signs from the game's world, with the ones you used last at the front. The emoji you pick goes in where the cursor is. ⌘ + Enter on a Mac, and Alt + Enter or Ctrl + Enter on other computers, sends the message; Enter on its own starts a new line. Towards the length limit, some emoji — a hand with a skin tone, or a flag — count as more than one character.

What is not here

Sharing a battle report

A finished battle's report carries a Share button. If you were in that battle — attacker or defender, winner or loser — you can share it; somebody who only watched cannot. What is shared is not the report itself but a summary fit for strangers: the server composes it, and the card you read is the card the other side gets.

You create a link and paste it wherever you like: the world channel, your alliance, a private message, or somewhere outside this game entirely. Anyone with that link can see the report you shared, without logging in — it is not private and it is not alliance-only; the only protection is that the address cannot be guessed. If you had a victory fresco painted of that battle, everyone who opens the link sees it at the head of the report. Whoever opens the link does not only read the summary; they also watch the battle round by round, as in the game: the field, the lines, the volleys and the wall. The replay shows the battle as you saw it; morale, ammunition and supply show there too, and the loot only if you put it in the link.

The plunder is out by default: a summary of a battle is one thing and what you carried home is another. Changing that choice makes a new link — nothing can add plunder to an address already circulating. The card's outcome is the battle's own and never says “you won”; plunder is attributed to whoever it belongs to; a name that does not pass the word rules is withheld, and the card says so.

A link stays open until you withdraw it. Withdrawing closes it everywhere, because every destination was reading the same thing — but it deletes no battle, removes no message you pasted, and cannot take back a screenshot somebody already saved. Removing a message does not close the link either: they are separate acts. If you think a shared report is inappropriate you can report it; reporting needs an account, reading does not.

Paste the link into a conversation inside the game and a small card appears beside it; whoever clicks it opens the shared summary. The card is drawn only for the game's own report addresses; a lookalike address is just a link. A moderator can close a link they find inappropriate; that too deletes no battle and removes no message.

What the shared card shows

Links

http and https links in a message become clickable; no other kind of address ever does. When you press one you are shown where it goes first — the address's real hostname, not the words written around it. Addresses containing unusual characters are flagged as well. An address starting with https is not therefore safe.

Addresses are asked about against known-threat lists. A message carrying a known dangerous address is not sent, and your words stay in the box. If the check cannot be made, a message carrying a link is still not sent — a question nobody could ask is not an answer of "clean"; this is not a punishment, so try again shortly. Messages with no link are unaffected.

"No known threat" does not mean safe. A list only knows what somebody has already reported; a new fake page is on no list for its first hours. That is why no link is ever described as checked or safe. When you press a link the address is asked about again, right then.

The address is never opened by the server. All that travels to the reputation service is the address itself: not your message, not who you are talking to, not who you are. No page is fetched, no preview is built, no redirect is followed. Copy an address and open it outside the game and you are outside this protection. The game's own shared-report links are never sent at all: the key at the end of the address is the report itself.

Moderation, and its limits

Your message is checked on the server before it is published. A rude word is looked for only as a whole word: an ordinary word that happens to contain a rude-looking syllable is left alone, while swearing written with substituted letters, inserted punctuation or repeated characters is still seen. A message with such a word is still published: you read it as you typed it, and everyone else reads *** in its place. Explicit threats, and messages that are too long, carry too many links or shout, are not sent.

Those rules do not understand context. A threat containing no rude word, or a campaign of harassment made of polite sentences, will pass them. If you see one, report it — a report puts it in front of a person.

A refused message is never sent: the other player does not see it even for a moment, and you are told which category it fell into. Muting is the last resort: only many different messages refused in a short time for abusive words, hate, threats or a harmful link lead to it. Typing fast, repeating a sentence or writing too much does not count. As you get close, the refusal warns you in advance; if you are muted, you are told why and when you can write again. That is always temporary and ends by itself; a moderator can also lift it early. No permanent ban is ever issued automatically. Now and then a sentence reads like a threat or an insult by mistake; if that happens, reword it.

Names

The same rules apply to names — your player name, your cities' names, a colony's name, your alliance's name and tag. Names carry two rules beyond them: a name that looks like the game's own staff (administrator, moderator, support, the game's own name) and a name held sacred cannot be taken. The reason is not rudeness but belief: a "support" account asking for a password is the oldest trick there is.

The names people carry are not blocked. What is refused is the claim: a sacred name standing alone is one thing, a name somebody was given is another. Short words count only when they stand on their own, so an ordinary name that merely contains one of them is free.

Blocking and reporting

If you block a player, no new messages pass between you — in either direction. Old messages remain. The other player is not told they were blocked; you both get the same neutral answer.

In shared channels a block does not remove anybody from the alliance, the island or the world: what they write stays where it is and everybody else reads it; only you do not. In its place it says “a message from somebody you have blocked”, and it is not added to your unread count. Lift the block and you read it again.

Reporting a message — the ⋯ beside it, then Report message — puts it in front of a moderator. The form shows exactly which message you are sending, you pick a reason — profanity or insults, harassment or threats, hate speech, spam or scams, a harmful or deceptive link, or other — and you may add a short explanation (required if you pick Other). Reporting is not blocking; if you want to block as well, you do that separately. You cannot report your own message, each message is reported once, and the person reported is never told who reported them. Many people reporting the same person causes no sanction by itself.

You can also report a player themselves: a name that insults or impersonates somebody, harassment or threats outside the chat — through a city's name or an alliance's texts — or cheating, several accounts or a bot. Press the flag at the foot of a city's window on the island, or Report player on their player page; pick a reason and, if you like, add a short explanation (required if you pick Other). Your explanation is checked like a message. The report keeps the player's name, the city you reported from and their alliance as they were at that moment, so even if the player renames later, the moderator sees what you saw.

You cannot report yourself. You can have one open report about the same player at a time; once a moderator has looked at it, you can report again. How many players you can report in a day is limited. The reported player is told nothing. If a moderator acts — renames them or their city, mutes them or suspends their account — the player sees only what was done, and never learns who reported them. The number of reports alone causes no sanction. While a player's account is suspended, they are withdrawn from everyone else's view: in place of their messages there is only a line saying they are not shown, their player page does not open, their name is missing from the rankings and lists, and their cities stand on the map as abandoned cities. When the suspension is lifted, everything comes back.

You can see the decisions made about you, and whether a rule or a person made each one is written separately. If you think one is wrong you can appeal.

An appeal always names one decision: your silences are listed, you pick one, and you write your argument. You may have one open appeal at a time, each decision is appealed once, and the answer always arrives with its reasoning. An upheld appeal lifts only the one you named; any other decision about you stands.