Custom monument

What it gives

A custom monument appears on the Monument plinth in your city and next to your city on the island. It gives more happiness than a standard monument; how much more is shown in the Monument window. The monument's contribution touches nothing else: it does not change battle, production or speed.

The standard monuments stay exactly as they were. A custom monument does not replace them; it is added beside them as one more choice.

Where to ask for it

First you need a Monument built in your city. Then you take one of two ways: in the Monument window press New design above the monument cards (or the first card of the list, Make a custom monument), or press Create under the custom monument in the Seals window. The second brings you to the same window for the city you are in.

The top of the window says how much happiness a custom monument gives. The strip under it shows the Seals in your purse, the price of a design and how many designs your purse covers. In the middle are the field where you write the new design, the examples and the picture row; below them, the designs you have made in that world are laid out as cards. At the bottom is the Design it button with its price; the sentence beside it says why you cannot press it yet, or how many Seals will be left in your purse once the design is done.

What to write

What you write is the monument's subject: what it commemorates, its form, its material, the figure on top. How it is drawn — the view, the light, the stone, the background — the game knows, and what you write cannot change it. Requests such as "make it look like a photo" or "make the background red" are ignored, because every monument has to stand on the island in the same language as the buildings around it.

The text has to be at least a few words; the field tells you when you have not written enough.

Example subjects

From your own picture

In the dashed row under the text field, press Choose a picture to pick a picture: a drawing, or a photo of a statue or a building. The name of the picture you chose shows in the row, and Remove takes it back. The monument is carved from the shape of that picture; your words say what should change. If you have added a picture, words are not required.

For example, if you add a photo of a stele with an owl and write "put a winged goddess of victory on top", the same stele is carved with a winged figure on top, in the game's own stone and light. That is exactly the custom monument example in the Seals window.

You have to tick the consent box before the picture is sent. Which pictures are accepted, and what happens to the picture afterwards, is explained in the Seals article.

The drawing

The Design it button says how many Seals will be spent. When you press it, that many Seals are set aside in your purse and the drawing starts. The design appears at once among Your designs as a card being carved. It can take a few minutes; you can close the window and the work is not lost. When it is done, the card turns into a finished design.

Only one of your designs can be in the making at a time; until it is done, the button waits. There is also a limit to how many designs you can ask for in a day.

By night

Once your design is ready, the game also draws the same monument by night. Its shape stays the same and only the light changes: moonlight falls on the stone and its fires are lit. The night picture arrives within a few minutes and costs no further Seals; it is part of the design's price. Until it arrives, or if it cannot be drawn, your monument appears at night as its day picture, darkened.

What the cards say

A design that was not produced

On a design that was not produced, Edit the description puts your words back in the text field, so you can correct them and ask again. A request that is not produced costs no Seals, and the new one is paid for only if it succeeds.

Putting it in a city

On a finished design's card, Put it up here puts it on the Monument of the city you opened the window from. Your first change to the standard monument the game put up when the Monument was finished is free; after that, changing its face — from a standard monument to a custom one, from one custom monument to another, or back to a standard one — costs Gold. The price is shown above the cards and in the Monument window; if your treasury does not hold that much Gold, the button is off. Your finished designs are also on the Custom tab of the Monument window: choosing one there and pressing Change its face puts it on the same Monument.

A design stands in only one city at a time. The card of a design standing in a city names that city, and See it in the city takes you there. If you want to use it in another city as well, you first have to change the monument's face in the city where it stands.

Deleting a design

On a finished design's card, Delete design only removes it from your collection; the Seals paid for it do not come back, and the game asks once more before it deletes. The card of a design standing in one of your cities has no delete: first you have to change the monument's face in that city.

A picture's link is permanent; even after you delete a design, anyone who has the link can open the picture.