Towns and territory

1. Claim a free town

   A member whose rank may claim towns stands at the town's heart - its town hall, or else its market, moneylender or tavern - and claims it (F2 > My faction > Towns and territory, or /claim). The price is paid from the coffers, and the whole realm hears of it.

2. Hold it

   The holder receives 5% of every sale made in the town, at its markets and businesses. That rises to 8% while the holder also leads the town's influence, and 3% more while the town's walls are newly strengthened (a town work). Players riding in see whose town it is. A holder whose influence falls below 15 while a rival's is above 40 loses the town.

3. Challenge for it

   A member of a rival faction with that right starts a challenge at the heart, for half the claim price. At least two members of the faction must be in the town, and the faction needs at least as much influence in the town as the holder (see Influence and renown). The holders are warned at once. After ten minutes in the town with none of the holders present, the town changes hands. While any holder is in the town, the challenge does not progress; if all the challengers leave, it fails.

4. After a change of hands

   a town cannot be challenged again for two hours.

5. Or besiege it

   War at a set hour: see Sieges.

6. Its gates and doors

   The faction holding Suchdol works the fortress portcullis; the holder of Maleshov its drawbridge and the double gate of its courtyard; the holder of Raborsch the gate of its fortress; and the holder of Kuttenberg's Ruthard Palace ward the palace gate. Any member whose rank may work the gates opens or shuts them while standing nearby (F2, or /citygate open / close). The same members lock and unlock the town's own doors - not a house's, and not an inn room's - with /citydoor; a locked door opens for them when they stand at it. In a town nobody holds, the gates stay as they are. The Kuttenberg City Guard works the gates and doors of every town.

7. Its chests

   The chests of a held town are the holder's: inside the town (not its outskirts), a chest that belongs to no house and to no business with an owner opens only for the holder's members whose rank has the Faction houses right, and for the staff. Anyone else is told whose it is. A tavern, a stall or a shop someone owns keeps its own chests, a rented room's chest stays its tenant's, a chest the staff locked follows the staff's lock, and a treasure map still leads to its chest. When the town changes hands, its chests go with it. In Kuttenberg the same goes ward by ward.

Kuttenberg, the royal city

Kuttenberg is never claimed, challenged or besieged, and influence won there gives no hold over it. The city is divided into wards, and the staff give each ward to a faction (/wards shows who holds what):

The three bands cover the whole walled town, with no gaps between them; Ruthard Palace and the Italian Court are separate wards inside the Southern Quarter. Old Kutna, the hamlet north of the city, is not a ward: it is a town of the Crown lands, held as a whole.

A ward's holder takes the usual toll on sales made inside it - 5%, or 8% while it leads Kuttenberg's influence. It works the ward's gates, locks and unlocks its doors and keeps the chests of its places; a house or business with an owner still belongs to its owner. On top of that, 2% of every sale in Kuttenberg goes to the Kuttenberg City Council as the city tax: at the stalls and taverns, at the markets, and at the game's own merchants (they pay it on what they sell; on what you sell to them, it is taken from what they pay you). The live map shows the wards faintly inside the city, each in its holder's colours.