The Map and Screen

Getting started Classic v0.9 ruleset Updated October 14, 2026

When you enter a realm, most of what you see is a map. Learning to read it quickly is what turns a confusing wall of icons into a clear picture of your situation. This page explains the screen in concepts, so you know what you are looking at no matter how a particular realm is themed.

The world map

The center of the screen is the world map: a large grid where every colony and outpost in the realm sits at a fixed position. You can pan around it by dragging, and zoom in and out to move between a close tactical view and a wide strategic one.

Distance on this map is meaningful. Two points that look close are close, and a squad sent between them arrives faster than one crossing the whole world. When you are deciding whether a neighbor is a threat or an opportunity, the first question is always: how far away are they, in ticks of travel?

Your markers

Your own holdings are marked on the map:

Your colony is your home base, your strongest single position and the heart of your economy.
Your outposts are the points you have captured out in the world. They extend your reach and can take on specialized roles as you develop them.

Other players' colonies and outposts also appear, but only where you can actually see them. The map does not show you everything in the world by default. It shows you what your intelligence reveals.

Radar coverage

Around your colony (and certain outposts) is a zone of radar coverage. Inside that coverage you can see activity such as nearby squads and positions. Outside it, the map goes dark. This is why two players can be near each other and one knows everything while the other is blind.

Treat the edge of your radar as the edge of what you know. Intelligence covers how visibility, scanning, and scouting fit together.

Overlays and colors

The map can show more than raw positions when you ask it to:

Alliance territory. Turn on the alliance territory overlay and the map shades areas by which alliance controls them, with a legend and small badges that mark each alliance's rank and tag where its holdings cluster. It is the fastest way to read who owns what front before you commit to a fight or a move.
Personal relation colors. You can recolor a specific player to your own palette, so a friend, a rival, or a target reads at a glance no matter what the official diplomacy says. These colors are personal to you and do not change anyone's actual standing, they just make the map easier to read your way.
Broadcasts. Where your map shows broadcast marks, a neutral megaphone chip identifies a live public message on its sender's current home colony; select the chip to read it. Where shown, the Broadcasts layer hides the chips but not the messages, which stay listed in Comms.

The HUD and panels

Around the map is a heads-up display: a set of controls and panels layered over the world view. Broadly, you will find:

The top HUD, where resources, tick timing, and commander state are always visible.
The command cluster or phone dock, where you open Map, Colony, Roster, Intel, Comms and More. More keeps the other menu and reference surfaces reachable.
The minimap, where you keep a world-scale reference while zoomed into a local position.
Map utilities and tools, with map modes (outpost placement, alliance markers, satellite scan) and Layers controls for the map's visible subjects and overlays. Phones use the map tools sheet. Each map mode tells you its next step; Esc leaves it.
Radar, whose Incoming and Outgoing views show current activity and its known timing, with your alliance's marches where you may see them. Unknown or stale information stays labelled; a countdown ending alone does not prove an outcome.
Selection details and order composers, which open in floating cards (sheets on a phone) while the map stays mounted.
Don, your aide, during a multiplayer world's tutorial: his current step and its reward, a Show me where pointer, and the whole Journey. Close him and a next-step reminder stays on screen; it, or the Don button among the map utilities (the map tools sheet on phones), brings him back. Skip tutorial asks first, then pays out the remaining step bonuses, limited by your colony's storage.
Notices, short confirmations and prompts that sit above the map utilities (above the dock on phones), one card at a time. The reports themselves live in Intel.
My Colony, where you queue and track what your colony is building.
The squad Roster, a window you can drag anywhere (on a phone, Roster in the dock opens it), where you manage your sites, squads, agents, outposts and conquests. A site's pool and a squad's card open from it, and that is where you move units, form new squads and save templates.

The map answers "where is everything?" The panels answer "what do I want to do about it?" Good play is a constant back-and-forth between the two: read the map, open a panel, give an order, then watch the map for the result.

Acting on a target

Selecting a colony, outpost, squad or endgame object opens its details and its actions; the details offer that target's main actions. On a wide screen the actions open as the ring at the click point, and More on the ring gives the full categorized list; choosing List in Settings opens the categorized list directly instead, except while you hold a selection, when selecting elsewhere still opens the ring. A phone uses the compact arc and its action sheet. Commands such as a scan or an attack need an explicit commit before they are sent; an attack asks which eligible squads to send. While you aim an order, the map can mark the targets that order can take and say why a target is out of reach; the launcher always shows the target it will commit to. Hover a target to read how long the order takes; the launcher shows when it lands.

Where your selection details offer Hold, it keeps the displayed selection while you select elsewhere on the map, and Release returns to the current map selection. Holding details does not freeze a quote or change a command's target; commands still need their own explicit commit.

If an action is greyed out, the row says why: the structure that unlocks it is not built, the target is protected, or you have nothing in range to send. The interface tells you the missing piece rather than leaving you to guess.

Reading the screen like a veteran

A practiced player glances at the screen and reads three things in seconds: where their own positions are, where the edge of their vision is, and whether anything inside it is moving toward them. Build that habit early. The map is not decoration; it is your primary source of information every time you log in.

See also: Joining a Realm for how worlds and their maps are structured, the First Session Interaction Plan for the actual first-screen flow, Alliances for the territory the overlay shades, and Intelligence for how you expand and sharpen what you can see.