Artwork is still in development and may change.
Your Citadel and the Fog of War
At the heart of every alliance in the Jade Empire stands its Alliance Citadel. Each alliance raises exactly one. It is the anchor of your territory, the place where your alliance invests its Ancient Jade Statuettes and the stronghold your rivals will one day try to break. A Citadel can never be conquered. You will not find it as a castle to walk through. It stands on the world map, where a single click opens your alliance’s event overview, the state of your Citadel and the time remaining in the current phase. Every member can follow its progress, while the head of your alliance and their deputy decide on its upgrades.
When your alliance arrives in the Jade Empire, you arrive together. Every member’s castle appears close to your Citadel, safely inside your starting territory. Where in the desert your alliance begins is left to fate. Every starting area is equal in value, so what truly shapes your fortunes are the neighbours you find beside you.
The map around you is divided into three layers. Your territory is the land your Citadel claims. Here you can raid every Palace Fortress and trade at every Oasis Settlement. At the start, no enemy castle stands within it, giving you time to settle in. Just beyond lies the veil of mist. It shows the land your next Citadel level will claim, along with its fortresses, its oases and perhaps rival alliances who have settled closer than you hoped. You can see all of it, but you cannot act there yet. Beyond the mist lies the deeper shroud, covering the rest of the desert. You can still make out what lies beneath, but it remains far out of reach.
Your borders are never fixed. Each Citadel upgrade costs Ancient Jade Statuettes from your alliance, pushes your territory further into the sands and turns the mist into land you can act on. The same is true in reverse: if rivals manage to weaken your Citadel, your territory shrinks back with it.
As alliances grow, their territories begin to overlap. Wherever an enemy’s land reaches into yours, your castles and targets may come under attack. Threatened targets glow red on the world map so you can spot danger at a glance. When the Free for All begins, the deeper shroud lifts entirely. Enemy castles and Citadels across the whole map stand out clearly as targets, while the fortresses and oases beyond your borders stay locked until your Citadel grows large enough to claim them.