The Living Map: Scouting Rework, Other Players' Envoys, and Real Discovery Odds

11 August 2026

Scouting has been rebuilt around leads worth returning to: a journey over new ground finds several instead of one or two, every lead states its payoff and rolls a quality, the best ones open a choice event when you explore them, and finding a ruin or a wonder is now a real roll that your envoy's level and leads genuinely improve. Travel reports become a Journey Replay with the route drawn on a mini map, and a Chart Return button plans the trip back to any lead in one tap.

The map is no longer empty of other people. A new Other Envoys layer shows every foreign envoy that is doing something somewhere, travelling, visiting, delving, studying, resting or in residence, with a tap opening their full cosmetic identity. City rosters now list every envoy present, and every envoy has a shareable page of its own.

Investments gained their other half: a visitor to a city now sees who backs it and can manage their own stake from the same panel the owner uses. And the envoy popover on the map now enforces the same rules the server does, so it no longer offers buttons that are guaranteed to fail, and a finished residency finally has its Claim button where you are looking.

improvedreducednewreworkedremoved

Scouting finds more, and all of it is real

A 30 tile trek used to produce one or two markers because of a hard per journey cap, and 28% of what it could produce had no effect at all when explored. The cap is gone, every observation type now does something, and the reward for going somewhere new is the loop's engine.

A return event titled The Hum offering three choices, each stating its odds — A high quality lead's return event. Each option prints the real before and after odds it buys, and the find waits on your answer.

reworked
What a journey finds
WasA 12% roll per tile crossed, hard capped at 1 lead for journeys up to 10 tiles, 2 up to 30, 3 up to 60
NowA 28% roll on every tile this envoy has never crossed, with no cap. Ground the envoy has already crossed rolls at a quarter strength, and each lead found scales the rolls after it to 60%
Crossing a second, third or fourth kind of terrain in one journey also grants a bonus roll on a tile of that terrain. A 30 tile trek over new ground typically finds 3 to 5 leads; farming the same corridor decays instead.
new
NEW:Observation quality: ordinary, high, legendary
Every observation rolls a quality when it is created, 70% ordinary, 25% high, 5% legendary, shown as a pip on the map badge, the Nearby row, the tile panel and the travel report. Quality scales the lead's payoff when the tile is explored: high pays 1.5 times the bonus, legendary twice. The Perceptive personality and Scout's Eye shift the roll upward.
improved
Every observation type pays out
WasAtmospheric readings and Silence Warnings were flavour with no effect, 28% of everything found
NowAn atmospheric reading pays its stated Cultural Influence when the tile is explored. A Silence Warning raises the odds of old world finds, lore weighted toward pre Twisting entries, and cuts that exploration's resource yield by 20%
Each marker's tooltip, tile panel entry and Nearby row states its payoff explicitly, so nothing on the map is decoration.
new
NEW:Return events on high and legendary leads
Exploring a tile that holds a high or legendary lead opens a choice event with two or three options, and each option prints the true before and after odds it buys, computed from the same table the roll will use. The exploration's reward is settled when you answer. Your envoy does not wait on you: it is freed when the exploration ends, and the find waits on your answer.
new
NEW:Distant Rumors
A lead that would land beyond known lands is kept as a rumor instead of being lost: drawn dashed on the map, listed at the bottom of Nearby, never expiring while dormant. When a land claim makes its tile reachable the rumor wakes as a live lead, with a 30% chance of waking one quality tier stronger, and its 30 day clock starts. You are told when one stirs. Dormant rumors do not count for Survey Mathematics' faster travel and cannot be Chart Returned.
reworked
Scout's EyeExploration · Tier 2
Your envoy notices more while travelling. Each tile it crosses leaves a scouting observation 32% of the time, instead of 28%, and the first lead of a journey does not tighten the odds on the tiles after it.
WasA 16% roll instead of 12%, and one more observation kept per journey
NowA 32% roll instead of 28%, and the first lead found does not scale down the rolls after it
The old +1 kept clause raised a cap that no longer exists, so the skill now delays the tightening instead.
improved
Marginalia's traces know their sourceScholarship · Tier 2 · 2 ranks
A lore trace now records which lore entry placed it, and exploring the traced tile has a 60% chance of awarding a fragment from that same entry when an eligible one remains. Traces also prefer ground you can actually reach, and roll a quality like every other observation.
improved
The journey's Cultural Influence scales with ambition
WasA flat 5 to 10 for any journey
Now5, plus 1 per 2 first time tiles, plus 3 per terrain type beyond the first, capped at 30
These are the journey's own numbers, before arrival skills. A trek that finds no leads still pays for going somewhere new.

Journey Replay, Chart Return, and what the map remembers

The Journey Complete report: the route drawn on a mini map above a stat strip and a list of leads — A Journey Replay: 33 tiles of new ground across 6 terrains found 7 leads, each stating its payoff, its quality and when it fades.

The map showing solid and faded footprint markers around an envoy's action menu — Footprints with the envoy's action menu open: solid tiles are ground this envoy has explored itself, faded ones are known to the rest of your empire.

reworked
The travel report is a Journey Replay
WasTwo canned journal lines and a flat list
NowThe route drawn on a mini map with a pin for every lead, a stat strip, and a journal line grounded in where the envoy actually went
The stat strip counts tiles crossed, new ground, terrains crossed, leads found and Cultural Influence earned. Tapping a pin highlights that lead's card. Reports appear for journeys of 4 or more transit tiles, as before.
new
NEW:Chart Return
Every lead card in the report carries a Chart Return button: it closes the report and enters travel mode with the route back to that lead already planned. Survey Mathematics' faster travel to observation tiles applies to a charted return.
new
NEW:Plan Route shows its scouting prospects
The route planner states how many new tiles and distinct terrains a planned route crosses, and what that is worth as scouting ground, before you dispatch. Route shape is now a decision, not a cosmetic. The panel is also restyled to match the rest of the game.
improved
Explored ground shows for the envoy you are looking at
WasExplored tile markers rendered only for the envoy currently routing in travel mode
NowA solid footprint on tiles the envoy in context has explored itself, a faded one on ground the rest of your empire knows, visible in travel mode and whenever that envoy's action menu is open
With no envoy in context, everything your account has explored renders solid.

Ruins and wonders are a real roll

Ruin markers and wonder proximity leads promised to improve your chance of a discovery, and neither did anything at all. What actually decided a find was a hidden per envoy seed: 3% of tiles held a certain ruin, 0.5% a certain wonder, and every other tile was impossible. Envoy level bought nothing, and exploring a seeded tile was a lookup, not a roll.

reworked
How a ruin or a wonder is found
WasCertain on the seed's tiles, impossible everywhere else
NowA weighted roll on every explored tile that scales with envoy level: ruins from 1.5% at level 1 to 4% at level 40 and above, wonders from 0.2% to 1%
A tile your envoy's seed marks is now the best lead you can hold, at roughly 60% for its outcome at every level, rather than a certainty. Only ten wonders exist in the whole world, so wonder odds are deliberately rare.
improved
Ruin markers and wonder proximity leads work
WasBoth bonuses were silently discarded before the roll
NowAn ordinary ruin marker lifts the ruin chance to about 21 to 23%, a high one to 28 to 30%, a legendary one to 34 to 36%. Wonder proximity lifts the wonder chance to about 17 to 29% by quality
Both cards' descriptions are now true without a word of them changing. On a seeded tile a high quality ruin marker reaches about 65%.
improved
A blocked find rolls again
WasA find that failed a placement rule, too close to another ruin for instance, silently became a minor resource payout
NowThe blocked outcome is removed and the table is rolled again, so you get a genuine second result

Other players' envoys on the map

The map control button with the tooltip Show other players' envoys — The Other Envoys layer lives in the map controls, off by default and remembered per player.

The world map busy with other players' envoys, each with a name and status pill — The Other Envoys layer: strangers travelling, visiting and in residence across the world, with clusters where a city is busy.

The identity card of another player's envoy, with View Envoy and View City actions — Tapping a stranger opens their identity card: portrait, level, what they are doing, whose envoy they are, and where to see more.

new
NEW:The Other Envoys layer
A toggle in the map controls, off by default and remembered per player, shows every foreign envoy that is doing something somewhere: travelling along its route, visiting a city, in residence, resting at a hotel, studying at a school, exploring, investigating a wonder or mid delve at a ruin. Envoys idle at home do not render. It works signed out too, so the world is alive before you have an account.
new
NEW:Who is that
A foreign envoy renders slightly muted with its name and a status line, never timers or progress that only its owner should see. Tapping it opens the full identity card: portrait in its equipped frame, title, and the owning player's nameplate, with View Envoy and View City actions. An envoy inbound to your own city opens the same card.
new
NEW:Every envoy has a page
An envoy's card links to a shareable page of its own at its owner's profile, showing the envoy permanently expanded.
improved
City rosters show everyone present
WasStudents and hotel guests only
NowEvery envoy currently at the city, sectioned by what it is doing, each naming its owning player
improved
A busy city stays readable
Envoys share the ring of tiles around a city with yours placed first, and crowds collapse into a small cluster with a count that expands on tap. At far zoom foreign envoys fade to dots, and nothing foreign ever draws over your own envoys or nameplates.

The investor's side of Investments

The Investments panel shipped for city owners, and a player who had actually funded a city saw none of it: just an old bare box at the bottom of the page. One surface now serves whoever is looking at it.

new
NEW:A visitor's Investments panel
For a non owner the panel shows Your Stake, your own investments at that city with the same collect and withdraw controls as before, an Invest button, and Also Backing This City, a roster of every other active investment: whose envoy holds it, the path and tier, what they get and how long the term has left. What other players' investments have paid them stays private, as do the owner's balances.
improved
The Patronage row appears for visitors with a reason to care
WasOwner only
NowAlso shown when you hold an active investment at the city, or have an envoy visiting that could invest there
The old ACTIVE INVESTMENTS box at the bottom of the city page is gone; its cards moved into the panel.

Fixes

A running lesson quotes the payout the school will actually pay.
The School panel computed the on completion Cultural Influence in the browser from a raw table rate, missing School Donor, Studious and every other modifier, so it read 22 where the enrolment promise was 31. It now reads the same server estimate the completion pays from, and shows a loading mark rather than a number that corrects itself.
A studying envoy can commit to a Temporary Embassy term.
The pair was already legal in the other order, a committed envoy could enrol at the host city's school, but enrolling first got "Envoy is currently training". Neither occupation moves the envoy, so the order no longer matters.
The Foundation Stone's Brightening bar never reads 100% while the Stone is locked.
A near complete condition set could round up to 100 with the unlock still unsatisfied. 100 is now reserved for all conditions actually met; everything else caps at 99.
The Cultural Landmark laurel moved into the city nameplate.
It drew above the city sprite, where wonders, ruins and visiting envoys compete for space, and a visitor's portrait could cover it outright. It now sits inside the plate beside the festival badge, so a city can show both.
New scouting marks appear on the map as soon as the journey report lists them.
The live update announcing them was a silent no op, so markers lagged until the next full refresh.