Market Leverage Becomes a Payment Method

13 August 2026

Market Leverage stops being its own investment and becomes a way to pay for the others. Every investment priced in resources, the four building patronages, Seed Investment and Expedition Sponsor, now takes Gold as an alternative price, set by the host city's Storehouse. Venture Fund is unaffected: it takes diamonds only, because it was never priced in resources to begin with.

Every investment now starts from the same place. The Invest screen, reached from any city that is not your own, lists every path with its tiers, its resource price and its Gold price side by side. Seed Investment and Venture Fund could not be started there before; both can now. The city Investments tab keeps its own job: what you hold at this city, and a link to the Invest screen to start something new.

Gold has one hard limit. It never buys a tier your own Storehouse could not hold, whatever your balance says. It only ever covers being short right now.

improvedreducednewreworkedremoved

The Market Leverage skill

The skill used to be a standalone action: stake Gold at a city for a fixed term and collect a resource back at a rate nothing on screen ever stated. It is now the thing that makes every other investment payable in Gold.

The School Donor card's three tier tiles. Each shows a resource cost, an OR divider, and a Gold price struck through, above the words "Your Storehouse cannot hold this much. Raise it before this tier is reachable."
Every tier carries both prices. Here all three Gold prices are struck through rather than hidden, because this envoy's own Storehouse could not hold the stake at any tier: raising it is what opens them, and no amount of Gold will.
  • reworked
    Market Leverage stops being an actionPatronage · Tier 2

    Pay for investments in Gold instead of resources. Never for a tier your own Storehouse could not hold.

    WasUNLOCKS: Your envoy stakes Gold at a city for 1, 3 or 7 days instead of resources, and you collect the city's primary extractor resource when the term is up with +10% / +30% / +80% on top
    NowA second price on every resource-priced investment, rather than an investment of its own

    The old skill hid a fixed conversion rate: 20% of the host city's daily output per 100 Gold, nowhere on any screen. The skill now names every path it applies to, and the price you see is the price you pay.

  • new
    NEW:The Gold price is set by the host city's Storehouse

    Five bands, from 2 / 4 / 7 Gold for tiers 1 through 3 at the smallest cities, up to 12 / 24 / 40 Gold at the largest. Seed Investment and Expedition Sponsor cost 50% more at every band, because they are the only two paths that hand resources back to you rather than paying into a city you do not own.

  • new
    NEW:Gold never buys past your own Storehouse

    A tier your Storehouse could not hold stays out of reach in Gold exactly as it does in resources. Short on resources right now is what Gold is for; a stake too large for your own city to ever hold is not something Gold can fix. The tier tile shows the Gold price struck through in that case rather than hiding it, so you can see raising your Storehouse is what opens it.

Every investment starts from the Invest screen

Seed Investment and Venture Fund each had their own way in, and Market Leverage had a start form buried under the city's Investments tab. All three now begin the same way as Hotel Patron, School Donor, Silent Partner and City Sponsor already did.

The Invest screen at Remtown, listing Hotel Patron, School Donor, Silent Partner, City Sponsor, Seed Investment, Venture Fund and Expedition Sponsor, all locked, each naming the skill that opens it.
All seven paths in one place, including Seed Investment and Venture Fund. This envoy has learned none of them, and can still read what each one does and which skill opens it.
  • improved
    Invest is offered at every city that is not your own
    WasThe action appeared only once an envoy already held a matching skill, greyed elsewhere with the skills that would unlock it named in prose
    NowAlways offered at a foreign city

    The Invest screen behind it already lists every path with its own lock state and explains every blocked reason, so a player without any Patronage skills yet can see the whole system before learning a single one of them.

  • new
    NEW:Seed Investment starts from the Invest screen
    WasIts own entry point, separate from every other patronage path
    NowA card on the Invest screen with a resource picker above its tier grid

    You choose which resource to stake and which tier to stake it at. That same resource comes back with interest. The tier still sets the amount; the picker only decides which resource the amount is charged in.

  • new
    NEW:Venture Fund starts from the Invest screen
    WasIts own entry point, separate from every other patronage path
    NowA card on the Invest screen, unchanged in every other respect

    It still stakes diamonds only, and Gold cannot be spent on it. A diamond already buys Gold's way to a Venture Fund through the Diamond Market, so nothing was missing by leaving it out of the Gold conversion.

  • improved
    The city Investments tab shows what you hold, and nothing else
    WasA start form for Market Leverage lived under Your Stake, a section whose heading promised holdings you already had
    NowHoldings only, with a link to the Invest screen for starting something new

Fixes

  • The Invest screen header uses the same envoy identity every other panel uses.

    The city name and the owner's name are links now, with the city's banner icon beside the city name the way every city name carries one. Envoys now read "[envoy] of [city]" instead of a bare portrait and a name.

  • The Seed Investment card states the resource it is actually about to charge.

    It previously implied a fixed two-resource mix. The tier sets the amount and the resource picker sets which single resource that amount is charged in and paid back in.

  • Your Grand Tour is not reset by planning a journey.

    Nothing was ever lost. The envoy list behind the travel and Nearby drawers was not carrying the tour at all, so every envoy read "0 of 5" wherever the streak appeared, and drafting a Grand Itinerary looked like it had wiped a tour three players deep. Only arriving home, Emergency Recall and completing the tour have ever touched it.

  • Completing a Grand Tour is announced.

    Completing one resets the streak, so every screen drawn afterwards read an empty tour and said nothing at all about the tour that had just paid out. The payout now rides along with the arrival and with each circuit stop, and a Grand Tour Complete card is shown when the journey ends.

  • "Trade Route Established!" states what the route actually paid.

    It printed the base amount rather than what was credited, so a Trade Consortium envoy that had just banked 110 Cultural Influence was told it earned 30, one click after the previous screen had correctly promised the larger figure. The completion now carries the real total and an itemisation of it, worked out by the code that makes the award rather than re-derived afterwards.

  • Your Gold balance updates the moment you spend it.

    A Gold-funded investment left the header showing the old balance until the page's own refresh caught up.

  • A Gold-funded Seed Investment says what was paid and what was staked.

    It read as though both currencies had been charged, "9 Gold + 4,200 resources". It now reads "9 Gold staked as 4,200 resources".

  • The tier tile's Gold price fits on a 320px screen.

    Below 360px the "or" divider is dropped from the layout entirely, so the Gold price folds onto the end of the cost row instead of taking a row of its own.