The Market and Merging Rebuilt, Delving Pays More & Patrons Earn Influence
30 October 2026
The Market and Land Merge have both been rebuilt to be much simpler to use, and levelling an envoy through delving, wonder investigations or the Patronage tree is now far more viable. The Market now leads with player trades: Propose a Trade sits at the top, the best offers for you come first with a clear assessment of how fair it is, and a new Cities tab shows who you can trade with. Trades also now respect your storage, so the Market can't be used as a warehouse. Land Merge is now a guided flow that shows what you gain before you commit, and Inheritor, the TH15 talent, which had been giving nothing at all, now works and is worth having from the first merge.
The biggest balance changes are about giving envoys more ways to level. A dedicated delver was earning less than half of what an explorer earns, so delve floors pay more and deeper floors much more, and starting a ruin and reaching its bottom now pay too. Wonders now pay for reaching halfway and completion, Patronage investments earn Cultural Influence of their own, and Hotel stays now pay 50% more across the board. The Socialite path was outperforming the others, so some targeted changes have brought it back in line.
Beyond that, there are lots of bug fixes and smaller interface and performance improvements, including a faster map on phones.
New art
Envoy effects
Hard Lessons
The Market
The Market now has two tabs, Trades and Cities, in place of the old exchange, offer, diamond and route tabs. Trades shows your daily trades, then Propose a Trade and My Offers, then the five best resource offers for you and the two cheapest diamond offers, each with a See all button that opens the full list with page controls. Opening Propose a Trade or My Offers folds the offer lists into two bars so the page doesn't get longer. The tab you are on is kept in the page address.
Before: the Trade Offers tab, with the NPC Exchange at the bottom of the page 
After: Propose a Trade at the top, and the best offers for you first with a plain verdict on each It compares the fair value of what you receive with the fair value of what you give, before the transfer fee. Within 10% either way is Fair, a gain of 10% up to double is Good for that side, and more than double is Really good. The NPC exchange is always Really good for them. On your own offers in My Offers, "you" is you as the seller. It replaces "above fair", "Good rate" and "Fair trade".
Affordable shows only offers you can pay for, with the ones you could pay for but not store sorted to the bottom. Tapping or hovering No Space shows how much you would receive, how much room you have left, and how much you would need to free up.
The form opens on Players. Its rate box shows the rate, the verdict, a slider from Better for you to Better for them, and the fair value. "NPC rate" opens a card comparing 1,000 wood traded three ways: at fair value, through a player offer at fair value after the fee, and through the Market, which is immediate but pays a quarter of fair value.
Before: the New Trade Offer form 
After: Propose a Trade, with Players and Market (NPC) in one form and the offer lists folded away Each copy is a separate offer, counted against your open-offer and daily trade limits like any other, and cancelled on its own. A standing order is always a single listing. If your envoy can't make standing orders yet, the switch is shown locked with the skill that unlocks it.
Pick diamonds in the Offering row and the form asks for an amount and a price per diamond, pre-filled with the recent average, and shows what you receive after the 5% fee. The Diamonds tab is gone. Your diamond listings show in My Offers.
Before: diamonds had a tab of their own After: diamonds are in the Offering row, and their offers sit beside resource offers The card opens on the largest part that fits. Parts are still offered only when you or the seller can take part of an offer with Fractional Buyer or Fractional Seller, and never below a quarter.
Each row shows the city's distance and your envoy's travel time. A city with no route has Send envoy, which opens the map's travel confirmation; a city with a route and open offers has See offers, which shows only that city's offers on the Trades tab. Tap a row or Details for its owner, city score and Town Hall level.
Before: the Routes tab listed only the names of cities you had a route with 
After: nearby cities with their distance and route status, and a button to trade or to send an envoy - new: Added a message when no offers can reach your city yet, saying how far your Market can see and offering Find nearby cities
- WasNo limit on what an offer could ask in returnNowAt most 5x the fair value of what the offer gives, the same limit that already applied to giving more than 5x
Withdrawn offers cost nothing and don't use your free cancel. Their resources come back to your city as far as your storage allows, with the rest in a claim at the Market, and you get a message saying so. The form stops you before you submit an offer over the limit.
This covers creating an offer and accepting one, for both resources in the trade. It is the Market where the trade happens that counts: your own, or the host city's when your envoy is visiting.
The message names the room you have left, and suggests accepting a smaller part when you can take part of the offer. When your Storehouse can't store that resource yet at all, the trade still goes through and what you bought waits in a claim, which the card tells you before you accept. When your envoy accepts at another player's Market, the check is against your home city, where the resources go.
Everything up to 110% of your storage goes straight in, and the rest becomes a claim. This covers someone buying your offer, a cancelled or withdrawn offer, an offer refunded to a surviving city by a merge, broker cuts and Free Trade rebates. A claim shows on the Market with its amount and time left: Claim takes the oldest first, as much as fits. After 24 hours, what fits goes into storage and the rest is lost. My Offers lists claims that settled this way in the last 7 days.
Your free cancel resets at the same daily rollover as your Market trades. Cancel now asks you to confirm right on the offer, showing the cost and what comes back. The rest is returned to your city as far as storage allows, with any extra in a claim. An offer closed by a merge is not a cancel and costs nothing.
Before: My Offers had its own tab, and cancelling said nothing about cost 
After: My Offers says whether your next cancel is free, and Cancel shows the cost and what comes back before you confirm It is worked out per resource against the plain cap. Up to 115% full, a city loses 5% of its capacity that day; up to 150%, 10%; up to 200%, 25%; above 200%, 50%. A resource over its cap shows in red on the city page, and its storage card shows how full it is, how much the next drain takes and when, and how many days until it is back to the cap. Diamonds never drain.
A resource over its cap shows what the next drain takes, when, and how long until it is back to the cap
Land Merge & Inheritor
Once you own land, the button opens a choice between Claim new land and Upgrade existing land. Until then it goes straight to claiming, as before.
The choice behind the header's Claim Land button Mixed
Claiming comes first, since it is how most merges happen and most players only own one land. Lands low on natural resources are marked on the list, in red when one has run out and amber under 20%. The land you pick shows what it has left of each resource, and each step has its own page address, so the back button goes back a step. With only one land you can merge, you go straight to the preview. The sacrifice list can be searched and filtered by rarity and terrain, lowest City Score first.
Step 1: choose the land to upgrade, with low lands marked 
Step 2: claim a new land to merge, or sacrifice one you own Buff
WasWhen merging lands into this city, absorb a portion of their terrain bonuses. Each merge grants a permanent collection bonus from the source land's terrain (diminishing returns, up to +50% per terrain type). The card shows your current inherited bonuses. Terrain penalties from merged lands are also inherited, but only at half strength.NowEvery land merged into this city adds a permanent collection bonus. One land adds +10% to the resources its terrain favours, four lands +25%, up to +50% per resource. It gives nothing until you merge.Merges into an Inheritor city have not been counted at all, so the talent gave nothing however many lands you merged, even though the confirm dialog promised a bonus. They count now, and it is far stronger early on: a first land was meant to give +2.4% and now gives +10%. Each resource climbs on its own: 1 land +10%, 2 lands +16.7%, 4 lands +25%, 10 lands +35.7%, 20 lands +41.7%. Forest and Savannah feed wood, Desert and Swamp clay, Mountains stone and Snow metal. Volcanic gives half a land each to stone and metal, and Plains a quarter to all four, so a first land is worth +10% in total on any terrain, and there are no penalties. Claim & Merge rolls the terrain when you claim; sacrificing a land lets you choose it. Only merges made after choosing the talent count, and a land kept by Rarity Insurance adds nothing. An Inheritor city that reaches Legendary keeps its bonus but can't be merged into again, and the merge preview warns you when an upgrade could do that.
Before a Claim & Merge, the preview shows what each terrain would add 
Afterwards, the result says which terrain joined the city and what it changed A city's Inherited bonus also shows on its city page, its Terrain panel, its Town Hall list and its Embassy card, and in the collection range of the building it speeds up. A city with no Town Hall 15 talent yet gets a short note in the preview saying what Inheritor would do there.
Buff
WasA land with a ruin on its plot could not be sacrificedNowThe city is merged away and the ruin stays where it is. A later claim on that plot builds its city on a tile beside the ruinWonders and the Great Library still refuse a merge.
Delving & Wonders
Buff
Every level bracket's pay is x1.25 at depth 3 rising to x1.75 at depth 10, and every floor's minimum is 25% higher. At level 40, before variance and the depth record bonus, a run that clears 3 floors pays 306 (was 243), 5 floors 665 (was 444), 7 floors 1,742 (was 1,045) and 10 floors 5,690 (was 3,249). A deeper floor now never pays less than the one above it, which it could at some levels before. Wonder race excavations keep their old pay.
A ruin nobody has reached the bottom of yet pays as if it were 7 floors deep: 70, or 175 for your first envoy in. An envoy below level 10 gets a fifth. It is paid the moment your envoy starts the first floor, so no injury can take it back. World ruins only, not excavations.
It counts Cultural Influence a runner already carried home, so sending a runner never costs you the bonus. It is paid when you claim the rewards, as "Reached the bottom". Excavations have their own completion bonus and don't pay it.
The bonus covers that delve's floors and its bottom bonus, and is paid when you claim, as its own line. Any delve that ends without a moderate or severe injury uses up all the stacks; a delve that ends in one adds a stack instead. The stacks show on your envoy and in the delve's Run bonuses box. Stacks are lost 7 days after your envoy's latest injury, and each new injury restarts the timer, so the bonus rewards going back soon. A delve begun before the timer ran out still counts them. The time left shows on your envoy. Excavations neither add nor use stacks.
Buff
WasA severe injury lost the run's resources, lore and Cultural InfluenceNowA severe injury loses the run's resources and lore, and half its Cultural InfluenceA Cultural Influence total that doesn't halve evenly rounds down. An excavation's completion bonus waiting to be claimed is halved the same way.
Buff
An injury in a ruin no longer costs you the resources you had already collected. You come home hurt, but not empty handed. You keep all the Cultural Influence you had banked too, where an injury would otherwise cost half. Lore fragments are still lost.
WasAn injury in a ruin no longer costs you the resources you had already collected. You come home hurt, but not empty handed. Lore fragments and Cultural Influence are still lost as they are today.NowAn injury in a ruin no longer costs you the resources you had already collected. You come home hurt, but not empty handed. You keep all the Cultural Influence you had banked too, where an injury would otherwise cost half. Lore fragments are still lost.Buff
WasPreparing took 30% / 60% / 90% by tier of the resources and Cultural Influence gathered so farNowPreparing takes 30% / 60% / 90% by tier of the resources and lore fragments gathered so farLore was always meant to be part of the price but was never actually taken; every preparation screen now shows the fragments it will take. Fragments round down and the lowest rarity goes first. Insured Cargo still halves the share.
- reduced: The doctor is no longer offered in the last 10 minutes of an injury's recovery
Every kind of find counts, not only investigations. An envoy below level 10 gets a fifth. The milestone screen shows your envoy's Cultural Influence and the levels it took them up. Milestones crossed before this update pay nothing.
The first one is due 7 days after you reach 100%, then 7 days after each collection. It is collected automatically and shown on the results screen, and once the first has been due the wonder page says when the next one is ready. An envoy below level 10 gets a fifth.
- reworked: The Offerings at the Storyteller's Chair and the Glass Desert Fragment now each reward an image in a category of its own, and the Glass Desert mosaic can now be finished through ordinary visits
Gameplay & Balance
Buff
UNLOCKS: You earn a share of every trade the owner of a city's Market completes once your envoy has invested in it, sent to your home city: 1.5% / 3% / 5% by tier. You may also make and accept offers through that Market. When the term ends, your envoy earns Cultural Influence for the size and term of the investment.
WasUNLOCKS: You earn a share of every trade the owner of a city's Market completes once your envoy has invested in it, sent to your home city: 1.5% / 3% / 5% by tier. You may also make and accept offers through that Market.NowUNLOCKS: You earn a share of every trade the owner of a city's Market completes once your envoy has invested in it, sent to your home city: 1.5% / 3% / 5% by tier. You may also make and accept offers through that Market. When the term ends, your envoy earns Cultural Influence for the size and term of the investment.Up to 100 for a 1-day term, 330 for 3 days and 770 for 7 days, the same as a Seed Investment pays, reaching the full amount for an investment that lists at 30,000 wood-equivalent or more. Size is the list price before Deep Pockets, so the discount never cuts it. Only a term that runs to its end pays: withdrawing early pays nothing. Investments already running pay when they end. Nothing is paid at your own cities or a linked account's.
Buff
UNLOCKS: You receive a share of everything a city collects, sent to your home city, and its production of one resource rises by that same share, once your envoy invests in its Town Hall: 3% / 6% / 10% by tier. Your envoy stays at that city until the term ends. When the term ends, your envoy earns Cultural Influence for the size and term of the investment.
WasUNLOCKS: You receive a share of everything a city collects, sent to your home city, and its production of one resource rises by that same share, once your envoy invests in its Town Hall: 3% / 6% / 10% by tier. Your envoy stays at that city until the term ends.NowUNLOCKS: You receive a share of everything a city collects, sent to your home city, and its production of one resource rises by that same share, once your envoy invests in its Town Hall: 3% / 6% / 10% by tier. Your envoy stays at that city until the term ends. When the term ends, your envoy earns Cultural Influence for the size and term of the investment.Paid on the same scale as Silent Partner's.
Buff
Invest in a visited city's buildings without travelling. Every investment your envoy makes pays up to 25 / 50 / 100 Cultural Influence up front by tier and size, once per building per city every 7 days.
WasYour envoy invests in the Hotel, School, Market or Town Hall of any city it has visited before, without travelling back.NowInvest in a visited city's buildings without travelling. Every investment your envoy makes pays up to 25 / 50 / 100 Cultural Influence up front by tier and size, once per building per city every 7 days.It scales with size the same way as Silent Partner's term-end payment. Investing in person pays it too. Investing in the same building at the same city again within 7 days still works but pays nothing up front.
Buff
First to invest in any building at a city: your envoy is a Founding Partner there for good, earning 25% more Cultural Influence from arrivals, hotel stays, lessons and lectures at that city, and a 25% better exchange rate at its Market.
WasBe the first player to invest in a city's Hotel or Market and your envoy's rate there is permanently 25% higher.NowFirst to invest in any building at a city: your envoy is a Founding Partner there for good, earning 25% more Cultural Influence from arrivals, hotel stays, lessons and lectures at that city, and a 25% better exchange rate at its Market.The 25% applies after every other bonus. Founding several buildings at one city counts once, and two envoys who each founded a different building at the same city are both partners. It needs no live investment. Envoys who already founded a building anywhere are partners there from this update. Player-to-player trades, fees and daily trades are unchanged.
Buff
Your envoy earns more Cultural Influence on arrival at any city it has ever invested in: +15% / +30%.
WasYour envoy earns more Cultural Influence on arrival at any city where it holds an active investment: +15% / +30%.NowYour envoy earns more Cultural Influence on arrival at any city it has ever invested in: +15% / +30%.Only investments that envoy made itself count, not ones handed to it by a merge. A city that has been merged away no longer counts.
Buff
UNLOCKS: Your envoy earns more hotel Cultural Influence at a player's Hotel it invests in: +25% / +50% / +75% by tier. From tier 2 it also gets a guaranteed room there even when the Hotel is full.
WasUNLOCKS: Your envoy earns more hotel Cultural Influence at a player's Hotel it invests in: +20% / +30% / +50% by tier. From tier 2 it also gets a guaranteed room there even when the Hotel is full.NowUNLOCKS: Your envoy earns more hotel Cultural Influence at a player's Hotel it invests in: +25% / +50% / +75% by tier. From tier 2 it also gets a guaranteed room there even when the Hotel is full.Buff
WasBase hotel Cultural Influence per hour: 4 at level 1 up to 20 at level 19NowBase hotel Cultural Influence per hour: 6 at level 1 up to 30 at level 19These are the base rates, before rest tiers, skills, investments and festivals. An 8-hour stay at a level 19 Hotel now pays 240 before modifiers, where it paid 160. Farewell Gift and Temporary Embassy residencies are priced from the same rates, so they rise with them.
Buff
UNLOCKS: Commit your envoy to a fixed residency at a foreign city. Leaving early forfeits the reward; completing it pays a lump sum scaling with the host city's score. Each rank unlocks a longer term that pays a better rate than the host Hotel's base rate for the same hours: 1 day at 125% / 2 days at 150% / 3 days at 175%.
WasUNLOCKS: Commit your envoy to a fixed residency at a foreign city. Leaving early forfeits the reward; completing it pays a lump sum scaling with the host city's score. Each rank unlocks a longer term that pays a better rate than the host Hotel's base rate for the same hours: 1 day at 115% / 2 days at 120% / 3 days at 130%.NowUNLOCKS: Commit your envoy to a fixed residency at a foreign city. Leaving early forfeits the reward; completing it pays a lump sum scaling with the host city's score. Each rank unlocks a longer term that pays a better rate than the host Hotel's base rate for the same hours: 1 day at 125% / 2 days at 150% / 3 days at 175%.On top of the higher base hotel rates.
Buff
When your envoy leaves another player's Hotel Fully Rested, it earns 4 more hours of that Hotel's base Cultural Influence on top of the stay, and that city's next arrival earns +15% Cultural Influence.
WasWhen you depart a city where your envoy became Fully Rested, that city's next arrival earns +15% Cultural Influence, and you earn Cultural Influence equal to the city's base hotel rate when it triggers.NowWhen your envoy leaves another player's Hotel Fully Rested, it earns 4 more hours of that Hotel's base Cultural Influence on top of the stay, and that city's next arrival earns +15% Cultural Influence.It never actually paid before: it only triggered when your envoy travelled straight out of a stay, and Check Out, which is how stays end, cleared the stay first. It is now paid on every Fully Rested stay at another player's Hotel however it ends, and the stay card lists it before you check out.
Buff
WasA journey home was refused like any other when your city was out of rangeNowA journey to your envoy's home city is never refused for range, and still takes the full travel timeRange is measured from the last city that resupplied your envoy, so an envoy who explored past it, or whose Wanderlust ran out at the edge, could be left where nothing nearby, home included, was in reach. Travel mode now shows a notice when your envoy is outside their range, naming the city it is measured from and the two ways back: any tile inside the highlighted area, or Walk Home. The travel overlay, the confirmation, the envoy picker and the circuit planner all treat your home city as reachable.
An envoy outside their range is told where range is measured from, and can always walk home Buff
The vigil is the 24-hour Patience approach at the Evergrove. Raised so it keeps its place next to a day at a Hotel after the hotel increases.
Nerf
+10 / +20 / +30 Cultural Influence the first time you arrive at a city belonging to a player you have never visited, on top of the 45 that every first meeting already pays. Percentage bonuses do not raise either amount.
Was+20 / +40 / +60 Cultural Influence the first time you arrive at a city belonging to a player you have never visited, on top of the 45 that every first meeting already pays.Now+10 / +20 / +30 Cultural Influence the first time you arrive at a city belonging to a player you have never visited, on top of the 45 that every first meeting already pays. Percentage bonuses do not raise either amount.The 45 for meeting a new player and Worldly's bonus are now added after every percentage bonus, including Grand Host, festivals and Cultural Icon. Multiplied, a fully skilled envoy's first meeting was paying about twice what a visit to a player they already knew paid. Visits to players you have already met are unchanged. Cultural Icon's card now says the first-meeting bonus is added after it.
Buff
UNLOCKS: While your envoy is visiting another player's city, they may attend a lecture at their School. A lecture takes 2 hours, less with Quick Study or a School Donor investment there, and pays around 200 Cultural Influence. It also has a 25% / 50% chance of leaving your envoy with a text from that player's Journal that you do not yet hold (once the Great Library stands, one they have given to it). Never a wonder's text: those are for each player to find. One lecture a day at each player's cities, so your envoy can travel on and attend at another player's School straight after.
WasUNLOCKS: While your envoy is visiting another player's city, they may attend a lecture at their School. A lecture takes 2 hours, less with Quick Study or a School Donor investment there, and pays around 200 Cultural Influence. It also has a 25% / 50% chance of leaving your envoy with a text that player has given to the Great Library and you do not yet hold. One lecture a day at each player's cities, so your envoy can travel on and attend at another player's School straight after.NowUNLOCKS: While your envoy is visiting another player's city, they may attend a lecture at their School. A lecture takes 2 hours, less with Quick Study or a School Donor investment there, and pays around 200 Cultural Influence. It also has a 25% / 50% chance of leaving your envoy with a text from that player's Journal that you do not yet hold (once the Great Library stands, one they have given to it). Never a wonder's text: those are for each player to find. One lecture a day at each player's cities, so your envoy can travel on and attend at another player's School straight after.With no Library built there was nothing to draw from, so the chance, and Lecture's second rank, paid nothing. The lecture card says which the text will come from.
Interface
Investments you already hold show their term-end figure too, and the host's Steward's Report and "While you were away" recap list the City Influence their city earned when another player's term ended.
The Invest screen quotes what each investment pays your envoy up front and at the end of its term, and what the host city earns Each building's row shows its own count, so a building past two mastery milestones reads 2. A city card shows the total waiting in that city, with idle citizens counted as one item however many there are.
- new: The Steward's Report now lists what each city lost to the daily storage drain and what happened to each claim that settled itself
The choice was only offered on the screen that closes a School lesson, which a lesson finished while you were away never showed. The My Envoys tab counts the envoys still waiting to choose.
"Exploration" used to hold whatever wasn't named, so a lore find where the exploring itself paid nothing could read "Exploration +588". It now shows only what the exploration paid. The figures no longer open a card, since that card only repeated the box.
It used to redraw nearly everything once a second while anything was on the road, which on a slower phone with many envoys out could hold up a tap. Each second now redraws only what the clock moved, and a tap redraws only your selection.
It unlocks itself when recovery ends. An injury that ended the delve still shows Return alone.
A minor injury now shows Resume Delve counting down beside Return with Rewards - improved: Line of Inquiry: the Chapter picker now shows each Chapter's progress and the Cultural Influence finishing it adds, nearest to finished first
- improved: My Envoys on a phone: Level, Range and Cultural Influence now share one row, and Range is shown on phones
- improved: Text that names a skill, such as the Market's trade route line, now names it with its skill card instead of a tree and tier
Fixes
- Salvage Rights and Manuscript Preservation kept part of a haul through a severe injury, but it could never be claimed; it is now paid when you claim, and the injury summary shows it
Nothing about a floor's event, including when it would happen, is sent until it does.
A choice that turns severe injuries into moderate ones is also no longer offered to an envoy with Hardy Constitution, who already has that protection. A different choice that also improves the reward or the odds is still offered, and so is one that shortens floor times further.
- "Merge Failed" hid the reason a merge was refused; it now shows the actual reason
- The Explore button could stay available and then be refused on a tile your envoy had already explored, beside another player's city while Paranoid, or on terrain Frostbitten or Heatstroke blocks; the prompt now says so before you press it
- The map could offer Explore on a tile your envoy had just finished exploring, and tapping the envoy again right after closing the result could try to finish the exploration twice; both now update as soon as it completes
- The Distribution Hub overflowed on phones and could break its title mid-word; it now fits
- "Fractional Seller" never let buyers take part of the holder's offers, because the Market didn't know the seller held it; those offers now offer quarters
A merge is refused while your own or a linked envoy has an unfinished lesson, lecture or backing in the city.
- Arriving on the old city tile of a plot that no longer has a city paid a first visit and left the envoy stranded; it is now an ordinary arrival in the field
- "The Bold" undercounted envoys who delved ruins another of your envoys had already cleared; it now counts every ruin each envoy delved
- An achievement whose progress bar was full could stay unearned; a full bar now awards it
- Live updates stopped for good when a phone tab came back after a long time in the background, so the map could offer Explore on a tile already explored; the game now reconnects and refreshes
- Trade Skimming, diamond finds and a few other notices could appear twice, once live and once from the queue; each now appears once
- Opening the map could show "Circuit Complete" for a circuit that had ended while you were elsewhere, after the envoy had already set off on the next one; it is now dropped once the envoy has moved on
- "Send Courier" was offered before the Great Library was built; it now waits for the Library
- The Hotel stay card could leave out an investment that ended mid-stay from its breakdown while counting it in the total; the breakdown now matches the total
- The land price card said both "Drops to 100" and "Back to 100" one step above the floor; it now says it once
- On iPhone, tooltips stayed open after tapping elsewhere; they now close
