Expansion

Land is the foundation of your kingdom. More land means more space for structures, more structures means more resources, and more resources means a larger and more powerful kingdom. Expansion is the primary way to grow your land mass, and it becomes progressively more expensive as your kingdom grows.

How Expansion Works

Expansion is a background process. You commit to a duration, set how much of your income you want to invest, and your kingdom gets to work. Resources are drawn from your income each tick over the chosen duration and converted into new land when the expansion completes.

The key settings are found under the Expansion page:

Expansion Rate - a slider from 10% to 100% that controls what share of your mass and energy production is fed into the current expansion. A higher rate grows your land faster but leaves less income free for building structures and units.

Duration - choose 3, 6, or 12 hours. Each expansion has a threshold based on your current land size. Resources invested below that threshold convert to land at full efficiency; resources above it still produce land but at a significantly reduced rate. A 3-hour run invests fewer total resources and is most likely to stay under the threshold. A 6-hour run is generally safe. A 12-hour run can push past the threshold if your income is high, meaning the later ticks return less land per resource spent.

Resource Consumption

Each tick, the game draws the following from your kingdom:

Mass: expansion_rate % of mass production, up to your current mass reserve
Energy: expansion_rate % of energy production, up to your current energy reserve

These amounts feed into the expansion queue. The total land you receive at the end scales with how much was invested over the full duration.

If your kingdom has a large surplus of mass or energy, expansion will draw from both your production and your stored reserves up to the tick draw limit. Overflow protection kicks in during expansion to prevent idle resources from going to waste.

Active traders often use this to their advantage - when trade returns deliver mass and energy, the player can manually add those resources into an active expansion, pushing more into the run than income alone would provide. Returns above the threshold still produce land, just at diminishing returns.

Methods of Gaining Land

Expansion is not the only route to a larger kingdom. Land can also be gained through:

Missions - some mission rewards include land. Check the Missions board for any active land-reward tasks and send a fleet if the success chance is good.

Kingdom Attacks - a successful fleet assault on another kingdom earns land from the target. The amount depends on the target's land and the outcome of the battle. This is generally a faster route to significant land gains than expansion alone, but it requires a capable fleet and up-to-date intelligence on the target.

Colony Wins - successfully attacking an enemy colony and reducing its level earns a land reward proportional to the colony's level.

Tips

Run expansion continuously. Even at a modest rate, consistent expansion compounds over the course of a round.
Raise the expansion rate early in the round when you have little to build - your income is small but your land needs are high.
Once you have enough land to fill with structures, lower the rate or pause expansion so more income goes directly into building.
Shorter durations (3–6 hours) are usually more efficient because they are less likely to hit the soft cap. If you are online infrequently, a 12-hour run is convenient but be aware returns may diminish if your income is high.
Land gained from attacks and missions does not cost you any mass or energy, making them high-value targets when available.