Raise the monument

Two things unlock it: the Grand Design, the last and dearest research in the game, and enough landmarks held at once. How many a world asks for is set when it opens, and every player sees the same number.

Founding is instant and free, one monument per player, in a Colony of your choosing. It takes no building slot. From then on landmarks no longer matter to it: losing them costs the monument nothing.

Queue a level and its price is set aside from the host Colony's stockpile. The level lands when the turn falls, so a monument rises one level a turn at most. Each level costs more than the last, and the top ones cost more than any single Colony can bank: they are paid for with resources Baggage Trains haul in from your other Colonies and from your allies.

The first monument to reach its final level wins the world.

An alliance is founded and led by one player, who invites and kicks the others; if the founder leaves, it dissolves. You can belong to one alliance per world, and each world caps how large an alliance can grow.

Every member beyond the first makes each member's Colonies a little more productive, up to a limit. Allies share sight of each other's ground, send each other resources by Baggage Train, and fight together as the Combat chapter describes. Leaving takes effect at once: armies on what is now foreign ground march home, and armies on their way there turn back. Joining turns back any attack already on its way to a new ally.

There is no shared victory. One player wins the world, and an alliance is how you help that player be you.

Every world keeps three public tallies for each player. Total is the standings' second key: players are ranked by monument level, then by Total, then by territory, so until someone raises a monument the standings follow what each player has built. Attack and Defense rank nothing: they show how a player fights, and that depends on their class and their style.

Total counts the resources you spent on orders that completed: buildings, research, walls, trained units, emplacements and monument levels. Attack counts the value of rival units your shots knocked out while you attacked, in sieges, landmark assaults, Holding raids and the fight for a Colony or landmark. Defense counts the same while you defended, whether the shots came from your units, your emplacements or your army standing on an ally's ground.

Only other players' units count. Camps and a neutral landmark's guard score nothing, and so does a unit lost without being shot, such as a Marshal or a Baggage Train.