Rules update 2025
Overview
Every year we carry out a review of some part of the game looking to see what we improve. This process of continuous review allows us to keep the game fresh and ensures we remain happy that we're running the very best game we can. We don't have many updates this year, but the ones we do have are important for the players who are affected. This page summarizes and explains the changes so that players can identify and understand the changes easily.
We try to include a section after each update to explain the reasoning behind the change, as well as providing an in-character rationale for what has changed where appropriate. As ever, it is important to remember that the rationale is there purely to provide a way for characters to explain any changes, it's not an actual plot development.
Military Units and Fleets
We have overhauled the way military units and fleets act in downtime. The focus has been on streamlining the actions that can be taken by a player with that resource, and how they interact with enchantment rituals. We've introduced several new actions that any military unit can take (such as mercenary work or seeking glory) as well as a small number of adventures available to specific nations or archetypes. These changes will take effect in the downtime following the Winter Solstice.
There are now six core types of action that can be undertaken - campaigning (primarily supporting an army or navy), guarding (usually defending a fortification), scouting (such as from a spy network), trading (with foreign ports), raiding (stealing loot from barbarians) and questing (going on adventures). Henceforth, any ritual that boosts a military unit or fleet will only benefit one type of action - but it will benefit every option for that action.
The main change to rituals has been to better define which action each ritual supports, and to remove rituals that supported multiple actions. Some magnitudes have shifted up or down as well. One of our goals has been to ensure that each ritual affects only one kind of action, and where possible to strengthen the themes of the individual realms as part of a wider update.
Military unit rituals affected include Merciless Wrath of the Reaver (supports raiding), Raise the Standard of War (supports campaigning), Clarion Call of Ivory and Dust (supports campaigning and has also gained an assurance), Shroud of Mist and Shadow (supports raiding, magnitude lowered), Clad in Golden Raiment (supports campaigning and the magnitude has increased to 6), Sharp Eyes of the Corsair (supports scouting), Lions of Phoenix Reach (supports campaigning), Carve the Crystal Guardian (supports campaigning), and Conclave of Trees and Shadow (supports scouting).
Fleet rituals affected include Blood and Salt (supports raiding), Winds of Fortune (supports trading), The Lure of Distant Shores (supports trading), Sular's Promise (supports trading), Golden Voyage (supports questing), Muffled Oar (supports scouting), and Piranhas Devour the Kraken (supports campaigning). The ritual Shroud of Rolling Fog, which is not in Imperial lore, has likewise been adjusted to support a single category of fleet action.
As well as rituals in Imperial Lore, there have also been changes to these Urizen lore rituals: Aspect of the Mountain, Peregrine and Ichimos, and Raise the Dragonsworn Cohort (all now explicitly support the guarding action), Unleash the Beasts Within (the magnitude has increased to 16, and the enchantment now supports the campaigning action).
These changes have also affected a few rituals that are not in either Imperial lore or Urizen lore. Specifically, Accoutrements of War (supports campaigning, no longer provides green iron), and Weaver at the Web (supports scouting actions).
We've also introduced a new ritual, Feast of Heroes, a Summer magic enchantment that supports military units taking a questing action.
As always, if your character has mastered a ritual that has changed you can email admin@profounddecisions.co.uk and we'll free up the mastered ritual slot for you.
Reasoning
The original options for military units and fleets have expanded considerably over time, with new options added to support fortifications, spy networks, navies and chances to take various different plot actions. There was a bewildering array of different types of action that military unit and fleets could take, and it was unclear how the different rituals interacted with the different options. Each time a plot presented a new option we had to list which rituals would benefit it.
The haphazard way the system had developed meant that there were also problems with some rituals providing benefits to a wider range of different types of action than others. There were also inconsistencies with the campaign metaphysics, with some rituals providing a benefit despite being from a realm that had little affiliation for those kind of effects.
By redesigning the system from the ground up, we can ensure better consistency between the various different rituals, and the realms. This improves the play balance of the various different rituals and makes it easier to communicate what options will be affected by what rituals.
IC Justification
The changes to the rituals are the result of an unusual conjunction of the Door and the Chalice.
Imperial Sodalities
We have completely rewritten the rules for Imperial Sodalities. Under the new rules, an Imperial sodality can be given the power to elect Imperial titles and to employ other legal powers if the Senate wishes. Because of the new political power that these sodalities can wield, to be a full member of the sodality will require an appropriate Autumn ritual - a Mark of Fellowship, which we have added to Imperial lore. In addition the sodality must have a clearly expressed legal purpose and a simple symbol or sigil that they can be recognised by. Each Imperial sodality will have an upkeep of four thrones a season.
Reasoning
Sodalities didn't exist when Empire was created - we created the idea to encapsulate things players were making in the game, but there was never any clearly designed framework to govern how they worked. The rules for how to make a sodality were crude and caused more problems than they solved because they hadn't been designed the ground up to work well with the other parts of the game.
One of the most significant problems was that the Imperial titles being created by the Senate that were associated with a sodality couldn't then be elected by the sodality. Part of this was because we had no way to tell who was a member of the sodality and the rest of the game had not been built to allow players to create new ways to elect new titles. So the Military Council were being asked to appoint titles they had no involvement with, simply because nobody could think of a better way to do it.
To resolve the situation we have gone back to the drawing board and written a set of completely new rules for Imperial sodalities that are designed from the ground up to make work in harmony with the rest of Empire. The Mark of Fellowship is essential to that rewrite - by constraining players to being members of a single sodality - we make the choice of which sodality to be part of a deeply significant one. That enables us to empower membership and allow it to be the basis for voting on Imperial titles and potentially utilising legal powers in the Imperial Senate wishes. Crucially the new rules represent a framework that players can use to create new structures in the game that can wield power in their own right in the game.
The new rules won't be a good fit for some existing sodalities. Those groups can continue to exist without anything changing for them. We've made the distinction of an "Imperial sodality" to underline that anyone can call their organisation a sodality if they wish - the new rules only apply to Imperial sodalities that have been approved by a successful Senate motion. If an existing sodality does want to be part of the new framework, then we'll do what we can to support the transition this year with appropriate administrative motions for the Imperial Senate.
The ability to limit who can join an Imperial sodality exists to allow our plot team to create a single specific sodality - it is very unlikely that any attempt to limit who can join an Imperial sodality would be approved under any other circumstance. This is part of the design of sodalities - the compromise of becoming an Imperial sodality is that you gain the potential for more political power and prominence, but you lose the ability to control the sodality and control who can join.
IC Justification
To assist and empower the Imperial Senate, the civil service have spent the winter period researching the historical records for the treatment of sodalities and similar groups in the years prior to the Emperor Nicovar. They have identified rules that were used extensively during this period but fell into disuse afterwards. They have dusted them off, and having checked with the Constitutional Court that such rules would still be compatible with the current understanding of the Constitution, they have presented them for use by the Senate should they wish to do so.