TOWNS

A town is a claim on the world. It has citizens, a leader, borders that grow on a map, and protections inside its land. Towns can stand alone as Independent Towns, or belong to a nation.

What is a Town?

A town is a claim on the world. It has citizens, a leader, borders that grow on a map, and protections against griefing inside its land. Towns can stand alone, or belong to a nation.

The Town Lectern

Every town is anchored by a Town Lectern. It's the seat of the town: founding, joining, tax, expansion, and member management all flow through it.

The recipe comes from the Duke's quest, Matters of Record. Place the lectern where you want your town centred, then put a chest beside it to hold emeralds for actions that cost them.

  • Recipe: 4 emeralds, 4 slabs (any type) and a bookshelf.
  • Place a chest directly adjacent to the lectern. Founding, expansion and tax draw from this chest.
  • The same Town Lectern is used whether you're founding solo or under a nation's banner.

Town Types

Once founded, a town is either independent or part of a nation. The type is set by whether its founder belonged to a nation at the time, and it shapes what the town can do afterwards.

Independent Town

Founded by a nationless player. No banner, no diplomacy, no overlord. Land without political commitments.

Can expand, accept new members, rename, and accept integration offers from nations. Cannot engage in diplomacy or be vassalised. Has a smaller maximum expansion range and appears in a neutral colour on the map.

Nation Town

Founded by a nation's leader, or a citizen they allow, under that nation's banner. Inherits the nation's map colour and falls under its diplomacy.

Can expand further than an Independent Town, draw on nation-level mechanics through its nation leader, and serve as a building block of empire.

An Independent Town can later join a nation through integration. The nation sends an integration offer, the town leader accepts, and the town merges under that nation's banner.

Forming a Town

Anchor a new town with a Town Lectern, a chest of emeralds, and a book signed Town.

  1. 1You must not already lead a town. In a nation, founding a town moves you into it: you leave the town you were in.
  2. 2Place a Town Lectern at least 250 blocks from spawn and 100 from any other town. If you're part of a nation, it must also fall within your nation's admin range.
  3. 3Place a chest adjacent to the lectern with 16 emeralds inside for an Independent Town or a nation's first. A nation's next town costs 32, and each one after that 8 more.
  4. 4Sign a book titled town and put it in the lectern.
  5. 5Press Form Town and type the town's name. The town is created and a small disk of land is claimed around the lectern.

Towns start with a 32-block-radius founding disk around the town lectern. A Steward appears beside it.

Join a Town

  1. 1You belong to one town at a time. If you are in no town, you can ask to join any town.
  2. 2Open the Town book at a lectern within the town's borders and press Join Town.
  3. 3The town leader, or a member they trust with it, accepts or turns you away in Requests.

To move to another town in your nation, press Join Town at its lectern. If it takes you in, you leave your old town. A town leader hands their town on before moving. To join a town in another nation, leave yours first.

The Steward

Every town gets a Steward beside its lectern when it's founded. Claimed land is income: the Steward gathers goods from it whether or not anyone is online.

  • Every 30 minutes your land produces goods into the Steward's coffers.
  • More land means more goods. The biomes you hold decide what they are: gold only from badlands, emeralds only from peaks and hills, coral only from warm sea.
  • The town leader, and anyone they trust with the coffers, opens them by talking to the Steward. A full coffer stops production, so someone has to empty it.
  • The Steward can give the leader, or a member they trust with writs, a writ to move them elsewhere inside the town.

Permissions

A leader doesn't have to run the town alone. Press Permissions in the Town book to see what every member may do, and as leader, change it.

  • Click a member, then click a line to allow it or take it away. Every member can read it.
  • On the land, members can build and use the town's doors and gates unless the leader takes it away.
  • Town business is the leader's until they share it: accepting members, exiling, expanding, the Steward's coffers, writs, the artisan's work, renaming and troops.
  • New members sets what somebody starts with when they join. Set it to nothing and newcomers wait to be trusted.
  • The book also lists your nation's other towns. Click one to see its players. The leader can let them build, use doors and gates, expand the town, open the coffers and run the artisan. The rest stays with the town's own members.
  • Disbanding the town, handing it on and setting permissions always stay with the leader. A leader who hands the town on keeps everything they could do.

The Artisan

A town that has grown large enough can claim an artisan, who works materials no player can make by hand. No town can make everything, so the best goods come from trade.

  • The town leader, or a member they trust with the artisan, asks the Steward for an Artisan Writ and places it inside the town.
  • They choose what the artisan makes, and it stays on that for weeks.
  • Any member can order from the artisan's book, handing over what the order takes. Orders take time, and finish whether you are online or not.
  • The longer the artisan stays on one thing, the better it gets: more from every order, and sooner. Changing what it makes starts it over, so a town that sticks to one thing has plenty to trade.
  • Materials come in tiers. The higher ones need what other towns' artisans make, shown in the book in blue: click one to see how it is made.
  • What each material is for is yours to discover. Recipes unlock the moment one reaches your inventory.

Heavy Goods

Artisan materials are heavy, and so are the engine parts and Locomotives artisans make. Moving them between towns is real work, and how you move them is a choice.

  • The more you carry, the slower you go, and you cannot jump while carrying any.
  • Nobody rides anything carrying any. They travel in storage, loaded from the ground.
  • A donkey, mule or llama carries a small load in its chest, and refuses more. A full one is a little slower. You can lead one at a time.
  • A chest boat carries a small load too; a plain boat carries none. Wagons, ships and trains carry far more: see Engines.
  • Carrying any, you cannot glide, throw a pearl, ride a riptide or step through a portal.
  • They will not go in ender chests, shulker boxes, bundles, hoppers or dispensers. Dropped, they fall at your feet; to pick one up, stand on it.

Town Tax

  • Every town has its own tax deadline, independent of any nation.
  • View the deadline in Town Info at any town lectern.
  • Tax is taken by itself. On the day it falls due, the emeralds come out of the chests beside your town lecterns, all counted together, and the deadline moves on 7 days. Keep them stocked and there is nothing else to do.
  • It starts small and grows with the land you hold. Town Info shows the exact figure.
  • Tax cannot be paid ahead. A town that grows owes more from its next collection.
  • If the chest was short on the day, fill it. The tax is taken as soon as the chest is closed.
  • If the tax still can't be taken by the end of its day, what the chests hold is taken and the town owes the rest. What it owes is taken as soon as the chests hold it, before any new tax.
  • Until it is paid, the town can't expand. Its nation is not held back by it.
  • A town that owes 3 weeks of tax goes dormant, an Independent Town 2. A town is also dormant while it's missing a required lectern (capitals need all three).
  • In a dormant town the Steward makes nothing, the artisan stops work on its order, and the town loses land at its edges every hour. After 2 weeks it has none left and is gone.
  • A town that becomes active again keeps the land it has left.

Town Claims

  • Each town starts as a 32-block-radius founding disk around its town lectern.
  • The town leader, or a member they trust with it, presses Expand Borders in the Town book (with emeralds in a chest beside the lectern) to start an expansion session. Borders creep outward block-by-block.
  • Speed depends on terrain. Fast over plains, slow over rivers, very slow over mountains and oceans.
  • Expansion cost scales with town size.
  • Independent Towns have a much smaller maximum expansion range than nation towns.
  • Town claims appear on in-game maps with the town's name. Capital towns use a mansion icon, regular towns a village icon.
  • Nation towns inherit their nation's colour. Independent Towns appear in a neutral colour.
  • Maps update live wherever they have already been explored. New claims and disbandments appear on any chart that already covers the area.

Map Intelligence

The maps on your walls know who is in your land. Hang one in a town and it shows everyone standing anywhere in your nation's claims. Nations only: an Independent Town's maps show nothing.

  • Every arrow is the same and unnamed, citizen or stranger. The map tells you how many are about and where, never who.
  • Only on ground the map has explored. A dark corner of the map stays dark.
  • It works for anyone standing in your claims, spies included. Guard your war room.
  • A map in your hand only shows it to your own people. Strangers holding a copy see nothing but themselves.
  • Carry a copy out of your land and it knows nothing. Intelligence lives where you stand, not in the map.

The Town Book

Sign a book titled town and put it in a Town Lectern. Right-click the lectern and it lists everything you can do there, and nothing you can't. Click a line to do it.

  • History shows everything done with the town's lecterns, who did it and when. Anyone can read it.
  • Form Town and Rename Town ask you to type the name. A name can't end in Rebels or start with Free.

Looking for the Nation and Diplomacy books? Visit the lectern books on the Nations page.

More Information

The full guide to towns is in the game: press Help in any Town book.

Want to turn your Independent Town into the seat of a new nation? See the Form a Nation guide.